- The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Music, Convert, and Subject in the North Sumatran Mission Field
- Mission Music as a Mode of Intercultural Transmission, Charisma, and Memory in Northern Australia
- Coexistence of Causal and Cultural Expressions of Musical Values among the Sabaot of Kenya
- Indigenous Innovations on Music and Christianity at Ratana Pa
- Music as Shared Space in Mennonite Development Work in Chad
- Are Western Christian <i>Bhajans</i> “Reverse” Mission Music?
- Drums in the Experience of Black Catholicism in Minas Gerais, Brazil
- Chant as the Articulation of Christian Aramean Spirithood
- The Politics of Pronunciation among German-Speaking Mennonites in Northern Mexico
- Hidden Histories of Religious Music in a South African Coloured Community
- Music and Religiosity among African American Fundamentalist Christians
- Songs of <i>Oru Olai</i> and the Praxis of Alternative Dalit Christian Modernities in India
- The Renaissance of the Corsican Confraternities and Their Musical Negotiations
- Local Music Making and the Liturgical Renovation in Minas Gerais
- The Survival Story of Syriac Chants among the St. Thomas Christians in South India
- Russian Church Music, Conundrums of Style, and the Politics of Preservation in the Emigre Diaspora of New York
- Parading Protestantisms and the Flute Bands of Postconflict Northern Ireland
- Everyday Musical Ethnicity and Roma (Gypsies) in Hungarian Pentecostalism
- Transnational Connections, Musical Meaning, and the 1990s “British Invasion” of North American Evangelical Worship Music
- Negotiations of Faith and Space in Memphis Music
- Tropes of Continuity and Disjuncture in the Globalization of Gospel Music
- Mainline Protestantism and Contemporary versus Traditional Worship Music
- Negotiating the Tensions of U.S. Worship Music in the Marketplace
- Contingency and the Symbolic Experience of Christian Extreme Metal
- Palestinian Christmas Songs for Peace and Justice in Sacred Place and Politicized Space
- The Diffusion of Gregorian Chant in Southern Italy and the Masses for St. Michael: To Barbara Haggh and to the Memory of Michel Huglo
- Performing Pannkotis Identity in Haiti
- Christianity and Korean Traditional Music
- Congregational Singing, Orthodox Christianity, and the Making of Ecumenicity
- Afterward: Sound, Soteriology, Return, and Revival in the Global History of Christian Musics
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Through the experience of the Sabaot of western Kenya, this chapter highlights the complex dialectic that engages both missionaries and the missionized in ongoing cultural exchange. While early missionaries may have introduced Western hymnody (which did not follow the tonal contours of the Sabaot language), many current musical projects are directed toward the search for a “traditional mix” that assigns Christian lyrics and meanings to songs in a local cultural mode. This discussion draws attention to a surprising coincidence between identity politics, privileging the “local” and Protestant ideas on religious truth: because religious truth hinges on rightly interpreted and comprehensible texts, local melodies and instruments are important both to those who wish to promote a “Sabaot” identity and to missionaries who are concerned that local churches encounter textual “truth.”
Keywords: music, Christianity, Africa, Kenya, Sabaot, missions, hymnody, language, cultural exchange
Julie Taylor is Coordinator of anthropology and ethnomusicology/arts training for SIL International in Africa. Her PhD (University of Edinburgh, 2002) was in ethnomusicology, focusing on responses towards cultural change among the Sabaot of Kenya, and her MA (Wheaton, 1992) was a generative analysis of music systems from Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya. She lectures in Performing Arts at Wycliffe-ETP (UK), and prior to that, at Daystar University (Nairobi). Based in Africa for 19 years, Julie now resides in the UK.
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- The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Music, Convert, and Subject in the North Sumatran Mission Field
- Mission Music as a Mode of Intercultural Transmission, Charisma, and Memory in Northern Australia
- Coexistence of Causal and Cultural Expressions of Musical Values among the Sabaot of Kenya
- Indigenous Innovations on Music and Christianity at Ratana Pa
- Music as Shared Space in Mennonite Development Work in Chad
- Are Western Christian <i>Bhajans</i> “Reverse” Mission Music?
- Drums in the Experience of Black Catholicism in Minas Gerais, Brazil
- Chant as the Articulation of Christian Aramean Spirithood
- The Politics of Pronunciation among German-Speaking Mennonites in Northern Mexico
- Hidden Histories of Religious Music in a South African Coloured Community
- Music and Religiosity among African American Fundamentalist Christians
- Songs of <i>Oru Olai</i> and the Praxis of Alternative Dalit Christian Modernities in India
- The Renaissance of the Corsican Confraternities and Their Musical Negotiations
- Local Music Making and the Liturgical Renovation in Minas Gerais
- The Survival Story of Syriac Chants among the St. Thomas Christians in South India
- Russian Church Music, Conundrums of Style, and the Politics of Preservation in the Emigre Diaspora of New York
- Parading Protestantisms and the Flute Bands of Postconflict Northern Ireland
- Everyday Musical Ethnicity and Roma (Gypsies) in Hungarian Pentecostalism
- Transnational Connections, Musical Meaning, and the 1990s “British Invasion” of North American Evangelical Worship Music
- Negotiations of Faith and Space in Memphis Music
- Tropes of Continuity and Disjuncture in the Globalization of Gospel Music
- Mainline Protestantism and Contemporary versus Traditional Worship Music
- Negotiating the Tensions of U.S. Worship Music in the Marketplace
- Contingency and the Symbolic Experience of Christian Extreme Metal
- Palestinian Christmas Songs for Peace and Justice in Sacred Place and Politicized Space
- The Diffusion of Gregorian Chant in Southern Italy and the Masses for St. Michael: To Barbara Haggh and to the Memory of Michel Huglo
- Performing Pannkotis Identity in Haiti
- Christianity and Korean Traditional Music
- Congregational Singing, Orthodox Christianity, and the Making of Ecumenicity
- Afterward: Sound, Soteriology, Return, and Revival in the Global History of Christian Musics
- Index
