EMQ » Jan – March 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 1
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Arts in Conversation
Summary: Finding and encouraging Indigenous cultural expressions that harmonize with Christian faith rather than bringing in and teaching established Western cultural expressions has proven to be a far more effective means to spread the gospel. As Indigenous arts are encouraged, they are reshaping global Christianity and fulfilling God’s diverse, multicultural vision of the body of Christ.
By Jhonny A. Nieto Ossa
Local culture is the best tool to effectively communicate a message, but the church from colonial times to the present day has had a long road to understand and practice it. Many missionaries sent from Europe and North America to the world in the 1700s and until the mid-1900s discouraged the use of local arts because of their relationship with Indigenous beliefs and rituals.
They viewed local art with disdain, considering it uncivilized and of lower status. Indigenous arts were ignored or demonized. Instead, the custom was to export the culture and arts of the missionary and implement it. They used a bring it – teach it[i] model. They brought the Bible, hymns, liturgy, etc., in a language and forms that were foreign to the hearts of Indigenous peoples.
This created unnecessary barriers to gospel transmission. However, as missionaries have recognized that Indigenous arts can be harmonized with Christian faith, these barriers have fallen away. Faith in Christ has flourished.
Art is a Language
The first thing we must understand about the art of a culture is that it is part of a communication system. It is a language, and “It is well established that, contrary to popular belief, music…and art…are not a universal language”[ii] That’s why we need to decode and understand it.
According to ethnodoxology pioneer Tom Avery, “No matter how much a hymn, Gospel song, or praise song means to me, it will not mean the same thing to a person raised in another musical culture. It may sound sad to that person; it may sound like noise. But even if it is pleasing to their ears, it remains foreign.”[iii]
The ways of communicating a message can be different in each culture. If the messenger does not understand them, he or she can become frustrated and fail in all his or her evangelistic efforts. Ponraj S. Devasagayam describes the challenge in the book, Tribal Challenge and the Church’s Response. He writes:
“[W]e went in the daytime; they asked us to come at night. We went with literature; they told us to hold public gatherings. We went with Gospel and tracks; they asked for songbooks and stories. We went to preach; they asked us to sing and tell stories … We went to sing English choruses we had learned; they ask to sing their native tribal songs and tribal tunes. We went with guitar; they asked us to bring local instruments.”[iv]
Few missionaries have understood that the person of Christ and his redemptive work could be understood and appreciated in the forms and styles of Indigenous art. Even fewer have understood that art is something inseparable from Indigenous peoples.
Adapting to Local Ways
My parents served in the Amazon jungle for almost two decades in the early 1980s. They were missionaries that understood the importance of oral and visual expression. I saw how they did their best to adapt to local ways, participating in worship services that could last more than five hours or even entire days – this is the custom in the jungle. They introduced the JESUS film to as many communities as possible. These community film showings were my first movie theaters. Hollywood came to the nearest city to where we lived about 15 years later.
Before going to serve in the Colombian Amazon jungle, my father worked for SIL in Bogotá, Colombia. It was there that he met Bruce Olson, a missionary who began working with the Barí (also known as Motilone) Indigenous community of Colombia and Venezuela in 1961.[v]
Bruce, who was already familiar with the local culture, was able to contextualize the Indigenous legend about a tall prophet who would come carrying banana stalks and that God would come out of those stalks.[vi] He went even deeper by showing a christological image from another Barí legend that tells how a man became an ant to help them build their house. “God became like an ant” – this was the concept he used to refer to the incarnation.
Jesus did not come as a strange prophet. Bruce explained, “he had dark skin and black eyes. He covered himself with a loincloth and hunted with a bow and arrow.”[vii] Jesus was a Barí. “Bruchko” (as Bruce was known to the Barí) had understood an intricate system of communication in Barí mythology and its ceremonies.
He was patient in not pressuring his Barí brothers in Christ to share the gospel, because, “No news means much to a Motilone unless it is given to him in the context of a formal ceremony.”[viii] Bobby, the first Barí follower of Christ, presented the gospel in public for 14 hours in a spontaneous singing ceremony. The entire community listened to him and sang his songs of praise to God.
Almost in the same years, on the opposite side of the planet, Don Richardson was experiencing the same need to contextualize the gospel for the tribes of Papua in Indonesia (called Irian Jaya at that time). In his book, Peace Child,[ix] Richardson proposed that each tribe has cultural practices or understandings called “redemptive bridges” that can be used to share Jesus Christ and his good news. Another of his books, Eternity in Their Hearts,[x] shows this surprising truth around First Nations people, who look like they already believe in the One True God.
Step-by-step, those who noticed the need to trust in Indigenous artistic forms to be relevant in the gospel joined in. People like Vida Chenoweth, Tom Avery, Paul Hiebert with a high training in anthropological and musicological studies opened the way to an interaction and dialogue between oral arts, ethnomusicology and others.
Sociolinguist Paul Lewis said, “The arts provide a way for us to value and celebrate the diversity that God has created in the nations. The picture of ‘every tribe and language and nation’ worshiping around the throne is not just a celebration of linguistic diversity (a sort of eternal multilingual Scripture reading session) – it is, I think, a celebration of the wonder and wildness of God’s greatest creation (humankind) through their Arts. I expect we won’t just be singing solemnly in our own languages but dancing, drawing, dramatizing and probably even juggling – each according to our own culture and identity.”[xi]
A Polycentric Approach to Missio Dei
This proposes a polycentric and diverse vision that better aligns the missio Dei and has greater relevance in our days. It recognizes that the center of Christianity is no longer Europe or North America, that local arts cannot be ignored and underestimated, and that cultural diversity is increasingly a global reality.[xii]
We are all necessary in this world of complex structures and forms of communication. However, “The future of missions will be greatly influenced by a focus on the local to allow indigenous values to guide missionary practice in favour of a healthier intercultural experience.”[xiii]
Instead of a bring it – teach it model as was common in the past, this involves a find it – encourage it[xiv] model. Find where and how God was already working. Then encourage communities to continue using their local forms of communication and artistic expression. The result is a contextualized, relevant, and organic gospel for each community.
This shift in focus brings logos and cosmos, science and faith into dialogue. Logos made flesh is in conversation with the cosmos, its creation. Social sciences, anthropology, musicology and ethnic studies with faith, theology, the word of God, all this could be summed up in one word: ethnodoxology. This is the interdisciplinary study of how Christians in every culture engage with God and the world through their own artistic expressions.[xv]
The Global Ethnodoxology Network (GEN, worldofworship.org) has been promoting this definition of ethnodoxology for 20 years. Led by its founder, Robin Harris, GEN is a response to the need to see ethnoarts as part of God’s redemptive plan.[xvi] Ethnodoxology is a new term and field of study with enormous potential. It is taught in universities and theological seminaries in the United Kingdom, Thailand, and the United States, among others.
Parallel to the beginning of GEN, an academic initiative also emerged inviting Indigenous peoples to participate in the theological construction of this new approach. Richard Twiss and Terry Leblanc are both natives with doctorates in intercultural studies (cultural anthropology, primal and folk religions, and the history of Christian mission) from Asbury Theological Seminary. They gave shape to the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies (now known as NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, naiits.com).
NAIITS leads the development and implementation of Indigenous learning styles and a worldview that fosters the development of a body of work that addresses biblical, theological, and ethical issues from the perspective of Indigenous natives.[xvii] In June 2023, it hosted its 21st symposium with the title “Ethnomusicology: The Indigenous Heart Language.”
This symposium intentionally brought together practitioners (musicians, church leaders) and many types of scholars interested in music and faith in Indigenous contexts. A wide diversity of Indigenous voices were present and non-Indigenous participants were also welcome the meeting and conversation. This encouraged both commonalities and differences in the discussions.[xviii]
Exalting God with Local Arts is Not New
The use of local arts and culture seems to be a new topic, but this interest in exalting God with one’s own artistic expressions is as old as humanity. The care of the Garden of Eden, rather than an ordinance, should be seen as an act of worship to Jehovah through the tilling of the land. The beginning of civilization was accompanied by the construction of artifacts such as city-building tools and musical instruments (Genesis 4:15–22).
After the exile and oppression of the Egyptians on the Israelites, Jehovah calls Bezalel and Aholiab for the worship, cultural and ethnic restoration of his people through artistic creativity (Exodus 31). This included all possible arts with which they could interact in a way: verbal, written, numerical, pictorial,
artifactual, auditory, kinesthetic and optical, tactile, spatial, and temporal.
All of them are present since the ratification of the covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai and the construction of the sanctuary: the ark, the table, the lampstand, the tabernacle, the altar, the courtyard, the atrium, the light, the ephod, the chest piece, the vestments, the incense, the washbasin, etc. All of this forms a great system that communicates with each other and allows the creation of tangible representations of the Israelite desires to give glory to God.
The active use of the arts continued in the ministerial development of Jesus Christ, in Paul and his missiology, and in the early Christians. It further developed with Patrick and other missionaries to the Celts in the fifth century.
There is a careful study of the use of the Bible in the Christianization of Peru in the first decades of the Spanish conquest of the sixteenth century. The effort to create suitable catechisms and translate them into the Quechua language was notable.[xix] With pedagogical and pastoral criteria, songs were used as a way of transmitting the Christian message, and there are songs from that time that have continued to be used to this day.
In the case of Mexico, there are also studies that reveal how the initial missionary initiative of the sixteenth century, especially that of orders such as the Franciscans or Dominicans, strove to understand native cultures and communicate the gospel. Having first understood the background and religious ideas of the indigenous people, these missionaries adapted the communication of the Christian message to the native mentality.
Christian Duverger offers a historical summary of the initial evangelization of Mexico and the text of the famous “Colloquies of the Twelve” in which Franciscan missionaries discussed the Christian faith with Indigenous leaders in comparison to the religious understanding of the natives.[xx]
This is extremely important because it shows that this first meeting and evangelical effort did have Indigenous interlocutors and possible apologists for the faith from the local worldview. This dialogue must have been present to give rise to local artistic forms capable of understanding the figure of Christ and his gospel.
In the painting of “The Last Supper” displayed in the cathedral of Cusco we see that “the skin color of Jesus and his apostles is coppery or olive, and in some, the physical features are indigenous or mestizo. On the dinner table there is not a lamb but a giant guinea pig, an animal whose meat was highly prized by the indigenous people. In the fine glass vessel at one side of the table there does not seem to be wine but chicha, the corn drink of the Incas. On the fruit tray, some are those brought by the Spanish, but along with them there are also fruits typical of America.”[xxi]
We see that the artist seems to have understood the story of Jesus, but he has translated it into the terms of his own life and culture. He appropriated the truth in his own way. He did so not as a simple cut and paste or as a bring and teach message brought by the missionary, but by understanding the universality of that message in terms of the particularity of the experience of the receiving people. The examples of the find it – encourage it model are countless where the arts for the purposes of the kingdom of heaven were always in dialogue with the first nation people.
Worshipping with All Our Identity
This approach was present throughout much of the Missio Dei, even the translation of the Bible into Indigenous languages was one of the first efforts, “however the spirit of the Counter-Reformation of the Council of Trent placed vernacular versions of the Bible on the index of prohibited books, and those initial attempts did not flourish nor were they continued.”[xxii]
Somewhere in our journey, we lost our way. Yet initiatives such as ethnodoxology, NAIITS, and current missiology that responds to a constant evaluation of history allow us to live fully in the present. We can prepare for the future and be reminded of God’s desire for his mission to be polycentric and diverse. He wants us to worship him in spirit and in truth with all our identity, culture, customs, languages, and artistic forms.
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine on us
so that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.
May the people praise you, God;
May all the people praise you.
May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you rule the people with equity
and guide the nations of the earth.
May the people praise you, God;
May all the people praise you.
The land yields its harvest;
God, our God, bless us.
May God bless us still,
so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.
– Psalm 67
Jhonny A. Nieto Ossa (jhonnyandersonn@gmail.com) grew up on the Amazon triple border of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, where he has done community development work. He studied music at the Pedagogical University of Bogotá. He and his wife, Ninoshka, have taught critical contextualization in schools of Bible translation in Latin America. He has an MA and a DMin and is the director of ALDEA (Latin American Association of Ethnoarts).
[i] Robin Harris and Brian Schrag, “Ethnodoxology’s Time is Here: How Engaging Local Artists Can Expand God’s Kingdom,” Lausanne Movement Global Analysis, January 2014, https://lausanne.org/content/lga/2014-01/ethnodoxologys-time-is-here-how-engaging-local-artists-can-expand-gods-kingdom.
[ii] Tom Avery, “Music of the Heart,” Mission Frontiers, July 1, 1996, https://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/music-of-the-heart.
[iii] Avery, “Music of the Heart.”
[iv] Ponraj S. Devasagayam, “A Study of the Problems of the Tribals in India and the Possible Response from the Church in Terms of Holistic Mission,” in Tribal Challenge and the Church’s Response (Madhupur: Missions Educational Books, 1992), 199–218.
[v] Bruce may be from whom my father learned how to bring the gospel in a relevant way to the jungle communities, taking care of their local forms of communication.
[vi] Bruce Olson, “Jesus el Motilon,” in Bruschko (Editorial Jucum, 2006), 143–151.
[vii] Olson, “Jesus el Motilon,” 143–151.
[viii] Bruce Olson, “The Night of the Tiger,” in Bruschko (Charisma House, 1973, 1995), 140–146.
[ix] Don Richardson, Peace Child (Bethany House Publishers, 2005).
[x] Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts (California: Regal Books, 2005).
[xi] Brian Schrag, “India: Debating Global Missiological Flashpoints,” International Journal of Frontier Missiology 24, no. 4 (2007): 199–202.
[xii] David Ashtrom and Garry Bruton, International Management: Strategy and Culture in the Emerging World (Cengage Learning, 2010), 42.
[xiii] Jay Matenga, “Indigenous Future of Mission: Authority, Indigeneity, and Hybridity,” Global Connections (2022), 1–4.
[xiv] Harris and Schrag, “Ethnodoxology’s Time is Here.”
[xv] Global Ethnodoxology Network, “ETHNODOXOLOGY = peoples + praise,” accessed July 15, 2024, https://www.worldofworship.org/what-is-ethnodoxology/.
[xvi] “Arts, Worship and Missions in Today’s Church Celebrating 20 Years of Global Ethnodoxology Network,” Mission Frontiers (Sep/Oct 2023).
[xvii] NAIITS, “About,” accessed July 15, 2024, https://naiits.com/about.
[xviii] Jonathan Dueck, “Ethnomusicology: Indigenous Heart Languages,” JOURNAL of NAIITS, 2023, 8–10.
[xix] William Mitchell, La Biblia en la historia del Peru (Lima: Sociedad Biblica Peruana, 2005).
[xx] Christian Duverger, La conversión de los indios de Nueva España: con el texto de los Coloquios de los Doce de Bernardino de Sahagún (1564) (1996), 68–69.
[xxi] Samuel Escobar, “El Cristo Iberico que cruzo los mares,” in En busca de Cristo en Latino America (Kairos, 2012), 35.
[xxii] Jorge Roberto Seibold, La Sagrada Escritura en la evangelización de América Latina, Tomo 1 (Buenos Aires: San Pablo, 1993).
EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 1. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
