Christianity is a Singing Tradition

In honor of John H. Gingrich

A musical Introduction to Process Theology

• Dr. John Gingrich was professor of religion, academic dean, and chaplain at University of La Verne during his distinguished career; additionally, he was first chair of the board of the Cobb Institute.
• Dr. Gingrich was also a lover of music. Playing, singing, and listening to music were a constant in his life. He started singing with his family at church, was a member of the college a capella choir, and continued singing his whole life, including 16 years as a professional member of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Roger Wagner Chorale.
• A process theologian himself, the Cobb Institute offers this musical introduction to process theology in his honor.

A tribute to Dr. John Gingrich

A tribute to Dr. John Gingrich

The Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, Sung By John Gingrich

• Christianity is a singing tradition.
• We find God in singing together and in listening to others sing.
• Sometimes we are not sure what we believe; but we know what we hear, and in the hearing God is present.
• Music communicates many different human emotions: connection, yearning, playfulness, wonder, sadness, fear, mystery, passion, sorrow, and zest for life.
• All are ways of being touched by God.

Christianity and Singing

• Who is the God whom we hear in music? In process theology God is an eternal companion who shares in the joys and sufferings of all living beings, an inwardly felt lure toward wholeness within each human being, and a spirit of creative transformation at work in the world.
• In each of these three ways, God is music-like. God is a fluid and flowing Event, everywhere at once, in whose life the universe lives and moves and has its being.

A God For Singing

• As the soul of the universe, God works in the world like a tuning fork. The tuning fork does not force things, but it helps us play in tune, so that we can make music together. Like love itself, the tuning fork is persuasive not coercive.
• Christian Process theologians see Jesus as a window to this kind of God. For us, the purpose of the Christian life is to walk in love as Christ walked in love, extending his healing ministry.

THE DIVINE tuning fork

• We do not always make music with God. We can play tunes of hatred even as God beckons us to play tunes of love. We miss the mark of adding to the divine symphony; we sin.
• The healing ministry of Christ is extended when we build communities that are creative, compassionate, inclusive, diverse, participatory, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind.

The Divine Call

The heart of the Christian life is to dwell musically in the world, attuned to the divine tuning fork. This does not mean that we listen to music all the time. Instead, we listen to the voices of other people and the natural world as if they were music and then respond by trying to make music with them, adding beauty of our own.  The beauty we add can be a kind word to a friend, a helping hand to a stranger, an act of caring for animal, or dancing barefoot in the moonlight. It is to help build beloved communities and to struggle against injustice, to struggle for a more loving world.  Whenever we act in the world in healing ways, we are adding a moment of beauty to the world, a scrap of light, a fresh melody. 

Dwelling musically in the world

Our fresh melody adds to the beauty of the world. The whole world is music-like in a certain way. This does not mean that the world is always pretty.  Witness the violence, greed, and despair.  Witness the loss of life and the absence of love.  There is too much unspeakable suffering, and too much missed potential, to say that the world is an ode to joy.

Suffering and the music of life

Nevertheless, the world is music-like in that it is a fluid and evolving process composed of events that come into existence and then pass away, like musical notes of varying durations in an ongoing concert.  Mountains are events, rivers are events, and people are events.  Some events last longer than others but all arise and then perish. Each event is a blending of influences from other sources.  It is an act of creative inter-becoming. In its creativity each event transcends the strict determinism of the past.

Process and becoming

Of course, there is more to life than change.  Amid the changes there are recurring patterns, the most general of which are the laws of nature. The sun rises and sets; the seasons come and go; protons bond with electrons.  Science does an excellent job of discerning the mathematical dimensions of these patterns, and this is part of its gift.  Life occurs in the concreteness of actual events as they interact with one another. 

Patterns of becoming

Process theology invites us to be attentive to life its concreteness and to share what beauty we can, helping individuals and communities become whole. There are many ways to share: homemaking, parenting, gardening, cooking, teaching, singing, playing, forgiving, loving your pets, hugging a grieving neighbor. All are, deep down, forms of music making, ways of dwelling musically in the world.

Becoming whole

The way of Jesus was music-making, too. Not only did he incarnate divine melodies in this life, especially those of love, justice, and humility; he also set in motion a possibility that we, too, might extend this incarnational spirit, each in our own way. In the words of process theology, he set in motion a of field of force, of energy. A melody to which we might add.

Christic Musicality

People can carry forth the melodies of Jesus in community with one another, in what Christians call a “gathering” or a “church.” The traditional rituals and customs developed by Christians are contexts for this carrying forth. They include holy communion, corporate singing, fellowship, and service to the world.

the melodies of christian life

As people carry forth the melodies of Jesus, they naturally remember his death. His death was not punishment for human sins, as if God was unable or unwilling to love us unless someone was killed. His death was a window into God’s own life: a life that includes suffering with the world, like a man on a cross.

A fellow sufferer

who understands

Christians naturally remember his resurrection, too: his reappearance to his disciplines after he died. This reappearance is itself an expression of the fact that God never gives up on anybody. Always there is hope. Always there is some possibility for new life. Always there are fresh possibilities from the very depths of God.

NEW LIFE

In process theology the song is both a song that we humans can sing and a song that God sings. God weaves the melodies of the world into an ongoing musical whole: the song of the universe. The journey of the Christian, and indeed the journey of all people and all living beings, is to participate in this song.

Participating in

divine melodies

YES, CHRISTIANITY IS A SINGING TRADITION!

Blessed Assurance

lyrics by Fanny Jane Crosby

music by Phoebe Knapp Performed 1985

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