I-to Loh: Helping Asian Christians Find Their Voice

[Published in EthnoDoxology, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2003, pages 6-10]

by C. Michael Hawn, Ph. D.

Imagine a Pakistani Christian at prayer, chanting sorrowfully a monophonic melody: Khudaayaa, raeham kar (Lord, have mercy). Travel to Bangkok and participate with a small house church on Sunday morning as they sing Saen suksan wan prachum nii (Day of joy, let us be glad) accompanied by a full traditional Thai instrumental ensemble and classical Thai dance. Join with a small Korean congregation in Seoul as they sing a prayer of petition for the reunification of Korea, Ososo, pyonghwaui imgum (Come now, O Prince of Peace, make us one body). Sing Soaniá chhinchhùi hoe hunniong (Green the wild fields, blue the sky), a song that celebrates the beauty of creation and our responsibility to maintain earth’s resources in an aboriginal Taiwanese congregation outside of Tainan. These songs and many others have been collected, composed, arranged and adapted by Dr. I-to Loh through decades of travel and research throughout Asia.

Loh’s life reflects the complexities, ambiguities and diversity of Asian Christian existence. As an Asian Christian ethnomusicologist he has devoted his life to giving Asian Christians a liturgical voice that sings in culturally authentic ways of the pain, joy, struggle, conflict and hope of Asian experience.

At the center of I-to Loh’s concern is the desire to feel fully Asian and fully Christian. How can Asian Christians express their faith in ways that bring the reality of Christ’s incarnation to the very threshold of the Asian cultural ethos? By recognizing I-to Loh’s work and the contributions of Asian Christians who lift their praise and prayer in song, we are giving honor to over 50% of the world’s people, many of whom live in our communities in the United States.

A Brief Biography

When Loh was born in 1936, he was given the name Loh I-to (surnames appear first in Chinese tradition). I-to means “to maintain the Way,” a name with a double significance, referring both to Jesus Christ as “the Way” and the Taoist religious tradition. I-to Loh’s interest in indigenous Asian music began during his childhood when he accompanied his father on trips among the Puyuma, Amis, Paiwan, Rukai and Yami tribes, aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. During his high school years, he taught the tribal children regularly on these mission ventures and learned many songs of the Puyuma, Ami and Paiwan tribes.1 He found a way of life among the aboriginal peoples that was relatively uninfluenced by alien cultures. I-to’s life work was inspired in part by his relationship with his father, a revered minister in the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan.

There were several significant influences on Loh’s development as a hymnologist. His interest in hymnology and congregational singing began first of all with his father. Sian-chhun Loh (1905-1984) was not only a missionary to indigenous tribes in Taiwan but also a hymnal editor. Sèng-Si (The Hymnal), the primary congregational song source for the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan for many years, was published in 1964 and remains in use to this day. Sian-chhun Loh, serving first on the hymnal committee as musical editor and then general editor, has 17 texts and three musical entries in Sèng-Si. Typical of Taiwanese hymnals is the incorporation of both Chinese characters and Romanized (transliterated) texts. Since historically only the most literate could read the complex Chinese characters, the practice of using Romanized texts promotes inclusivity regardless of level of literacy.2 This sense that hymn singing is for all, an inheritance from his father, is paramount for Loh.

A second influence relates to the Japanese occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945), an era that shaped Loh’s cultural
identity and faith. Thomas Barclay, the first significant Presbyterian missionary to the island, noted in 1895 that the
purpose of the Japanese invaders, “according to one of their statements, is TO MAKE THE POPULATION OF THE ISLAND—BODY, SOUL AND SPIRIT—JAPANESE.”3 Just before I-to’s birth, his father was jailed after being falsely accused of speaking against the Japanese occupation. I-to’s formative years were influenced by years of Japanese tyranny, extending to the end of World War II. The tribal peoples, however, maintained their cultural identity in the face of the Japanese invasion. The migration of the Han immigrants from mainland China, appearing in Taiwan (then Formosa) during the late sixteenth century, had also affected the lives of the tribal peoples. Although descended from this group, I-to developed an abiding appreciation for the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan that laid the foundation for his future research and ministry.

A third influence on I-to was the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (PCT) and its theological college founded in 1876. The years following World War II and the end of Japanese rule offered no political relief to the people of Taiwan. When the Chinese Nationalists (KMT) under Chiang Kai Shek were forced to retreat from mainland China to the island of Taiwan, the militarily oppressive and culturally destructive occupation of Japan was replaced by martial law and the corrupt rule of the KMT. The martial law was not lifted until 1987.4 The PCT, though weakened by the Japanese occupation, increased their mission efforts and spoke prophetically against the corruption of the KMT. After being forced to close during the war, the PCT reopened their seminary, Tainan Theological College, in the south of Taiwan.5 I-to Loh, as a graduate of this school, was nurtured theologically in an environment where candid and often perilous discussions about the Taiwan political situation took place. Growing up in a family who appreciated both the Taiwanese and aboriginal cultures of Taiwan, worshipping in the prophetic Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, and studying in a theological school where the biblical text and the political context were placed in dialogue all have shaped I-to Loh’s musical and spiritual vocation.

The dialogue between faith and cultural context and the musical instruction I-to received from a missionary at Tainan Theological College set the stage for his further musical and theological study at Union Theological Seminary. There he was granted the Master of Sacred Music degree in composition in 1966. After an additional year of graduate study there, he returned to teach at Tainan. He assumed the leadership of the church music program at Tainan Seminary at the insistence of his former professor, Kathleen Moody, and began a course of research that would take him once again among the tribal peoples of Taiwan. A part-time position as coordinator at the Research Center for the Study of Taiwanese Music at Tunghai University (1972-73) provided him with additional time for investigation into the music of his homeland. In 1973 he became the editor of the Tunghai Ethnomusicological Journal, and in 1982 he received a Ph.D. in music with a major in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

All of these influences—family, political context, theological and musical education—led eventually to the research and publication of Sound the Bamboo, a trial hymnal published by the Christian Council of Asia in 1990.

Life as a Teacher, Hymnologist and Ethnomusicologist

Between 1982 and 1994, Dr. Loh taught at the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM) in Manila as a missionary to the Philippines under the sponsorship of the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. AILM, under the direction of Francisco Feliciano, is also known as Samba Likaan—literally, “the place for creative worship” in the Filipino national language of Tagalog. During these years, he also taught music at Tainan Theological College and Seminary in Taiwan in a part-time capacity. The schools in Manila and Tainan served as venues for the discussion and application of the theology of contextualization with a focus on liturgical inculturation. At AILM he was responsible for setting curriculum, teaching, and assisting in the organization of all international and ecumenical conferences. Students from many countries of Asia and beyond studied church music in an environment that fostered an appreciation for choral and congregational music, including “the best of the west” as well as choral compositions and hymnody from non-western contexts. I-to’s tenure as Professor of Church Music and Ethnomusicology ended in 1994, when he decided to return full-time to his alma mater in Tainan so that he could “do something for [his] people before it was too late.”

Manila was also Dr. Loh’s home base for travels to all but a few of the twenty-two countries represented in Sound the Bamboo.6 Much of this travel was made possible through his relationships with the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA, formerly the East Asia Christian Conference) and the World Council of Churches (WCC). He continues to serve both the CCA and the WCC as an advisor in liturgy for their international conferences and assemblies. On his travels, he took the approach of an ethnomusicologist: recording songs, discussing their origins, and then returning to transcribe songs from the recordings, sometimes assisted by AILM students. Classes and worship at AILM then became venues for trying out the music with students from diverse cultural backgrounds.

An Analysis of Sound the Bamboo (1990)

Sound the Bamboo, a trial hymnal for the Christian Conference of Asia, was the result of these efforts. It replaced the E.A.C.C. Hymnal (1963), published by the East Asian Christian Conference (E.A.C.C.) through the efforts of D. T. Niles, a Christian leader from Sri Lanka, who co-founded the E.A.C.C. and is almost legendary among Asian Christians. The E.A.C.C. Hymnal was so popular that it went through four printings by 1966. I-to Loh, along with Francisco Feliciano from the Philippines and James Minchin from Australia, formed the executive editorial committee for Sound the Bamboo, with Dr. Loh serving as general editor.7

Sound the Bamboo represents arguably the most labor-intensive hymnal publication by one person in the twentieth century. Over three-fourths of the songs were recorded by Dr. Loh “amid the traffic noise of busy streets, beside the village fire at night, in huts and homely settings all over the Asian region.”8 The collection of the songs was followed by hours of transcription, translation and paraphrasing. It is doubtful that any hymnal published in the twentieth century has included so much material that had not previously appeared in print. Feedback on the hymns was sought from “musicians, theologians, poets and writers, pastors, liturgists, and other representatives of Asian churches, including women and youth.”9 The 1990 publication of Sound the Bamboo in the form of a trial edition allowed for further input and for cross-fertilization of these hymns among the peoples of Asia. Following a ten-year correction and revision process, Sound the Bamboo was revised in 2000.

There are several distinctive features in Sound the Bamboo (1990). Many are obvious when one examines the page:

• Original languages (38 total) in transliteration are included in the hymnal along with English translations or singing paraphrases

• Melodies are ornamented in the style of the country or locality of origin, and notation includes indications for gliding up or down as one approaches or leaves a note.

• Many songs contain melody only, indicating a monophonic performing preference.

• Other features include instructions for instruments (with special performance suggestions in the Editor’s Notes, pp. 15-18) or specific practices related to a more authentic performance of the material.

One readily observes Loh’s ethnomusicological training in many of the decisions he made as hymnal editor. However, underlying theological and cultural premises guided his editorial priorities. His attempts to present the hymns in a notational form that expresses the appropriate musical style of each locality have roots in a desire to represent Christian faith in an Asian ethos. One might characterize the work of this hymnal as an effort to make a shift from a Christian faith transmitted (translated) by missionaries to Asians to a Christian faith embraced by Asians. Loh discusses the problem in this way:

... fascinated by the new Christian faith and associating it with the “advanced” western culture (technology, in particular), Asian converts have probably idealized and absolutized these Christian expressions and values. To the new converts it seemed necessary to denounce their past and to remove the association of pagan practices in order to prove their true conversion to Christ. Unfortunately, it led to a denial of the native culture and values; Christians became alienated from their local culture and their own people. They were eager to learn and adapt the new Christian expression, including liturgies and music. Eventually, they became so attached to these forms that they regarded them as the absolutely authentic way of Christian expression.10

Many Asian Christians have felt that they have had to make a choice between Christianity and Asian culture. The
publication of an Asian hymnal, notated as nearly as possible in a manner that encourages an authentic presentation of the songs, is not just the work of an ethnomusicologist who specializes in church music. It is a theological endeavor designed to help Asian Christians find their cultural voice in the context of Christian liturgy.

Theological reflection through congregational song is a complex task. The hymns of Sound the Bamboo give witness to the cultural intricacies and diverse influences on Asians from beyond their borders. The diversity of the songs’ sources can be seen in the four categories that Loh developed and uses in the hymnbook:

1. Western Hymn Styles.

2. Traditional Styles. Adaptations of old native melodies from grass roots, or new compositions in more recent but still traditional styles, with or without accompaniment.

3. Syncretistic Styles. Folk tunes or melodies with traditional characteristics, but arranged with traditional western harmony.

4. International and Contextual Styles. Innovative works, combining native concepts or idioms with contemporary international techniques of composition, culturally contextual and challenging to modern people.11

The Process of Musical Inculturation and Sound the Bamboo (1990)

I-to Loh has developed an approach to inculturation for arts, liturgy and music. The process of liturgical inculturation seeks to bring the established rites and rituals of Christian liturgy into dialogue with aspects of a given culture. The purpose of this dialogue is to make the liturgy more responsive to the people of a specific locality and expressive of their relationship to God through symbols with which they have a cultural intimacy. I-to Loh proposes a process for musical inculturation within cultures that the western church has historically viewed as “mission fields” for decades and, in some cases, centuries. He suggests that incremental stages of change are necessary for moving from total dependence on the music of an alien culture, transplanted by missionaries, to the nurture of indigenous musical expressions of faith created from the images and resources of the culture. Loh proposes four stages for musical inculturation:12

1. Translation and Transplanting. Preservation of the original message and form of the sending culture are paramount in this approach. At this stage the text of the hymns is strictly translated and most of the original music is preserved. While a starting place, this approach is often deemed to be inadequate when used exclusively.

2. Acculturation. The second stage is adapting existing liturgical rites and rituals from another culture. In the musical sense, this would include changing a western diatonic melody to a pentatonic tune by modifying the fourth and seventh degrees of the scale.

3. Inculturation. In the third stage, the musician adapts existing folk melodies of a culture, composes new ones that reflect the style of the culture, or combines traditional styles with contemporary or western idioms.

4. Incarnational. “Speaking in our own native language”. (Acts 2:8; TEV). Creating new musical and liturgical forms that speak more directly to the heart and mind of the culture characterizes the fourth stage.13 This would include native music in contemporary styles.

The content of Sound the Bamboo focuses heavily on levels two and three with several examples that move toward level four.

Sound the Bamboo (2000 revision)

In spite of a busy administrative schedule as President of the Tainan Theological Seminary between 1995-2002, I-to Loh succeeded in making extensive corrections and revisions to Sound the Bamboo in a revised edition that was published in 2000. The executive editorial committee remains the same as the 1990 edition: Francisco F. Feliciano (Philippines), James Minchin (Australia), and Loh as General Editor. In a beautiful, slightly larger format, twenty-one countries are represented. Forty-seven languages plus English are included. Thirteen hymns were dropped from the original 280 hymns published in the 1990 edition. Forty-eight new hymns were added for a total of 315 in the 2000 edition. Of the 267 hymns found in both editions, efforts have been made when possible to continue the same numbering of these hymns in both hymnals. According to the Preface in the 2000 edition, the hymns have been dropped either because they were outside of the sphere of influence by the Christian Conference of Asia (Pacific and Africa) or because the earlier versions were either “unintelligible or unsingable.”14 New hymns come from countries that were underrepresented in the 1990 edition, especially Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Romanized texts in languages other than English have been updated according to current practice

The Impact of I-to Loh’s Work in Asia

Contextualization and globalization of the music, liturgy and mission of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan is growing under Loh’s leadership and prophetic witness. While Christianity has a much longer history in Asia than is generally recognized,15 one must remember that, except for the Philippines, it is a minority faith in this area of the world.

While some estimate that 25-30% of South Koreans are Christians, fewer than 3% of Asians can be numbered among those of the Christian faith. This does not imply that there is a spiritual vacuum in Asia; Asian cultures are highly religious. In the areas of Christian liturgy and music, urban Christians throughout Asia draw very heavily on western models and materials. While there are small pockets of interest, liturgical inculturation is accepted on a very limited basis within the minority Christian church in this part of the world. Increasingly, westernization of Asian cultures makes efforts toward theological contextualization even more difficult. I-to Loh has listened to people throughout Asia and has been the midwife to a nascent movement that encourages Asian Christians to raise their voices to God in sung praise and prayer, using the cultural symbols closest to their experience. There is no greater voice throughout Asia for developing indigenous congregational singing than I-to Loh.

1 I-to Loh, “Tribal Music of Taiwan: with Special Reference to the Ami and Puyuma Styles,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1982, 5. For more information on the music of Taiwan and general cultural context, see I-to Loh, “Taiwan,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited), Vol. 18, 529-533.

2 Sèng-Si, ed. Sian-chhun Loh (Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, 1964). Edward Band, Barclay of Formosa (Ginza, Tokyo: Christian Literature Society, 1936), emphasizes the importance of literacy for all. The focus on literacy applied to the hymnal and to the reading of scripture. Thomas Barclay, the first significant missionary to Taiwan (then Formosa) emphasized “The Bible in the Mother-tongue” (p. 130) and the importance of romanization to achieve this goal for all (pp. 67-69). The hymnal is an extension of this commitment.

3 Band, Barclay of Formosa, 109. (Upper case in the original.)

4 The first free elections in Taiwan were held in March 1996 under the threat of missiles from mainland China, falling in the sea south of Taiwan near Kaohsiung and Tainan.

5 See Shoki Coe, Recollections and Reflections, 2nd ed. (New York: The Rev. Dr. Shoki Coe Memorial Fund, and Tainan: Formosan Christians for Self-Determination, 1993), 107-117, for a discussion of the transition from the Japanese occupation to martial law under the KMT and the response of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan.

6 Beginning in 1969, Loh visited almost all of the countries represented in Sound the Bamboo, ranging from India to Bali and Australia to Korea, as many as four or five times in search of indigenous hymnody and folk song. The only countries he did not visit were Vietnam, Cambodia, Tahiti and Fiji, most of whose political situations that prevented travel at that time.

7 The information in this paragraph is a combination of discussions with Loh and material found in the Preface of Sound the Bamboo (Christian Conference of Asia, 1990), 10.

8 Loh, Sound the Bamboo (1990), 11.

9 Ibid.

10 I-to Loh, “Contemporary Issues in Inculturation, Arts and Liturgy: Music,” 50. In The Hymnology Annual: An International Forum on the Hymn and Worship, edited by Vernon Wicker, vol. 3, pp. 47-56. Berrien Springs, MI:Vande Vere Publishing Ltd., 1993.

11 Loh, Sound the Bamboo (1990), 17.

12 The following section draws heavily from Loh, “Contemporary Issues in Inculturation, Arts and Liturgy: Music,” 49-56.

13 See I-to Loh, “Asian Worship,” The Complete Library of Christian Worship: Vol. 7., The Ministries of Christian Worship, ed. Robert Webber (Nashville: Star Song Publishing Group, 1994), 217-221, for examples of incarnational approaches to liturgy within the Asian context.

14 Sound the Bamboo: CCA Hymnal 2000, ed. I-to Loh (Hong Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 2000), viii. The 2000 edition may be ordered through the Hymn Society Bookstore (1-800-THE HYMN) or by contacting the Christian Conference of Asia at cca@pacific.net.hk or www.cca.org.hk.

15 See John C. England, “The Hidden History of Christianity in Asia: The Churches of the East before 1500 C.E.,” Doing Theology with Asian Resources: Ten Years in the Formation of Living Theology in Asia, eds. John C. England and Archie C.C. Lee (Programme for Theology and Cultures in Asia, 1993), 129-161. Also see John C. England, “Early Asian Christian Writings, 5th-12th Centuries: An Appreciation,” The Asia Journal of Theology 11:1 (April 1997), 154-171.

This article is a short excerpt from Chapter 3 in a recent book by C. Michael Hawn, Ph. D., Gather into One: Praying and Singing Globally (Grand Rapids: Calvin Institute of Worship and Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003). Dr. Hawn teaches music at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.