Christian music has long been a migrational and often colonizing force (Zahn 1996). Historically, the arrival of church music in foreign lands and/or indigenous communities through proselytization has sometimes proven problematic due to homogenizing forces associated with the music’s adoption. This was particularly true of the missional hymnody that flowed from the U.K. and Europe into the Pacific region (Webb 2005; Love and Kaeppler 1998). This migratory force of contemporary church music (what I call “congregational song”) is now felt to an unprecedented degree through the use of mass media (Bossius 2011), the involvement of the global music industry, and the emergence of Pentecostal megachurches. As a result, contemporary congregational song has the power to inculcate Christian ideologies and inform practices of musical consumption worldwide.
This chapter is particularly focused on the way in which Australian Christian music—namely, that produced by Hillsong Church in Sydney—has crossed geographical and theological borders around the world. After briefly considering its emergence and diffusion in Australian settings, the chapter goes on to trace the songlines1 of Hillsong music within different churches and denominations in parts of Scandinavia and in particular Zulu churches in Durban, South Africa. It considers the ways in which the music has been adopted, adapted, and received in these churches. The chapter argues that Hillsong music, and music from the other global Christian “brands,” is no longer strictly about message; its music portrays notions of religious freedom but essentially projects a cultural and religious identity. Various consequences of this musical globalization are considered, including its effect on local musical creativity. This chapter will also analyze the musical performance of Hillsong music around the world, seeking to ascertain the musical and lyrical alterations necessary for this vibrant migratory practice to have developed.
The effects of the music’s migration are considered through a variety of methodological frameworks. The primary method involved participant observation (see Shelemay 1997, 197) of Finnish and Swedish churches over a five-month period (February–June 2009).2 While preference was given to Hillsong-branded churches, and Pentecostal churches in general, a broad sweep of denominational churches was conducted in order to ascertain the level of penetration that Hillsong music had achieved. This participant observation was reinforced through detailed ethnographic interviews with various other participants, those involved in producing the music internationally, and those in Australia responsible for ensuring its transcultural appeal. In South Africa, two participant-observation research visits were undertaken, in 2008 and 2011, to Zulu churches in and around Durban.3 Again, interviews and informal conversations were held with congregation members and music team members. Furthermore, traditional analytical methodologies drawn from a variety of disciplines, including theology, popular music studies, musicology, performance studies, and historiography, have been used. Such interdisciplinarity is useful in contextualizing the construction and reception of contemporary congregational music.
Hillsong Church, a world-renowned center for contemporary worship songwriting and production, is part of the growing international Pentecostal movement. As I have noted elsewhere, “The growth in contemporary forms of congregational song can be directly linked to the proliferation and increased influence of Pentecostal churches worldwide. Pentecostal churches are by far the dominant producers of contemporary congregational music, and often have the larger congregation sizes and matrixes of ideologically aligned networks to support flourishing production centres” (Evans 2006, 87).
Hillsong Church began its life in August 1983 as the Hills Christian Life Centre, located in Castle Hill, part of Sydney’s developing northwest suburban district. It was an outreach of Christian Life Centre Sydney (an affiliated member of the Assemblies of God denomination). Hills CLC initially met in a local high school with a congregation of seventy. Today, Hillsong Church (renamed to reinforce its musical identity) is Australia’s largest church, with a congregation currently in excess of twenty-three thousand people on any given Sunday (Wagner 2014). Along with the addition of Australian churches in Brisbane and Melbourne, Hillsong has recently expanded its “brand” internationally to include churches in London, Paris, New York, Cape Town, Kiev, Moscow, Konstanz, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm.
Sociologist Marion Maddox states that this process of international “reproduction” is a feature of the new megachurch. In discussing megachurches such as Hillsong, Christian City Church (which claims 230 churches worldwide), and Bill Hybels’s Willow Creek Association, she notes that “despite the differences of language and surrounding national cultures, [churches within these groups] exhibit remarkable uniformity of liturgy and presentation.” She goes on to observe that “megachurches... do not merely passively absorb or reflect aspects of their social context, but are both deliberate appropriators of and vital contributors to it” (2012, 152). One of the most pronounced of these contributions is music, with megachurches often utilizing their own music in their churches worldwide, particularly when they have a strong music production and publishing arm.
In keeping with secular business models, megachurches work hard to establish and maintain their brand. Hillsong Church is a case in point, developing “a highly sophisticated and responsive method of branding that communicates its theological emphasis, corporate identity, and target audience” (Riches and Wagner 2012, 18). While not the only contributor, music is often a vital part of the branding strategy of megachurches, and this is certainly true in the case of Hillsong: “Hillsong’s music ‘product’ is one (if not the) main driver of its growth—a glocalized offering adopted by Christian churches all over the world. Like McDonald’s, Hillsong focuses on the consistency of its product, and achieves it by standardizing production and delivery.... It offers a global musical product mix that is positioned through extra-musical communication and adapted by its worshippers through the frame of the brand in the local contexts in which it is offered and received” (Wagner 2014, 4). The following section maps out how Hillsong’s musical brand has been constructed.
A significant and signature part of Hillsong Church, especially since 1992, has been its music production and publishing arm, Hillsong Music Australia (HMA). Hillsong Church (as Hills CLC) recorded its first album of congregational song, Spirit and Truth, in 1988, but the first to be marketed outside Australia was Show Your Glory in 1991. In 1992, the church released its first live4 congregational album, The Power of Your Love, the title track of which still features on CCLI’s top twenty-five congregational song lists around the world, including those in South Africa.5 Since then, Hillsong has released one congregational album every year, in addition to numerous other albums and resources. It claims annual worldwide sales in excess of two million albums and represents one of the dominant Christian music producers worldwide.6
Most commentators attribute the success of HMA to former worship pastor Darlene Zschech, its face and voice since 1995 and the architect of spin-off projects such as Hillsong United. As the Sydney Morning Herald put it, “Darlene Zschech [is] the understated brain and voice behind Hillsong music.... [She] has created a brand in inspiration that is taking the Christian world by storm. Whether or not you like the genre, it’s hard not to conclude that Zschech and Hillsong United are Australia’s most successful music publishing export, with hundreds of thousands singing their songs every weekend around the world” (Cameron 2011). Zschech’s international smash hit “Shout to the Lord”—a song that remains influential around the world and may well become the “Amazing Grace” of the future due to its recognition and prevalent use in Pentecostal and mainstream churches (Evans 2006, 120–21)—was chosen by the producers of the U.S. television blockbuster American Idol Gives Back to conclude their program in 2008. It became the “world’s most downloaded song in the world’s biggest music market on that day” (Cameron 2011).
Hillsong music is currently distributed to more than eighty-seven countries worldwide. HMA distributes directly to Christian retail stores and in recent times has had a strong presence in secular music retail stores as well. One of the most powerful outlets for Hillsong music abroad has been online stores—for instance, iTunes,7 Amazon, and CDON.com, which is extremely influential in Scandinavian countries. This online distribution, combined with ready access to worship services, seminars, new songs, and concerts via YouTube and social media, has quickly spread the Hillsong brand8 from its suburban Australian roots. This confirms Thomas Bossius’s assertion that “[contemporary Anglophone] worship culture can... be said to be a media-dense culture” (2011, 53).
The global spread of Hillsong music has been a deliberate strategy of the church, one that it has sought to work into the nature of the music itself, most notably through familiar lyrics that can be understood in churches around the world, but also by creating a “Hillsong sound” that seeks to communicate a bright, contemporary, victorious Christianity. The essence of this sound has long revolved around the production aesthetics of the albums. Hillsong releases tightly produced, polished albums that are more reminiscent of the brightness and perfection often associated with Nashville production than rock and pop from Australia. Live congregational albums are meticulously overdubbed to create perfect performance and arrangement. Part of the “victorious” nature of the sound can be attributed to its density of texture. Congregational albums feature standard pop instrumentation, but often with multiple keyboard players, multiple guitarists, and a brass section. Lead vocalists are backed by a team of backing vocalists as well as a full choir. As a result, Hillsong music is marked by a “wall of sound” aesthetic, particularly in the climactic sections, which listeners find rousing and anthemic.
In attempting to explain Hillsong’s transnational orientation, head of Hillsong Music Publishing Steve McPherson notes, “I do believe we initially set out to write music for our congregation but as time went on and we saw the impact our songs were having across all denominations, we became more and more aware of the responsibility and the privilege to be speaking into the broader church, and I believe our songwriting changed accordingly. Our focus went from being purely local to global.”9 The initial migration McPherson speaks of here was one from a local Pentecostal church in Sydney to numerous denominations and churches throughout Australia. Notably, many churches that would not necessary adhere to the theology of Hillsong Church were nonetheless content to sing its music. This speaks to the generalist theological foundation of the music (discussed below), which allowed it to be used in a wide range of evangelical churches, from traditional mainstream churches to smaller breakaway denominations and groups. The momentum this created allowed Hillsong to quickly dominate an emerging market and influence congregational song trends throughout the country. Hillsong clearly saw the economic benefits of its “resources” being utilized in the global church. If the music it created could cross stringent denominational boundaries in Australia, then there was no reason not to orient the music toward a broader, global Christian church. There was also a branding benefit, as the church (and the fullness of its vision and ethos) was now globally recognized via its congregational song. The change in songwriting that McPherson refers to accords with a movement toward less locally defined sounds and lyrics. Gone, for example, are songs such as “Great Southland” and others that signaled any sense of Australian-ness, replaced with songs that would sit comfortably within various denominations and churches around the world (see Evans 2006). The following sections trace how and why Hillsong music flows into various contexts by using case studies drawn from Scandinavian and South African churches.
Walking around the streets of Trondheim, Norway, in 2005, I was struck by a large poster in the front of a pharmacist shop advertising the latest Hillsong congregational album. That music from a local Sydney church that I knew well was being promoted in a pharmacy (itself a bit odd) in the back streets of a city on the other side of the world was intriguing. From then on, I began questioning how the songlines of contemporary congregational music were formed and shaped. In 2009, I was fortunate to be offered a visiting research fellowship at the University of Turku in Finland. This fellowship allowed me to investigate how Hillsong music had penetrated Scandinavia, with a particular focus on Finland. Over five months of research, I visited all of the major denominational churches in the city of Turku, as well as those in Helsinki that advertised contemporary worship services on their websites. I was also able to visit Hillsong Stockholm soon after its launch.
Hillsong music has been popular in Scandinavian countries for several years. In Sweden, two Hillsong tracks feature in the Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) report’s period 408 chart for Sweden (Zschech’s “Shout to the Lord” at number one and Reuben Morgan’s “You Are Holy” at number seventeen). Popular in Sweden and Norway initially, Hillsong music has also found a place among some Finnish Christians (further discussion on that below). In part, the spread of Hillsong music in the region was directly related to its physical presence on tour, as a staff member from Turku United Methodist Church, Sarah Tiainen, indicated: “One of the main worship leaders from Hillsong [Reuben Morgan] came to a European conference at Uppsala [Sweden] a few years ago and that really helped to spread the music. He was a huge hit.”10 Hillsong “tours” its annual conferences internationally, taking its key music personnel along (for example, Darlene Zschech,11 Reuben Morgan, and Marty Sampson). Hillsong United, the youth-oriented worship band, also tours the globe extensively, sometimes performing the same songs as those found on congregational releases. This international exposure often occurs in conjunction with key Pentecostal and/or evangelical figures (for example, Joyce Meyer, with whom Zschech works extensively) and helps establish and promote the Hillsong brand and expose its music to expanding Christian networks. The Word of Life conference to which Tiainen referred was for church leaders throughout Scandinavia (and Europe more widely), who were then able to take music that had influenced them at the conference back to their own congregations.
Through five months of participant-observation research, it became apparent that Hillsong music is most popular with Swedes, Swedish-speaking Finns, and charismatic churches in Scandinavia. These groups have had longer exposure to global Pentecostal music, as evidenced by the history of CCLI reports for Sweden, and thus more time to adopt music from Hillsong as their dominant music repertoire. There is some Hillsong music present in the Lutheran Church, although this tends to be truer for regional areas rather than major cities. The main demographic for the music is the twenty-to-thirty-five age group, which fits neatly with those who first heard Hillsong when the music became known in Scandinavia. The congregational albums and Hillsong United releases are equally popular, with Tiainen observing that “people like it because it is a brand.” She qualified this by noting that Finnish Christians like to feel part of the “global Christian culture” and Hillsong represented that for them.
The most obvious incarnation of Hillsong in Scandinavia was the launch of Hillsong Stockholm in early 2009. Formerly known as Passion Church, the church renamed itself Hillsong Stockholm and adopted all of the branding insignias of its Australian parent church. When I attended the church in February 2009, only weeks after its Hillsong “debut,” the similarities to the parent church were striking, to the point that, apart from the mixing of Swedish and English, there was little discernible difference. All but one of the songs sung were Hillsong compositions from the latest album release, and all were sung in English. As music team member John12 told me, this was not uncommon: “About 90 percent, probably, of the songs we sing are from Hillsong.” But John did not interpret this as musical imperialism: “We sung all these songs anyway, so [it] wasn’t a big change for us to become a Hillsong church. We basically were the same.” Thus, the cultural change was minimized because the church had been singing Hillsong’s music and using similar liturgical structures for a long time prior. Given this shared cultural repertoire, it was an ideal candidate to become officially related to the Australian church. The songs at Hillsong Stockholm are usually sung in their original English, that being the preference of the senior church pastors, although John noted that sometimes someone will translate one into Swedish and “that is really good.” That being said, he did feel that it “would be great if we sang more songs in Swedish.” The issue of translation frequently accompanies Hillsong’s migration and will be discussed further below.
In Turku United Methodist Church, Hillsong music has been prominent since the 2000s. This church represents a particular case study; although located in Turku, Finland, it caters specifically to Swedish-speaking Finns and conducts services in this language. Translation into English is available at every service, as the church also caters to many international students from the University of Turku, the majority of whom speak neither Swedish nor Finnish. Tiainen recalled that she first heard Hillsong “in late 1990s at confirmation camp. ‘Shout to the Lord’ was the first song we did, and it became an instant hit. We first sung it in English but someone soon translated it into Swedish.” Presently, the church sings a selection of Hillsong tracks—both popular hits from the mid- to late 1990s and more recent compositions. The songs are normally sung in their original English, although Swedish translations are becoming more common. The church also regularly uses major hits from North American and U.K. songwriters, as well as popular Swedish hymns.
As evidence that standard denominational tags do not always apply, the Pentecostal church in Turku, Turun Helluntaiseurakunta, featured no music at all from Hillsong or the “standard” international Pentecostal repertoire when I visited in March 2009. More typical were songs associated with various praise collections from the 1980s (Ring of Praise, Mission Praise, Scripture in Song, and so forth), such as the well-known “As the Deer” (Martin Nystrom, 1984), and hymns sung in Finnish. In interviews, congregation members revealed that they were aware of Hillsong and other global Pentecostal music and very partial to it; however, they did not feel that they had the resources to be able to perform it. For instance, musical worship times most often consisted of a single song leader singing to backing tracks provided by an iPod—with each song individually queued up as required. The lack of a music team was viewed as an impediment to introducing music from Hillsong and similar churches.
A visit to the Helsinki Vineyard Church13 in April 2009 revealed that the migratory element of contemporary congregational song is not exclusive to Hillsong but extends to other church “brands.” Finland is a small country with a population of just over five million. Although roughly 80 percent of Finns identify as Christian, in reality this is a fairly secularized society, with low rates of church attendance14—evidence of what Marcus Moberg considers the “increasing privatization of Finnish religiosity” (2011, 50). Yet, within this country, there are two strong musical influences from megachurch brands, and a third if one includes the many songs produced by Soul Survivor, a youth conference in the U.K., that I heard performed in Finnish churches over a five-month period. At the Sunday Vineyard service I attended, all of the songs were sung in English, with the exception of one that was sung in Finnish and then repeated in English. The worship leader of the church was from the U.K., and as such there was a reliance not only on Vineyard songs but also on songs from Soul Survivor. The songs performed during the service were “Joy” by Jon Ellis (1997), “Everlasting God” by Chris Tomlin (2006), “Come and Fill Me Up” by Brian Doerksen (Vineyard, 1990), and “Surrender” by Marc James (Vineyard, 2000), which featured the partial Finnish translation. These case studies in Scandinavia show that the internationalization of several powerful brands—especially that of Hillsong—is one important aspect of the songlines of contemporary congregational music.
In South Africa, Hillsong music has been popular for over a decade. The current CCLI top twenty-five15 worship songs for the country include four Hillsong tracks, including Zschech’s “Shout to the Lord” at number one. As interviewee Thanda Mthembu reported of KwaMashu Christian Centre, a predominantly Zulu church in Durban, “We sing several [Hillsong songs in services]; the famous chorus that most churches sing is ‘Lord I Give You My Heart.’ ”16 Here, Mthembu recognizes Reuben Morgan’s song, which features at number eighteen on the CCLI chart for South Africa. What is notable about the four Hillsong tracks on this chart is that they all come from the mid-1990s (including Zschech’s number one, which was released in 1995). Reasons for this relatively slow incorporation include the distance created by church members’ comparatively lower socioeconomic position and a lack of established distribution pathways. Akin to the testimony of Scandinavian congregation members, the Durban-based music team members with whom I spoke indicated that most Hillsong music is brought into Zulu churches (such as KwaMashu Christian Centre and His Glory Worship Tabernacle) via individuals who acquire CDs or sheet music personally. Given that this can be a relatively rare event, as congregants are unable to keep up to date with the regular Hillsong releases due to economic constraints and a lack of availability, it is understandable that there is often a time lag in when the music reaches the church. That all of the popular Hillsong tracks in South Africa came from one particular period in the mid-1990s indicates that, at that time at least, someone had a knowledge of Hillsong and the means to bring its music into Zulu churches.17
Recent data provided by CCLI suggests that South African churches may have moved away from Hillsong tracks, focusing more on releases from Vineyard and Soul Survivor. This general sense was confirmed at services of His Glory Worship Tabernacle that I attended in June 2011, where no Hillsong music was sung at all. Music team members reported that it was rare to sing Hillsong material, their preference being to improvise songs based on the day’s theme and type up the words live, on projector, as the song evolved. Hillsong United toured South Africa in February/March 2013, five years after its previous tour there. During that earlier tour, it even recorded a live track in Johannesburg (“Look to You”) for its worldwide compilation The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One, which was released on March 8, 2008. Whether the general movement away from Hillsong music in South Africa continues in the wake of the launch of Hillsong Cape Town and the recent Hillsong United tour remains to be seen.
As I learned from conversations with congregation members in Durban, there is a sense in which all the music from “elsewhere” is grouped together in their minds, irrespective of any brand association. All of the songs imported from Australia, the United States, and the U.K. are sung in their original English, which Mthembu pointed out is important “because there are people in church who can’t sing African songs only, but English songs accommodate everybody in the church.” This speaks to a desire to accommodate what is essentially a minority English-speaking segment. So, in one sense, the music has a very functional role. But it is also seen as having a strong sense of meaning and purpose. Steve McPherson, head of Hillsong Music Publishing, views meaning as a crucial element in Hillsong’s success: “There’s no question that our songs have a lyrical flavour that is uniquely ‘Hillsong’ but we do try to keep our songs based in scripture and sound theology, so that alone is a huge factor in why we see our songs cross over cultural and denominational boundaries.” This lyrical solidity is independent of any uniquely Australian flavor. As McPherson notes, “There is a rawness, and a light-heartedness, that is uniquely Australian, but it is subtle to the listener.” Though clearly hard to qualify, it could be argued that overseas listeners hear this lightheartedness as energetic and vibrant—words often used to describe Hillsong music by overseas interviewees.
One of the most popular uses of Hillsong music in Durban actually occurs outside the church. As Mthembu reported, “Almost all the Christian people I know play Hillsong music in their cars, houses, offices, laptops, and in the camp [township].” Interviewees revealed that the use of congregational song as an accompaniment to daily life activities is a common feature of Christianity in South Africa. However, despite the music’s frequent function as a lifestyle product, McPherson maintains that this is not the primary purpose of Hillsong’s music: “We have always and will always see the main purpose of our product, or as we prefer to call them ‘resources,’ as being exactly that, resources for the church. However there is no doubt that people purchase our resources for other reasons, whether that be for personal devotional listening, inspiration or purely for the love of the music.” Acknowledging again that music enters the international settings studied via personal introduction and prompting, I would contend that this personal saturation outside the church is vital for the music to ultimately migrate into the church, its intended destination. Not only must the music reach foreign shores, but it must also be integrated into the lives of active Christians who have the ability and means to bring the music into the church (or at least to the attention of the musical personnel). This personal engagement with Hillsong music has prompted the church to film and release a documentary that details the role of its music in the lives of people around the world, particularly those living in the developing world. McPherson commented, “We are thrilled when we hear of how our music is touching the lives of people in far reaching places of the earth. It was part of the motivation behind the iHeart Revolution documentary [which] follows the Hillsong United team around the world to places such as Brazil, Rwanda, Columbia, and others, focusing on the believers in these areas, looking at how they are impacting their world, and also giving a glimpse of what the impact of these songs are on these people.” While notionally separate from the main congregational album releases, the role and influence of Hillsong United, particularly on Christian churches in the developing world, deserves future research and analysis of its own.
One possible consequence of the global migration of popular Christian congregational song is the disappearance of the local within congregational song. I have noted elsewhere the need for contemporary congregational song to differentiate between the universal and the idiosyncratic. If we take the universal to be represented by Hillsong and other megachurches, then the idiosyncratic becomes the individual nuances of denominations, churches, revivals, missions, and the like (Evans 2006, 162). In Finnish churches, for example, local elements might most obviously be represented lyrically, in references to landscape, seasonal change, or individual church teaching. In Turku United Methodist Church, there was consistent biblical teaching on the family of God and Christian unity, a powerful message given that many congregants were far from home and family. There are also possibilities for localizing musical style, perhaps by integrating popular genres or instrumentation native to the area. Finland is one of the world’s most ardent consumers of hard rock and metal music in all its subgenres. Thus, music with heavier, denser, guitar-based arrangements often resonated more with some demographics of the church who listened to heavy metal music for recreation.
For reasons such as these, local songs specific to congregations, churches, or missions remain important. This importance was a point keenly addressed by those interviewed for this study. Tiainen noted, “I would love to see people influenced by what God is doing here, by writing their own songs, and creating an environment to praise God or sing our agony. I think both are needed.” And Hillsong Stockholm team member John reported, “Some of us are writing songs, and others in Sweden too, but we are not very good at bringing our songs into the house [of worship].” By this, John acknowledged the disparity, most likely in quality, between locally written songs and those carefully crafted and produced by HMA. It becomes almost impossible for local songwriters to bring their own songs into the “house”—the live congregational gathering—because their music is not regarded as “equal” to the imported music. In part, this is a problem of experience and ability, but it also sounds a warning that unequal resources may be hard to overcome. Many of the key congregational song producers around the world distribute and market their product on such a scale that smaller independent releases often go unnoticed. Unlike the secular music industry, where smaller markets are encouraging independent talents through industry awards programs, private gig sales, and digital delivery systems (see Evans and Crowdy 2005), congregational song runs the risk of alienating emergent artists to the point that the genre itself suffers. What would be beneficial is an engagement with the local as different and valuable, rather than local churches only attempting to replicate the sound imported under the banner of Hillsong. John Lindenbaum makes a similar argument in relation to contemporary Christian music (CCM) in the United States, where, over the years, the city of Nashville has become akin to a megachurch with its own prescribed “sound”: “The most stylistically and lyrically inventive forms of CCM tend to originate outside Nashville, while much Nashville-produced CCM ascribes to tried-and-true song structures, simple almost-clichéd lyrics, and radio-friendly studio polish” (2009, 288).
It is fair to assume that this issue of local songwriters struggling to have their music played is not restricted to Scandinavian churches. Rather, it is a logical consequence of the globalizing forces of contemporary congregational song producers and the various megachurches that drive them. From a primary data survey of Pentecostal churches in Australia, Daniel Robinson has found that 97.6 percent of them perform Hillsong music in their services (2011, 116). This correlates to figures from the United States that reveal the similarly heavy influence of music from the Association of Vineyard Churches, as “it is estimated that... eighty percent of all white Protestant churches... include Vineyard songs in their public worship” (Basden 2004, 143). A similar phenomenon has occurred in Canada, where “many Pentecostal churches now view [Toronto’s] Airport Vineyard–style worship as the only legitimate worship.... Their focus of energy is to replicate it in their churches” (Careless 1999). Perhaps this influence would be less problematic if the Airport Vineyard Church was constructing corporate worship tools designed to specifically reach the Canadian psyche. However, although it is the largest producer of congregational music in Canada, much of its music is simply Vineyard music from below the border that has been recorded in Toronto or given an international gloss to serve Vineyard churches the world over. It is this music that migrates into Scandinavian settings, only to be further internationalized in its presentation.
It does not have to be a one-way flow, however, and research has shown that local and global music cultures can coexist. Even in churches dominated by the immigration of music from the megachurches, local song production can flourish. Despite 97.6 percent of Pentecostal Australian churches surveyed using Hillsong music, Robinson also found that 66 percent of those churches included music written by members of their own worship teams (2011, 116). The development of local music production in the face of global music flows is something to which future research should pay attention.
Another recurring theme to come out of the research was the issue of translation. For many Scandinavian churches in particular, this was an ever-present struggle. Two factors complicate translation: the melodic contour of the song and the language into which one is seeking to translate it. Translations can either help a song work powerfully in a local setting or destroy the original power of the song. As Tiainen noted, whether translation works “depends on the song. If it’s a good translation, then it is like, ‘wow,’ and it speaks to the heart of the congregation. But a bad translation can ruin the song, and then you should use the original.” For Tiainen, translation is ineffective when the words do not fit the melody or are inappropriate in meaning. The former challenge is particularly pertinent to the Finnish language, in which even simple words can be polysyllabic: “It is so hard to translate into Finnish. You often need to alter the melodies to do it.” Thus, translation becomes a path to local ownership, though at some expense. Lap Yin So (2011) has spoken of similar frustrations that plague the Chinese church in Hong Kong. He reported that congregants prefer to sing in English, for they feel that the language allows for greater emotional meaning to be conveyed. It also avoids the grammatical complexity inherent in the Chinese language and the pronunciation problems that arise when Mandarin songs are sung in Cantonese.
In all such examples, additions and alterations must be made to the musical properties of the songs to enable the language to work within them. In a sense, there is a degree of musical composition, or at least arrangement, that must take place. Similarly, the act of choosing an appropriate replacement for an English word, or even the attempt to create a similar sentiment overall, involves a degree of artistic choice. Hillsong itself is keenly aware of the problems, benefits, and possible creative ambiguities that arise as a result of translation. McPherson explained, “People like to worship God in their native tongue and so to truly resource the body of Christ, globally with songs, we cannot be limited to English alone. We plan to put more and more focus into this area in the coming years, with more non-English recordings and other resources.” However, while initially framing its translation efforts as a benevolent gift to the world, McPherson went on to discuss Hillsong’s desire to exert control over the final product: “We are actively involved in the translations of our songs, and if not involved directly, we have engaged sub-publishers and/or translators who work under our strict guidelines to approve and create translations on our behalf. Translations are extremely important to us.” While protecting its brand and theological position is no doubt in Hillsong’s corporate interest, it is doubtful that Hillsong will be able to stem the tide of local translations as its product continues to spread to churches throughout the world. The history of congregational song importation contains examples of local cultures adapting music to local customs and translating original lyrics into vernacular tongues (Love and Kaeppler 1998). Such examples abound throughout the Pacific Islands, where English and German hymnody was introduced and quickly manipulated to suit local custom and tradition (see Dowley 2011). Despite Hillsong’s initiatives in this area, the fact remains that much translation takes place at a local, informal level. Songs are often brought into the church by individuals who own CD recordings. Translations are made from these when a church or individual team member decides that vernacular translations are achievable. Consequently, there is often local variation between translations of the same song. It might be that the (re)localization of the global is the next key step for the expansion and health of the global Christian church.
In tracing the songlines of contemporary congregational song, we discover several important facets of this migration. The first is the speed and reach with which music from Pentecostal megachurches, no matter where they are located, is able to traverse the globe. This is largely due to mass media, social media, and the ideology of Pentecostal megachurches, which emphasize the importance of actively contributing their own music to the cultures in which they plant themselves. We see that in order for music from megachurches such as Hillsong to achieve the widest reach, songs must necessarily be stripped of identifiers that would mark them as belonging to a particular geographical location or denomination (Wagner 2014). As with other historical migrations of church music, some churches adapt the music, out of either necessity (via translation) or artistic choice. This should not be a surprise; Christians have been adopting and adapting dominant congregational song cultures for their own benefit for centuries. It makes sense that Pentecostal music is the latest vehicle for that expression, given its reach, exposure, and popularity around the world.
Moreover, Pentecostal Christians are using the music they receive from the megachurch brands to connect and unify themselves with other elements of the church. As Tiainen noted, “I think Hillsong has blessed us a lot and inspired young people to think about church music. There is this global church going around the world so global culture means that Hillsong works around the world.” The advance of a global Pentecostalism is a powerful identifier. As Butler has found in his work among Haitian churchgoers, “Pentecostals are seen as connected to a more extensive, worldwide community of Christian believers” (2008, 55).
This chapter’s analysis of global songlines reveals the potential for future congregational song. The ability of megachurches to disseminate their music internationally and of local churches to then add their own nuances might lead to the genuine development of the local within the global. New musical expressions of faith may arise as a result. Feeding these musical expressions back into the megachurches could expand musical and theological horizons enormously. As Gordon Lynch reminds us, the global reach of formerly localized worship scenes “creates cultural conditions in which certain alternative religious identities and ideologies can be transmitted across national boundaries to create the possibility of new, alternate religious transnational networks” (2006, 483). These networks could speak to the particular and simultaneously engage the world.
1. Although drawn from Aboriginal Australia, the term “songlines” has a strong resonance with the ideas in this chapter. Variously interpreted by different Aboriginal communities, this term is most often deployed to “refer to the musical expression of geographical movement associated with ancestral journeys across vast distances” (Toner 2007, 172). The physicality of the term, emphasizing every rock, tree, and water hole along the journey (Hayes 2007), combined with ancestral spirituality and eternal purpose, makes for a good fit with notions of global Christian music.
2. This research was kindly sponsored by the Department of Cultural History at the University of Turku.
3. Many thanks to research assistant Lauren Young for her work and engagement in the 2008 research project.
4. All live congregational albums feature extensive overdubbing and postproduction. The clarity and vibrancy for which Hillsong recordings have become renowned are simply not achievable in a purely live, large venue recording.
5. CCLI was initially established to assist churches and musicians with copyright licensing (including the collection and dispersal of funds). It now offers a range of services including video licenses, online subscription services for worship music, and an online television station that broadcasts worship music performances. See www.ccli.com for the full lists of top twenty-five songs from many countries around the world.
6. For more historical context on HMA and Hillsong Church, see Evans (2006).
7. Hillsong releases often perform extremely well in download sales, even in comparison to secular pop and rock releases. Hillsong Live! This Is Our God (2008) was the sixth most downloaded album across all genres on the first day of its digital release (see Spinhouse 2008). Hillsong United’s album Across the Earth: Tear Down the Walls (2009) did even better, becoming the number one downloaded album on release in the United States and Australia.
8. For more on the notion of Hillsong as a brand, see Wagner (2014).
9. Unless otherwise stipulated, all quotes from Steve McPherson are taken from email communication with the author on June 25, 2009.
10. Unless otherwise stipulated, all quotes from Sarah Tiainen are taken from an interview with the author on June 12, 2009.
11. Before her official retirement from the church in 2010.
12. “John” preferred not to give his real name, which, I believe, speaks to some of the tension and nervousness that surrounded the launch of Hillsong Stockholm. During our interview in February 2009, it was clear that John was keen to take his place on the Hillsong team and reflect the ethos of his pastor and parent church. He did, however, have opinions about the music culture that he wanted to share and was trying to ensure that he did so in a way that honored his (new) church.
13. The history of the Vineyard movement in Finland is not well documented; however, Thomas Bossius documents the growth and dominance of the Vineyard movement in Sweden (2011, 56–61).
14. See “Finland in Facts” (2014) for full details.
15. See http://www.ccli.co.za/resources/top25/ for the full list.
16. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes from Thanda Mthembu are taken from an email interview with the author on June 18, 2009, or personal communications with the author in June 2011.
17. While none of my field research consultants was able to recall a particular individual responsible for introducing Hillsong music, the most likely explanation involves a women’s shelter in Durban run by Youth for Christ. The shelter, which mainly houses girls from KwaMashu, is staffed by short-term volunteers from around the world (particularly Australia and the United States) and South African counterparts (often from KwaMashu Zulu churches). It is probable that a volunteer brought along Hillsong CDs and introduced the music to his or her Zulu colleagues.
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