Congregational Singing: A Public Theology

Photograph by Usama Malik (MDiv’20)

By Eric Wall

El cielo canta alegría, ¡aleluya!, porque tu vida y la mía proclamarán al Señor. Heaven is singing for joy, alleluia, for your life and mine will always bear witness to God. – Pablo Sosa, 1958

This hymn (382 in Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal, 13 in Santo Santo Santo) is one of the earliest examples in the 20th century of a Christian hymn composed in the musical language of Latin American folk music. Pablo Sosa (1934-2020), United Methodist pastor and composer, wrote it in 1958 for theological students in Argentina to sing at a picnic. The music is an example of carnavalito—an Incan communal song-dance founded on the vigorous rhythm above. The words lift up the witness that emerges from life together.

All worship is witness: all public worship is public theology. Alongside public prayers and public confessions, there is the particularly public conversation of congregational singing. Twentieth century hymnologist Erik Routley, speaking of congregational singing, said, “The principle is, of course, that anything that means a lot to you, you want to sing about.” Who God is and what God does—in us, in the church, in the world—are things cast not only in speech: we sing. It isn’t just that we sing about them—we sing them.

If congregational singing is part of the church’s public discourse and conversation, what sorely needed gifts does it offer all our other conversations? Three things come to mind. One is basic: conversation means listening. We cannot sing without listening; every choir director will tell singers that if they can’t hear their neighbor while singing, their own voice is too loud. The congregation is the real choir of all worship, and every song we sing in worship of necessity means that we’re listening to one another.

The second is that singing invites us to let go of our own claims on time. We cannot hit “refresh” to push the song along to fit our schedule, and our urgencies and updateneeds will not crowd the song out of the space it needs for its life. Our singing invites us into different time and into more time. The third is that the church’s public discourse in song is beautiful. It is energetic, poignant, tender, stirring, sorrowful, heady, delightful, foot-stomping. What if all our public witness could have that range, that kindness, that transcendence?

A college friend of my wife’s visited our church some years ago and was captivated by one of the hymns that day: “For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table.” Present as a room full of people sang it, she said afterward, “I hadn’t expected a song like that in church.” What we sing tells others who we are.

Who’ll be a witness for my Lord? My soul is a witness for my Lord. (African-American spiritual)

“El cielo canta alegría” text and music by Pablo Sosa; © 1958 GIA Publications, Inc.

Eric Wall is assistant professor of sacred music and dean of the chapel at Austin Seminary where he oversees public worship and administers the Hopson Symposium. He has served as the Conference Center Musician at Montreat Conference Center since 2011 and also serves the larger church as a music and worship consultant.