This is good stuff
important to me
It is John Bell
A top speaker at
The Greenbelt Festival
(get there if you can
with changing your life
- changes always needed
just look at me -
I am in the changing room)
'I recall meeting a musician from El Salvador, William Ramírez,
and asking him to teach me a song from his country.
He gave me the text in Spanish, which I had translated into English
so I could try to fit the English text to the Hispanic tune.
When I looked at the words
I saw that they were far too political-
-all about corrupt judges and corrupt courts.
Then I discovered it was
Psalm 94.
By teaching me that song he opened me to the witness
in the Psalms of God's preferential option for the poor
and of God's engagement in matters of social justice.
Otherwise I would not have known that.
I would have sung and read the Psalms
as private spiritual nuggets
and never have known they had a political and economic dimension.
What other gifts-
-theological and musical-
-might we receive from songs being sung in
Japan or
Peru or
Zimbabwe?
If the church in the Northern Hemisphere does not
in the next ten years
use songs that come from Asia,
South America
and Africa,
it'll be deemed racist.
It will be seen as a case of musical apartheid.
Most Christians in the world are black and poor.
They're not white and affluent.
If that's the body of Christ of which we are a member,
then we have to share the joy and the pain of fellow members.'
(John Bell)
