Movements toward Multicultural Worship during a Pandemic

There can be no doubt that the 2020 global pandemic excavated many rudimentary principles. It highlighted humanity’s global interconnectedness and interdependence both biologically, scientifically, and economically. Yet, it also exposed the cruel underbelly of global systems that protected dominant voices at the expense of the vulnerable. In theory, the communities best placed to handle the pandemic with agility were diaspora communities that already operated within glocal yet also borderless, multicultural, transnational, and multidirectional territories. The church as the body of Christ should have the capacity to do the same. Yet without self-critical vigilance, congregations that function within the name of multiculturalism can also fall prey to a dynamic where dominant voices temper and constrain minority voices. How then can a worshiping community, romanced by the notion of hybridity, sustain true, equitable multicultural worship in a way that is not valorized or endorsed by hierarchy in such times as these? This paper describes two urban multicultural worshiping communities from a postcolonial perspective. One is Church of the Servant, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the Christian Reformed Church of North America. The second is Galway United Methodist and Presbyterian Church in Ireland. These congregations are both reformed, liturgical, urban, and have similar sympathies toward asylum seekers, refugees, and migrant workers. This description will consider worship transitions negotiated in response to the social restrictions enforced through the pandemic and how they celebrated the subaltern wisdom, creativity, and even resistance to dominant supposed “norms” in the worship space. A helpful tool for analyzing the drift toward multicultural worship is Ian Collinge’s “Moving from monocultural to multicultural worship” which identifies five positions toward multiculturalism: inherited, independent, inclusive, integrated, and innovative fusion. In inherited, there is unity without diversity. Independent groups have diversity without unity––the church is separated into ethno-linguistic congregations. Inclusive music is where there is unity with invited diversity: different groups are invited to sing songs in their own style. Integrated music is unity with blended diversity where cultures attempt to learn each other’s songs. The final position is of innovative fusion where church musicians learn new music together, exercising a blended approach to culturally conscious worship. This paper will attempt to locate each congregation on Collinge’s spectrum before and then during the pandemic to identify shifts that have taken place. Sites of contrapuntality will also be identified according to Edward Said’s use of the term which uncovers juxtapositions that reveal colonial implications.