Missiological Bridge-Building
Based Upon an Emic and Etic Understanding of Culture
As Derived From Music
Anthony J. Steinbronn
Missio Apostolica Volume VII, No. 1 (May 1999)
Francis Schaeffer observed that modern music is both an avenue for creative
expression and the means through which modern man is exposed to new views of
perceived reality (Schaeffer 1976:186, 201-202). Schaeffer further believed that music is
the dominant media form in which to analyze culture since philosophy and the graphic
arts are not the medium of the masses.
Based on Schaeffer’s observations, one can conclude that music provides a
window into the soul of the recording artist and into the soul of his target audience, the
rationale being that these songs are ethnographic in nature and describe everyday life.
One method of cultural analysis would be to listen to the lyrics of the most popular songs
of a specific year, decade or generation (especially those songs which continue to have
playing time long after the song was a hit) in order to identify and isolate the cultural
trends and motifs of that period.
In the following article I will briefly examine five songs from two popular
recording artists in order to understand their views regarding the nature of man, the
orientation of man and the social location of religion. The first recording artist is Bruce
Springsteen, who was one of the dominant artists of the 1980s. The second artist is Sting,
who is one of the dominant artists of the 1990s. Both men have a large following. Their
lyrics, referred to this paper, achieved significant playing time when they were released
and still continue to be heard on the airwaves.
Fallen Human Man: Hungry Heart
In his song “Hungry Heart” Bruce Springsteen presents ethnographic data
concerning the fallen human nature of man. The main character of the song is a man with
a wife and child in suburban America. One day he decides to go for a ride, but he never
returns home. Instead, he experiences an adulterous affair of short duration. He
acknowledges that he made a wrong turn in life but, instead of returning home, he just
kept on going.
In the song’s chorus Springsteen’s observation that all people have a “hungry
heart” provides some of the most descriptive lines in modern music concerning fallen
human nature when he identifies the source of human failure to make the right kind of
turns in life and to live a life which is pleasing in God’s sight.
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The story of fallen human creatures is the story of hungry hearts; hungry, not for
God’s righteousness, but for sin. The sins of our hungry human hearts defile us and
accuse us before God. As Springsteen looks around at the behaviors of others, he
observes the universal scope of humankind’s guilt in that all people have “a hungry,
hungry heart.” Paul acknowledged this same universal guilt before God when he quoted
from Isaiah to God’s people gathered in Rome:
There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
All have turned away, they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good, not even one. Romans 3:10-12
Human Orientation: Dancing in the Dark
As modern people look into the mirror of their lives, they really do not like much
of what they see. They think maybe a different “look” in terms of clothes, hair or face
might be the answer. They know that there is something happening somewhere, but they
just cannot find it. They turn on the radio hoping to received some kind of message, but,
as Springsteen describes the emptiness, the message may get clearer, but the dump in
which the singer is living and the image in that mirror prevent him from finding good in
himself or his current pursuits. He can only utter an articulate hope that some vague
thing may be happening elsewhere.
In the next stanza Springsteen observes that the urban jungle, the place where the
masses of the world are taking up residence, offers no solution since the street is the place
where a person only gets “carved up” and disfigured. In the end, the main character
settles for a “love reaction” and a little companionship while they dance together in the
dark.
As with “Hungry Hearts” Springsteen, in the song’s chorus, identifies the tragic
condition and orientation of modern people when he sings that “we’ve just dancing in the
dark.” In the use of the dance metaphor, there is movement and a brief encounter along
life’s way, but all of this momentary dancing takes place in the dark. Moreover, the main
character acknowledges that he needs something from outside himself to ignite his life,
but he cannot seem to find the spark to get the fire of life burning. He settles for the
fleeting, passionate fire of eros.
The Social Location of Religion
One of the most insightful recording artists of our day is British rocker Sting. In
the song “All This Time” Sting describes postmodern society from the perspective of a
postmodern man. Sting, from the vantage point of a dechristianized Europe, describes
the death of Christianity. In the song he relates that only the river which flows into the
sea is constant and eternal. The church steeple in the distance serves only as the dwelling
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place of birds because of its antiquated and irrelevant message. As he surveys daily life
events, he is unable to see God or experience His presence. Thus, his question is: “If the
Father and Jesus exist, how come they never live here?”
Not only has Sting lost his faith in God, he has also lost his faith in
“Enlightenment” man. In his song “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You,” Sting observes that
science, progress, dogma, politicians, and military solutions have all failed in their quest
toward utopia; instead, “we’ve been going from a blessing to a curse.”
Since both God and humankind are incapable of giving us a “perfect” world,
Sting advises postmodern man in “Fields of Gold” that humankind’s orientation in life
should be to “forget the sun [Son] in his jealous sky,” find a lover, walk and lie in the
fields of gold, watch the children run in the fields of barley, and be remembered by your
lover and children when death comes.
Agreement between the Philosophical and Musical Texts
This lyrical assessment by Sting that the modern has entered a postmodern period
finds agreement with the writings of the Christian philosophers Diogenes Allen and
Thomas Oden. According to Allen, the “foundations of the modern world are collapsing,
and we are entering a postmodern world. The principles forged during the Enlightenment
which formed the foundations of the modern mentality, are crumbling” (Allen 1989:2).
For Oden, we “are already through the funeral of the four key assumptions of modernity
(autonomous individualism, narcissistic hedonism, reductive naturalism, and absolute
moral relativism), although it may take time to realize just how unresponsive are the
corpses” (Oden 1994:19).
Basic Conclusions
Anthropologists have developed two primary methods of understanding culture.
An Emic understanding of culture is needed to understand how the people see the world
and why they respond as they do. An Etic understanding of culture is needed to compare
one culture with other cultures and to test its understandings of the world against reality
(Hiebert 1985:97).
The analysis of modern music assists the learner to possess an emic understanding
of culture in that the musical lyrics grant the perceptive listener a window into how the
recording artist sees the world and why he lives as he does. A proper knowledge of the
Scriptures permits the Christian believer to compare the Biblical view of reality with the
views of reality being expressed in the musical lyrics. Once these two understandings
have been achieved, missiological bridge-building can begin.
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A worldview invasion
Francis Schaeffer, in his observations concerning the ways in which new ideas
and ways of living are introduced into a culture, postulated that music has the ability to
cross human boundaries which are normally closed to philosophy, art, and other forms of
media. In other words, the worldview of modern man shapes modern music and this
worldview invades the receptor’s frame of reference through the vehicle of music.
This assessment of the influence which music exerts upon a culture was attested
by the journalists of the 1960s who called the music of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and
other British recording artists: “the British invasion.” In the musical lyrics of John
Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger, the worldview and life experiences of certain
subcultures within British society were introduced to American consciousness in an
invasive way. Along with the lyrics, there were certain attitudes and behaviors which
were connected with the new music.
In modern terms, what is the form and lyrical content of the musical invasion in
our day? What attitudes and behaviors are connected with the music? How might an
assessment of these lyrics assist God’s people in understanding the contours of our
modern and postmodern world?
Removing the roof
Every person we speak with has a set of presuppositions. By presuppositions I
mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic worldview, the grid through
which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be
the truth of what exists. Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and
therefore the basis for their decisions (Schaeffer 1976:83). Yet, no matter what people
may believe, they cannot change the reality of what is (Schaeffer 1976:132). Thus all
people, irrespective of their system, are caught. They cannot make their own universe
and then live in it; somewhere there is a point of inconsistency (Schaeffer 1976:133).
Moreover, everyone has built a roof over his head to shield himself at the point of
tension; that is, the point where a person has reached the end of his presuppositions. The
roof is built as a protection against the blows of the real world, both internal and external.
Christians must lovingly remove the shelter and allow the truth of the external world and
what it means to be human, to beat upon them (Schaeffer 1976:140).
When the roof is off, each person must stand naked and wounded before the truth
of what is (Schaeffer 1976:140). This is what shows him his need. Then the Scriptures
can show the real nature of his lostness and the answer (Schaeffer 1976:141). Everyone
must realize that his system of presuppositions has no answer to the crucial questions of
life. He must come to know that his roof is false protection against the storm of what is
(Schaeffer 1976:141).
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In order to communicate the Biblical message to modern individuals, we must
begin to deal with them by witnessing “at the place where they can understand.” Often
modern people do understand the horrible point of meaninglessness as was expressed by
Springsteen in “Dancing in the Dark.” The great challenge of the modern age is “how to
communicate the Gospel so that it is understood” (Schaeffer 1976:145). It is my premise
that the study of modern music can assist the Christian in understanding the modern
world, and its metaphors, so that Gospel communication can be understood by the
receptor.
The bridge-building metaphor
John Stott, in “Between Two Worlds,” defines the proclamation and missionary
endeavors of the church through the metaphor of bridge building. “Now a bridge is a
means of communication between two places which would otherwise be cut off from one
another by a river or a ravine. It makes possible a flow of traffic which without it would
be impossible” (Stott 1982:137-138).
In the construction of these missiological bridges God’s people, as instruments of
Missio Dei, have been called and enlightened by the Holy Spirit “to relate the biblical
message to their particular culture” (Stott 1982:139) and to relate God’s unchanging
Word to our ever changing world.
The missionary task is to “faithfully translate the Word of God into modern
language and thought categories, and to make it present in our day” (Stott 1982:149).
This kind of bridge building and missionary encounter is possible since “the One we
preach in not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world nor
even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived
and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today” (Stott 1982:154).
Metaphors that people live by
The metaphors used in the lyrics of these songs, when analyzed, permit the
learner a clearer understanding of the language and thought-categories of the recording
artist and his views concerning the major categories of worldview: the nature and
orientation of God, the nature and orientation of human creatures, how God works in the
world, the basis and nature of truth, ethics and the social location of religion.
As a missionary, I appreciate the metaphors used by Springsteen in the titles of
his songs which describe the nature and orientation of the human creature: “Hungry
Heart” and “Dancing in the Dark.” These metaphors find rich expression in the Biblical
text and provide ample opportunity for the contextualization of the Biblical message in
terms of Law and Gospel.
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For example, David had a hungry heart for Bathsheba. He was so hungry for her
that he was willing to kill her husband so that he might have her to himself. Nathan
exposed the hungry heart of David so that David could possess a true understanding of
his reality before God. David, in his prayer of repentance and faith, asked God to create
in him a clean heart; a heart that would hunger after God’s righteousness and God’s
design for living. God, in His mercy, filled the hungry heart of David with His grace and
forgiveness.
Or, to the people of Naphtali and Zebulun, the region of Palestine where Jesus did
much of His ministry, Isaiah said that these people were, to use a modern metaphor,
dancing in the dark. It was to these people that the true Light of the world had come
(Isaiah 9; John 1).
To Sting’s search for the immediate presence of God in the world, we have
Biblical and confessional answers in Luther’s use of the concept of Larvae Dei. God is
among us all this time, but He must veil Himself as He comes to man in a form which
sinful man can bear; namely, the Incarnation of the Son, the Word and the Sacraments.
Concluding Thoughts
Anyone who has attended a rock concert and witnessed the near creedal aspects of
the musical lyrics, along with the cultic actions of the performer and audience, can attest
that the observation of Schaeffer is true; that is, music is a means through which modern
human beings expresses their view of perceived reality. It is, indeed, the hymnody of the
world in which the people of the world express their beliefs and design for living.
The value of analyzing the various forms of music is that it permits the learner the
opportunity to take note of the language and the thought-forms used and to gain an
understanding into the journey of the performer and target audience. This being done,
one can begin to understand the context into which the Word of God must be sown.
Moreover, the contours of the cultural context are expressed in these metaphors thereby
providing the Christian with a window of insight and opportunity for dialog and the
evangelical witness of God’s Word.
It is my contention that God’s people, in its study of a world filled with false
believers, would benefit greatly through a current study of philosophy and music in order
to understand the journey of modern man, empathize with his plight, and speak a message
in the thought-forms and anxieties of the day. In order to accomplish this we need to
understand their own worldview, but also that of other people, so that we can first
understand and then genuinely communicate with others in a pluralistic society (Sire
1982:15).
Once these primary understandings of culture have been understood, Christians
can seek to communicate the Biblical texts winsomely and evangelically to the context
through confessional, hermeneutical and Law-Gospel understandings and applications.
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