Ethnodoxology's Time is Here: How Engaging Local Artists Can Expand God’s Kingdom

Please check out this excellent interview with Brian Schrag, SIL International’s Ethnomusicology and Arts Coordinator.  Brian developed the World Arts program at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas, Texas, and is interviewed here by Robin Harris, the President of the International Council of Ethnodoxologists and Coordinator of the MA in World Arts program at GIAL.

In the interview, Brian explains what ethnodoxology is and why locally grounded artistic communication is so powerful for the expansion of the kingdom of God.  He goes on to describe the process of doing ethnodoxology in a community and the impact it can have for those people and for the Kingdom.

Here is an excerpt from the interview that gives a hint of the potential impact of ethnodoxology:

RPH: If we, the church, adopt the kind of approach you used in [Democratic Republic of Congo], what do you think will happen? 

BES: If ethnodoxology becomes the primary approach to growth in mission and worship: 

• Minority artists and their arts will be well integrated into their community’s church life.
• The church will become an engine for revitalization of minority arts and their communities, rather than a frequent contributor to their demise.
• Sharing of artistic resources in the church will move both from minority to majority cultures and vice versa.
• More artistic forms will be represented around God’s throne (Rev 7:9-12) and in his city (Rev 21:22-27).

Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art

Since teaching for a week last September on analyzing visual arts at GIAL, I've wanted to find a book that describes the role of visual arts in indigenous cultures from an anthropological perspective.  That is, a book that explains the purpose of visual artifacts in traditional/nonwestern cultures– why they were created at all and how such cultures "use" and perceive them.  Ultimately, why these artifacts were created at all.

In addition, a book that also explains how to identify these artifacts (harder than it sounds– what is art, anyway?) and how to describe/analyze them.

I used a couple of books (here and here) in the class that offered collections of writings by various authors on one aspect of the topic or another, but none which gave a comprehensive understanding.  I recently ordered a couple of similar texts (here and here), which I've just begun to peruse.

But I think I may have finally found the book that comes closest: Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art by Evelyn Payne Hatcher.  I hope this is the one, if for no other reason because it's becoming an expensive quest!  Once I've read it I'll share my thoughts here.  One reviewer writes,

Hatcher's background and research in both anthropology and art give her a command of a broad view nowhere else offered in the literature. Hers is the only book in the anthropology of art that covers all the major well-known tribal art styles, juxtaposes them with the arts of civilizations usually left to art historians, and introduces the reader to a full range of theoretical approaches to interpretation. While Hatcher's scholarly, thorough presentation of familiar styles provides many fresh insights, her theoretical stance is reassuringly familiar and solidly anthropological: the arts are understood comparatively, in context, and in all their complexity; in short, as culture.

It looks to be a good read, for someone like me at least!

A Busy September!

I've been back at home for about a week, after having been out out of town for two weeks in September.  I wanted to give a report on what I've been doing, since all of it related to arts and missions.