What language does God speak, and how can the metaphor of language help us better understand our relationship to God? Dr. Jean Kidula, Professor of Music at the University of Georgia, shows how thinking about dialect expands our ways of thinking about the music we use to worship God.

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Resources Mentioned on This Episode:

Music in Kenyan Christianity: Logooli Religious Song by Jean Kidula

Transcript of The Language of God with Jean Kidula, on Music and the Church with Sarah Bereza Ep. 44

Sarah Bereza: Let's start out by talking about Song as a kind of metaphor, song as something that is a way to speak with, and to, and about God. What do you think about that?

Jean Kidula: That I think has been a fundamental part of many religions, that people use song to speak to God, to speak about God, to speak for God. In that sense, a mode of communication or as a representation, or as a way of emphasizing particular types of either words, activities, injunctions from God - where song becomes an effective carrier or an effective mode, or the Word itself, you know, because it's more than text, just words themselves.

Because in the song there are ways that you actually pitch it that gains attention. So we have lots of instances in many religions where people intone or recite, and it's not real speech, it feels like recitation or something. And then it develops into song when people start to emphasize certain aspects of it as being maybe crucial or central to the message. So it's it's not a novel thing to think like that - not just about the text, but actually about what how you pitch it, and how you tone it, and what pitches you use, what emotion you're going to portray in whatever melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic gestures you use, that sometimes are associated with particular messages, or particular people, or deities. So it's not a strange thing.

Song Dialects Can Teach Us About the Language God Speaks

Sarah Bereza: So we have this metaphor of language for song, or song as a language and as a means of speaking to God, and with God, and about God. And then we have this understanding of a song as a dialect. So it might be like a genre song or regional practice something, something that's localized. And you've said something really interesting about this, and I'm going to quote you now, "Some dialects collectively denote an understanding about the language God speaks." So we have the Christian here (or collectively as a congregation), speaking to God, and we have God speaking to us.

Jean Kidula: I get fascinated by God as a believer because I am so different from you, but He speaks to us in the dialect that we understand individually. And you have a tribe of people that are part of your musical group, who speak a certain dialect of music, and I speak another dialect, and maybe there's some that we speaking in common. God understands all of them. That's where I come from. The differences that we have, tell us something about our own differences. But at the same time, they tell us something about the diversity of who God is.

Sarah Bereza: Like how big God is?

Jean Kidula: Not just, yes, let's see how big God is. But how, like my father used to say, how vast is the sum. You know that that verse that says "how vast is the sum of them, were I to number them?" The thoughts that God has, for me, personally, are so vast, or His ways are so magnificent. And it's like a kaleidoscope of colors. And you might like blue. And just one shade of blue, and blue is a dialect of of color. I don't think that many people think about how the others relate to God as a dimension of the glory of God. So sometimes people think a dialect is the total language. A dialect is just one type in the language.

Sarah Bereza: Yes, just one piece.