Introduction (Kiran)
Over the past five weeks, we’ve been listening to a rich and stimulating conversation led by David, who traced a profound path through the Western musical imagination, starting from Greek roots and Christian chant, through Bach and Beethoven, to Wagner, Messiaen, Cage, and Pärt.
Along the way, David kept returning to a searching question:
When does music become grace, and when does it become a substitute for grace?
He described how sound can humble the soul or inflate it; how beauty can point beyond itself or become an idol; how music can function as prayer, as theology, as manipulation, or as silence that listens back.
At the same time, the arc we followed was primarily shaped by Western tradition, so, since that is the tradition David knows most deeply, and was guiding us through with care. We did hear glimpses from elsewhere, and those moments raised further curiosity: how might this same question sound when heard through musical worlds formed by different histories and assumptions?
It was in response to earlier remarks in our class about musical instruments and music beyond the Western canon that the idea arose for us to offer a reflection drawn from Indonesian and Indian musical traditions.
Since David concluded his five-part series last week, today isn’t an added “chapter,” but something closer to what he proposed: a coda.
A coda is a closing section added at the end of a piece. It doesn’t introduce a new argument; it helps what has already been said come to rest and feel complete. In music, a coda lets earlier themes return briefly so they can settle, echo, and be heard with fresh meaning. That is what we hope to do today: receive David’s framework with gratitude and then listen within it a little more widely.
So, the central question for today is:
What happens to our main argument if we listen to musical traditions formed by different aesthetic instincts and different spiritual sensibilities?
In other words:
If grace begins with God’s action toward us, how might that truth sound when it is heard—not as a new doctrine—but through other ears?
To explore that question, we are providing the “other” ears from Indonesian and Indian cultures.
Indonesia: Music as Communal Order (Reinhard)
When Western listeners first encounter Indonesian music, they often describe it as exotic. But that word usually tells us more about the listener than about the music. It signals unfamiliarity, not strangeness. Indonesian musical traditions are not oriented toward novelty or individual display; they are oriented toward order—specifically, toward the ordering of people in relation to one another.
What Indonesian music assumes—across its many traditions—is something quite radical from a Western perspective. It assumes that music is not an expression of the individual soul. It is, rather, an enactment of communal order.
In much Western music, meaning arises from the interiority of the composer or the virtuosity of the performer. In Indonesian music, meaning does not come from personal brilliance, emotional intensity, or harmonic progression toward climax. It comes from interlocking—from many partial voices coordinating themselves into a whole that no one voice could produce alone.
This is evident across native Indonesian musical forms and instruments—the gamelan, kolintan, angklung, and suling. There is (usually) no spotlighted soloist, no elevated voice that carries the meaning on behalf of the group. Each part is intentionally incomplete. The music depends on mutual attentiveness. To play well is, above all, to listen well.
The angklung makes this principle almost unavoidable. Much like handbell ringers, each participant holds an instrument capable of producing only one or two pitches. No melody exists unless everyone enters at precisely the right moment. No one can play the piece alone. Music happens only when the community listens attentively to itself. This is not merely cooperation; it is a lived discipline of restraint and trust.
This group of schoolgirls playing O Sole Mio illustrates the point clearly.
[Angklung]
Here, musical success is not measured by expressiveness or technical mastery, but by alignment. To play out of turn, to dominate the texture, or to assert oneself is, in a way, disharmonious.
The kolintan, which originates from Minahasa in North Sulawesi—a region that is predominantly Christian—extends this same logic into a different tonal world. Christian hymns and secular songs alike are transformed not by harmony in the Western sense, but by shared resonance. As with the angklung, the sound belongs to no one and to everyone at once.
[Kolintan]
Perhaps the clearest expression of this worldview appears in gamelan, globally the most widely recognized Indonesian musical tradition. There is usually no conductor standing above the ensemble. Leadership, where it exists, is embedded within the group rather than imposed from outside. Musical time is cyclical rather than linear. The music does not strive toward a climax or resolution; it returns, again and again, to balance.
[Gamelan]
This sense of time matters. Western sacred music often moves toward fulfillment—toward revelation, redemption, or arrival. Gamelan inhabits time rather than progressing through it. Order is not something achieved at the end; it is something maintained, moment by moment. The moral task is not ascent, but attunement.
From the perspective suggested by David’s talks, this suggests a very different understanding of grace.
Grace here is not bestowed upon the listener by an external authority—the composer, the performer, or even God, imagined as acting from outside the community. Nor is grace something produced through emotional intensity or spiritual striving. Instead, grace emerges when the community is rightly ordered—when each person occupies their place attentively and without domination.
Music, in this tradition, is not prayer spoken to God. It is order enacted among people.
And in that sense, Indonesian music does theology without ever having to name it. It embodies a vision in which humility is not a moral exhortation but a structural necessity, and in which grace is not summoned, manufactured, or earned—but becomes perceptible when resistance, excess, and self-assertion fall away.
What matters is not who is playing, but whether the whole is rightly aligned.
India: Music as Spiritual Practice (Kiran)
If Indonesian music invites us to rethink the self in relation to the community, Indian music invites us to rethink the self in relation to reality itself. One simple way to frame this contrast is as follows: Western sacred music often declares the Divine by naming the Divine, describing the Divine, and pointing toward the Divine, whereas Indian sacred music generally assumes the Divine is already present within and seeks to attune the listener to that presence.
Because of this assumption, music in the Indian tradition is not primarily an expression of belief or doctrine. It functions instead as a spiritual discipline, a practiced way of listening, focusing, and aligning oneself to the Divine. The goal is not to assert something about God, but to become receptive to what is already there.
Musically, this difference starts at the foundation. Indian classical music begins with nāda. Nādam simply means sound as living vibration, not just “a note you hit,” but a pulse of energy that moves, carries presence, and can awaken the soul. In that sense, nāda is heard as more than acoustics: it becomes a way the Divine is encountered, through vibration that draws us into attention, stillness, and reverence.
Now, you will hear nāda as a sustained tanpura drone. Here, sound is experienced not as melody or rhythm, but as a living vibration that invites stillness and attentive listening.
[Tanpura Drone (Nāda)]
Even with this emphasis on vibration and stillness, the tradition is far from formless. Nāda is the starting vision, while the music itself is guided by a very disciplined grammar. The goal is not harmonic correctness but attunement: microtones matter, intonation matters, and how a note moves matters.
That disciplined grammar includes a named solfège system called Sargam (Sa–Re–Ga–Ma–Pa–Dha–Ni–Sa), comparable to the Western Do–Re–Mi. Yet in practice, these syllables are rarely sung as fixed, uninflected pitches. Each note is shaped through gamakas. Gamakas or ornamentations are expressive movements into, away from, and around a pitch. In some traditions, as many as 15 named types of gamakas are described.
In Indian classical music, notes are organized within a raga, a melodic framework that defines which notes are used, how they move, and which phrases give the music its character. In many rāgas, the identity of a note is inseparable from its movement. What defines music, then, is not harmonic progression but the living relationship of how these notes are understood through motion, contour, and return to a tonal center. It is believed that there are 84 main ragas and up to 400,000 variations.
This musical logic reflects something common in Indian religious life: unity with diversity. There is one center and a shared spiritual aim. But people move toward that center through many legitimate paths and practices. Structure is present, but it is not enforced as a single uniform pattern. Devotion remains oriented, but it is not standardized. Just as a rāga is recognized not merely by which notes it uses but by how those notes move and return to their tonic, so spiritual life is often understood less as one approved method and more as many disciplined ways of staying aligned with what is ultimately real. In that framework, multiple pathways are not treated as threats to truth, but as different modes of faithful orientation toward the same center.
Now you will hear Kharaharapriya rāgam. It begins with a free exploration of the rāga—just notes shaped by gamakas (ornamentation). Later, you will hear a composed section with lyrics, where the singer addresses Lord Rama: “Rama, who can be equal to you?”
[Kharaharapriya Raga]
Time, too, is experienced differently in Indian classical music. It is cyclical and elastic: a rāga is not so much performed as entered. It unfolds gradually, circling its tonal center, lingering, returning, and deepening—so the listener is not carried toward a single resolution but invited to dwell. This sense of musical time is shaped by silence as well. Sound emerges from silence and returns to it, much like breath or prayer, so silence is not mere absence but an active presence that frames and gives meaning to what is sung or played. This changes the whole posture of the event: in many Western settings, we clearly separate performer and audience, leader and congregation, but in Indian sacred music, the musician is first a seeker. Technical skill matters, yet authenticity is measured less by precision than by inner alignment, and the listener is not a passive recipient but a participant, drawn into the same attentive listening and inward focus.
The aim, then, is not emotional uplift or dramatic assurance, but stillness. Not stimulation, but attunement. To use the language we’ve been developing together: Indian sacred music does not attempt to lift the soul upward toward God through intensity or declaration. Instead, it quiets the soul inwardly, so that the Divine—already present—can be perceived and encountered.
In Christian terms, this offers a helpful picture of grace. We do not climb toward God through spiritual effort; God comes toward us first as a gift. When striving quiets, grace is received. And as the noise settles, God’s nearness becomes easier to recognize.
And yet, there is a final paradox worth noting. Unlike many Western worship songs, which can be learned quickly and sung together by an entire congregation, Indian classical music, because of its depth and intricacy, often requires years of disciplined practice, and only a few reach true mastery. Similarly, Indian spiritual traditions speak of grace (anugraha) as abundant and freely given, apart from human effort, yet rarely realized—not because it is withheld, but because the external noise of striving and works, and the heart’s resistance, must be quieted before the inner voice of grace can be heard.
You can read an excellent article on the Hindu concept of grace, Anugraha, at the link below. This article explains anugraha as divine grace that is not merely a reward or “blessing,” but an active, compassionate presence that stays close to the seeker—guiding, sustaining, and drawing the heart toward surrender and spiritual realization. See how many parallels you can find between this understanding and the way Christian grace has been discussed in our class.
Conclusion: Grace Reconsidered (Reinhard)
So what do these traditions—Indonesia and India—do to the story we’ve been telling? Do they contradict it? We don’t think so. But we do think they test it.
- In Indonesia, grace appears when the community listens deeply enough to itself.
- In India, grace is realized when the self grows quiet enough to listen to reality.
- In the Western tradition, grace has often been approached through expression and proclamation, sometimes yielding great beauty, and sometimes risking confusion between grace and its effects.
Wagner reminds us what happens when beauty forgets humility. Messiaen and Pärt remind us that grace often whispers rather than shouts. Indonesia and India remind us that grace may not need to be summoned at all.
What we have tried to show is that grace is not something music delivers, but something music teaches us to stop resisting. Do you agree? And if you do, doesn’t it imply that listening—real listening—is itself a spiritual discipline?
In any event, it seems that music, at its best, is not an escape from the world, but a way of being rightly present within it. And that, perhaps, is where all of these traditions finally meet—not in doctrine, not in style, but in attentiveness.
Since we are still in the Christmas season, I would like to share a story from World War I that many of you may have heard. It illustrates how profoundly music can affect human lives, even in the midst of conflict.
The story concerns opposing groups of soldiers—German and Allied—who found themselves facing one another along parts of the Western Front in 1914. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, there was a spontaneous and temporary ceasefire in some areas to honor the holiday. Accounts from the time describe carols being sung across the trenches, including “Silent Night” (Stille Nacht), sometimes first in German and then echoed by the opposing side.
For a brief moment, enemies joined in song, and a fragile peace emerged—not through command or negotiation, but through shared humanity. The story reminds us of how powerful music can be, and how it can function as a gift—much like grace itself—given freely and unexpectedly, even in the darkest of circumstances.
What do you think?
C-J: I think the influence of music is something very personal that resonates with our soul, regardless of past, present, or future. I have preferences—there are things I enjoy and others that feel too loud or too busy. Even my response can depend on my mood on a given day. But music is certainly a tool for transition. It can move us toward something spiritual through vibration, and sometimes it surprises us. It can heal us, or help us move away from what has been disturbing us and into something filled with grace—whether that happens intentionally for spiritual reasons or simply by being unexpectedly exposed to music. Music really is a gift.
Don: I’d be interested to know what the relationship is between religious music and Islam, if anyone has any knowledge of that. It seems to me that music is like a language. It’s a cultural phenomenon you’re born into and socialized with, and its appeal can vary widely. Personal preference often comes from where you were born, how you were raised, and what kind of music you grew up with.
Reinhard: When Kiran mentioned anugraha, I noticed that anugra is actually an Indonesian word as well. It means “grace,” and it’s very commonly used. Looking at this culturally, I think much of Asia—other than China—was historically influenced by India. Early Indonesian societies were shaped by large Hindu kingdoms that controlled much of Southeast Asia. Sanskrit words remain embedded in Indonesian language, which shows that early Hindu religious influence reached Indonesia long before Islam arrived.
When I listened to the Indian music Kiran shared, especially the second piece, I could hear similarities to sounds familiar in parts of Indonesia, including Java. This suggests that culture, religion, and music are deeply embedded together. When Islam later arrived, it developed its own identity, including musical forms and instruments—possibly including adaptations of gamelan.
Today, Bali remains predominantly Hindu, while Java is mostly Muslim, but historical traces remain, such as Borobudur temple in Java, which shows how dominant Hinduism once was in Indonesia, particularly before Islam arrived around the fifteenth or sixteenth century. As rulers converted, people followed. Christianity arrived later, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including in my own region.
I share this simply to point out how tightly culture, music, and religion are intertwined in Indonesia.
Carolyn: When I listen to Indonesian and Indian music, I find myself deeply drawn to the vibrations of the instruments themselves, perhaps because they’re unfamiliar to me.
If I were worshiping in Indonesia or India, what would make religious music sound different from other music? What distinguishes praise to God in those contexts?
Donald: I took music classes in college—fundamentals or appreciation of music—and Western music was presented almost immediately as “classical” music. That raises the question: who decides that Western music is classical?
Don used the phrase “agreed language,” which means we collectively decide how we’re going to think and talk together. In music, it seems similar. We had hymns for years that were considered sacred music in Western settings. Then praise music came along, and suddenly hymns were no longer central. Even within praise music, we debate what is appropriate and what is not.
What Reinhard and Kiran introduced this morning reflects very different musical assumptions—playing one note as part of a group, or understanding music as vibration. Yet when we bring it back to our context, we see that all music has a lineage. Rap, jazz, classical, rock—all have pathways tracing how they came to be.
So there are many agreed musical languages. When we sit together and share hymns, we speak a common language and can feel spiritually lifted together. But if I suddenly start talking about the Beatles, that’s another language—still Western, but different.
How do we define what makes music sacred, when even within our own tradition there’s such variation? It would be interesting for each of us to bring a piece of music we consider sacred and see how much overlap there really is.
Carolyn: I would really like to know how I could worship meaningfully in India, observing the music they use to worship God, or in Indonesia with the music they use there. What I’ve often seen is that many congregations have adopted Western music. When I’ve attended worship services, I’ve been able to praise God meaningfully because of that familiarity.
We all have memories—especially of when we first found the Lord and the joy that came with that experience. Often, music is part of that joy. I wish I could walk into a mosque and worship with Muslims, or sit with monks in Indonesia or Thailand, and know where they are spiritually—feel that we are one in praising God, through their music.
Kiran: In India, almost anything works. You can worship God in many different ways—that’s really the point. Some of the earliest hymns in the Hebrew Bible were sung by Israel while they were traveling through the wilderness, recounting what God had done for them. Music was a way of remembering and transmitting that story to the next generation.
That same idea exists in India. We have mantras. Many Hindus begin their day by reciting the Gayatri Mantra. It has rises and falls in tone, but it also has a Sanskrit text that functions like a prayer—somewhat like the Lord’s Prayer. The Bhagavad Gita is another example, where Lord Krishna, understood as an incarnation of God, speaks to Arjuna about the nature of the universe and divine reality. There are poetic passages in it, and it’s said that if you recite even a couple of verses daily and try to live by them, you will reach heaven.
Growing up, my experience was very physical and sensory. You go to temples—stone structures with specific shapes—and simply entering the compound creates a calming presence. There’s quiet, the smell of incense, the sound of bells, and music. Someone may be singing Indian classical music in praise of God. You sit there, and over time—half an hour, an hour—you become quiet inside. You come in noisy, and you leave centered.
In churches, both in the U.S. and in India where worship is often Westernized, we sing loudly about God’s attributes. That also serves a purpose: it helps us remember what God has done. In India, we call similar devotional songs bhajans. But Indian classical music is very intricate and delicate, and it doesn’t work well for congregational singing, so congregational singing is relatively rare.
In Indian temples, there isn’t a fixed worship time. You go whenever you feel the need. There’s structure, but you can approach it in many ways and still have a meaningful spiritual experience. That’s why it’s hard to pin down exactly what Hinduism is—it allows for many forms of engagement.
Reinhard: To respond to Carolyn’s question, I can really only speak from the area I come from. I believe that before Christianity arrived, musical instruments like the kolintang were already used in rituals or community events. When Christianity came in the eighteenth century, Western sacred music became central to church worship.
The kolintang already existed, and over time it was incorporated into Christian worship as an accompaniment. Music became an added element—almost like food accompanying the main meal of worship. Today, there are Indonesian Christian songs recorded and played at home, and instruments like angklung and kolintang are used during church services with sacred songs.
These instruments are played in both secular and sacred settings, and in worship they help uplift the congregation and contribute to a meaningful Sabbath experience. Special music is something people look forward to as part of the service.
Donald: So what do we do with the evidence of the hymnal as a church? It doesn’t just say hymnal—it says Adventist Hymnal. How does that relate to this conversation this morning?
C-J: You don’t have to stay in the box. It doesn’t matter which culture or music someone shares—none of it rises above another. The problem comes when we stay inside the box. That limits us, and it limits how God moves across the waters.
Donald: But the Adventist Church takes great pride (there’s that word again!) in being a world organization.
C-J: God gave the Israelites a desert—no temple—just, “I am with you always. This is my creation. You will find me here.”
Donald: Most of us here come from, or are very familiar with, the Adventist heritage, and we’ve found comfort in that. None of us are very young anymore, and we stayed with the corporate church. In many ways, even what some might call an Adventist “ghetto” is actually quite broad in how it interprets things, but it does have structured components.
I agree that it can feel like a tight box. But the Sabbath School lesson, for example, is studied worldwide each week—except for us. Over the years, I took Adventist young people to East Africa, and when we entered Sabbath worship services there, the Adventist Hymnal was raised. The musical tone may have differed, but the hymns were recognizable.
Adventist education, publications, and worship practices are corporate elements, and for those of us who still participate in that structure, they can feel soothing. As Don said earlier, it becomes a shared language.
C-J: What makes Adventists think they’re any different from the Catholic Church—or any organized structure created to receive tax exemption? It’s just a different flavor of ice cream. That’s a mistake. God’s language is inclusive. The word “God” itself, as we use it in English, is inclusive.
What Kiran described is really foundational: let’s not get too wrapped up in ourselves. Enter the temple quietly. Let the vibration exist. Find peace. Then go back into a chaotic and noisy world and do your best. Is it perfect? No. Will I reach nirvana? Maybe. Is that my goal today? No.
My goal is to be kind, loving, forgiving, and generous—mandates shared across faiths. Whenever human pride gets in the way, it becomes a slippery slope. You think you’re listening, but you’re really having a private conversation in your own head.
If I’m going to learn from another culture, I can’t just look at it like a postage stamp on a map. I have to immerse myself fully. I have to leave my identity and culture at the threshold. Only then can the experience be transformational—whether I later incorporate it or dismiss it. Anyone who has truly spent time in another culture knows it can’t be done authentically any other way.
Carolyn: I don’t think the shepherds took violin lessons. I don’t know what instruments were used—like the sitar in India or the kolintang in Indonesia—but that night, the heavens were filled with music. I’d love to know what kind of music it was. It was glory to God. It was praise.
I don’t think my mind can fully expand to imagine the sound and glory that came from heaven that night.
Donald: You know exactly what kind of music it was. Just start listening to some of our hymns.
Kiran: Yes—it was Western music.
Carolyn: I think it goes far beyond our hymns. I think when we sit by the tree of life, we’ll hear music that goes all the way to our toenails—not just our toes. Our backs will feel it. It will be so wonderful.
And to think that all our cultures will be together, and we’ll finally understand what it means to praise God fully. That’s what we’re all trying to do—praise God and hear one another. It’s like asking, what’s the best food or the best music?
C-J: If you think of the wind rustling through the trees as God’s voice, then that is the music. Why are we trying to create what God has already given us in nature? Look at the sights and sounds when we step into the wilderness. There is no other voice but our own, and even that eventually falls away. What remains is God’s symphony—the wind, the babbling brook, all of it.
God has already given us an orchestra. We try to recreate it through music because we want that experience to be abiding, not just something we feel when we happen to be alone in nature. That experience can be extraordinary, but we also need humanity. We need one another.
Carolyn: And I pray that each one of us can experience that daily. That is my prayer.
Kiran: Sometimes, when some of you speak, it can sound like you feel we are trying to make everyone else like us—and then there’s a bit of apology that follows. But growing up in India, immersed in that culture, and then later engaging deeply with Western culture, becoming an Adventist, and looking back, I don’t feel that tension in the same way.
Think about how Germans build roads: they make them straight. If there’s a hill, they cut through it. There’s an advantage to that kind of thinking. In Western religiosity, you move in a straight line. You encounter obstacles—evil, suffering—and you confront and overcome them, step by step. That takes enormous personal energy and dedication.
In India, it’s more like water flowing. If there’s a rock, you don’t move the rock—you go around it. The rock remains, but you find another path. That’s a fundamentally different way of thinking.
Do I appreciate the straight, stepwise framework of religion that the West introduced me to? Absolutely. I love it. Do I also feel a kind of loss for the cyclical, flowing approach of Indian religion? Yes—and I also dislike parts of it. Nothing is perfect.
Last week, when David was speaking, it occurred to me that maybe each of us is an instrument in a large orchestra, and each of us has a part to play. For me personally, I would never have understood grace without the Seventh-day Adventist Church, without this Sabbath School class.
I needed that rigid framework to come out of something I couldn’t escape on my own. And then I needed Dr. Weaver’s class to help me move beyond that rigidity into a more expansive framework—one where I could be stable and still explore new ideas without fearing for my salvation.
So I don’t see any of this as bad. I see all of it as good.
Carolyn: I do too. To hear, as I have recently, a four-year-old boy praise God in his sweet little voice, with such sincerity of heart, is incredibly moving. What his mom and dad are trying to do—living a life that is itself a praise to God—there is nothing quite like a child expressing faith that way.
They may stumble and have bumps along the way, because they don’t know everything—just like a symphonic performance in rehearsal—but there is a simplicity in that shared language that only a child can express. That’s what the Bible means when it tells us to be like little children.
This gives us room to grow. If we are like children now, perhaps someday we will be adults in our understanding. I don’t know if we’ll fully know how before the kingdom—but still, we grow.
Don: There is so much here to ponder. Next week, we’re going to take a slight turn and look at grace through the eyes of the visual arts, and Donald is going to help guide us.
I’ve been struck by how much Indian classical music is inherently religious in nature. That mirrors Western classical music as well—so much of it has its roots in the church.
Carolyn: I’ve so enjoyed this entire time together, especially hearing from other cultures. I love going into a synagogue and hearing a Jewish cantor express praise to God. I also love the Catholic Mass, with its antiphonal exchange between priest and congregation.
There is so much in music. It brings tears to my eyes. I love it when music points us to the Lord, because I believe the angels are singing with us when we praise God. We don’t have to speak the same language—musical or cultural—to do that. I’m sorry—that’s my sermon for the day.
Don: That’s a good note to end on. I don’t think the angels are using drums and guitars.
Carolyn: There is a place for drums. That shepherd boy out on the hillside? I bet he played drums while listening for the angels. I imagine that was part of his way of praising God.
Don: Well said, Carolyn.
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