Anglicans across the world have long celebrated quality music. Music is a powerful agency for uniting the body of Christ. Singing in a choir does more than simply produce harmonious melodies. Its value in worship is immeasurable. It embodies the unity of the body of Christ. Congregational singing is a way of giving back to God. It forms the young and old spiritually and sustains a tradition that goes back to roots of the Christian church.
I was in neighboring Northern Uganda recently, accompanying a team of 51 choristers from our Diocese of Mumias, Kenya. The team joined over 45 choirs from Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda for the Annual International Hymn Festival held at Lira, Uganda, from October 31 to November 2.
The festival brings together Anglicans from East Africa like no other event, providing huge opportunities for worship, fellowship, and networking across our artificial colonial state borders. Here the Lang’i, Luhya, Acholi, Iteso, Luos, Kikuyus, Maasai, and even British Anglicans gathered for this remarkable Pentecostal experience.
Lira City, where the festival met at the Anglican St. Augustine Church, has a troubled history. First, the colonial era left a profound legacy in the region, with the British occupying the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to exploit resources.
In more recent times, Lira has suffered from the violence of the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony. That conflict began in the late 1980s, resulting in thousands being displaced, loss of lives, and destruction of infrastructure.
Violent conflict has not been restricted to Lira. We have a raging, longstanding war in South Sudan and significant inter-ethnic skirmishes in parts of Kenya. The recent youth uprising in Kenya, protesting poor political governance, left more than 50 dead from police bullets.
Against this violent context, it was refreshing for Anglican choristers to gather in Lira to usher in the season of Advent and the message of peace.
Hosted by the GAFCON-affirming Church of Uganda with the Bishop of Lango, Alfred Olwa, it was a joy for the Anglican Communion-minded provinces of South Sudan, Tanzania, and Kenya to fraternize at the festival. It embodied our unity across difference. It was an icon of heaven, with angelic choirs steadily glorifying God.
The festival further strengthened our common history and affectionate bond, with Malcolm Archer, an Anglican from Ireland and an accomplished director of choirs, leading us. He enriched East African choral singing with his rich experience, having served as an organist and director of music in three English cathedrals: Bristol, Wells, and St. Paul’s. This was coupled with his 11 years of ministry as director of music at Winchester College and several years of directing the choir at the Jean Langlais Festival in France.
Every year, the festival invigorates our wonderful Anglican heritage of singing hymns and psalms. In an East African context, in which traditional hymns are being forgotten by the younger members of our churches, it was a joy to hear them sing Psalm 67 with such passion and beauty.
In a context otherwise characterized by conflict, war, and poverty, the choristers conveyed a compelling message of hope for a better tomorrow, anchored in Advent. We pray that all who participated in this choral event were inspired anew by the power of the Holy Spirit to love and serve God more faithfully in their varied contexts.
As I document my Lira experience, the hymns sung there still echo in my heart. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, blessed mother, gentle Mary! Indeed, music is a universal language.
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Joseph Wandera is bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Mumias, Kenya.