This is an article originally written in Chinese explaining the history of the Presbyterian Hymnal in Taiwan after we published the new Taiwanese Presbyterian Hymnal in 2009. It was translated by David Alexander. --- Excerpt: "The hymnals previously used in Taiwan were based around the post 19th century Western hymns. In 1993 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan appointed an advisory committee to screen new hymns. At that time they accepted this writer’s proposal that our new hymnal should include hymns that are historical, contemporary, diverse, universal/ecumenical, contextual and liturgical, so that it would be consistent with our 1985 Confession of Faith. Those points became the principles for editing the new hymnal."
Article: Revisiting Ways of Contextualization of Church Music in Asia
Ever since the word “contextualization” was introduced in the late 1960’s by Dr. Shoki Coe, my mentor and the former principal of Tainan Theological College and Seminary, it has become one of the most important terms to be used in doing theology, planning liturgies and composing Church Music. No theologian, liturgiologist, church musician or educator can ignore the issues of contextualization, if they are serious in dealing with their fields in the contemporary context. By now, more people in these fields have taken for granted that contextualization is the natural and logical way to do theology. But for some Asian church musicians some twenty to thirty years ago it was a struggle to know how to define and proceed with the problem of contextualization. This writer made his first attempt to define contextualization of church music from an Asian perspective in 1984 ( Loh 1986:57-66; 1990:293-315; 1991:89-114). Later attempt was made to define the term from a more positive angle (Loh 1999:32- 53). It was written in Chinese, and is here offered in English translation to set the tone for further discussion.