In December 1940 an article appeared in the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate that announced a new approach to evangelism in world missions. It noted that ‘[l]ast year a new movement was launched in Latin America; it was to get the Gospel to as many as possible of the 100,000,000 persons who might not hear it in any other way; and, so, while recording hymns and Gospel messages on phonographic plates is not a new idea, the task of making thousands of them, with beautifully rendered hymns and vital Christian messages[,] is a distinctly new idea in mission projects.’ The article went on to explain: ‘This work was first a vision and then an answered prayer to Joy Ridderhof, Friends’ missionary in Honduras; and 800 buenas nuevas (Good News) records have already been shipped to sixteen Spanish-speaking countries and to some communities in the United States.’Footnote ¹ Ridderhof, an unmarried missionary from Los Angeles, had launched a new project in Protestant missions that attempted to make the gospel message available through sound recordings to peoples who ‘had not yet been reached by Bible translators and linguists’.Footnote ² Although her organization would not become widely known for its translation efforts in the same way as (for instance) Wycliffe Bible Translators, the work she founded was and remains innovative in recording the living voices of people who have yet to have the Bible translated into their dialect or language. In addition to this pioneering work, the organization also provides audio recordings of Christian messages for the majority of people in the world who are ‘oral learners’.Footnote ³ This article will show how Ridderhof used new media technologies combined with an emphasis on vocal performance as strategic tools for making the gospel accessible to the people of the world. Essential to Ridderhof's goal for using new media technologies was capturing the emotional power of the gospel message in a form that could be played over and over with the hope of causing a response from those who heard the recordings. This conscious use of modern audio technology brings to light a performance element in Christian translation that has been neglected by scholars simply because they have focused on textual translations. Moreover, despite Ridderhof's international network of linguistic and technological collaborators, as well as the unprecedented global reach she achieved through the recordings, Ridderhof and Gospel Recordings, Inc., the organization she founded, have been largely ignored. The exception is the work of a few North American scholars of missions who have recounted her story.Footnote ⁴ This neglect points to the isolated position that Ridderhof has held in an ecclesiastical culture where men and printed texts matter more than women and oral culture. Orality is the disparaged domain of women, children, pre-literate societies and illiterate people. Orality also denotes the boundary between cultural elites and the disenfranchised in the modern world. Ridderhof and Gospel Recordings have been neglected by scholars, not because their work was insignificant, but because it occurred at the periphery of the Church and sought to reach the marginalized peoples of the world.

In 1930, under the auspices of the Friends Missionary Board, Joy Ridderhof began her missionary work in Honduras.Footnote ⁵ By all accounts she found it rewarding, and she expected to remain as a missionary to Latin America indefinitely.Footnote ⁶ However, within seven years Ridderhof returned to the United States, her health broken by malaria and amoebic dysentery. During the long period of recovery she entertained the idea of using sound recordings to reach illiterate villagers. In Honduran villages, music from gramophones drew large crowds of listeners, who responded physically and emotionally to the sounds they heard. Ridderhof recognized the potential of such technology to help evangelization efforts throughout Latin America. Gramophone records were ideal vehicles for transmitting the Christian message to illiterate Spanish listeners because the records would enable her to continue to preach the gospel even when she could not be physically present. On 31 December 1938, when Ridderhof made a short gospel recording in Spanish, ‘Buenas Nuevas’ or Spanish Gospel Recordings was born.Footnote ⁷

The new missionary organization slowly began to grow. Ridderhof acquired a rudimentary studio in Los Angeles and an entourage of co-workers to help her with the day-to-day tasks, which included everything from recording new languages to pressing records and shipping them to faraway places.Footnote ⁸ The benefit of making sound recordings was quickly realized by other missionaries who were trying to reach largely illiterate populations. Ridderhof was encouraged to branch out beyond Spanish recordings, a suggestion that was feasible in the culturally diverse and multilingual region of Southern California. In 1941, she started making recordings in Navajo and other Native American languages spanning areas from Mexico to Alaska.Footnote ⁹ With the addition of new languages, Spanish Gospel Recordings was renamed Gospel Recordings, Inc., and became a global mission organization.

Initially the records were supposed to be a device to assist missionaries in their work among the illiterate, and Ridderhof only charged a minimal fee for each record in order to cover her costs. Later she decided to distribute the records free of charge since she wanted to make them available to as many people as possible. An early piece of promotional literature for Gospel Recordings explained:

Ridderhof was convinced that the records were one of the most effective tools for presenting the Christian message to illiterate people. Indeed, sound recordings were ideal for making readings of the Bible accessible to pre-literate peoples that organizations like Wycliffe Bible Translators might not reach for decades.Footnote ¹¹ However, after the United States entered the Second World War in December 1941, rationing and other government restrictions presented problems for obtaining supplies and funding, or for undertaking the long-distance travel needed to make new recordings.Footnote ¹² In spite of these challenges the organization continued to grow throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s.

Women engaged in missionary work have seldom attracted much attention from their contemporaries for their entrepreneurial leadership. Ridderhof, however, managed to draw some attention from those studying Christian missions for her innovative use of technology in Bible translation. By the 1950s, Gospel Recordings was becoming well known for making Christianity available to peoples who did not have access to either a full-time missionary or a pastor who was fluent in their native language.Footnote ¹³ Harold Lindsell, in his Missionary Principles and Practice (1955),Footnote ¹⁴ observed: ‘A new method which has been listed under literary devices is that of gospel recordings. It resembles radio in some ways and in others it is more directly related to the literary. The length of time this means has been in operation is short, but the value of the work has amply demonstrated its worth as an agency for propagating the gospel.’Footnote ¹⁵ Lindsell considered the recordings part of the literary project that had made a distinctive mark on Protestant missionary activity since William Carey, when he explained that ‘[t]he enterprise is one of cooperative self-sacrifice springing out of a vision which has introduced a new element [i.e. gospel recordings] into missionary methods.’Footnote ¹⁶ Lindsell was not alone in observing the tremendous potential Gospel Recordings held for evangelism. J. Herbert Kane, a former missionary with the China Inland Mission and a missiologist, also recognized the significance of what Gospel Recordings was trying to accomplish when he wrote:

Gospel Recordings’ focus on ‘primitive people’ was an objective that Evangelicals and missionary organizations supported. However, some were troubled that the organization was only giving a superficial presentation of the Christian message in the three-and-a-half-minute recordings, without ensuring that pre-literate and illiterate people came to a more complete understanding of Christian belief and practice.Footnote ¹⁸

Originally, Ridderhof's method for recording the Bible, a song, or a story in another language simply involved recording herself, a local speaker of the language, or another missionary who knew the language. However, this approach to making the recordings was soon abandoned when Ridderhof became aware that those who listened to records came to know them so well they could repeat the stories and songs verbatim with, as a missionary observed, an ‘American accent and all’.Footnote ¹⁹ This news troubled Ridderhof. She feared that the recordings that she and the other missionaries – none of whom were native speakers – made would change the pronunciation of native languages, potentially undermining the future of these languages. Pondering the effect of the recordings on the listeners, she decided henceforth to use native language speakers as narrators and vocalists on the recordings. With this simple change Ridderhof ensured that pronunciation remained rooted in the living language of the people addressed by the recording.

Written scripts were also developed to give structure to the recordings. The scripts were malleable texts adapted to particular cultural contexts and local idioms.Footnote ²⁰ Although a full record of the editorial changes to all of the scripts over the years does not exist, there are early examples that give insight into the process of audio production. A script entitled, ‘The Lost Sheep’, written in 1949, recounts the parable told by Jesus in Luke 15: 3–7. The typewritten script has numerous handwritten editing marks and cues for sound effects so that a recording can be made in Ixil, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala.Footnote ²¹ The script instructs the technician to ‘start [the recording] with bleating of sheep’ as the initial sound effect. The English text of the script, which, as described below, formed the basis for the Ixil recording, highlights the shepherd's love and sacrifice in protecting all his one hundred sheep, especially the one lost sheep, ending with the following invitation:

This invitation to embrace Jesus as Saviour remained a distinguishing attribute of Gospel Recordings and was required in some form in all the recordings produced. The script instructed the audio engineer to end the recording with the 1885 hymn, ‘Bring Them In’, based on Matthew 18: 12. The words of the chorus, sung in Ixil, were to be changed from ‘Bring them in, bring them in, Bring the wand'ring ones to Jesus’ to ‘Come to Him, Come to Him, Come to Jesus the Good Shepherd’.Footnote ²³ A number of familiar sounds were suggested for the recording, including: ‘sheep sounds and pipe’, a wolf, a leopard and storm sounds. The audio engineer was given discretion to incorporate these sounds where needed in order to produce the most compelling record possible. These additional sound effects were a crucial component of the performance aspect of the recording. The length of the recording was to be approximately 3 minutes and 45 seconds.Footnote ²⁴ Although authorship is not stated, many of the early scripts were written by Ridderhof and other recordists in the field, based on what they could quickly glean about the culture and the language from locals, missionaries, or those with some knowledge of the region.Footnote ²⁵ Although the effectiveness of the records among indigenous audiences cannot be determined, the goal was to use a combination of the local language with sounds, music and cultural references that would allow the recording to reach across the cultural divide.Footnote ²⁶

The process for making the recordings was slow, requiring many hours of preparation and recording time to produce a single three-and-a-half-minute story. Often the primary language of the field recordist was English, and the recordist or recording team relied on multilingual locals to pass the story along from one person to the next person until they reached the target language speaker.Footnote ²⁷ The entire procedure was reliant on those who knew an intermediary or ‘trade’ language and could connect the links in the linguistic chain. The script was the anchor that kept the recording session from drifting away from the intended purpose. However, nothing, not even the script, could stand in the way of the production goal, which involved creating an entertaining and accessible story that could be easily remembered and highlighted a Bible story for listeners. To ensure that the content of the recording was accurate, the recording would be played back to someone who spoke the target language who then recounted what they had heard to another ‘trade’ language speaker, who in turn relayed the message back to the field recordist.Footnote ²⁸ Although not always entirely successful, this laborious process tried to ensure that the target language speaker had properly communicated the essence of the story told to them through the chain that began with the reading of the short script.Footnote ²⁹

Ridderhof was aware that this process was not always reliable. In the Philippines, she had doubts about the transmission of content from one trade language speaker through the human chain to a target language. Her recording partner on the trip, Ann Sherwood, explained to friends in the United States that Joy was ‘writing a small Mangyou [sic] vocabulary so we can more easily check whether the interpreter is getting our idea or not’.Footnote ³⁰ The challenge of passing along an accurate interpretation was considerable and the result was constantly being scrutinized. For instance, in a letter to Gospel Recordings staff in Los Angeles, Ridderhof described how recordings were being made in the ‘Bontoc, Benguet, and Kangkanai languages’ with the assistance of locals: ‘the natives that are working on the records are translating the songs themselves, and some of them know how to play the guitar, and sing well. They sing solos, duets, and trios, and do so well in the speaking’.Footnote ³¹ Ridderhof needed indigenous language speakers to do the work that she and her recordists could not do themselves and this required trusting local contributors to communicate the message accurately.

In addition to trying to ensure the accuracy of the content, Ridderhof was deeply invested in the performance quality of the recording. In the Philippines, she noted that the locals ‘put so much expression into it. Our young people just don't hold a candle to them, in the main. They are so talented, and so full of dramatic ability in expressing themselves’.Footnote ³² Her appreciation of the dramatic abilities of native speakers was extremely important to her vision of the effectiveness of sound recordings. For Ridderhof the translation process involved more than simply telling a story; translation was also entwined with the subjective qualities associated with vocal performance, which layered the recordings with educational, cultural and spiritual significance. For example, in addition to their evangelistic purpose, she was aware that the records could also have a pedagogical function. In a letter to her staff in Los Angeles, Ridderhof made clear that she wanted records intended for circulation in Alaska, Philippines, India, Jamaica and Japan to include also a minute to a minute-and-a-half recording in ‘clear ABC English’ of male voices for listeners to perfect their English-speaking skills. She directed her staff to make sure that they included ‘very clear singing, [and a] good message. One with some pretty choruses & words in between each would be good. Or a song tapering into a chorus at the close is Excellent, gives them something to learn & a good message.’Footnote ³³ What is noteworthy in Ridderhof's directions to her staff was her emphasis on performance, sound mixing and the use of male voices. She encouraged them to enlist men for solos, duos, trios and even ‘mixed’ quartets, but she wanted to make sure that the speakers were committed Christians who could convey the truth of their Christian faith through the sound and emotion of their voices.

As a product of a North American Evangelical culture that often marginalized women, Ridderhof was mindful of the social mores in patriarchal societies that rejected the voices of women as legitimate communicators to men. Aware of this reality, she adapted to the gendered norms of particular cultural contexts in order to accomplish her mission. Her emphasis on capturing performance, whether by men or women, pushed Gospel Recordings constantly towards improving the quality of the sound recordings while remaining sensitive to cultural norms. By adapting to cultural expectations about gender in various societies, Gospel Recordings transformed the translation process from simply finding the correct words for the translation of biblical stories from one language to another into a process for seeking cultural legitimacy. Ridderhof recognized that particular voices, usually male, held authority in a given cultural context and infused the gospel message with credibility. This recognition of human authority corresponded to an awareness of divine power. Consequently, Ridderhof was not satisfied with a recording unless there was an element of spiritual vitality revealed in the recorded performance. The living gospel was more than mere words, but was a powerful truth conveyed by the voices who spoke about the life-giving message of the gospel. For her, speaking about God's work in the world, especially by Christians, should arouse a response from those who narrated the Bible stories and sang the hymns as well as from those who listened to the recordings.

Attempting to create culturally legitimate, accurate translations in emotion-provoking performances was difficult. Jane Osgood, an American Baptist missionary working in Orissa, India, was amazed by how painstaking the process was to make useable recordings:

Ridderhof, Nicoll and her cadre of field recordists encountered endless challenges in the Philippines, Africa, India, Australia and other locations in the Asian Pacific Rim as they tried to determine not only how best to work with native language speakers,Footnote ³⁵ but also how to get the recording equipment to work in the most challenging environments imaginable.Footnote ³⁶ Field recordists hauled heavy recording equipment into some of the most remote villages on earth hoping to record the gospel for isolated linguistic groups, and failures with recording devices in sweltering heat or rain-soaked jungles caused constant disruption to their work.Footnote ³⁷

In an effort to overcome the effects of the environment on their equipment, and with the assistance of Livingston Hogg, an English electronics distributor, by the late 1950s Gospel Recordings was able to acquire the expensive but lightweight Swiss-built Nagra III reel-to-reel recorder, the cutting-edge portable sound recorder of the period.Footnote ³⁸ These recorders were crucial for recording hundreds of languages in the most remote regions of the world.Footnote ³⁹ Remarkably, Ridderhof and her co-workers also solved another problem associated with hearing the recordings in remote areas: what to do when there was no modern utility infrastructure to power a record player that required an electrical supply? Gospel Recordings helped to develop new media technologies, many of which involved the development of an innovative, inexpensive, hand-cranked record player ‘that even a child can use without breaking it’.Footnote ⁴⁰ The playback devices they developed were often improvements on the design and durability of the gramophone. In 1964 they made their most remarkable playback innovation: a cardboard hand-spun record player known as Card-Talk, which was cheap, easy to make, and worked in even the most remote parts of the earth. Gospel Recordings’ ground-breaking developments in playback technology originated out of a collaborative effort of staff from around the world, and the results remain noteworthy in the history of media technology.Footnote ⁴¹

Faced with the overwhelming challenge of recording the world's living languages, in the early 1950s Gospel Recordings staff hoped that missionaries working with Wycliffe Bible Translators would assist them by collaborating in joint mission ventures. Ann Sherwood, reflecting on the constant effort by Ridderhof and other Gospel Recordings staff to woo ‘Wycliffites’ into recording for them, noted:

The challenge of recruiting field recordists observed by Sherwood reflected persistent problems faced by Gospel Recordings, affecting everything from technical and production issues to raising funds to support the work. The lack of financial resources was a constant problem.Footnote ⁴³ Even the organization's status as a faith mission was questioned by some staff.Footnote ⁴⁴ Ridderhof, however, remained resolute in her devotion to this method of missionary funding, encouraging her co-workers to embrace a piety that focused on intense, daily prayer and the expectation that God's miraculous intervention would enable them to meet their material and financial needs.Footnote ⁴⁵

Ridderhof and her co-workers (primarily women in the early years of the work)Footnote ⁴⁶ represented a shift in missionary work that had taken place in North America after the First World War.Footnote ⁴⁷ They were part of an impulse amongst devout Evangelical women who embraced a radical piety and possessed a fervent zeal to reach the world with the gospel message. Many of these women were most interested in direct evangelism through preaching but found that reality untenable in the patriarchal hierarchies of the Church and of mission agencies.Footnote ⁴⁸ However, Ridderhof also explicitly sought the assistance of men in her project, not only for their voices, but also and especially in relation to the technical issues she faced. Given the cultural expectations about gender in many societies around the world and the harsh physical realities associated with being a field recordist, Ridderhof recognized that men in certain locations were often best suited to carry out the recording work. This did not imply that men were superior to women but that they were necessary for the work she hoped to accomplish.Footnote ⁴⁹

Officially established in 1939, the year Europe plunged into war for the second time in the twentieth century, Gospel Recordings echoed a bygone era of female faith missions but went one step further and created a technological space that freed and empowered both women and men, depending on the cultural context, to play an important role in reaching the world for Christ.Footnote ⁵⁰ The mission soon expanded into a global effort with offices located in nations around the world.Footnote ⁵¹ However, as important as the international expansion of the work was, Ridderhof recognized that she and her co-workers must step aside to allow the indigenous people whom they were trying to reach to retell the Christian story in culturally relevant terms using their own voices. In Lamin Sanneh's now classic work, Translating the Message, he argues: ‘There is a radical pluralism implied in vernacular translation wherein all languages and cultures are, in principle, equal in expressing the word of God.’Footnote ⁵² Translating the Bible into the vernacular language of a people affirmed indigenous cultures and languages both as sacred and as equal to those in more technologically and culturally dominant Western societies. Ridderhof and her team of field recordists, technicians and production staff brought technological equality to indigenous languages through their audio recording project. Gospel Recordings consciously sought to preserve indigenous languages and cultures through the living words that preliterate and illiterate people uttered in their everyday lives. The voices they heard on the recordings were like their own, attuned to the nuances of their language and culture. The recordings also gave them a new way to understand the world through the cornucopia of sound that engaged the imagination and a Bible-based story that encouraged a response. Like the resurrected Jesus spoken about in the recorded stories, the new audio technology may have made human voices, songs and various sounds seem eternal. Later critics would question whether the technological exchange created by audio playback devices converted listeners to a coveting of technology as much as to Christianity. They also pointedly asked whether the use of technology for mission was not an exploitation of vulnerable people.Footnote ⁵³ Ridderhof, however, possessed an unusually optimistic faith in the power of hearing the living word, and was confident that once a person heard gospel recordings they would want to accept Jesus as Saviour. For Ridderhof, capturing stirring, vernacular translations of the gospel in the recordings, and the use and development of new audio technologies, were strategic tools for world evangelism – the ultimate mission.