Black Catholic Worship On The Sacred Liturgy

I chose to do my religious ethnographic study at my home church, Tabernacle Baptist Church in Youngstown, Ohio on Sunday, May 8, 2016. Tabernacle is an 112-year-old historic Black Baptist church located on the lower Northside of Youngstown surrounded by a mixed income housing development, homeless shelter, Youngstown State University, and St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. I would say the average age of a Tabernacle member is 55 years old. About 70% of the members at this church are “middle-class” families. Until about five years ago, its membership was almost exclusively middle class. There has seen an influx of membership in working class individuals and students since the arrival of Tabernacle’s young, vibrant pastor, Rev. Christopher McKee, Jr., three years ago. The church is attentive to the needs of this demographic but remains true to its historic Black Baptist church roots. The church previously struggled with this conundrum until it came to the reality that an exclusivist mindset around worship is detrimental to the body of Christ when it did not have a pastor for over three years. The church was dying because no one was welcome to it and it did not have a leader. Though it was difficult, this reassessment was beneficial in making Tabernacle more relevant and welcoming to the community it is blessed to serve.

Kelly Brown Douglas begins by posing a series of questions, including, “Who is the Black Christ?” and “Is the Black Christ Enough?” (6-7) For Douglas, the Black Christ, “…represents God’s urgent movement in human history to set Black captives free from the demons of White racism” (3). The question of “Who is the Black Christ?” is addressed in Chapter 3. The question of “Is the Black Christ enough?” is addressed in Chapters 4 and 5, as Douglas critically examines the relationship of the Black Christ to the Black community and ends with addressing what womanist theology is and why there is a need for it in understanding the Black Christ.

What is African American Religion? – Chapter 3 In the previous chapter of What is African American Religion, we were introduced to the black church and the Nation of Islam. Though these are the dominating black religions in America, as denoted by Joseph Washington, the study of African American religion has been centered on theism, and ultimately the black church (pg. 43).

These three perceptions are distinctly different, but ultimately speak to the contextual nature of Black theology—rooting worship, adoration, and discipleship within the notion a (conscious) living G-d. The first perception explored is the image G-d adored through the lens of Sister Sweet and Mother Darling. At first glance, these women appear different in life style and theology—different churches, different abilities, and different approaches to discipleship. But upon further examination, one discovers the same paradigm at work. Both have lost children to AIDS. Both have committed themselves to a praxis centered theology to process their loss. Mother Darling is street missionary and Sister Sweet is a disabled woman confined to a wheel that feeds the birds and attends to the needs of the Little piece of Heaven Church. Both have found peace in their personalized work for the Lord. Their G-d is a “shelter in a time of storm.” The second perception is the image of G-d as seen through Deacon Zee. This G-d is one of salvation and complacence for Deacon Zee. The “White Jesus” he prayed to for his assistance in finding his copy of the Wall Street Journal—a nuanced symbol for prosperity. This G-d speaks to the corporate nature and element of

In reflecting upon the topic of the role of the African American Church leadership the question must be ask. What is leadership? “Leadership is serving others that they might become what God wants them to be.” Leadership is the processes of helping a congregation embody the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church is in desperate need of a different leadership role model. Robert M. Franklin in “Crisis in the Village” points to the seductive danger of the prosperity movement. He demonstrates how the “god of greed” and the “god of entrepreneurial ship” have replaced the good news about Jesus Christ. Therefore, leaders experiences crises of integrity, compromising their churches and breeding skepticism and disillusionment. In one sense, the leadership

The 152nd Annual Conference of the Grand Ole North Carolina Conference convened at one of the Conference’s historical churches, Clinton Chapel AME Zion in New Bern, NC. Reverend Dr. M. Luther Hill, its gifted pastor, and his great congregation were very gracious hosts and made everyone feel welcomed. They opened their doors on Sunday and ministers, adorned in their priestly, white robes, marched in to open this great Conference in High Church Methodist fashion. The service, filled with high spiritual elements intertwining the liturgical elements, connected our hearts to the ancient tradition of the Anglican Church; however, with an African American twist. Presiding Elder Lester Jacobs, of the Washington District, delivered a soul-stirring

“Roll, Jordan, Roll”, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Had”, “Go Down, Moses”, and “Wade in the Water” are the titles of only a handful of what were called “Negro Spirituals”, which originated during the reign of slavery in the United States (Frey). Such spirituals used call-and-response, a method of communication that was popular with slaves who brought African traditions to America, and gave way to the gospel music and unique form of preaching characteristic to the Black Church. The history of the Black Church, which began during the slave era, demonstrates the way that African Americans found refuge in Christianity, where the church became the center for African American communities (Baer). Born out of struggle and oppression, the Black Church not only became the focus for the religious practices of African American communities, but also worked to “re-member” the community through rituals such as that of call-and-response, a core element of the Black Church which served as a powerful tool for the African American community in the fight for the exercise of true freedom in America.

The Africans who came to America had a myriad of religious beliefs and practices, including the belief in a transcendent, benevolent God who created the universe and was its ultimate Provider1 and though Europeans did not introduce the God of the Judeo-Christian ethic to Africans, 2 seemingly intractable problems have faced those con tending that African religious beliefs and practices survived both the "Middle Passage" and the effects of slavery.

African American religious music is the foundation of all contemporary forms of so called “black music.” African American religious music has been a fundamental part of the black experience in this country. This common staple of the African American experience can be traced back to the cruel system of slavery. It then evolved into what we refer to today as gospel music. The goal of this paper is to answer three main questions. What are the origins of African American religious music? How did this musical expression develop into a secular form of music? What is the future of African American religious music? These questions will be answered through factual research of African American traditions, artists, and various other sources.

From this point of view we have essentially four classes, the almost ritualistic prayer songs or pure Spirituals, the freer and more unrestrained evangelical "shouts" or camp-meeting songs, the folk ballads so overlaid with the tradition of the Spirituals proper that their distinctive type quality has almost been unnoticed until lately, and the work and labor songs of strictly significant character. Indeed, in the pure Spirituals one can trace the broken fragments of an evangelical folk liturgy, with confession, exhortation, "mourning," conversion and "love-feast" rejoicing as the general stages of a Protestant folk-mass. It is not a question of religious content or allusion, for the great majority of the Negro songs have this more delicate question of caliber of feeling and type of folk use. The distinctiveness of the Spirituals after all and their finest meaning resides in their musical elements. The characteristic beauty of the folk song is harmonic, in distinction to the more purely rhythmic stress in the secular music of the Negro, which is the basis of "ragtime" and "jazz"; while regarding the one as the African component in them, and the other as the modifying influence of the religious hymn.

However, a critical aspect of the liberation themes characteristic of Black worship is its ability to refrain from becoming a victim of oppression of time. Although, liberation in African-American Christian worship is also manifest in the way of music performance, with Black singers and instrumentalists seldom being satisfied to render a piece as it exists in print. Consequently, most often they elect to search for music and songs that provokes a responsive exploit in the African-American soul and

Religion is a social construct embedded in the African American experience through the ages. Whether it be Christianity, Muslim, Judaism and many other religions that found itself in the Americas the religions derived from the African diaspora was very mixed, they had traditional belief about magic which are derived from some Yoruba and Muslim belief system, Christianity was something new to them. As their, ancestors were brought to the Americans they brought their own traditional belief system. African American religious institutions served as contexts in which African Americans create a meaning to their experience during their enslavement, thus they interpret their relationship to Africa and charted a vision for a collective future that will

The African Methodist Episcopal Church also known as the AME Church, represents a long history of people going from struggles to success, from embarrassment to pride, from slaves to free. It is my intention to prove that the name African Methodist Episcopal represents equality and freedom to worship God, no matter what color skin a person was blessed to be born with. The thesis is this: While both Whites and Africans believed in the worship of God, whites believed in the oppression of the Africans’ freedom to serve God in their own way, blacks defended their own right to worship by the development of their own church. According to Andrew White, a well- known author for the AME denomination, “The word African means that our church was

African American influence in music has been an ever present and controversial subject in American history. Stemming from many different cultures, religions and backgrounds, large portions of American music was introduced by, and credited to African Americans. Although in many cases, this music was used for entertainment by the masses or majority, contrary to popular belief, black music served a greater purpose than just recreation. Dating all the way back to the beginning of slavery in the U.S. during the 17th century, music has been used to make a statement and send a message. As African American music progressed over the years, there were common themes expressed as the genres evolved. It has been an open letter to the world, documenting and protesting the ongoing oppression faced by blacks in the United States, as well as an outlet for frustration. For many African Americans, the music gave them the only voice that couldn’t be silenced by their oppressors.

Eileen Southern’s The Music of Black Americans: A History she examines the influence that African Americans had in the holiness churches in music and worship. She initially starts with the landing of the first Africans to the colonies and she creates a phenomenal conversation of the musicians in the new world. She details the progression in the gospel, classical, jazz, rap, blues and the contributions they made.