My interest in the rhetoric of African-American preaching began in 1994 while a student at Duke University. Two of my professors were Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard, and the late Samuel Proctor, former pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, NY, Martin Luther King Professor Emeritus of Rutgers University, and homiletics professor at Duke University. This particular project was part of a pilot study in narrative research methodologies while a student at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfrican American Preaching.\u201d Journal of the American Academy of Ministry<\/em> 7 (Winter\/Spring 2001): 38-53. Reprinted by Asbury Online Institute (an online continuing education effort of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY).<\/p>\n By Tim Sensing<\/p>\n One does not wish to romanticize the state of black preaching. When it is good it is very, very good. And when it is bad \u2026 well, that too is true. An important aspect of equality is to remember that our black sisters and brothers are equal, and sometimes more equal than others, in manifesting the sins to which we are all heir. But the best of black preaching today puts together self and language in a way that can be instructive for all of us. Obviously it should not be imitated, but key aspects of it might well be emulated. Black preaching was born in and is carried by a particular cultural experience. But the principles that make it great, when it is great, are not that different from those specified by St. Augustine more than fifteen hundred years ago and observed by the worthier practitioners of the art ever since.[i]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n John Neuhaus argues that Augustine\u2019s advice about rhetoric\u2019s need to engage the audience is demonstrated in the black church. Although some may argue that Augustine\u2019s connection to Africa and the origins of black preaching today accounts for the similarity in styles, it is clear that Augustine considered his principles universally applicable.[ii]<\/a> So too, I propose, are the principles that can be garnered from the following analysis that examines the historical context of African American preaching and selected uses of rhetoric within that context. Whenever appropriate, I have limited the study to my own discourse community, namely, churches of Christ. \u00a0The analysis concludes by reviewing the respective research on the preaching of Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n The Historical Context of African American Preaching<\/strong><\/p>\n The point of entry into the story of African American preaching might begin by noticing the slaves\u2019 pews in the gallery that encircles the sanctuary of many colonial churches. Many good slave-holding Christian folk brought their chattels to hear \u201cthe gospel\u201d and learn the lessons of obedience in the manner of Onesimus. George Whitefield rationalized the owning of slaves in 1751 when he wrote John Wesley:<\/p>\n \u2026though liberty is a sweet thing to those who are born free, yet to those who may never know the sweets of it, slavery perhaps may not be so irksome \u2026 I should think myself highly favored if I could purchase a good number of them, in order to make their lives comfortable, and lay a foundation for breeding up their posterity in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.[iii]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Although some preachers urged slaves not to believe that slave ownership was for their own spiritual good, Whitefield justified his practice on economic and evangelistic grounds. Many preachers believed the evangelization of the slaves would not only bring salvation but also a better social condition. Slave masters would respect peaceful and hard working Christian slaves as they entered into fellowship. Nevertheless, many abolitionists and missionaries to slaves believed that preaching to slaves to obey their masters would drive slaves from the church. They were convinced such preaching was a mere sham in order to soften the wills of blacks while salving the conscience of the whites. Furthermore, they advocated that it was wrong to provide a theological justification for the legitimacy of the institution of slavery.[iv]<\/a> Throughout this heated religious debate, blacks, nevertheless, heard and responded to the gospel.<\/p>\n The history of preaching in the African-American community is connected to two contexts: the religious tradition of West Africa and the institution of slavery.\u00a0 As slaves were converted to Christianity, a blending of cultures occurred.\u00a0 Syncretism of Christianity and the slave experience gave birth to a rich new heritage of preaching. Often legally prohibited from learning to read and write, illiterate slaves developed robust oral traditions, passing down spirituals, sermons, and folk tales from generation to generation. Without such a rhetorical process, African Americans may not have survived as a people.<\/p>\n C. F. Stewart identifies the black church as the center of freedom that most influenced the praxis of African American spirituality. It became a safe place where blacks gathered to embrace their collective concerns as a community of faith. Stewart states, \u201cIt has been the only institution in the African American experience that has maintained relative autonomy from the domesticating influence of white oppressors and overlords.\u201d[v]<\/a> It is such a context that allows Calvin Bowers to argue that some black churches may be the last place to see integration due to the desire to maintain a power base not available to them elsewhere.[vi]<\/a> After reviewing several aspects of worship as the context for spiritual and cultural freedom, Stewart notes that black preaching in and out of the black church is \u201cone of the most powerful idioms of freedom for black people in America.\u201d[vii]<\/a><\/p>\n Bowers reviews the development of the black church in American history.[viii]<\/a> The black response to segregation manifested itself in two distinct ways.\u00a0 First, there was an acceptance of Jim Crow as seen in the writings of Booker T. Washington and other \u201cSustainers.\u201d\u00a0 Speaking to white northerners about abolition, many like Frederick Douglass, used Standard English style and delivery in order to secure a hearing.\u00a0 Equality was being demonstrated to white audiences who needed to see that blacks were able to use the language.\u00a0 Douglass, on the one hand, reluctantly chose to be a showcase of the intellectual ability of a black man for the white establishment.\u00a0 On the other hand, Douglass used the rhetorical techniques of the establishment to defend and advance his cause.[ix]<\/a><\/p>\n The \u201cSustainers\u201d preached to the needs of enslaved and segregated people but never attempted to revolutionize the conditions under which they lived.\u00a0 Their hope rested in the conviction that the gospel of love would gradually transform the hearts of slave owners and subsequent racists.\u00a0 The rhetoric of inclusion continually uses \u201cwe\u201d and not \u201cyou\u201d or\u00a0 \u201cthem.\u201d Some of the gradualistic convictions were rooted in the early evangelism done by white preachers.\u00a0 Christianity was thought to bring submission to slaves.\u00a0 A more docile slave would somehow maintain the status quo.\u00a0 Gradualism was sure to fail due to its misconception of the nature of slavery as an institution and the lack of recognition of the power of the gospel to transform a nation.\u00a0 In similar fashion, the Civil Rights Movement itself moved rhetorically over time from a gradualistic approach to a \u201cshattered dream\u201d understanding of an America that was never a free America.<\/p>\n W. E. B. DuBois, opposed the stance of the \u201cSustainers,\u201d and would not give racism even a hint of being acceptable arguing against gradualism.\u00a0 DuBois and the \u201cReformers\u201d were willing to risk life for the freedom of the race.\u00a0 They sought to translate the power base of the black church into political clout.<\/p>\n Churches of Christ advocated both positions. Although many of the white leaders in the Movement taught their slaves the gospel, allowed them to worship in segregated balconies, and eventually freed them, they were slow in doing so.[x]<\/a> Conversely, most blacks did not accept the doctrine of gradualism.\u00a0\u00a0 G. P. Bowser was raised in the AME church, the oldest exclusively African-American denomination in the United States.\u00a0 The AME church was founded in 1816, a few years after Richard Allen had been expelled from the \u201cwhite\u201d St. George\u2019s Church in Philadelphia.\u00a0 Bowser left the AME church in 1897 and became a member of the Jackson St. Church of Christ in Nashville working with Marshall Keeble.\u00a0 Bowser eventually broke away from the white supported Keeble.\u00a0 His preaching was a synthesis of a rational discourse and traditional black preaching and is exemplified by his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 R. N. Hogan.\u00a0 Bowser was instrumental in opening Southwestern Christian College in Terrel Texas.<\/p>\n R. N. Hogan opposed the segregation of such schools as Pepperdine. His sermons were topical, logical, and rational patterns that appealed to the intellect.\u00a0 Hogan had a high view of education and literacy.\u00a0 He challenged congregations to read the Bible for themselves and not accept blindly what any pastor said.\u00a0 He allowed open questions and investigations during his sermons.[xi]<\/a><\/p>\n Conversely, an example of gradualism is seen in Marshall Keeble (1878-1968), who appealed to blacks and whites.[xii]<\/a> Keeble\u2019s gospel of accommodation stated, \u201cThe way out for us is to exaggerate our dependence.\u201d He trusted the white congregations for financial support throughout his long career.\u00a0 Although Keeble spoke on race relations, he used \u201cdouble-speak\u201d or \u201csignification\u201d to convey his message.\u00a0 His preaching style was similar to Hogan\u2019s, yet without the direct judgment against racism and other offensive topics to whites.<\/p>\n The debate between \u201cSustainers\u201d and \u201cReformers\u201d continues today. \u201cSustainers\u201d argue that culture is the reason for the differences seen in people. One prominent African American preacher noted,\u00a0 \u201cEverybody considers their own culture as superior. Indians think their culture is superior.\u00a0 That\u2019s natural. It\u2019s not the red man, yellow man, black man.\u00a0 It\u2019s culture.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t go live in Africa. … \u00a0Or marry an African.\u00a0 We are not going to mix. …\u00a0 She is as black as I am, but it\u2019s the culture.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s it, it\u2019s the culture.\u201d[xiii]<\/a> This preacher defends gradualism as the most Christian approach but also the most pragmatic approach.<\/p>\n When you take for example Keeble, he was slower than Bowser.\u00a0 Over time, this proved more successful.\u00a0 Keeble came up in severe Jim Crowe age and well acquainted with the attitude of the Caucasian and when you look back, he had the best approach.\u00a0 Maybe not the acceptable approach but the best approach.\u00a0 Many preachers wouldn\u2019t tell you that. …\u00a0 I always could understand what the old man was doing.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t of done it, not like that, I couldn\u2019t be like Jackie Robinson. …\u00a0 There are certain men who were ready fit for the position.\u00a0 A man for the time.\u00a0 Keeble was man for the time.\u00a0 Martin Luther King, Jr. was the man for the time.\u00a0 Jackie Robinson was the man for the time.\u00a0 You got to admit, his [Keeble] approach was the best approach. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n However, another preacher who began his career in the tradition of Keeble reflects on this as though it were the wrong course. He attacks the argument of culture asking about other religious groups that are integrated even in the midst of two or more cultures. His voice mourns and his eyes fall as he retells stories of accommodation as though he and others were weak and fearful.<\/p>\n The Rhetoric of African American Preaching<\/strong><\/p>\n C. J. LaRue summarizes various analytical approaches. Scholars have examined sermon content, language, emotional appeals, ministerial authority, and so on. He moves beyond these approaches by examining the interpretive process itself as the key to unlock the distinctive nature of African American preaching.[xiv]<\/a><\/p>\n The following analysis will describe African American preaching under the categories of signification, hermeneutics, community, and the use of language. These modes of oral communication symbolize \u201cthe capacity to think intelligently, act decisively, and express creatively and courageously the feelings black people harbor about life in America.\u201d[xv]<\/a><\/p>\n Signification<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Among the many analyses for the development of African American rhetoric, the concept of \u201cdouble consciousness\u201d is explained. W. E. B. DuBois defines the term as looking at one\u2019s self through the eyes of oppressors and thereby devaluing the self as inferior to them. However, double consciousness has led to alternative ways of viewing and acting in the world. By viewing the world through their own as well as through other\u2019s eyes, a creative ability to adapt and escape the limitations imposed upon them led to their survival.[xvi]<\/a><\/p>\n Peterson explores the double voicedness of Black American writing and demonstrates how the utterances of this cultural group exhibit Bakhtin\u2019s dialogic framework.[xvii]<\/a> Language, discourses, and narratives are culturally produced.\u00a0 Many voices share with each other the common story of a people.\u00a0 Furthermore, the community contextually interprets the story.\u00a0 Meaning can neither be created, understood, nor presented except within community.\u00a0 African-American rhetoric uses meta-confrontation within the structure of a sign in order to speak two messages at the same time, namely, a message of acceptance and a message of liberation.<\/p>\n Hale uses DuBois as an example of dialogic discourse in the African-American setting.[xviii]<\/a> He maintains you cannot abstract language from the social matrix that produced the utterance.\u00a0 Language exhibits a double consciousness that is socially constructed.\u00a0 Bakhtin parallels a social constructionist view where knowledge is socially constructed.\u00a0 Discourse communities (e.g., African-Americans) will, in Bakhtin\u2019s sphere, construct a reality and knowledge system that is their own.\u00a0 Groups will draw upon the linguistic resources available with their culture in order to constitute localized realities.\u00a0 Because all discourse is rhetorical in nature, the way we validate statements resides in the persuasiveness of statements within a particular community (opposed to individuals who claim to encounter the world directly and use language to describe their encounter).\u00a0 Therefore, reality is not seen in the correspondence of ideas to objects and events, or in the faculties of the mind, or in some set of natural laws. Therefore, language displays a socialized ambivalence. Knowledge, therefore, is intersubjective.<\/p>\n Henry Louis Gates, Jr., combines rhetoric and sociolinguistic analyses in his discussions of \u201cblack English.\u201d[xix]<\/a> Although not acknowledged by Henry Mitchell, one of homiletics foremost authorities on black preaching, Gates terminology and descriptions overlap Mitchell\u2019s understanding of a unique black dialect.[xx]<\/a> Bizzell and Herzberg reinforce this idea by stating that \u201cblack English\u201d is linguistically a melding of several African languages and English.[xxi]<\/a> Black dialect must be examined lexically, grammatically, and syntactically through a lens of these African languages.\u00a0 Gates uses the term \u201ctropes\u201d (a turn of words away from their literal meaning to a metaphorical meaning) to identify a large number of black rhetorical strategies.\u00a0 Many of these forms, like repetition, rhyming, and hyperbole, are similar to ancient tropes understood for centuries.\u00a0 Gates, however, identifies \u201csignifying\u201d as the \u201cmaster trope\u201d of black rhetoric.[xxii]<\/a> \u201cSignifying \u2026 is the general term for several forms of persuasion, insult, boasting, or lying, all by innuendo or indirection.\u201d[xxiii]<\/a> Twelve speech genres and fourteen representative signifying tropes are identified common to the black dialect in everyday discourse.\u00a0 Other non-verbal categories are prevalent as well.\u00a0 Some of the genres and tropes are equally shared by white rhetoric.\u00a0 Gates states that signifying works through indirection, a \u201clinguistic masking, the verbal sign of the mask of blackness that demarcates the boundary between the white linguistic realm and the black, two domains that exist side by side in a homonymic relation signified by the very concept of signification.\u201d[xxiv]<\/a><\/p>\n Gates argues that \u201cblack English\u201d is primarily learned in the home and on the streets.\u00a0 He quotes Richard Lanham\u2019s depiction of the black child passing through the \u201crhetorical paideia\u201d of everyday life as a training ground in language so that the student can master the figures of black signification.\u00a0 Lanham states,<\/p>\n Start your student young.\u00a0 Teach him a minute concentration on the word, how to write it, speak it, remember it. . . . From the beginning, stress behavior as performance, reading aloud, speaking with gesture, a full range of histrionic adornment. . . .\u00a0 Develop elaborate memory schemes to keep them readily at hand.\u00a0 Teach, as theory of personality, a corresponding set of accepted personality types, a taxonomy of impersonation. . . . Nourish an acute sense of social situation. . . .\u00a0 Stress, too, the need for improvisation, ad-lib quickness, the coaxing of chance.\u00a0 Hold always before the student rhetoric\u2019s practical purpose: to win, to persuade.\u00a0 But train for this purpose with continual verbal play, rehearsal for the sake of rehearsal.<\/em><\/p>\n Use the \u201ccase\u201d method. . . .\u00a0 Practice this recreation always in an agnostic context.\u00a0 The aim is scoring.\u00a0 Urge the student to go into the world and observe its doings from this perspective.\u00a0 And urge him to continue his rehearsal method all his life, forever rehearsing a spontaneous real life. . . .\u00a0 Training in the word thus becomes a badge, as well as a diversion, of the leisure class<\/em>.[xxv]<\/a><\/p>\n Gates sees signification functioning as a \u201ctrick\u201d being played on the audience. The word \u201ctrick\u201d recalls the myth of the \u201csignifying monkey,\u201d which originates in Africa.\u00a0 The monkey specializes in playing off superior forces against one another to his own advantage.\u00a0 In the jungle he shuttles between the fierce lion (the white racists?) and the powerful elephant (the white liberal?), tricking each to do his will.<\/p>\n Lischer notes that signifying was the only mode of communication, other than suicidal confrontation, that was available to an oppressed people.[xxvi]<\/a> Referring to Mezzrow, Gates notes that it is not specifically what is said, but how.\u00a0 The hearer of signification needs to distinguish between \u201cmanner and matter.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cDecoding\u201d of the metaphorical message depends upon shared knowledge.<\/p>\n Hermeneutics<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n When speaking to black audiences directly, black speakers use a dialect and rhetoric that is consistent with their heritage and culture[xxvii]<\/a> because there is a recognition that people hear the good news in their own idiom, images, and cultural communication styles.[xxviii]<\/a> Many of these styles are not recognized much less appreciated by those who are anticipating conformity to what they consider to be a more \u201ccorrect\u201d approach.<\/p>\n Spontaneity is prevalent in black preaching.\u00a0 Black preachers are able to move with the moment and express deep feeling without shame.\u00a0 However, much of the perceived spontaneity is a result of the use of \u201cset-pieces\u201d (Aristotle\u2019s \u201ctopoi\u201d).\u00a0 These \u201cproofs\u201d are \u201csure things\u201d that have been field tested to have the desired rhetorical effect.\u00a0 Set-pieces come from a variety of sources and are often familiar to the audience.\u00a0 The same set-piece often is used in a variety of sermons functioning differently each time.\u00a0 The audience recognizes the set-piece almost immediately. Instead of being interpreted as boring repetition, the set-piece affirms community, gathers the audience attention, and brings them together to the next stage of the sermon or to a decision. Set-pieces are often the building blocks of the logical movement of the sermon.<\/p>\n Black sermons are often structured around the imaginative use of narrative.\u00a0 The most prevalent narrative (master story) found throughout the history of the black church is the story of the Exodus.\u00a0 The telling of the story is not a reflecting back or remembering examples of old, but an actual participation with those who have gone on before.\u00a0 The narrative has direct transference and immediate relevance.\u00a0 Scripture is seen as being written by oppressed people for oppressed people.\u00a0 Besides the Exodus motif, two other themes utilized in Black theology are biblical references to black nations, and Jesus\u2019 stance toward the oppressed.\u00a0 These paradigms become the lens to see all other texts.<\/p>\n Historical-critical exegetes often label a direct transference of a historical context to another context as a historical fallacy or presentism. Presentism is found often in Black narrative hermeneutics.\u00a0 The discontinuity between \u201cthen\u201d and \u201cnow\u201d becomes lost.\u00a0 The dynamic analogy created in the sermon assumes historical continuity between Israel and the community today.\u00a0 This experiential encounter with the Word is a holistic experience of the cognitive, intuitive, and emotional aspects of the hearer.\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore, when the preacher speaks of Pharaoh as a white task master that lives on the hill who has a brass knocker on his door that the Israelites are not able to use, the modern critic should not dismiss easily the anachronistic typology found in African-American hermeneutics which did not pass through the hallowed halls of the disinterested Enlightenment.\u00a0 The presentism assumed by the speaker functions to create identification in such a way that the response desired is achieved.<\/p>\n Presentism, by black hermeneutical standards, is not a historical fallacy but an outgrowth of a different kind of logic, namely, associational logic. Hatch argues against the following thesis: The persuasive strategy behind black preaching is to appeal to the emotions so that the audience can escape from an impossible world.\u00a0 Hatch offers a case study of C. L. Franklin to show how logic and reason are used and embedded in narratives, examples, comparisons, and biblical references.\u00a0\u00a0 Franklin used associational logic to establish a relationship with the intellect, imagination, and the emotions.\u00a0 Hatch calls this a type of poetic logic that is neither inductive nor deductive in nature but analogical.\u00a0 Sermons proceed from particular instances of the same relationship.[xxix]<\/a><\/p>\n Hatch analyzes the black sermon by looking for associational logic.\u00a0 He also sees elliptical sentence structure used throughout.\u00a0 He recognizes that metaphor is more than a stylistic ornament, it is an example of poetic logic and a type of concrete reasoning.\u00a0 That is why there is such a high use of figurative language.\u00a0 Most sermons are organized around a central image that is often criticized as a digression.[xxx]<\/a><\/p>\n Hatch offers a matrix of correspondence as a method of analysis.[xxxi]<\/a> The matrix demonstrates parallel instances of the same relationship between diverse sections of the sermon.\u00a0 The successive points are not digressions designed to hold the attention of the audience.\u00a0 Each point of the sermon is designed to parallel the biblical narrative and establish a set of correspondences that advance the argument.<\/p>\n Samuel Proctor argues in favor of a Hegelian model of dialectic as appropriate for African-American preaching.[xxxii]<\/a> Proctor develops the dialectical method of preaching common among many trained at Crozier prior to the Civil Rights Movement.\u00a0 He argues that meeting the various crisis situations in the congregation demands that the preacher begin where they are. Real needs of people\u2019s broken lives become the beginning point for every sermon.\u00a0 Healing or resolution of people\u2019s needs comes in the form of a proposition that can originate from experience or from the Word of God.\u00a0 This proposition or “ideal” that the preacher desires to communicate must be examined in relationship with the “real” of people’s lives (antithesis).\u00a0 A relevant question is asked to reconcile the real and the ideal.\u00a0 The message, the resolution, and the answer to the relevant question create the synthesis.\u00a0 This answer may be presented in two to six points.\u00a0 Each point needs to be developed from several perspectives to bring clarity.\u00a0 The preacher may develop these points from the biblical record, history, literature, and experience, but they will always contain the good news. Usually, the points of the resolution are structured as a deductive topical lesson. Proctor readily acknowledges his dependence upon Harry Emerson Fosdick.<\/p>\n LaRue argues that the distinctive aspect of black preaching is the hermeneutic derived from experience. His examination of several nineteenth and twentieth century African American preachers and their published sermons supports the existence of a common black hermeneutic that cuts across social, political, and denominational lines.\u00a0 He states, \u201cthe distinctive power of black preaching is derived from a way of perceiving God that both affects and is affected by their particular reading of Scripture based on their experiences.\u201d[xxxiii]<\/a> This distinct understanding of God sees him as a sovereign acting \u201cmightily on behalf of dispossessed and marginalized people.\u201d[xxxiv]<\/a> Critical interpretive dynamics at work in the stages of sermon development are discussed under the domains of personal piety, care of the soul, social justice, corporate concern, and maintenance of the institutional church.<\/p>\n Set-pieces, narratives, associational logic, and dialectical logic are just some of the ways sermons are constructed by black preachers. Although sometimes criticized for not conforming to many standard methods for sermon organization, an appreciation for black preaching is finding resurgence among the new homiletic circles because of their sophistic and experiential concerns for audience impact. Preaching as a communal word takes center stage.<\/p>\n Community<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Stewart states that a significant part of African American spirituality relies upon people belonging to a larger social group that fosters a collective strength and vitality.[xxxv]<\/a> Worship is a primary place for the gathering of the black community to affirm each other\u2019s presence. Call and response is not only a dialogical interaction due to the content of the sermon, but also a catalyst for solidarity. The community rallies around specific concerns. Stewart offers the following example of call and response noting its primary role in socialization:<\/p>\n Speaker: \u201cAnd there will come a time when we will see another day.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Audience: \u201cThat\u2019s right. We will!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Speaker: \u201cAnd nobody will turn us \u2018round when that day comes!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Audience: \u201cThat\u2019s right, say it!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Speaker: \u201cWhatever we want to say, we got to say that God is in charge of this thing and can\u2019t no person, mind, nor mule stand in God\u2019s way when god decides to do something!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Audience: \u201cYou know you right. That\u2019s right. Go \u2018head. Say it!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Speaker: \u201cSo let\u2019s stand up and take action! Let\u2019s stand up to those drug dealers and run them out of town because this is God\u2019s place and we are God\u2019s people. If we take two steps, God will take ten on our behalf!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Audience: \u201cThat\u2019s it! Let\u2019s do it! Let\u2019s go. God is with us!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026 Not only did words quicken responses from the audience, but the process of call and response itself has ritual significance in simulating unity and solidarity among people whose basic strength is in unified belief and action. [xxxvi]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Preaching and hearing go together. A person listening is vital to good preaching because the pulpit and pew are engaged in a common work. No where is this more evident than in the black church where the people are actually helping the preacher to preach. If the congregation fails to hold up their end of the congregation, the preacher may even stop and remonstrate with the members of the \u201camen corner.\u201d \u201cPreach it, preacher!\u201d \u201cPraise the Lord!\u201d \u201cAin\u2019t it true!\u201d \u201cAmen, brother!\u201d Shouts of acclamation for the preacher are likewise intercessions.[xxxvii]<\/a> Call and response affirms each other\u2019s presence. The notion of collective unity in the midst of diversity is exemplified.[xxxviii]<\/a><\/p>\n The relationship between the speaker and the audience is vastly different than the traditional communication theory of\u00a0 \u201csender-receiver.\u201d\u00a0 In the black church the audience responds almost constantly with set responses, encouragements, suggestions, and nonverbal signals.[xxxix]<\/a> \u201cThus a regular feature of black rhetoric on most occasions is the effort of the speaker to stir the audience to verbal response. \u2026 Beyond the introduction, though, the sermon\u2019s purpose is both to exhort and to create solidarity, and participation is a sign that its purposes are being achieved.\u201d[xl]<\/a> One preacher states, \u201cblacks are just more verbal than whites although there seems to be a coming together on that too.\u00a0 We use more repetition because black churches will accept it more.\u201d<\/p>\n C. J. P. Barbour at Crozier Seminary would drill his students every Sunday afternoon in black homiletics.\u00a0 Martin Luther King, Jr., learned early that audience reaction was essential.\u00a0 Lischer comments on Barbour\u2019s homiletic stating, \u201cThe science of \u2018audience reaction\u2019 reinforced Aristotle\u2019s pragmatics of rhetoric: there is no truth unless an audience counts it true.\u201d[xli]<\/a><\/p>\n D. McKim connects black hermeneutics with liberation theology.\u00a0 He speaks about black preaching being concerned with anthropological poverty (a denial of black culture and a subsequent denial of humanity).\u00a0 The themes of suffering, oppression, and powerlessness point to liberation and salvation.\u00a0 Such salvation is not to be left to the end of history but is to be played out in our present day struggles.\u00a0 Freedom equals self-determination.[xlii]<\/a><\/p>\n Preaching, therefore, has functioned as the voice for community in the political world. Congregations have been moved to act because the black preacher has brought the world of the Bible directly to bear upon their present concerns. The preacher\u2019s word has voiced the community\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n Language<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Henry Mitchell knows that the word is central for the black speaker and that how the preacher chooses to employ sound on that word is as much a matter of invention as the choosing of the word itself.[xliii]<\/a> The creative interplay between sound, rhythm, cadence, and harmony may be as important as the precise message.[xliv]<\/a> Some black preachers depend more on the voice than they do the precision of the message.<\/p>\n One comes upon real love for the English tongue \u2026. Gardner Taylor begins by picking up a word, such as reconciliation, or communion, or sisterhood. First he just says it, but then you can see him warming up to it. Clearly he loves that word, and he\u2019s going to do wonderful things for it and to it. He tries just rolling it out of his mouth; then, staccato-like, he bounces it around a bit; then he starts to take it apart, piece by piece, and then put it together in different ways. And pretty soon you have a whole lot of people engaged in wondering and puzzling with Dr. Taylor, trying to figure out what this word and this idea or reconciliation is all about. They walk around the word, looking at it from different angles. Taylor gets on top of it and looks down, then he lifts up a corner and peeks underneath; you can see this is going to be a difficult word to get to know. He whispers it and then he shouts it; he pats, pinches, and probes it; and then he pronounces himself unsatisfied, and all the people agree. \u201cIt\u2019s time to look at what the great Apostle Paul has to say about this here word reconciliation.\u201d And all the people agree.[xlv]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Primarily, the use of language is intended to bring an emotional release at the end of the sermon.\u00a0 A true understanding of good news climaxes in celebration.[xlvi]<\/a> This occurs through what Mitchell terms \u201ctransconsciousness\u201d defined as: the result of immemorial existential situations.[xlvii]<\/a> Proclamation will lead to celebration.\u00a0 The genius of black preaching is the capacity to generate praise or joy in the hardest of circumstances.\u00a0 Joy is a deep feeling that draws people into community by transcending tragedies.<\/p>\n Stewart sees rap, signify, and testify as three modes of language that were creatively innovated as a response to the more socially accepted modes of the surrounding society. Rap encourages black people to make sense, to adopt and adapt, to transform reality through a creative use and mixing of words and sounds. Signification, discussed above, arrives at \u201cdirection through indirection.\u201d It maintains an advantage over adversaries by the use of mixed messages or \u201cdouble speak.\u201d Its purpose is to manipulate the hegemonic powers. Finally, testifying is simply an active and faithful witnessing to God\u2019s work in the world in order to understand the world from a different perspective.\u00a0 The common affirmation of God\u2019s reality establishes strength and power to their collective identity. To talk about what God has done, is doing, and will do despite oppression is transforming and liberating for the mind, body, and soul.[xlviii]<\/a><\/p>\n African-American preaching is rooted in metaphor and metonymy [tools of signification].\u00a0 The startling juxtapositions of two unfamiliar entities provoke puzzlement, denial, and response.\u00a0 Metonymy associates the image with idea in a more logical and suitable manner.\u00a0 The poetic nature of African-American rhetoric garners a favorable hearing.<\/p>\n Lischer lists the following repetition devices in King\u2019s sermons which are common to the black sermon genre: alliteration, assonance, anaphora, epistrophe, leitmotif, amplification (copiousness, intensification), sacred association, and parataxis.[xlix]<\/a> All of these devices have their ancient roots and are described by Aristotle.\u00a0 Lischer also notes that there is a \u201csound track\u201d of style also common among black preachers.\u00a0 Rhythms, pitch, sounds, stress on syllables, volume, etc. all contribute to the sermon\u2019s rhetorical effect.\u00a0 Phrases ascend by degrees to peaks of accented words that the speaker not only stresses but also plays or bends in a tonal curve.\u00a0 These sound tracks, stammers, syncopations, enjambments, glissandos, the pathos in the voice, etc. cannot be duplicated on the printed page and transcends cognitive analysis.\u00a0 Vocal inflections typically used by black preachers also include the bending and lowering of pitches (blue note), sliding from tone to tone (glissando), grace notes, fall-offs, and tremolo, which are all representative of a jazz soloists.\u00a0 The same word may have different meaning and consequently different audience reaction just by the variety of tonal inflections given it by the preacher.\u00a0\u00a0 Whooping is the most stereotypical element in black preaching.\u00a0 It is far from universal and on the decline.\u00a0 It is used only when welcomed by the congregation and done by those who can do it sincerely and with cultural integrity.[l]<\/a><\/p>\n The characteristic use of the voice is one of the most identifiable characteristics of black preaching.\u00a0 One preacher comments on this fact when talking about an invitation he received from a \u201cwhite\u201d congregation.\u00a0 \u201cNow, why do they want me for.\u00a0 Is it because I can preach the gospel better than other folk?\u00a0 Is it because there will be those in the audience I can reach that others can\u2019t?\u00a0 Noooo!\u00a0 I was invited to be an entertainer.\u00a0 I was invited because I can thrill their fancy.\u00a0 Maybe, I was invited to pacify the sins of their fathers.\u00a0 \u2018Now there\u2019s a liberal church.\u00a0 They don\u2019t discriminate based on sex, creed, or color.\u2019\u00a0 Well, at least not color.\u201d[li]<\/a><\/p>\n One preacher describes how he went to a different school than his mentor.\u00a0 \u201cHe taught me the gospel.\u00a0 He gave me the opportunity and encouragement to preach.\u00a0 He garnered financial support for me.\u00a0 But I chose to go to a different college.\u00a0 It was if I betrayed him.\u00a0 Ever since, I feel as though he undermines my ministry here and tarnishes my reputation whenever possible.\u00a0 He is an effective soul-winner, but I could not follow him morally.\u00a0 I had to make my own path.\u201d<\/p>\n He goes on to tell about being trained at a \u201cwhite\u201d school which causes him other problems.\u00a0 Due to the lack of dependence upon emotional appeals, associational logic, and voice, other black preachers see him as less effective.\u00a0 This factor is not as important within his congregation as it is when visitors come from other traditions.\u00a0 He relates being considered \u201cwhite\u201d in his preaching.\u00a0 He tells about how his own congregation sometimes feels inferior because he \u201ccan\u2019t whoop it up like the preachers of our religious neighbors.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t trained to preach like that.\u00a0 I was trained to preach the Word.\u00a0 And I was trained to preach the Word using appropriate critical methods and logical presentation.\u201d[lii]<\/a><\/p>\n A Case Study: Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/strong><\/p>\n Niles offers three limitations in analyzing black sermons.\u00a0 These sermons were not prepared in manuscript form.\u00a0 Most sermons are in dialogue form and the manuscripts that do exist do not satisfactorily represent what actually took place in the church.\u00a0 Furthermore, sermons in the black tradition were not written to be read.\u00a0 Much of the impact, therefore, is lost unless the critic knows how the words would have sounded, and can picture the delivery in his or her mind as he or she reads the manuscript.[liii]<\/a><\/p>\n Sanders identifies seven different types of transcripts among black preachers: poetic, literary, musical, structural, hermeneutical, ethical, and political.\u00a0 The poetic and literary types recognize preacher as artist and are rooted in a living oral tradition of the black church.\u00a0 Sanders notes how difficult it is to analyze written and edited sermons.\u00a0 The printed sermon loses the qualities of the oral event.\u00a0 How do you reproduce the oral word in a written form?[liv]<\/a><\/p>\n Lischer states that King\u2019s voice is lost in the published materials that are decontextualized because of the editorial process.\u00a0 The published sermons of King lack the themes that struck the chords in the black church.\u00a0 For example, the fatigue in his voice was often overwhelmed by his awakened urgency in his own message.\u00a0 King often found his voice in the pulpit. [lv]<\/a> Published sermons lose the sense of style (\u201cthe how of the what\u201d).\u00a0 The distinctions between what is said and how it is said are lost.\u00a0 Lischer states, \u201cthe style is the message.\u201d [lvi]<\/a> Under the heading of style, Lischer also notes King\u2019s fascination with words and phrases, his force of repetition, and set-pieces. [lvii]<\/a><\/p>\n R. Lischer notes how Martin Luther King, Jr., was true to both the Sustainer and Reformer traditions.[lviii]<\/a> He appealed often to the Sustainer\u2019s emphasis on \u201cpersonal dignity\u201d by reminding the nation that God created all humanity in his own image.\u00a0 He learned with skill the \u201cdouble voice\u201d of the Sustainer who could speak one word that addressed the oppressed and the oppressor differently.\u00a0 King maintained the rhetoric of gradualism in using imperative sentences 2.5% of the time compared to using declarative sentences nearly 90% of the time.\u00a0 Yet, as his later life bore witness, King stood squarely in the midst of the Reformers like Allen, Garnet, Tubman, Turner, Walker, and Douglass.<\/p>\n In comparison to others who use signification and \u201cdouble voice\u201d to a greater extent, King used restraint in using playful put-downs and double entendres.\u00a0 Yet, Lischer notes, \u201cHis entire rhetorical strategy of identification can be interpreted as a form of signifying.\u201d[lix]<\/a> He depended upon his own unique black voice to maintain the balance needed between the white liberals, the black militants, and the moderates of both races, all of whom he depended upon for the success of the cause.<\/p>\n There is great debate about the source of Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s philosophy.\u00a0 Miller opts to support that his philosophy comes from African-American folk religion.[lx]<\/a> Lischer reviews the traditional understanding of King\u2019s background being firmly influenced by his liberal education at Boston University.\u00a0 \u201cThe figures and ideas he engaged in his graduate study gave him a vocabulary with which he rationalized a more original black response to the events of his day.\u201d[lxi]<\/a> The word does not function as a theoretical base for action.\u00a0 Rather, the word is a kind of action that cannot legitimately be separated from the struggles, temptations, sufferings, and hopes of the people who live by the word.\u00a0 Lischer concludes that King found his authority in the black church pulpit.<\/p>\n Although King is heavily criticized for plagiarism, Miller argues that King understood oral language as public language.\u00a0 No one can own or have private language.\u00a0 Oral language is passed down and shared from generation to generation.\u00a0 Miller states, \u201cIn the folk pulpit, one gains an authoritative voice by adopting the persona of previous speakers as one adapts the sermons and formulaic expressions of a sanctified tradition.\u201d[lxii]<\/a> Miller calls this \u201cvoice-merging.\u201d\u00a0 The process of voice-merging results in \u201cself-making.\u201d\u00a0 Massey supports the use of others\u2019 sermons when making general suggestions to preachers.[lxiii]<\/a> He suggests exploring the design of sermons by the “masters” as an effective resource for improving sermons.<\/p>\n Augustine counseled less gifted preachers to memorize and deliver the words of others.\u00a0 Gregory the Great often quoted verbatim the words of the Fathers.\u00a0 Anglican preachers read the sermons of Tillotson; Methodists recite Wesley; Puritans quote Mather and Barnard.\u00a0 Preachers who use the tradition of their religious heritage allow it to make a difference in their personal preaching style.<\/p>\n Miller also notes that a secondary feature of voice-merging occurs when the preacher\u2019s voice, the familiar set-pieces, and the formulaic expressions merge with the congregational consciousness.[lxiv]<\/a> The merging enables churchgoers to participate more freely through speaking, clapping, gesturing, or dancing.\u00a0 King\u2019s agenda was to merge all voices in America so a resultant brotherhood would result (identity convergence). King had a communal hermeneutic.[lxv]<\/a> The congregational dialogue that occurred every Sunday was an establishment of a connection between the text and the audience.\u00a0 Certain passages, phrases, or set-pieces signal many internal meanings shared by the preacher and the congregation.\u00a0 The text is then experienced presently.\u00a0 Some of the same sermons were preached in white congregations yet without the same rhetorical effect.\u00a0 Lischer notes how the same messages and words are used but without the fire.\u00a0 \u201cThe black audience allowed him [King] to cook.\u201d<\/p>\n The above analysis of the social context, rhetoric, hermeneutic, and the case of Martin Luther King, Jr., has confirmed the rich and diverse nature of African American preaching. It is no wonder that recent homiletical materials have resonated with black preaching. The response from the pew confirms the universal application of these principles. The Word is fulfilled in their hearing.<\/p>\n [ii]<\/a> Ibid., 179.<\/p>\n [iii]<\/a> Quoted by Deane A. Kemper, \u201cThe Sermon As Story: Telling the Whole Truth,\u201d (Academy of Homiletics, 1979).<\/p>\n [iv]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [v]<\/a> C. F. Stewart, Soul Survivors: An African American Spirituality<\/span> (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997): 146.<\/p>\n [vi]<\/a> Calvin Bowers, \u201cCreating the Black Church,\u201d Gospel Advocate<\/span> (January, 1990): 17-18.<\/p>\n [vii]<\/a> Stewart, Soul Survivors<\/span>, 129.<\/p>\n [viii]<\/a> Bowers, \u201cCreating,\u201d 17.<\/p>\n [ix]<\/a> P. Bizzell and B, Herzberg, The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings From Classical Times to the Present<\/span> (Boston: Bedford Books, 1990):\u00a0 1185-1186. Using language to accomplish a dual function, exemplified by Douglass, is what Bakhtin calls \u201cdouble voicedness, Louis Gates calls, \u201csignification,\u201d or W.E.B. DuBois terms \u201cdouble consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n [x]<\/a> J. Maxwell, \u201cRestoration Movement,\u201d Gospel Advocate<\/span> (1990), 15-16.<\/p>\n [xi]<\/a> M. W. Casey, Saddlebags, City Streets, and Cyberspace:\u00a0 A History of Preaching in the Churches of Christ<\/span> (Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 1995):\u00a0 141-147.<\/p>\n [xii]<\/a> Ibid., 147.<\/p>\n [xiii]<\/a> T. Sensing, unpublished interviews of several prominent African-American preachers in Churches of Christ, 1997. My interest in the rhetoric of African-American preaching began in 1994 while a student at Duke University. Two of my professors were Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard, and the late Samuel Proctor, former pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, NY, Martin Luther King Professor Emeritus of Rutgers University, and homiletics professor at Duke University. This particular project was part of a pilot study in narrative research methodologies while a student at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Future quotes and references to this project will not be footnoted to protect the confidentiality of the participants.<\/p>\n [xiv]<\/a> C. J. LaRue, The Heart of Black Preaching<\/span>. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000): 11-12.<\/p>\n [xv]<\/a> Stewart, Soul Survivors<\/span>, 55.<\/p>\n [xvi]<\/a> Stewart, Soul Survivors<\/span>, 13 referring to DuBois\u2019s work, The Souls of Black Folks<\/span>.<\/p>\n [xvii]<\/a> D. E. Peterson, \u201cResponse and Call? The African-American Dialogue with Bakhtin,\u201d American Literature<\/span> 65 (1993): 761-775.<\/p>\n [xviii]<\/a> D. J. Hale, \u201cBakhtin in African-American Literary Theory. ELH<\/span> 61 (1994): 445-471.<\/p>\n [xix]<\/a> H. L. Gates,\u00a0 Jr.,\u00a0 \u201cThe Signifying Monkey and the Language of Signifyin(g): Rhetorical Difference and the Orders of Meaning,\u201d in The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings From Classical Times to the Present,<\/span> eds., P. Bizzell and B. Herzberg.\u00a0 (Boston: Bedford Books, 1995): 1193-1223.<\/p>\n [xx]<\/a> H. H. Mitchell, Black Preaching<\/span> (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1990):\u00a0 56-57.<\/p>\n [xxi]<\/a> Bizzell and Herzberg, Rhetorical Tradition<\/span>, 1186-1187.<\/p>\n [xxii]<\/a> Ibid., 1193.<\/p>\n [xxiii]<\/a> Ibid., 1189.<\/p>\n [xxiv]<\/a> Ibid., 1213.<\/p>\n [xxv]<\/a> Gates quoting Richard A. Lanham, The Motives of Eloquence: Literary Rhetoric in the Renaissance<\/span> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976): 2-3.<\/p>\n [xxvi]<\/a> R. Lischer, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. And the Word that Moved America<\/span> (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 32, 39, 59.<\/p>\n [xxvii]<\/a> Bizzell and Herzberg, Rhetorical Tradition<\/span>, 1189-1191.<\/p>\n [xxviii]<\/a> H. H. Mitchell, \u201cAfrican-American Preaching,\u201d in Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching<\/span>, 2-9.<\/p>\n [xxix]<\/a> G. L. Hatch, \u201cLogic in the Black Folk Sermon: The Sermons of Rev. C. L. Franklin,\u201d Journal of Black Studies<\/span> 26 (1996): 227-244.<\/p>\n [xxx]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [xxxi]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [xxxii]<\/a> S. D. Procter, \u201cHow Shall They Hear?\u201d Effective Preaching for Vital Faith<\/span> (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1992); and Preaching About Crisis in the Community<\/span> (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988).<\/p>\n [xxxiii]<\/a> LaRue, Heart of Black Preaching<\/span>, 2.<\/p>\n [xxxiv]<\/a> Ibid., 6.<\/p>\n [xxxv]<\/a> Stewart, Soul Survivors<\/span>, 53.<\/p>\n [xxxvi]<\/a> Ibid., 66.<\/p>\n [xxxvii]<\/a> Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry<\/span>, 175.<\/p>\n [xxxviii]<\/a> Stewart, Soul Survivors<\/span>, 65.<\/p>\n [xxxix]<\/a> Bizzell and Herzberg, Rhetorical Tradition<\/span>, 1188.<\/p>\n [xl]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [xli]<\/a> Lischer, King, 70.<\/p>\nAfrican American Preaching<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/h2>\n
[i]<\/a> John Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry<\/span>, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979, 176.<\/p>\n