Black Homiletic: A Unique Experience on the Preaching Landscape
by Oliver R. Phillips, director, Mission Strategy USA/Canada
Robert Franklin, president of ITC in Atlanta, once said that Black Christians have come to expect sermons to be poetic masterpieces that are biblically rooted, politically prophetic, intellectually stimulating, emotionally evocative, rhetorically polished, pastorally positive, personally sensitive, and reverently and joyfully delivered. It is this hybridity that has given Black homiletics in general a preaching experience that is defined by the layperson as a chanted musical expression of the common biblical stories and language. Yet, it is more than a mere repository of cultural interpretations of the sacred Book. Black preaching is a survival instrument designed to identify and restore hope in a people whose past is replete with reasons to be hopeless, and whose present is disconnected from the existential portfolio of success and meaningfulness that epitomizes the American dream.
Black preaching, therefore, cannot be confined to the definitions that come easily to those who are steeped in the traditions of a Western and Eurocentric seminary education. Scholars readily agree that Black preaching is immune from conventional methodologies, and maybe its richness is a result of this unique escapism. The emotional intensity and energy found in Black preaching is designed to elicit an experience of the assurance of grace that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I suggest that Black homiletic define preaching as liberative, practical, dialogic, and celebrative.
Black preaching is liberative.
It reminds its listeners that they can be set free by an encounter with Jesus Christ. This encounter is not a naive existential relationship devoid of substance for the historical context within which the gospel is preached. Black preaching seeks to be faithful to three basic dimensions of freedom. First, liberation of the spirit allows Christians to transcend the mundane to achieve the final destiny of a permanent union with God, for whom their lives should be lived. Second, individuals are freed from slavery of inner compulsions to autonomy of purpose that can only be found in the kingdom of God. This is empowerment to claim the mandate to turn toward God and God's people. Third, Black preaching emphasizes that freedom in Jesus Christ is sociopolitical. Some wonder whether there could be an inner freedom in the context of an outer bondage and an alien world. Black preaching articulates the inconsistency of spiritual freedom without a fracture with sinful social structures.
The preaching of Martin Luther King Jr. is an example of this liberative motif. He dealt with poverty, injustice, racism, and economic oppression. He also said, "The dispossessed of this nation--the poor, both white and Negro--live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against that injustice."1 King's message generated the spark of hope and assurance that Black people needed to rekindle their self-respect and to unify the community in the elusive quest for freedom. This kind of preaching can be observed in most Black churches today.
This affinity for liberation preaching has birthed within Black preaching a penchant for aligning the voices of the prophets such as Daniel, Jeremiah, Amos, and Habakkuk with the voices of Sojourner Truth, David Walker, and John Brown. The result is the preacher's ability to redo, reinterpret, and revise the text to find answers that are relevant. This is often referred to as the hermeneutic circle.
Black preaching is practical.
The principal objective of reading the Bible is not to interpret Scripture but to interpret life through a scriptural grid. The central question for African-American homiletical exegesis is, "What meaning (assurance) does the gospel shed on the human condition of suffering through the particular text to be preached?"
Preaching in the African-American context is multidimensional. It is both spatial and universal, tangible and intangible, concrete and abstract simultaneously. Black preaching is never devoid of the aspirations of a pilgrim people who struggle daily for meaning where social injustice is their constant ration. When people lack adequate access to food, housing, education, health care, and social and cultural enrichment, they inevitably seek a critical correlation between theory and practice. Preaching must address this dialectic.
Black people sitting in pews on Sunday morning desire a practical theology that is informed by the strengthening of their self-understanding as persons made in the image of God. Preaching must empower individuals to become actively involved with God in the redemption of community.
Black preaching is dialogic.
The effect of the dialogic language of celebrative design is that it involves the listeners as partners in the preaching process. This dialogic encounter is more than an auditory response; it includes all of the senses. Black preaching involves the imaginative capacity. The Black preacher becomes infected with a contagious conviction often labeled "call and response," but it is the intuitive and participatory connection between preacher and people that pushes the preacher to explore with abandon the creative depths of Spirit-led celebration.
The congregation is expected to respond to the preaching as an affirmation of the healing presence of God and a ritual confirmation of the Spirit's ability to uplift, heal, and redeem lives. This remarkable element in Black preaching is the spiritual pharmacology of Black worship. The preacher dispenses the therapy, and the hearer shows appreciation by chanted response. The preaching experience is therefore a healing reservoir of transfiguration and transformation in which the congregation corroborates that the purpose of the sermon has been accomplished.
Black preaching is celebrative.
Celebration is defined as the culmination of the sermonic design, where a moment is created in which the remembrance of a redemptive past and/or the conviction of a berated future transforms the events immediately experienced.2 Celebration evokes a sense of enjoyment, enthusiasm, ecstasy, transcendence, adoration, and edification.
Most of Western homiletics is grounded in the method of rational discourse as could be found in its identification as expository, topical, and narrative. These traditional modes are never considered as a sui generis art form. The focus of Black preaching is not solely on cognitive explanations, but an experience of the transforming, sustaining, and saving power of God in the midst of evil and suffering. It is only recently that that there has been recognition that Western preaching has ignored emotional context and process, and homileticians are seeking new ways to communicate the gospel. The deductive rationalistic methodology, heavily influenced by a Greek worldview, does not reach the soul of Black congregants. Celebration must be used to create core belief in the inner assurance of victory and empowerment. People remember most what they celebrate, and it becomes the ecstatic reinforcement of the purpose of the sermon.
Martin Luther King Jr. gave us many examples of the celebrative moment in his speeches. Paul also used this sweeping rhetorical tour de force in answering the question "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (Romans 8:35). Probably the most memorable celebration is that of Ruth found in 1:16-17.
Conclusion
Samuel D. Proctor summarized Black preaching as the explication of four themes that find expressions in the cultural exploration of everyday questions:
- God is still present and active in human affairs and intervenes in our behalf.
- Spiritual renewal and moral wholeness are available to us all.
- Genuine community is a realizable goal for the human family.
- Eternity moves through time, and immortality is an ever-present potential. We have already passed from death unto life when we love.3
These themes resonate and find adequacy and relevance in the communities where African-Americans worship God holistically. With poetic expression, melodic phrases, and rhythmic pulsation, Black preaching weaves a sermonic delivery pregnant with inflections, imaginative reachings of speech, narratives, and nuances that are designed to celebrate the omnipotent One.
Dr. Oliver R. Phillips is a graduate of Howard University School of Divinity, where he was the recipient of the Vernon Johns' Preaching Prize. Assigned to headquarters in Mission Strategy, Phillips presently serves as coordinator of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, USA/Canada.
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1. Martin Luther King Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1968), 59.
2. Frank A. Thomas, They Like to Never Quit Praisin' God (Cleveland: United Church Press, 1997), 31.
3. Samuel D. Proctor, How Shall They Hear? (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1992), 10.
Recommended Resources for Continued Study of Black Homiletic
Black Preaching: The Recovery of a Powerful Art, by Henry H. Mitchell. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990.
Celebration and Experience in Preaching, by Henry H. Mitchell. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990.