African-American theology of worship arises out of a deep sense of oppression and a high anticipation of liberation. In worship, African-Americans experience the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, which liberates them from sin and the power of the Evil One.
Introduction
When African-American Christians gather for worship, regardless of denominations, they share a mutual understanding of God’s initiative in the call to worship. Although their experiences of God and life as a “marginalized” community of faith are varied, they share common needs and common perspectives on life. Worshipers come just as they are, in response to God’s love and grace, to praise God, to offer thanks, to seek forgiveness and wholeness, and to probe the depths of God’s divine mystery in an oppressive society. Worshipers come, well aware of the liberating power of God, seeking to be empowered by the grace of God, as their personhood is affirmed. The gathered redeemed fellowship—the koinonia—is the worshiping arena of the resurrected community of hope which will scatter as the diakonia empowered by the Holy Spirit to engage in mission and ministry in the world.
African-American Christians are by choice members of diverse communities of faith. There are historical African-American (or black) Protestant denominations and African-American congregations in Euro-American denominations. There are Roman Catholics, as well as nondenominational bodies, and innumerable sects, small and large. The worship styles vary within and between denominations so that African-American worshipers defy stereotypical descriptions of their styles of worship.
The theology of worship set forth here is based on a common history of a people who, having been called by many names, have chosen to call themselves “African-Americans.” This name allows a people socially and politically marginalized by the dominant culture in America to claim two heritages: African and American.
African-Americans in worship proclaim a faith heritage which is a synthesis of African, African-American, and Judeo-Christian traditions. As sojourners, they have entered God’s story at varying points in their lives, and they can together share their stories and God’s story through the lens of familiar love relationships. The gathering itself bespeaks the human need to relate, understand, and interact in an environment where common needs, joys, struggles, and hopes can be shared. Corporate worship allows opportunities for personal and communal transformations to occur. The environment of worship is also conducive to the sharing of personal testimonies of transforming moments that might have occurred outside of worship.
Experiences of God in life and meanings applied as a result of experiences, shape the lives of individuals and also help shape forms and styles of ritual action. Encounters with God, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes which evoke responses are determined by the cultural context in which the faith is experienced. A basic theology of worship will necessarily explore the fact that God freely encounters humans contextually, wherever they are in the world. Enabled by the Holy Spirit, the human spirit is freed and opened to receive and objectify realities. In this way, people of African descent are able to know God implicitly before knowing about God.
For Africans in America during the horrid period of enforced slavery in a strange and alien land, the freedom to consciously transcend their finite existence was the only freedom that was naturally available to them. While functioning under the constraints of “bonded-servants-by-law,” slaves were free to experience the power, love, and grace of a liberating God. The oral folk method of creating, re-creating, and disseminating songs provided for the slaves a means of shaping and recording basic theological tenets unique to the African American experience.
Foundations for Theological Reflections
It is necessary to set forth some foundational aspects of the African religious heritage in order to understand an African-American theology of worship. First and foremost, there is no monolithic African culture. Nor is there one established canon of religious beliefs and ritual practices for the whole continent of Africa. There are a plethora of societies, customs, cultures, languages, forms of social, political, economic, and religious institutions, which account for separate and distinct societal identities. Many societies had well-developed institutional structures and kingdoms dating back to the beginning of civilization. In spite of the diversity, however, there are shared fundamental worldviews which shape a basic understanding of life, ideals, virtues, symbols, modes of expression, and ritual actions, which give African peoples a common sense of identity. Basic primal worldviews are known to exist and remain operative as new worldviews and cultures emerge and take root.
Most African societies share the worldview that humans live in a religious universe. Thus, nature, natural phenomena, physical objects, and the whole of life are associated with acts of God. (See John S. Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa [New York: Praeger, 1970], chapters 8–13.) Life is viewed holistically, and this perception is distorted if sacred and secular are compartmentalized. African ontology affirms a state of interrelated belongingness. One is considered fully human and whole in so far as one BELONGS to the divinely created universe and lives in solidarity with, and akin to all that comprises the cosmos.
The North African heritage includes direct involvement in the shaping of Judeo-Christian theologies. Africans were vicariously involved from the time that Abraham came out of Ur and settled in Egypt through the time when the Christian church wrestled with faith statements. Africans were directly involved in the formulation of theological statements and creeds. Nine North Africans who were prominent theological leaders in these struggles included: Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Dionysius, Athanasius, Didymus, Augustine, and Cyril of Alexandria.
Many of the Africans who ultimately helped shape the theology of African-American worship were enslaved and brought largely from the west coast of Africa, from northern Senegal to the southern part of Angola. Prevailing primal worldviews evident in African-American theologies of worship can be summarized as follows:
• God created an orderly world and is dynamically involved in on-going creation throughout the world.
• Human beings are part of God’s creation, and they are therefore divinely linked to, related to, and involved with all of creation. This cosmological perspective undergirds an understanding of beingness (ontology) which is relational and communal.
• Communal solidarity is expressed in terms of kinship in an extended family. This involves an “active” relationship with both the living and the “living dead” or those who have died and are in the living memory of the community. This concept is often explained as a vertical and horizontal community where those that live on earth are in communion with the saints.
• An understanding of the holistic “sacred cosmos” which is relevant for individual and communal life must be internalized if one is to find meaning and purpose in life.
• “Cosmic rhythm” is an embodiment of divine order, harmony, and permanence, and is the foundation for the “rhythm of life.”
• Time is relative and cyclical and is governed by the past and a broad understanding of the present. These two basic dimensions of time (past and present) are connected by a rhythm of natural phenomena which includes events that have occurred, and those which are taking place now and will occur immediately. John S. Mbiti is helpful in his observation that for the African “The Future is virtually non-existent as actual time, apart from the relatively short projection of the present up to two years hence.” (John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy [New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1970], 27–28). Two Shahali terms, Sas and Zamani, are proposed by Mbiti to avoid the English linear conception of time as past, present and future. Sasa, the period of immediate concern for African peoples, has a sense of immediacy and nearness of time. Future events are likely to occur within the inevitable rhythm of nature, but cannot constitute measurable time. Zamani, which encompasses an unlimited past, is not confined to the English conception of past since Zamani has its own past and also involves the present and an immediate future.
• Space and time are closely related experiential concepts in which the same word often used in either context to mean virtually the same thing. Space, like time, is relative and must be experienced in order for there to be any indication of meaning. Just as Samsa includes contemporary life which people experience, space is determined by what is geographically near. Land, therefore, is sacred to African peoples, since it is the source of their existence and mystically binds them to those now dead and buried in the earth.
Africans generally understand and affirm the sacredness of God’s creation, the harmonious structure of the cosmos, and the fundamental need for human wholeness. Ritual action is one of the ways to relate holistically to God and to God’s world. Modalities of the sacred and of interrelational existence are revealed through the natural world and through cosmic rhythms which are called upon in rituals. In worship, the divine connectedness is “activated” through symbols and symbolism. For instance, water, like the land, symbolizes the origin and sustenance of life. Water is often understood as synonymous with God the Creator whose presence and continual creation is evidenced in large bodies of water, flowing streams, and rain. Water is also symbolic of a means of death and new life. Contact with water signifies a return or re-incorporation of finite life into the creation process. Water is used in many rituals, especially rites of passage, to symbolize cosmical relatedness, death of the old, re-creation, regeneration, and purification. (see Melva Wilson Costen, “Roots of Afro-American Baptismal Practices,” Journal of the Interdenominational Center 14 [Fall 1986–Spring 1987]: 23–42)
For African peoples, human responses through ritual actions are necessary in order to establish and maintain an ontological balance in a world fraught with negative and evil forces. Responses may be formal or informal, spontaneous or regularized, personal or communal. Certain divinely gifted individuals can determine particular forms of ritual action necessary at given “imbalances” or periods in the life of a community. These persons are identified by the community as “diviners” or “intermediaries,” and are called upon to “intervene or behalf of the community,” and to facilitate contact with divine spirits.
Worship is generally expressed vocally and physically rather than meditationally (Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 75). The corporate worship of God is more experiential than rationalistic, focusing upon the communal sharing of reality, rather than simply transmitting information. In traditional African religions, God’s existence is not determined merely by a series of ideas which someone passes on to others. God exists simply because God can be experienced in all of creation. This is best expressed in an Ashanti proverb: “no one shows a child the Supreme Being,” which means in essence that even children know God as if by instinct (Ibid., 38).
Since worship is basically a contextual-experiential response to the divine, symbols and symbolic forms common to the community provide the most expressive means of communication. Through symbols that often mirror or re-present sounds and movement in the natural environment, the community is able to express what might be difficult to verbalize. Various forms and styles of music, physical movement (dance), gestures, and familial unity are common symbols of African peoples. Elements of nature such as water, mountains, trees, large rocks, and certain animal life are also symbols of God’s divine presence in the world. Just as in other traditions, symbols are born, adapted, and then die as new symbols emerge.
These, then are the theological foundations that were well ingrained in African peoples in diaspora as they continue their journey in God’s story through Jesus the Christ.
Exposure to Christianity
According to extant records, some Africans who would ultimately shape African-American theology were exposed to Christianity prior to their forced arrival in colonial America. Initial exposure was often limited to hasty baptisms in Africa in order to accommodate European laws regarding the capturing and enslaving of humans by other humans. “Emergency” baptisms are known to have occurred immediately before enslaved Africans were herded as cargo onto ships bound for the new colonies across the Atlantic Ocean.
Parents of the first African child baptized on American soil under the authority of the Church of England were an enslaved African couple “accidentally” brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. This was the beginning of the history of reluctant attempts by Euro-Americans to Christianize slaves while holding them in bondage. This history of Christian paradoxes provides substantial evidence of the need for African-Americans to shape a theology free from hypocrisy.
The majority of Africans in colonial America were forced to remain bonded servants under a series of laws enacted by Euro-Americans. With the exception of a few single baptisms recorded in 1624 and 1641, the largest group of (20 black) congregants during this period were hardly noticed by recorders of liturgical history. There is sufficient documentation to ascertain that colonists were not in agreement as to the mental and spiritual capacity of African peoples. For those who held a low opinion of the African capacity to understanding Christian tenets, the tendency was to discourage the Christianization of slaves. Some planters suggested that those who became Christians became “sassy” and unmanageable.
Heated controversies hastened positive and negative theological conclusions among Christian Euro-American individuals and institutions in response to questions about the evangelization of slaves. It is of significance that the questions evoked by the controversy concerning the “status of baptized slaves” in regard to their freedom were fundamental theological questions. First and foremost, what denotes humanity? And who is equipped to determine which people created in the image of God are human and which are not? The next question had to do with the meaning of “engrafting into the body of Christ.” Can anyone receive baptism in the name of the triune God and not be considered part of the body of Christ? Is one portion of the body better or more worthy of inclusion? Is this determination left to the mercy of human beings?
These questions were solved in law courts in altered forms in order to solve a societal problem which the newly emerging United States had created for itself. Sacred and secular were clearly dichotomized in order to enact a series of laws that legalized the enslavement and dehumanized treatment of human beings by other humans. Baptism, it is was decided, did not free Africans from their obligations as bonded servants. Following these decisions the evangelization and baptism of Africans in America proceeded with great fervor, with baptized slaves continuing in their degrading, dehumanizing roles.
Full church membership was not initially granted to slaves by their oppressors, nor were they fully accepted as worshipers. Attendance at worship was permitted by generous planters who made sure that this “questionable” portion of the body of Christ would not be able to interact with them. Since African-Americans had no legal voice in matters that affected the shaping of worship, clandestine religious meetings were skillfully orchestrated by slaves. In secluded “brush harbors” in the woods, out of hearing range of the slaveholders, slaves were free to share their faith experiences in an “Invisible Institution,” the first African-American worshiping church. Faith experiences were shaped by core beliefs, existential struggles, and revised African-American versions of God’s liberating activities with the Israelites and all persons who were willing to believe. An indigenous means of theologizing had been found.
The Great Awakening movement which engendered liberal and often unbridled enthusiasm in worship appealed to worshipers of African descent. Free and enslaved African-Americans participated enthusiastically in camp meeting worship, and concluded the evening when possible in brush harbors long after revivalists had pronounced the benediction. The praise of God was truly an offering of one’s total self in sermons, songs, and prayers in sacred space identified by the African-Americans. Secluded worshipers remembered and reconnected with God’s story as their journey was incorporated into the faith journey of Old Testament communities. Forms and styles of the elements of worship were fashioned out of the authentic expressions of an oppressed people.
Africans in America obviously did not arrive tabula rasa, nor were they unfamiliar with God’s story. The Euro-American versions of God’s story which they heard assumed that God had come only through Greco-Roman history. While the story of God incarnate in Jesus Christ canonized in the Bible may have been new to them, it was necessary to indigenize the Good News. Jesus of Nazareth, whose earthly journey was quite similar to that of the slaves, became, in reality, Jesus the Liberator. The worship of God in Jesus Christ in an oppressive church environment from the vantage point of segregated lofts and segregated pews was void of the liberating contextual-experiential so much needed by an African people. They needed sacred space and time to foster spiritual progress unimpeded by the hypocritical motives of confused evangelizers.
The Holy Scriptures became for the slave the most important resource document from which a new theology could be shaped. It was of course necessary for slaves to apply a different hermeneutical principle as their journey, replete with struggles and suffering, became the lens through which the biblical stories could be seen. Long before slaves were able to read the Word of God as found in Scriptures for themselves, the liberation stories which they heard convinced them that this was the same God that they knew from experience. If God could free the Hebrew children, Daniel in the lion’s den, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace, that same God could free them from the bondage of slavery. The Good News of God incarnate in Jesus Christ was a continuation of their journey with God into whose story they had entered. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost when people from a variety of cultures heard the gospel in their own language was equally available to them. The help provided to free them to learn to read the English language added another dimension to the slave’s ability to interpret God’s story as the first step toward shaping their own God-talk.
Theology of Worship in a New Key with Indigenized Harmonies
African-American theologizing is grounded in the African primal worldviews cited above. Finite beings are called to worship by God who freely calls whom God chooses, God enters the lives and experiences of a people and frees them consciously to continue in God’s story. One historical way of documenting core beliefs about God in Jesus Christ is found in the slave songs. The gift of music and song remained available as the basic form of symbolic communication for African people in diaspora. Theologizing for the slaves was not the “systematic” task of any one individual but continued as a “folk-task” of the community.
While oral folk traditions are basic to the ongoing life of many cultures, the continuation of African traditional religions and the shaping of new folk traditions in a new world was the basic means of survival for African-Americans. Reliance upon basic core beliefs transmitted orally undergirded the process of shaping new, dynamic cultures and also became pivotal modulation “chords” for shaping theology in a new key. The well-grounded concepts of God, humanity, life, and nature provided the ability to respond creatively to the realities and rhythms of new situations. Syncretisms evolved naturally without reliance upon council meetings for theological discourses and final theological decisions. Concepts of God in Africa emerged out of experiences. Greco-Roman descriptive terms such as omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, transcendent, and immanent were not used by Africans. Nevertheless, experience had taught that God was all-knowing, all-wise, eternal, everywhere, above and beyond all, yet present. These concepts are especially operative in worship.
The “divinely stolen” freedom of separate sacred space helped shape a doctrine of the church ekklesia, truly called out by God. The estrangement and loneliness of slaves at the margins of a society that ostracized them were overcome in this arena as worshipers were made aware that they belonged to God and each other. The black church was initially formed as a liberating worshiping community. Its vitality has been sustained and continues to be perpetuated in proportion to the genuineness and continuity of authentic worship. The church functions as a living fellowship where the wholeness of persons and communities is sought and found, prior to its functioning as an institution. Separate places of worship, initially in secret, where time and sacred space were relative, ultimately evolved into separate congregations of African-Americans. Having their own sacred space African-Americans can find their highest values as they praise God, under the power of the Holy Spirit. Herein, divine power is garnered and strength to survive is granted.
The Bible, God’s Word in Scripture, has been and continues to be the major resource for shaping God-talk. Slaves relied heavily upon God’s Word as they responded in worship and in life. In the evolution of worship over the centuries, biblical stories are foundational for African-American faith and spirituality. Initially steeped in the King James Version of the Bible, African-American worshipers are generally hesitant about questioning the language, even where the imagery has a negative effect upon them. There is a growing trend for congregations to listen more carefully to the language of newer translations introduced by pastors and other church leaders who are seminary graduates. Recent scholarly studies and contributions by African-American liturgical, biblical, and music scholars are facilitating this process.
African-Americans have diverse opinions regarding the Bible. Common understandings include the biblical source as a record of divine history, a witness to the salvation that appeared in Jesus Christ, a record of human experiences which is relevant for today, and a source of truth concerning redemption and Christian living. The details of how this is understood are delineated by some denominations, and functional in the oral memories of others. Scripture does not always determine the content and sequence of elements of worship in all African-American congregations. Nevertheless, preaching is most often biblically based and is a source of inspiration for worship.
African-Americans continue to respect the role of the black preacher, called of God as spiritual leader, prophet, priest, and divine instrument through which God’s healing wholeness can take place. One of the gifts for which black preachers are noted is their ability to “tell the biblical story” and help bring the story to life for the gathered community. Like the African griot (storyteller and oral historian) the storytelling process is supported and encouraged by the community in a “call-and-response” fashion. The major impetus for familial bonding takes place as the faith community dialogues openly with the preacher during the sermon and frees itself for communal fellowship which continues in music and other acts of worship.
During the period of slavery, preachers were often the most intellectual member of the community and were therefore respected for their leadership abilities. Foundational materials for theologizing were presented by the preacher and then shaped in folk-style by the congregants. The shaping often occurred in the words of songs, stylized and disseminated both in worship and during daily work activities of slaves. Some of the “stuff of everyday life” and nature found its way into the music of the church, thus continuing the African mode of blending sacred and secular as a means of worshiping God.
African-American religious ritual action is often reminiscent of the African heritage in content, symbols, and symbolism. The greatest similarity, however, is the dynamic nature of rituals and cultures, reflected in the ability of worshipers to react creatively to life situations and peak moments in worship. Styles and forms will vary according to the needs and expectations of the particular community, as well as the nature of worship generated by the experiences of worshipers. For African-Americans, worship as ritual action is basically forged and shaped as an anti-structural means of functioning in a society that has attempted to structure African-Americans out of the mainstream of society. (J. Randall Nichols, “Worship as Anti-Structure: The Contributions of Victor Turner,” Theology Today 41 [January 1985]: 401–402; see also Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1963]). Worship services, whether contemplative or ecstatic, are Spirit-led, liminal experiences of God on the margin of society where social status is elevated above and beyond the assigned definitions imposed by the larger society. Under the power of God, responses in worship allow a vision of the Almighty which inspires, transforms, and makes one whole.
African-American worship is uniquely experiential and contextual, incorporating in varying ways the understanding of a personal, immanent, and transcendent God who is worthy of worship. Worshipers stand in awe of the Mysterium Tremendum of God’s absolute presence, aware that God is trustworthy and “always on time.” The worship of God is made possible through Jesus the Christ, the object of the Christian faith. As the living embodiment of one who divinely overcame oppression, Jesus the Christ, God incarnate, is the “meeting place” or altar, where an encounter with God can happen. While worship may take place anywhere that humans encounter Christ, it is in corporate worship that African-Americans walk and talk, sing and shout, and experience conversion in an acknowledgment of the true presence of the resurrected Christ among them. It is not uncommon for worshipers to address Jesus as God in prayers, songs, and sermons. Beyond the “Jesus Only” sects, one finds emphasis on the absolute oneness of these two persons in the Godhead especially among some Baptists and Pentecostal traditions.
A theology of African-American worship is also reflective of an understanding of the Holy Spirit as the dynamic of worship. The Spirit is personal and direct, and not merely an “atmosphere.” The intimate, transforming power of the Holy Spirit enables salvation, life in the worship and work of the church, and fortification for mission and ministry. It is important in determining a theology of African-American worship to acknowledge differences in denominational polity and theology which affect ritual action and verbal dialogue about the Holy Spirit. These distinctions are most apparent in reference to the Lord’s Supper and baptism as delineated by various denominations.
The uniqueness of an African-American theology is the “liberation key” established in the tonality of the brush harbors, fanned and flamed first in African-American spirituals, and now also in black gospel music and “metered hymns.” This key is clearly established and sounded in African primal world-views which led the early folk theologians to seek separate places of worship. From these well-established foundations, the power of God is experienced in the community of faith, which leads them to continue to talk and sing their core beliefs in the context of lived experiences. Even when denominational differences create an aura that is unique and distinct, the African-American community can find a common plane on which to attempt to “walk as they talk” out of the belief that a divinely liberated people should walk upright, for the power of God is available to all who believe.