Methodist

African-American Hymnology

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There are considerable resources for black songs among African-American denominations and churches that are now widely available for churches in every tradition. This article is especially helpful in describing the different types of songs that have developed from the black worship tradition.

Black Methodists, Baptists, Holiness, and Pentecostals, as well as black Episcopalians and Catholics, have each produced their own hymnists and hymnody. Among nineteenth-century black clergy who were also hymnists are Bishop Daniel A. Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Rev. Benjamin Franklin Wheeler of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Among early twentieth-century hymnists were Charles Albert Tindley of the Methodist church, Rev. F. M. Hamilton of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, William Rosborough of the National Baptist Convention, USA, and Charles Price Jones of the Church of Christ (Holiness), USA.

The Episcopal church has to its credit such contemporary black hymnists as David Hurd and William Farley Smith. In addition to singing the hymns of the traditional black churches, black Episcopalians have at their disposal complete musical settings of the Communion service by black hymnists. Smith’s setting in the black Episcopalian hymnbook, Lift Every Voice and Sing (New York: Church Hymnal Corp., 1981), is entitled “Communion Music for the Protestant Episcopal Church.” Its eight parts include the Introit, Gloria in Excelsis, the hymns “Hungry and Thirsty” and “Lord, We Come,” Doxology, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, The Lord’s Prayer, and Benediction.

African-American Catholics have at their disposal a distinctive body of hymnody composed by black Catholic hymnists. Included in the hymnal entitled Lead Me, Guide Me: The African American Catholic Hymnal (1987) are not only the standard favorites of the traditional black church but also Edward V. Bonnemere’s jazz-styled “Christ Is Coming: Prepare the Way’ ” (complete with guitar chords) and Fr. Clarence Joseph Rivers’s “Mass Dedicated to the Brotherhood of Man” (1970). Other black Catholic composers represented in this hymnal are Edmund Broussard, Marjorie Gabriel-Borrow, Avon Gillespie, Rawn Harbor, Leon C. Roberts, Grayson Warren Brown, and Edward V. Bonnemere.

Black Methodists, Baptists, Holiness, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, and Catholics also share a body of hymnody that is hardly differentiated doctrinally or denominationally, namely the spirituals and gospel music. The antebellum spirituals may still constitute the largest body of black sacred music in this consortium of black Christians known as the black church. Among the several thousand spirituals handed down to the present generation of black worshipers, spirituals often found in black denominational hymnbooks, are songs reminiscent of the wide range of sentiments felt by the enslaved. There are songs of joy such as “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” songs of thanksgiving such as “Free at Last,” and songs of praise such as “Ride On, King Jesus.” The spirituals also expressed with unyielding faith the belief that God would repeat on behalf of the Africans enslaved in America the liberating act performed for the biblical Hebrews subjugated in Egypt. Spirituals of this mood include “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” “Freedom Train A-Comin’,” “Go Down, Moses,” and “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho.”

Also among the spirituals are the “sorrow songs.” These songs, which seem to be individual rather than communal expressions, include “I Been in the Storm So Long,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I Seen,” and “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” Many of the sorrow songs, illustrating the unyielding faith of the enslaved, commence on a low note of dejection but conclude on a high pitch of praise. Two of the very few exceptions to this characteristic are “Were You There” and “He Never Said a Mumbling Word,” both of which show no glimmer of hope. Today, spirituals have been arranged in hymnic, anthemic, and soloistic forms to be sung by the congregation, choir, and trained soloist, respectively. Among the musical arrangers are such historic figures as H. T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and John Wesley Work, Jr., and such contemporary musicians as Verolga Nix and Roland Carter. In whatever form spirituals are arranged—as hymns, anthems, or solo songs—they can be used to complement every phase of the church year.

Complementing the spirituals in the folk, hymnic, and anthemic repertoires of the black church are the songs of racial pride and liberation. The most important song of racial pride is the “Black National Anthem,” J. Rosamond Johnson’s setting of his brother James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The principal song of liberation, made popular during the civil rights movement, is “We Shall Overcome.” Like numerous civil rights songs, this historic piece is a synthesis and adaptation of extant hymnody. Combining the tune of the old Baptist hymn, “I’ll Be Alright,” and the text of the Methodist gospel hymn, “I’ll Overcome Someday,” the anthem of the civil rights movement is emblematic of how the black oral tradition adapts extant hymns to meet new social and religious needs.

The composer of “I’ll Overcome Someday” is the great Charles Albert Tindley, the creator of such well-known gospel hymns as “We’ll Understand It All By and By.” Many black hymnologists have considered Tindley, a Methodist minister from Philadelphia, to be the most important, if not prolific, hymn writer in the history of the black church. Actually, the most prolific, and certainly one of the most significant, is Charles Price Jones, the founding bishop of the Church of Christ (Holiness), USA. While Tindley composed approximately forty gospel hymns, Jones composed over one thousand hymns (including anthems). Among his hymns is the resplendent “I Will Make the Darkness Light.”

Following the Tindley and Jones era of the gospel hymn (1900–1930) arose what has been called the “golden age of gospel” (1930–1969). This period is represented by the “gospel songs” of such black composers and arrangers as Doris Akers, J. Herbert Brewster, Lucie E. Campbell, James Cleveland, Thomas A. Dorsey, Theodore Frye, Roberta Martin, Kenneth Morris, and Clara Ward. Two of the most famous gospel songs of this period are Campbell’s “He Will Understand and Say ‘Well Done’ ” and Dorsey’s “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” Together, the musicians of this era transformed the congregational gospel hymn of the Tindley and Jones era into the solo, quartet, and choral gospel song of the “golden” period.

Succeeding the golden age of gospel is the modern gospel era. This has been, from its inception in 1969, dominated by black Pentecostal artists of the Church of God in Christ. Among these artists are Walter Hawkins, Edwin Hawkins, Andrae Crouch, Sandra Crouch, and Elbernita Clark (of the Clark Sisters). Among the popular pieces of this period that have been sung by young adult “inspirational choirs” in the black church are Walter Hawkins’s “Be Grateful” and “He’s That Kind of Friend,” Andrae Crouch’s “Through It All,” and Sandra Crouch’s “Come, Lord Jesus.” Some of their songs have appeared in the black denominational hymnals published since 1980.

Christian hip-hop is the newest form of gospel music. Similar to modern gospel, Christian hip-hop (orginated c. 1989) began as concert rather than liturgical music; it too will likely find its way into the black churches that are seeking to speak to today’s youth. Among hip-hop gospel singers are PID (Preachers in Disguise), ETW (End Time Warriors), SFC (Soldiers for Christ), DC Talk, Witness, D-Boy Rodriguez, Helen Baylor, Michael Peace, and Fresh Fish. These groups often have a message that is experientially oriented. For instance, PID addresses such issues as homelessness, sexually transmitted disease, and racism, and does so in a language that today’s inner-city youths speak and relate to.

The music that falls into the gospel hymn, gospel song, and modern gospel eras still coexists in the black church, and it is unlikely that even the rise of gospel hip-hop would ever change this inclusive nature of the black church music ministry. These three kinds of gospel that continue to co-exist in the black church generally fulfill the three principal liturgical functions in black churches—testimony, worship, and praise. The testimony hymns are used by worshipers to commence their “testifying” during the testimony service, a ritual practiced especially in black Holiness and Pentecostal churches. In testifying, a worshiper stands, sings a verse or two (or the chorus) of a favorite hymn, and then gives her or his spoken testimony. Using the theme and language of the song, the speaker tells the story of how God has worked positively in their lives during the past week. The fact that testimony typically begins with and is thematically built upon a hymn illustrates that these songs have been an essential source of theology for black worshipers over the years of social, political, and economic struggle. One of the favorite testimony hymns of the black church is “Jesus, I’ll Never Forget What You’ve Done for Me.”

The worship and praise songs have a close kinship. The worship hymns do not focus on individual experiences like the testimony hymns, but specifically on the worship of Jesus Christ. Familiar examples of worship songs are “We Have Come Into This House” by Bruce Ballinger and “Bless His Holy Name” by Andrae Crouch. The kindred praise songs are cheerful declarations of exaltation to God, which welcome God’s presence in the life of the believer. Among the best-known songs of praise are “Yes, Lord” and “My Soul Says, ‘Yes.’ ” Both of these were composed by Charles Harrison Mason, the founder of the Church of God in Christ, and are published in that denomination’s first and only hymnal, Yes Lord! (1984). Either during or following the singing of worship and praise songs, Holiness and Pentecostal worshipers may engage in giving the Lord a “wave offering” by means of the “lifting of hands,” or by giving “hand praise” (applause in gratitude for the Lord’s blessings).

Much of the music that is sacred to the tradition of black worship can be found in hymnals compiled by black denominations. Among the most recent and historically important are the American Methodist Episcopal Church Bicentennial Hymnal (1984); The New National Baptist Hymnal (1977) of the National Baptist Convention; His Fullness Songs (1977) of the Church of Christ (Holiness), USA; and Yes. Lord!: The Church of God in Christ Hymnal (1982). Among the important hymnbooks published by the black constituencies of predominantly white denominations are Songs of Zion (1981) from the United Methodist Church; Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Collection of Afro-American Spirituals and Other Songs (1981), from the Episcopal church; and Lead Me, Guide Me: The African American Catholic Hymnal (1987) of the Roman Catholic church.

A Wesleyan Theology of Worship

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Wesleyan liturgical theology is deeply concerned to define worship as more than public acts. Worship has to do with all of life, with relationships, and with vocations. In deed and thought believers continually act out their relationship to Christ.

Christianity, as John Wesley describes it, is the method of worshiping God which has been revealed to us by Jesus Christ. Christ makes known the profusion of God’s love for us, and faith (“the eyes of the newborn soul”) apprehends this love. Faith involves us in a life of worship as we are drawn to adore and to imitate the God who has loved us. Thus “worship,” in the Wesleyan tradition, encompasses not only public rituals and private devotions but the Christian life in all its fullness.

Worship is much more than the simple awareness of God. In its most general sense, worship is adoration, the loving contemplation of God’s holiness. Worship, says Wesley, brings us into the presence of God. Through it, we “find such a near approach [to God] as cannot be expressed. [We] see him, as it were, face to face … ” (The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979] 514. Subsequent references will be to Works.) In the presence of this God we learn “to love him, to delight in him, to desire him, with all our heart and mind and soul and strength; to imitate him we love by purifying ourselves, … and to obey him whom we love … both in thought, and word, and work.” (Works, vol. 1, 544).

This sense of adoration and devotion before the presence of God found expression in the singing that characterized Methodist worship from its earliest days. Charles Wesley devoted his theological energies to setting Methodist doctrine to poetry and melody.

Worship invokes in the worshiper the whole drama of redemption including the call to repentance, the joy of knowing God as forgiving God, and the challenge of imitating Christ through holy living.

As a priest in the Church of England, Wesley was familiar with and generally at home in highly ritualized forms of worship. As a young missionary to the English settlement at Savannah, Georgia, he pored over new translations of Eastern Orthodox liturgical texts and revised the Anglican prayer book based on his research. In the heyday of the Methodist revival, he advised his followers to attend Communion as often as possible, preferably daily (he personally received Communion 5 days a week on average). He recommended the Anglican prayer book for personal devotions and provided a revised edition of it for American Methodists—i.e., the Sunday Service.

Wesley distinguishes between the outward form of worship and its inward power, neither of which can be neglected. He criticizes nominal Christians for observing the forms of worship while neglecting the power of God’s grace at work in them. To these, he says “true religion is so far from consisting in forms of worship.” (Works, vol. 1, 219).

At the same time, he criticizes believers who insist that “spiritual worship” makes the form of worship a matter of indifference and who ask “will it not suffice to worship God, who is a Spirit with the spirit of our minds?” (Works, vol. 1, 532). To these Wesley insists that worship must engage our whole person and therefore, must include a disciplined use of the “means of grace,” including public and private prayer, the Lord’s Supper, Scripture reading, fasting, and small group nurture. Although forms and rituals can be abused, “let the abuse be taken way and the use remain. Now use all outward things, but use them with a constant eye to the renewal of your soul in righteousness and true holiness.” (Works, vol. 1, 545).

This unity of inward power and outward form enables Wesley to maintain a theology of worship that straddles the divide between a liturgical formality and formless subjectivism. Worship centers on the objective realities of God’s presence and at the same time, it draws the heart of the believer into a transforming relationship.

Wesley’s discussion of the specific elements of worship indicates a thorough and consistent re-interpretation of liturgical forms in keeping with his theological commitment of visible holiness in believers.

Baptism represents the ordinary means by which we are initiated into the life of Christ. In speaking of infant baptism Wesley teaches a mild form of baptismal regeneration: “By baptism, we are admitted into the Church, and consequently made members of Christ, its Head … By water then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated or born again.” (Works, “A Treatise On Baptism,” in vol. 10, 190–2).

Yet Wesley adapts this Anglican view to his evangelical commitments. He concludes, for instance, that although baptism is the ordinary means of initiation into the life of Christ, it is not necessary to salvation: “If it were, every Quaker must be damned which I can in no wise believe.” (Works, vol. 26, ed. Frank Baker [Oxford: Clarendon Press, c. 1975], 36). In preaching to nominal Christians Wesley seems to dispense with baptismal objectivity altogether, chastening his listeners for assuming that baptism assures their salvation: “Lean no more on the staff of that broken reed, that ye were born again in baptism. Who denies that you were then made children of God … But notwithstanding this ye are now children of the devil.” (Works, vol. 1, 430). Wesley calls those who have lived away from their baptismal identity to rebirth in the Spirit.

Wesley’s teaching on the Eucharist begins with a strong emphasis on the real presence of Christ. “He will meet me there because he has promised so to do? I do expect that he will fulfill His word, that he will meet and bless me in this way.” (Poetical Works, III, 203–4). We can come to the Lord’s Table in the confidence that Christ will meet us there.

So confident was Wesley in Christ’s presence that he speaks of the converting power of the Eucharist. “Ye are the witnesses. For many present know, the very beginning of your conversion to God (perhaps, in some, the first deep conviction) was wrought at the Lord’s Supper.” (Journal, vol. 2, ed., Nehemiah Curnock [London: Charles H. Kelly, n.d.], 360–61). Those who seek God may find him revealed to them here. The Lord’s Supper stands as the chief means by which believers receive the grace of Christ and remained, for Wesley, an indispensable element in Christian living.

Wesley’s one real innovation in worship was his Covenant Service which became an annual practice in the Methodist Societies after 1755. Wesley based his liturgy on a seventeenth-century Puritan service. The Covenant Service’s prayers, responses, and solemn vows emphasized his vigorous program of moral and spiritual discipline.

For most of the eighteenth century, the Methodist Societies remained within the Anglican church. Therefore, in practice, Methodist worship rarely included sacramental elements. Methodists were instructed to receive the sacraments at their parish churches, whereas the Methodist chapels were reserved for singing and preaching. As the Societies gained independence from the Church of England, and finally broke with it altogether (1795), these limitations came to shape Methodist worship, especially in England. The tensions in Wesley’s sacramental-evangelicalism generally relaxed in favor of more informal worship styles. These tendencies were only heightened by the independent culture of the North American frontier. In this century the influences of the student movement and liturgical renewal movement have led to a resurgence of liturgical formality and sacramental practice in Methodism.

Methodist Worship in the Post-Reformation Period

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John Wesley was an Anglican clergyman who sought to bring new life to the Church of England through conversion and enthusiastic response to God in sacramental worship. In America, Wesleyan forms of worship did not survive. There Methodists tended to follow the frontier-revivalist pattern of worship.

Methodism can be seen as a counter-cultural movement in the midst of the Enlightenment. When the sacraments were on the margin of church life, early Methodism put them at the center; when religious zeal was in disrepute, Methodism made enthusiasm essential; where religion was confined to the churches, Methodism took it to the fields and streets. John Wesley (1703–1791), the founder of Methodism, was a faithful son of the Church of England and never ceased in his love for its worship. The Methodists under Wesley functioned virtually as a religious order under a General Rule within the established church.

Distinctive features of early Methodist worship were “constant communion,” i.e., frequent Eucharist, fervent preaching for salvation, vigorous hymn singing (then a novelty), care of souls in small groups, and a mixture of extemporaneous and fixed prayers. Charles Wesley (1707–1788) wrote hymns by the thousands; he and John created a great treasury of 166 eucharistic hymns. John Wesley practiced pragmatic traditionalism, preferring ancient forms for modern needs when possible: vigils became the Methodist watch night, the agapē surfaced as the love feast, and the covenant service was adapted from Presbyterianism. In 1784, John Wesley published his service book for America, the Sunday Service, advocating, among other things, a weekly Eucharist.

Much of this did not survive the transit of the Atlantic, and American Methodism soon discarded Wesley’s service book but not his hymn book. Much of the sacramental life was dissipated (although the texts for the rites remained largely intact). Instead, Methodism tended to adapt many of the techniques of the frontier. Camp meetings abounded for a time and eventually resulted in a distinctive revival-type service. Fanny Crosby (1820–1915) wrote many hymns of personal devotion to the blessed Savior, while Charles A. Tindley (1856–1933) was a prolific black hymn writer.

Despite the prevalence of revival-style worship, there persisted in America a number of areas where more formal worship was preferred, such as in Birmingham and Nashville. Thomas O. Summers (1812–1882) was the leader of a nineteenth-century liturgical movement in the South which affected the reprinting of Wesley’s service book and produced a standard order of worship. Wesley’s prayer book long remained in use in England, or even The Book of Common Prayer. In general, Methodists in the nineteenth century reacted against the new ritualism of the established church in England, only to adopt some aspects of it several generations later.

Revivalism gave way to a period of aestheticism with much discussion of “enriching worship.” This, in turn, gave way to a neo-orthodox period of recovering historic liturgies, especially Wesley’s. Recent decades have seen more attention to assimilating the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic reforms, especially the lectionary. The new (1989) United Methodist Hymnal shows how far this has gone and may mark the beginning of a neo-Protestant emphasis on keeping the identity of one’s own tradition.

Rise of Protestant denominations

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By the opening of the twentieth century, Protestantism was represented by many denominations, both large and small. Most had broken off one of the major groups, which included the Anglicans, the Baptists, the Congregationalists, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Lutherans.

Impact: As time went by sectarian differences became less important and denominations cooperated for such causes as evangelism, social action, and missionary activities.

Rise of denominational seminaries

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In America, the first colleges were intended primarily for theological students. By the nineteenth century, however, it was becoming clear that special schools should be provided for ministerial candidates. Soon various denominations had standardized the theological curriculum in a three-year course of post-college seminary instruction. The programs were based chiefly on the literature of the Bible, systematic theology and apologetics, practical courses in homiletics and pastoral methods, lectures on church history, and the art of public speaking. Certain denominations like the Presbyterians were insistent on an educated ministry; others like the Methodists did not make such demands generally, only among those who ministered to large, prominent congregations. With the broadening of general culture and the introduction of new subjects into the college curriculum, the theological schools were compelled to improve their facilities. Instead of taking ministers from the pulpit to fill chairs of instruction, schools turned more and more to the trained experts. Professors introduced new courses into the curriculum, including the social sciences, philosophy, and religious literature. A few students who wished to specialize went to England or Germany to acquaint themselves first hand with European scholarship. In addition, with the increase of evangelism and the multiplication of opportunities for service in the churches, there was a growing demand for religious workers other than ministers in both the home churches and in mission countries. To meet these demands training schools were founded, like Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, which gave a less thorough preparation, but which provided students with something of the technique of religious work.

Impact: From seminaries and Bible schools went thousands of young men and women eager for Christian work, ministering and serving wherever the opportunities opened.