In the churches of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the transmission of theology rests heavily upon the sermon and the songs which support it. Worship services feature both European-American and African-American music. More progressive congregations use a wide variety of musical instruments, a popular style of music, and even dance and drama. New publications offer a wide variety of traditional music and folk songs.
Dr. Wyatt T. Walker, in his book Somebody’s Calling My Name, has stated: “Music is one of the three major support systems in Black Church Worship” ([Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 1979], 2). Praying, preaching, and music are the three interacting systems. Prayers are often expressed in a moaning or musical manner. Sermons are often preached in a lyrical style. In terms of the time given to the three support systems, music dominates. The sermon hymn before preaching usually prepares the worshiping community for preaching. The sermon, upon completion, has powerful support from the choir. The choir sings a carefully selected song designated to stamp the sermon message upon the hearts of the audience. The transmission of theology is dependent upon both songs and sermons.
Most of the Progressive National Baptist churches are large churches that employ chants, hymns, anthems, gospel, and praise choruses in order to meet the diverse tastes and needs of heterogeneous audiences. A range of Euro-American and Afrocentric music may be heard in a single worship service.
Afrocentric stained-glass windows, priestly vestments, and banners adorn the worship environment. Yet pulpit and Communion table tapestries are not as sharply illustrated as in some churches.
In the recent past, Progressive Baptist churches that have pipe organs have added drums, guitars, and organs that are used to play more jazzy music. Trumpets, saxophones, and stringed instruments play while the choir sings or at times play solos. Large churches also have ensembles and orchestras. The Allen Temple Baptist Church has a children’s liturgical dance troupe that performs during the special days and seasons of the liturgical year.
At Christmas time in our church, the Cantateers provide music and drama. This group performs Langston Hughes’s Black Nativity and at Easter time attracts large audiences to hear and see the drama of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. In addition, the national, regional, and state meetings of the Progressive National Baptist Convention always open with a musical. They also have a convention choir and music classes during these sessions.
Black Christian publishing houses are producing hymnals and gospel songbooks. In August of 1982, the New Progressive National Baptist Hymnal was released. This book included responsive readings, calls to worship, benedictions, meditations, and articles of faith, as well as hymns, spirituals, anthems, gospel songs, and praise songs. The purpose of the hymnal was to balance congregational, choral, and individual singing, and to discourage sacrilegious or so-called worldly music in the singing of Christian worship. Another important source of music is Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as sung at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). Hampton University published the book in 1927. Dr. R. Nathaniel Dett of Hampton’s Department of Music was the editor.
Alain Locke has given insight on black church music in his The Negro and His Music and Negro Art: Past and Present (New York: Arno Press, 1969). James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson have given a rich resource in The Roots of American Negro Spirituals (New York: Viking Press, 1969). Other sources can be located in New York City’s Schomberg Library, at Fisk University of Nashville, and at the National Baptist Sunday School Publishing Board in Nashville.
J. Alfred Smith, Jr.