'Power in the Pulpit' - Black History Month Sale

https://www.logos.com/product/205437/power-in-the-pulpit-how-americas-most-effective-black-preachers-prepare-their-sermons

I've begun reading. I've always been fascinated how not-our-culture preachers are so excited about the gospel. I've even sat through sermons I couldn't understand a single word, the belief was so palpable.

But reading the book, the discussion of 'oral' was interesting. And then I thought about how 'oral' often under-girds text-critical discussions .... when 'oral' was very likely 180 degrees from a later (?) read-text. Even Turtulian got hooked quite early.

I'd not seen a discussion of 'orality' beyond 'did they repeat' as if talking-text.

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Comments

MJ. Smith

Check out the difference in many churches between reading and proclaiming - the concept of scripture proclaimed participating in the event of God speaking in the eternal now -- the dead word of ink on a page vs. the living word of oral/aural hearing.

DMB

Check out the difference in many churches between reading and proclaiming - the concept of scripture proclaimed participating in the event of God speaking in the eternal now -- the dead word of ink on a page vs. the living word of oral/aural hearing.

Good point. Then, I wondered about the 'Logos-voice' (PC voice). That must be a big zero! Plus, now it seems aural demands 2 parallel enraptured folks. Just one won't do!

I'm assuming there's not much (Logos) on this whole area?

Kathleen Marie

I don't have much to add, but thanks for the opportunity to read along.

This is just another reinforcement that I need my library to be as wide as possible.

This thread made me remember attending some type of revival camp at a historically black camp. Or maybe it was a black preacher visiting another revival camp. I was very young. Maybe just 11 years old. But I remember that the preacher would not allow us to open the hymn books and forced us to sign hymns the way that they were sung by black churches that were not literate.

Maybe someone here knows about that type of singing and can link us to a book that discusses that.

MJ. Smith

Are you possibly speaking of lining out the hymn i.e., the leader sings a line of text usually relatively fast then the congregation repeats the line usually at a slower pace. It is not a practice unique to black congregations.

Kathleen Marie

Are you possibly speaking of lining out the hymn i.e., the leader sings a line of text usually relatively fast then the congregation repeats the line usually at a slower pace. It is not a practice unique to black congregations.

I was very young and I don't remember exactly what was done. I remember the tension in the room more than what the preacher was demanding to be done. This memory sticks out as different from the other revival camp meetings. It is so fuzzy.

I think the Scottish Psalter is sometimes done this way?

Do the churches in Africa and other diaspora countries do this at all?

I'm just throwing this all out there, hoping people that know more will jump in and explain for all of us, or point us to Logos books that explain.

MJ. Smith

Lining out - Wikipedia gives a basic history. Alan Lomax has some recordings of it -- from Baptist churches IIRC.

marianna geoffrey

There is really something about black gospel preaching that I really love listening to. Especially from Pastor Keion Henderson https://www.keionhenderson.com/about-us/ He is a good speaker and has a good character, one of the first things I look into a pastor. His preaching helped me get through my depression and now I am doing better.