Noli Me Tangere

In Defense of Africanisms

Today we finished up our unit on African music with a discussion of the forms unique to the African-American tradition: negro spirituals and gospel. These are typically considered sacred music, though the point was made that in the African-American arts, sacred and secular are not as distinct as we anglos like to imagine. For whatever reason, our prof has apparently opted not to mention the 'secular' African-American forms, like jazz, r&b and rap.

This has all been very interesting. As a presbyterian church musician, I can't imagine two more divergent worship expressions than negro spirituals and high-church hymnody. One is rhythmic, the other melodic. One is repetitive, the other structurally complex. One moves in call and response, the other in harmonic progression. One is aurally transmitted, the other transcribed. But today I’m thinking about the textual differences.

We presbyterians like to talk about the theological richness of the classic hymn texts, as opposed to the banal superficiality of modern popular worship songs. We talk about the praise choruses like we do Saturday morning cartoons: we liked them in our youth but soon grew out of them and graduated to McNeil-Lehrer.

You can't talk about spirituals that way. For starters, you'd come off as terribly culturally insensitive. But it's true that spirituals are not known for the great theological depths of their lyrical content. In fact, some say very little at all about God, or Jesus or so-called "good theology".

This little light of mine
I'm going to let it shine
Oh, this little light of mine
I'm going to let it shine
Hallelujah
This little light of mine
I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

The main theological idea here seems to be, uh, "letting it shine". Contrast this with a selection from that well-known white guy, Martin Luther (not to be confused with the well-known black guy with the same names):

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

Let's see...here we've got God's sovereignty, immutability, and Hebrew names, plus a little of the supremacy of Christ tacked on to the end. And Marty still made it rhyme. My informal presbyterian training tells me the latter example is more beneficial to me as a christian, and probably is more worshipful because it contains more "truth". But let's be honest; when I hear "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", simple as it is, and it's sung by tongues in need of hope, it moves me in ways that Mr. Luther's poetic treatment of sovereignty cannot. And I think this is priceless. Whatever my cultural associations might be that render me so susceptible to those songs, this movement must be the essence of worship--or at least near to it.

Which is why I want to direct some comments to those in my denomination who we'll call "angry reformed persons". These are the church members who enjoy being known as theology police. They take it upon themselves to scrutinize Sunday morning worship and look for bad lyrics. Specifically, they watch for a) words that possess any kind of connotation that can be associated with questionable theology, including "holiness", "spirit", "tongues" and "choose"; and b) any words that are theologically vague, which includes all metaphors and colorful language. To these people, I say: calm down and have a Luther-approved cold one.

Words are wonderful things, but their meanings are purely ascribed by us. So let's not be so rigid that we must avoid all poetry and thought-provoking language because it doesn't match your nazi--er anglo theological dictionary. You don't even read Greek, for crying out loud.

The strangest thing about this whole dichotomy is that I can't decide which expression I prefer. I can’t explain why, and it has nothing to do with my ability. But were I to be stranded on a deserted island for the rest of my days and could only take along one catalog, I'd be paralyzed. For now I'll ride the fence. Not that we ever do any negro spirituals at SPP, but I'll say it now for the record:

When my chariot comes I want both "Precious Lord, Take my Hand" and "Be Still My Soul" played in the funeral. There can be no more beautiful send-off than this.

Posted by aokie at July 13, 2005 06:47 PM | TrackBack