19th century AD

ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly), Dec, 2000 by Youtha C. Hardman-Cromwell

Black sermons also followed recognizable patterns. In his book Come Sunday: The Liturgy of Zion, McClain describes classic Black preaching as having an unmistakable trajectory: "Start low; go slow; go high; strike fire. Sit down" (68).

Allen asserts that one of the oldest approaches to preaching considers the sermon as journey to celebration, noting that it "preserves patterns of movement derived from traditional African religions" (14). This approach is an adaptation that was employed to encourage slaves to become Christian. It is a journey because the sermon moves from point to point in blocks of material, culminating in the last block which is a celebration of what God has done, what God is doing, what God will do. Through the celebration the hearers are empowered by the good news of God's activity directed toward them and their situations. The preacher begins preparation of the sermon by identifying a behavioral purpose. At the end of the celebration, the congregation is expected to exhibit this desired behavior.

Although the early preachers were untrained formally, they were not unlearned, their education often gained by observation and reading. The Black preachers who emerged refuted the justification of slavery that questioned the intellectual capacity of slaves. James Weldon Johnson said in 1927 of the early Black preacher and his descendents:

   It was through him that the people of diverse languages and customs who
   were brought here from diverse parts of Africa and thrown into slavery were
   given their first sense of unity and solidarity. He was the first shepherd
   of this bewildered flock. His power for good or ill was very great. It was
   the old-time preacher who for generations was the mainspring of hope and
   inspiration for the Negro in America [...]. The Negro today is, perhaps,
   the most priest-governed group in the country. (2-3)

The blacks who became preachers spoke in ways that revealed bold and unfettered imaginations. They preached of a personal and anthropomorphic God, of a sure enough heaven and of a red-hot hell (J. Johnson 5). Some of these preachers were literate, but even those who were not demonstrated skill and power in the use of language. They were chosen by the community because of their ability to interpret the sacred word.

Few sermons of nineteenth-century Black preachers, slave or free, are preserved in print. It is also true that because slave activities were closely watched, slaves became masters of deception and subterfuge. Their messages, like those passages of Scripture produced in times of persecution, were coded. It has been widely publicized how the spirituals were used as messages to effect the escape of slaves. Lesser known is the use of quilt patterns to send messages to help slaves escape. It is reasonable to think that the messages of the slave preachers were coded as well.

It is not necessary, however, to have the sermons themselves to understand the content and theology of their offerings. The fondness of slaves for the Exodus story and the book of Daniel, as well as the identification of the slaves with the lowly birth and the suffering of Jesus, are indications of the focus of their Biblical interests and the content of their sermons. The content of the spirituals slaves created to give expression to their soul stirrings gives us some indication of the Biblical truths and understandings held dear in the community of faith. These spirituals took their raw material from three sources: The Bible (Old Testament and Gospels of Jesus), The World of Nature, and Personal Experiences of Religion (Thurman 18).