The gospel about Gospel—the power of the ring

Currents in Theology and Mission, August, 2004 by Mark P. Bangert

In summary, Melva Costen offers this description of traditional Gospel Sound:

1. Texts are often subjective and filled with hope, thanksgiving, and lamentation; some texts speak objectively of the Triune God with a strong focus on Jesus.

2. Texts are strophic in form, tending to be sixteen or thirty-two measures long.

3. Improvised manner of the style of delivery is as important as what is sung. Delivery often includes spoken vocal injections and chanted testimonies.

4. Melodies often utilize flatted thirds and sevenths, as in the blues tradition.

5. The use of marked syncopation and highly improvised instrumental accompaniment serves as a driving force of the music.

6. There is careful utilization of techniques to "fill in" measures of rests, such as arpeggios, passing tones, runs, chromatics, or glissandi. (19)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Gospel sound--for some it's just so much static

"It's not necessarily a pleasurable experience for the uninitiated," writes Viv Broughton of the Gospel Sound. (20) Indeed, down through the years there have been those, African Americans included, who have protested the introduction of any kind of music into worship that displayed signs of African origins. In 1841 the AME Church passed a resolution urging their preachers to "strenuously oppose the singing of ... tunes and hymns of our own composing." (21) In our own day strong reactions from Euro-Americans against the introduction of Gospel into worship usually go undocumented (for obvious reasons), but they nevertheless exist. Carefully researched apologies for the music increase in number but nevertheless reveal a perceived need to keep on making the case for its inclusion in mainstream thinking about worship music. (22)

Too often reasons for continuing resistance to Gospel are advanced with little or no recognition of its roots or its innate potential, resulting in few paths towards resolution. Unfortunately, the real gospel about Gospel is overshadowed by entrenched views and an unwillingness to understand its origins. Here the proposal is not to ignore the perceived problems but rather to name them, understand them, and move on to the potentials of gospel about Gospel.

Four such problems arise from the review of Gospel's roots: (1) theological assumptions behind texts; (2) dominance of entertainment values; (3) implied call to holistic worship; (4) the use of Gospel as a shibboleth for anti-racism.

Theology. While for many people the intensely personal, heartfelt lyrics and the ecstatic delivery of Gospel provide a means to express their own spirituality, for others the theological assumptions behind and in the text appear to be contrary to many of their most deeply held convictions. The latter would be true especially of those whose catechetical training consisted of deliberate delineation of positions regarding certain areas of Christian teaching.

That the theology of some Gospel might be bothersome should come as no surprise. Origins in the camp meetings and in situations where baptism, for instance, was discouraged produced emphases on conversion (and/or double predestination) and one's experience of coming to faith. Further, rural contexts of earlier Gospel suggest that texts originated from people who were prevented from or had no access to formalized catechesis (often true of the spiritual leaders as well), so that formulations of Christian belief grew chiefly from experience or handed-down folk belief. In addition, later Gospel emerged from the holiness churches and naturally bears the marks of Pentecostal tenets.