The gospel about Gospel—the power of the ring

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

More recently, proponents for the whole body at worship point to the concept of participatio actuosa (active participation), a new pattern of worship that is liberally treated by the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium. (35) Meant to encourage Roman Catholics to take a more active role in the liturgy, the directive resonated far beyond that church, causing liturgical reformers everywhere to advocate for increased action in worship. African models helped to grasp the possibilities. But for some an invitation to "gospelizing" matters liturgical translated into an invitation to a kind of conversion, to a completely new mode of behavior which meant reprogramming nearly everything they held to be dear about worship. What is more, the invitation came with the implications that more bodily involvement actually represented a more natural state and that what they were accustomed to represented a lesser system of negotiating life and worship.

There are two issues here in need of address. First, the reluctance to enter the Gospel music arena may represent more than a simple fear of programmed bodily involvement such as "passing the peace." Behind invitations to loosen up in worship may in fact be the questionable assumptions that things African (and hence Gospel) are more primitive, more natural, than habits European and that African and African American music is hence more directly in touch with the body and consequently better. Simon Frith, without naming Gospel, has raised concerns about such a typically Romantic notion, and, citing John Chernoff, he approvingly iterates that "African music and dance are not performed as unrestrained emotional expression but are rather ways of realizing aesthetic and ethical structures." (36) Frith notes that "ecstatic" is the most "inappropriate adjective to apply to African music" (37) because the feelings associated with this music, while intense, are not intended to be overwhelming or out of control. Invitations to Gospel, therefore, fare best when they avoid guilt-inducing exhortations to return to a more primitive state supposedly unbridled.

Second, holistic worship can manifest itself in a variety of ways. Clapping and swaying are not necessarily the only marks of whether or not one's body is "into" the worship moment. While some clap, interject, and sway, others might be thoroughly invested in and aware of the visual effect such bodily investment creates.

Embracing Gospel as worship music can occur much more easily without burdening it with extraneous agendas, even though it is hard to imagine anyone not moved to some physical response to the driving rhythms.

Shibboleth. In Judges 12:6 the writer recounts how the password Shibboleth was used by the sentries of Gilead to detect boundary crossings by Ephraimites. The Ephraimites were unable to say the word and were thus reckoned as outsiders. It may not be too great an exaggeration to say that Gospel has often been held hostage by political agendas with the result that the use (or nonuse) of Gospel in a given worshipping assembly is thought to be a mark of how deeply the gathering is committed to anti-racism and other African American causes.