The gospel about Gospel—the power of the ring

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

To be sure, it is difficult to document such tendencies--Who would want to declare such motivations? On the other hand, there is a history of linkage between a commitment to African American agendas and the use of Gospel. Cheryl Sanders writes that Gospel has been a key factor in attracting young people to corporate advocacy of equality among the races.

Indeed, black gospel choirs are present at public and private colleges
and universities all over the U.S., including those whose student bodies
are predominantly white. To designate the proliferation of collegiate
gospel choirs as a movement seems appropriate, since they emerged as
student-initiated organizations during the peak period of black student
involvement in public protests, political organizations, and demands for
black studies programs, outlasting many other institutionalized
expressions of black awareness among college students. (38)

Those reluctant to feign receptivity of Gospel music reach that condition not because of the linkage of public program and music. Rather, it seems, they resist manipulation around hidden agendas. It is one thing to explore a musical expression as part of a total self-examination of local ministry and mission; it is another to use Gospel as proof of something that does not yet exist. Tokenism of this sort may in fact lead to greater negativism toward ministerial hopes and foster division within a worshipping assembly.

Power of the ring

Issues latent in its customary use sidetrack the potential contribution of Gospel for Christian assembly. But it need not be so. Already it has been noted that the roots of Gospel reach back to the ring shout. Samuel Floyd believes the shout to be not only the single most important foundation of black music but also the source of its power. He writes:

The shout was a distinctive cultural ritual in which music and dance
were merged and fused. In the ring the musical practices of the slaves
converged in the Negro Spiritual and in other African-American musical
forms and genres. In this way, the ring helped preserve the elements
that we have come to know as the characterizing and foundational
elements of African-American music. (39)

From George Washington Cable's 1886 description of a Sunday recreation on Congo Square (Place Congo) in New Orleans we discover some of the dynamics inherent to most ring shouts, even though he described an Americanized, if not partly fictionalized, version of an activity born in former times. Cable describes how the people gathered together according to their national ancestry (tribes), forming rings that circumscribed rhythm makers while others stood outside the ring to support and interact with those of the circle. He writes of call/response patterns, hand clapping as substitutes for drumming, dancers entering and leaving the ring, individuals inserting improvised variations on song patterns, and occasional moments of trance. (40) Because those who formed these rings represented different national origins, several rings tended to emerge at the same time, creating a kind of ecumenical communion of assemblies.