Sacrifice of praise: emotion and collective participation in an African-American worship service

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 1996 by Timothy J. Nelson

On the corner of a rundown street in Charleston, South Carolina there is a small African Methodist Episcopal church. The modest brick structure sits on a lot entirely enclosed, as are all of the church lots in this poor urban neighborhood, by a substantial fence. Visible through the straight iron bars is a sign that proclaims "Eastside Chapel AME Church. Sunday morning worship 11:00 AM. Thursday Prayer Service 7:00 PM. Rev. R. L. Wright, Pastor."(1) If one were to open the doors of this building on a Sunday morning shortly after 11:00, step through the tiny narthex and into the red-carpeted sanctuary, the scene would look something like this: James Ravenel, organist and choir director, is seated at his instrument directly behind and slightly above the pulpit. While the worshippers continue to arrive and file into the pews, he quietly plays a gospel song. On the back wall above the choir loft, a computer-generated banner proclaims "WE'VE COME THIS FAR BY FAITH." The adjacent wall holds a similar banner that features a rendition of praying hands and the caption "WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE SERVE." These banners are the sanctuary's only adornment. As Ravenel plays, Tony Green sets up his drums on the floor to the side of the pulpit.

After several minutes, as most of the hundred and fifty or so worshippers have settled into their places, Ravenel begins playing the refrain to the Isaac Watts hymn "Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed," more popularly known as "At the Cross." At this cue the congregation stands for the processional, their singing scattered at first but quickly gathering force:

At the cross, at the cross Where I first saw the light And the burden of my heart rolled away It was there by faith I received my sight And now, I am happy all the day

So begins another Sunday morning worship service at Eastside Chapel. Starting off slow and measured, with an opening prayer and hymn, the service rapidly builds in intensity and congregational involvement. By the time the choir sings its first selection, swaying slowly from side to side, many worshippers are standing and clapping to the music. Soon several of the "church mothers," older women in the first row or in the front flanking pews known collectively as the "amen corner," start to "shout" or dance in a stylized way with their heads down and eyes closed, moving across the front of the sanctuary. The choir stops singing but the music continues while several other worshippers begin to shout in the pews, some moving out into the center aisle. Cries of "Glory!" and "Hallelujah!" punctuate the heavy beat and churning bass of the organ and drums. This continues for over ten minutes before the shouters move back to their seats, worshippers begin to sit down, and organist Ravenel plays several closing chords. Service leader Nazarene Simmons steps up to the pulpit and announces the next activity in the order of worship.

The display of enthusiastic response and shouting I have just described (and which is often repeated two or three more times throughout the three-hour service) is a common one at Eastside Chapel. Sociologists, anthropologists, and other observers have labeled this type of worship as "emotional," and it is most characteristic of lower-class African-American congregations (Daniel 1942; Johnston 1956; Drake and Cayton 1962). Scholars have generally discussed a tendency toward "emotional" worship in terms of the latent functions that such services provide for their participants (Baer and Singer 1992; Lincoln and Mamiya 1990). However, it is not my purpose here to engage explanations of the causes or origins of this type of religious ritual among lower-class African Americans (although I will touch on this point in the conclusion). Rather, this paper treats the "emotional" worship service as an instance of face-to-face interaction and analyzes the system of emotional and behavioral norms which operate upon congregants during the course of the ritual.

First I discuss the explicitly emotional aspects of the service and draw on Arlie Hochschild's (1979, 1983) concept of "feeling rules" to argue that there are normative standards which identify how a worshipper is supposed to feel. I then show how these particular feelings are evoked within the service through the discourse contained within liturgy, prayers, songs, sermons, and testimonies. Next, I discuss norms of expressive behavior and identify two types of "emotional" expression - response behavior and shouting - both of which operate according to somewhat different sets of expectations. Third, I examine the "emotional" service as a type of collective behavior with a particular dynamic of involvement that is generally absent from "nonemotional" rituals. Finally, I explore several reasons for the continued vitality of this type of cultural expression and why it is found particularly among poor and working-class African-American congregations.

An understanding of these processes is important not only because of the historical significance of this type of ritual for African-American patterns of religious expression (Raboteau 1978; Pitts 1993), but also because this type of worship is currently associated with those black denominations (The Church of God in Christ) and congregations (the "neo-Pentecostal" movement in the African Methodist Episcopal Church) which have experienced rapid growth in recent decades (Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 1992; Lincoln and Mamiya 1990).