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

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

"EMOTIONAL" WORSHIP AS COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

The behavior of a rioting mob, a screaming audience, or an ecstatic religious congregation is markedly different from that of either an enduring informal group or a large, formal organization (Turner and Killian 1957: 3).

Ambiguity, Reluctance and the Evocation of Expressive Behavior

So far I have argued that a key difference between an "emotional" and "unemotional" service is simply that response behaviors and shouting are permitted in the former but not the latter. There is more to the story however. In fact, these "emotional" forms of participation are required of the congregation, but in a particular wait. The norms pertaining to "emotional" response are not imposed in the same way as those which pertain to "nonemotional" activities like singing hymns or responsive liturgical readings. In responsive readings, for example, there is an obligation upon every individual congregant to contribute verbally in a prescribed manner, complete with cues for when to begin and end participation. Thus each person's role is scripted for these segments of the service and there is no ambiguity about what one should be doing from one moment to the next. Things are not so simple in an "emotional" service because expectations of response are diffused throughout the entire congregation and are not assigned to particular individuals. For example, the preacher expects that somebody, or a handful of people perhaps, will say "amen" when he or she makes a strong point, yet no person or group of persons is designated to respond in this way. According to this structure, the involvement of each congregant is constantly ambiguous in that at each point one may choose to respond or to not respond. There is no set script to follow, although each congregant knows the general story line.(5)

There is another factor at work also. Responses are supposed to become more and more vigorous as the service progresses, culminating in shouting or, sometimes, speaking in tongues. This process was illustrated by the Eastside congregants' reactions to Reverend Drayton's sermon. At first there was only vocal responses of "amen" and "that's right." Responses progressed to standing, then clapping, then pointing or waving, and then finally into shouting. This process is normative and it is an expectation that is diffused throughout the congregation. That is, no one is designated as the first one to bring congregational responses to the next level. Yet while this process is normative, from the perspective of the individual there is a certain cost to initiating a higher level of response in that the more vigorous responses make one more visible to other congregants, who are in a position to critically evaluate the genuineness of the response. For example, the first person to stand may stand alone for several minutes before someone else joins them, and shouting always makes one highly visible while in the midst of a somewhat embarrassing display of ecstatic behavior. Thus, congregants may be reluctant to initiate the response level to a higher pitch.