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Black voices from the pulpit

By Alliance Alert

Eric J. Sundquist reviews Preaching With Sacred Fire, Edited by Martha Simmons and Frank A. Thomas, at the Wall Street Journal: "Ranging primarily across Christian denominations? Islam plays a small role in the book, and Judaism none at all?the editors place conventional homiletic and uplift preaching alongside the most strident black nationalism. Not every sermon is a gem, but a great many display the virtuosity for which black ministers, men and women alike, are well known. Rooted in Africa, the highly expressive oral tradition of black culture in America was forged during slavery, when black ministers preaching with 'sacred fire,' an idea common to many, were often proponents of emancipation. The latter-day liberation theology espoused by Jeremiah Wright and others?in his notorious sermon, Mr. Wright quoted Malcolm X's comment about President Kennedy's assassination, that 'the chickens are coming home to roost'?thus follows in the tradition of resistance that flourished in slave quarters and antislavery pulpits."

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on August 26, 2010 (boomark / email).