Understanding the art of preaching

At last! Preaching is getting the coverage it deserves. I have known many newspaper editors. I have asked nearly every one of them why they do not send reporters to worship services on Sunday (or Saturday) mornings. If a political figure speaks to 50 people, reporters show up. On Sunday morning, many hundreds of people go to a worship service and listen to a specialized form of speechmaking called sermons. Never do reporters show up.

The ignorance of newspaper, radio and television reporters and commentators is being shown before our very eyes. Specifically, they do not understand the African American art of preaching.

African American preaching is a subdivision of the preaching art. Preaching in general is not a lecture or a scholarly presentation. While the content requires some cohesion, moving people to a decision about life is the core of the exercise. The goal of preaching is to move hearts, not minds. If the listener’s mind comes along, that is fine, but the real target of preaching is the heart. Preaching is a verbal art that typically does not translate well into written documents.

African American preaching is a unique American phenomenon. During the American experience of black slavery, many southern whites doubted a black slave had a soul to be saved. After emancipation from slavery, African Americans found no place in white churches. They started their own. The very existence of black churches is a witness to white bigotry and rejection. We should never forget this.

These churches in isolation developed their own worship styles, their own music and certainly their own preaching art.

I have had particular interest in this preaching because I am a part of American Baptist Churches USA. After the Civil War, Baptists in the south went the direction of segregation. Baptists in the north had been a part of the Underground Railroad and its leadership was abolitionist. The long-term results are significant. Today, European Americans are a minority in our denomination. Blacks, Hispanics and Asians collectively are the new majority. I have listened to a lot of non-white preaching. African American preaching is a pearl.

I have listened to Gardner Taylor preach and I was spellbound. Taylor was the pastor of the huge Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., for 42 years. He is considered by many to be the greatest preacher in the history of America.

I have listened to James Forbes, the brilliant thinker/preacher and pastor of the prestigious Riverside Church in New York City. Forbes and Taylor were mainstays in the list of America’s finest preachers. Add to them J. Alfred Smith, now pastor emeritus of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif.

I mention these three because they are all American Baptists and I have been mesmerized by all.

African American preaching is a very special art form. The preacher’s voice will range from quiet intimacy to a highly emotional demand for response. Much of the time the sermon has a cadence and a rhythm. Then there may be a dramatic pause. The sermon often becomes interactive. A row of deacons may call out and “amens” come from all over the congregation. A spontaneous clapping may break out and the congregation may be on its feet urging the preacher to greater heights of oratory.

This style of preaching is filled with vivid imagery and words are engineered that defy Webster. I have never seen a gifted African American preacher use a manuscript. Exaggeration is used often for effect. Jesus was an outrageous user of exaggeration in his teachings.

This preaching is an art form and can no more be read literally than a book of poetry. Jeremiah Wright is a classic practitioner of the art. The current parsing of Jeremiah Wright’s sermons by those who control our American newspapers, radio stations and television networks is an exercise of incredible ignorance. The African American members of Pastor Wright’s congregation understand perfectly well the messages he is preaching.

Martin Luther King Jr. was also an American Baptist. In the setting of worship services he was a master of the preaching art. When he went out to speak to the larger public, he used an altered version of the art. It made for a great speaking vehicle. We heard him. He changed a nation forever.

When I first heard Barack Obama, I began analyzing his speech making. He has brilliantly borrowed from the African American preaching art and brought magnificent oratory to the American political scene. Our media talking heads need to go back to college and take a course in poetry and possibly on art interpretation. On Sundays, they should spend time listening to sermons. Not a few preachers have important things to say.

The Rev. Howard Bess is pastor of Church of the Covenant, an American Baptist church in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.