Protest and Praise: Sacred Music of Black Religion

by Jon Michael Spencer

Overview

Here is a skillful tracing of two tracks in the evolution of musical genres that have evolved from black religion. Songs of protest developed from the spiritual through social-gospel hymnody to culminate in songs of the civil-rights movement and the blues. Born in rebellion, they envision the Kingdom of God.

Songs of praise, by contrast, express adoration. Beginning with the "ring-shout," Spencer follows the history of intoned declamation through the tongue song,Holiness-Pentecostal music, and the chanted sermon of the black preacher. Spencer's approach, termed theomusicology, unlocks the wealth of African-American sacred music with a theological key. The result is a fascinating account of a people's struggle with God in history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800624040
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	02/01/1990
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Jon Michael Spencer, renamed Yahya Jongintaba, is an early-retired professor. After a twenty-three year teaching career, with over a dozen books to his credit, he expatriated to East Africa, where he presently spends most of his time between Tanzania and Ethiopia.

What People are Saying About This

C. Eric Lincoln

"Protest and Praise is the story of the coming of age of African America, seen through the prism of its music. A generation ago John Hope Franklin immortalized black history by chronicling the travail and triumphs of the African-American odyssey from slavery to freedom. Now Jon Michael Spencer adds to that immortal chronicle a new dimension: a searching analysis of the part black music played in this historic transition. The spiritual, the ring shout, the blues, the freedom songs, and gospel are all intensive expressions of the will to freedom and of the faithful response to the divine initiative that alone could make freedom a viable possibility. Jon Spencer's Protest and Praise is a valuable addition to the growing literature of scholarly self-examination from inside the black experience."--(C. Eric Lincoln, Professor of Religion and Culture, Duke University)