Abstract
Wimberley provides a theological framework for understanding how ritual practices prevalent in African American evangelical religion might contribute to depression in black clergy. She indicates there are cultural hermeneutics specific to black evangelical religion that offer clues as to how God imagery emerges in relation to the black preacher. From a Black pastoral theological perspective, she utilizes Paul Tillich’s theology of Spiritual Presence to explain how the embodiment of the Spirit in the black preacher during the preaching moment contributes to the “cultural sacramentalization” of the black preacher.
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Notes
- 1.
DuBois, ibid., 218.
- 2.
The Penguin English Dictionary, 3rd ed., s.v. “sacrament.”
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 54.
- 5.
Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley, Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine. (San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), 26.
- 6.
Dale P. Andrews, Practical Theology for Black Churches. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 22.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
It holds that “the sermon belongs not only to the preacher, but also to the entire congregation, which joins in with their oral responses.” See Evans E. Crawford, The Hum: Call and Response in African American Preaching. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 37.
- 9.
In many African American churches, Scripture is held in high regard. “it is no secret that the Bible occupies a central place in the religious life of black Americans. More than a mere source for texts, in black preaching the Bible is the single most important source of language, imagery, and story for the sermon.” See Cleophus LaRue, The Heart of Black Preaching, (Louisville, KY: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2000), 10.
- 10.
Crawford indicates the tension many African Americans experience socioeconomically. He mimics DuBois’ “felt-twoness” or “double-consciousness” by proffering biformity as the essence of what he believes African Americans have historically experienced in America, writing, “Moving back and forth between recognition and non-recognition results in an ‘either-or’ experience—either I am or I am not.” See Evans Crawford, 29.
- 11.
“While Anglo-American Christians utilized a colorful language of ‘wonder’ and ‘remarkable providences’ to bear witness to the proximity of the supernatural in their lives, Africans depicted the universe in myth and beckoned the timeless inhabitants of the spiritual world with ritual…Africans adapted their beliefs to the specific circumstances of their status as an enslaved people and utilized their traditions toward these ends for personal or collective empowerment…blacks in America transformed the handmade charms, amulets, and figurines that were so necessary to African religious ritual into objects of security and resistance.” See Yvonne Chireau, Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Ltd, 2003), 45.
- 12.
“[B]lack Americans were able to move between conjure and Christianity because both were perceived as viable systems for accessing the supernatural world, and each met needs that the other did not.” Chireau, 25.
- 13.
“Mason possessed an uncommon fascination with strangely formed natural objects—objects reminiscent of the ‘roots’ or magical artifacts used by black conjurers throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” See Chireau, 7.
- 14.
According to Gardner C. Taylor, Black pastoral theology requires pastors to be intimately familiar with their congregations. This type of “familiarity” and/or pastoral “knowing” allows for congregational needs to be met in genuine form. For the most part, the preacher–pew dyad denotes a divinely inspired connection between pastor and people. See Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Gardner C. Taylor’s We Have This Ministry: The Heart of the Pastor’s Vocation (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1999), 54.
- 15.
Larue, 12.
- 16.
“Healing did exist for some, but for others sustenance was all that could be accomplished. For many, the burden of oppression made the love of God which transformed the self a distant hope; for them, God’s love as mediated through the resources of the church prevented and lessened the impact of oppression.” See Wimberly, ibid., 21.
- 17.
II Corinthians 3:6.
- 18.
Mitchell, Henry H. “The Holy Spirit, Human Emotion and Black Preaching.” 2011 Baylor University, George W. Truett Theological Seminary. 22 March 2011.
- 19.
Tillich, ibid., 121.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Trulear, Harold Dean. “Reshaping Black Pastoral Theology: The Vision of Bishop Ida B. Robinson.” The Journal of Religious Thought, 1989—Sum-Fall; Vol. 46, No l, 17.
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Wimberley, W. (2016). A Setup for Depression. In: Depression in African American Clergy. Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94910-6_5
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