Stuck in the Middle: The Role of Sunday School Hymnals in the Hymnody of the Methodist Episcopal Church (original) (raw)
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Dialog, 2009
In the heated discussion about different church music styles, one aspect often gets overlooked: the similarities between traditional hymns and the modern or contemporary Praise and Worship music (P&W). Aiming at unfolding some of these similarities, this article contemplates technological, sociological, and theological perspectives to reveal parallels between the two practices and postulates P&W as today's evangelical hymnody in North America.
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American Historical Review, 1993
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Hymnody in a Blue Ridge Mountain Independent Baptist Church (1987)
Appalachian Journal , 1987
An ethnographic description of hymn-singing at the Fellowship Independent Baptist Church in Stanley, Page Co., Virginia, from a phenomenological point of view. After introducing the church congregation, the place of songs in their lives and worship, and the repertoire, I offer an experience-centered description of the congregation members' intentions when they sing, their emotions when singing, how they interpret the meaning of the hymns, and how they evaluate the performances, in their own words recorded during singings and from interviews. The ethnographic present for this essay is 1976-1986.
Songs of the Faithful: The Wesleyan Hymns as Border for the People Called Methodists
The Wesleyan hymnody held a special place in the doctrinal and practical formation of early Methodists. The hymns served to establish guidelines for doctrinal understanding, set expectations for common Christian experience, and gave expression to the faithful witness of the Church. They both marked out and stood sentry over the practical-theological borders of the Methodist movement, articulating the voice and vocation of the societies. The hymns also became a vehicle through which Methodism was conveyed to the masses and through which Christians were formed in their homes. This paper investigates the role of the Wesleyan hymns, particularly the 1780 Collection, in establishing and protecting the practical-theological borders of early Methodism, and in the formation of everyday Christians, and explores the implications of a Wesleyan understanding of the form and function of hymnody for current Christian worship, theology, and formation.
Dialog-a Journal of Theology, 2009
In the heated discussion about different church music styles, one aspect often gets overlooked: the similarities between traditional hymns and the modern or contemporary Praise and Worship music (P&W). Aiming at unfolding some of these similarities, this article contemplates technological, sociological, and theological perspectives to reveal parallels between the two practices and postulates P&W as today's evangelical hymnody in North America.
Shape-note traditions are both a style and practice of rural hymnody that contribute to the varied canon of American folk hymnody. The history of shape-note traditions in the United States highlights the polarity between the early four and seven-shape traditions and the ensuing seven-shape gospel movement, defining the former as traditional and the latter as popular and modern. The designation of gospel music as a popular phenomenon resulted in a variety of responses that shaped the representation of the genre within Appalachia. This thesis is an exploration of seven-shape gospel music and its persistence within rural, independent Baptist churches in Watauga County, North Carolina. I began exploring seven-shape gospel music under the assumption that I was dealing with an obscure singing tradition unique to a small number of rural churches. Therefore, I focused my attention on Mount Lebanon and Mountain Dale Baptist Churches, whose singing practices have been and continue to be defined by seven-shape gospel music. In January 2009, I began observing and researching the singing traditions of these two churches, attending Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening services, having selected these specific congregations for their different interpretations of a shared shape-note heritage. In addition to participant observation, I also conducted interviews with several members of each congregation, focusing in particular on the two choir directors. Over the course of my research, patterns in worship order and style emerged that indicated an intrinsic connection between the rural, independent Baptist church and the seven-shape gospel tradition. My ongoing interviews corroborated that Mount Lebanon and Mountain Dale Churches were not sole remnants of a dying, seven-shape gospel tradition, but rather two examples of an enduring regional practice that persists within the independent Baptist churches in the tri-state area of western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and southwest Virginia. As I delved deeper into the history and roots of seven-shape gospel music in Watauga County, I uncovered an entrenched regional singing tradition characterized by monthly and annual singing conventions, indicating a popularity that confounded my initial perception of the movement as an isolated, rural phenomenon. My case study of two rural churches has therefore necessarily shifted to accommodate the vibrant history of rural hymnody in the United States and its controversial representation and preservation in Appalachia, raising important questions about the limitations of regional scholarship that has heretofore discounted the seven-shape gospel tradition as a trait of indigenous worship.
The Word of God Made Song: the Cultural Impact of the African American Spiritual
Od folkloru k world music: Hudba a Slovo, 2022
The paper focuses on several of the most well-known spirituals (Sing Low, Sweet Chariot; Go Down Moses; Down by the Riverside) and looks at how the words of the Bible and the sermons of preachers inspired the lyrics of these songs. The words of the spirituals, inspired in particular by the Biblical stories of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, liberation and the reaching of the Promised Land, mirrored the plight of African Americans not only during slavery, but during the Reconstruction era and up to the time of the Civil Rights movement. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were pioneers in introducing the genre, not only to the rest of the United States, but also to the world.