AFRICAN-AMERICAN WORSHIP IN THE PENTECOSTAL AND HOLINESS MOVEMENTS
by
Cheryl J. Sanders[1]
Worship in the African-American Holiness and Pentecostal churches involves song, speech, dance, and other ways of knowing God and verifying spiritual revelation. This tradition thrives on the integration of aesthetics (cultural authenticity), ethics (implementation of Christian norms), and epistemology (ways of knowing) in its characteristic verbal and bodily articulations of praise. Worship practices and experiences are continually interrogated with reference to specific aesthetic expectations and ethical standards. When a soloist or instrumentalist has pushed the congregation to the brink of ecstasy with an inspired performance, when the preacher has brought the sermon to a dramatic climax, when the gatekeepers of pulpit and pew usher the people through the experience of the shout, it is understood as the "witness of the Spirit," the much sought-after manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The underlying ethical and theological context of Holiness-Pentecostal worship is the corporate testimony of being "saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost."
Saved, Sanctified, and Spirit-Baptized
As used in this discussion of worship, "saint" is a term suggestive of both liturgical and ethical identity. The key testimony or confessional formula that characterizes the saints is "saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost." Each denomination among the Holiness and Pentecostal churches has specific doctrines and disciplines governing the interpretation of the meaning of salvation, sanctification, and Spirit baptism, but some generalizations will be ventured here in an attempt to characterize the liturgical and ethical self-understanding of the tradition as a whole.
To be saved means that one has repented and asked forgiveness of sins, and has confessed Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. This imparts a basic "entry level" of liturgical identity that distinguishes the saint from the unbeliever. To be sanctified is to receive some second form of blessing that conveys on the believer a distinctive ethical identity of being set apart for God, literally to be made holy. Some of the non-Wesleyan groups would not see sanctification as a separate process, but as an experience inherent in salvation. To be filled or baptized with the Holy Spirit is a declaration of liturgical identity which signifies that the saint has experienced total initiation into the worshipping community by a personal confession or manifestation of Spirit possession. The evidence of this is the major area of doctrinal difference that accounts in part for the vast multiplicity of denominations and church bodies within the Holiness and Pentecostal movements. Generally speaking, the Wesleyan-Holiness churches emphasize the infilling of the Spirit as manifested in a holy life, while the Pentecostal churches seek the pouring out of the Spirit in the ecstatic utterances of tongues.
James Tinney, for many years a professor of journalism at Howard University, testifies that he "got the Holy Ghost" during his adolescence in 1956, and offers a vivid portrayal of the experience of tarrying for Spirit baptism in the black Pentecostal context:
So the seeker prays loud and long as hard and as fast as he can to get this power. He sweats and cries and screams and physically throws himself, demanding that God do what he wants. He commands the power of God as his own. It is a violent scene-one which is carefully hidden from the casual visitor. The seeker will work himself into a state of possession if it takes hours upon hours of struggling. Hair will become matted, clothes will become dirtied, the flesh will become sick and feint until "the power comes."... The result will be a total rejection of American mainstream values, coming back full circle to the African heritage of possession. And it will be symbolized by a break with rational thought and language and an utterance in unknown tongues, among other manifestations.[2]
Because Tinney's account is part of a political science dissertation, his understanding of Spirit baptism is couched in the language of power. The social ethical focus of his interpretation entails a ritual return to Africa, and a concomitant rejection of American mainstream values, presumably both religious and secular. It is important to acknowledge that this ritual is conducted in secret, or at least removed from the view of the casual observer, as Tinney suggests.
While water baptism is ordinarily required only once in the life of the believer, the baptism of the Spirit may be understood as a ritual of initiation that can be repeated, replenished, or re-enacted as often as the saint becomes possessed by the Holy Spirit in worship. The fact that the possessing Spirit is Holy mandates that the saints manifest holy living both inside and outside the sanctuary. Thus there is a vital connection between the ethical and liturgical identity of the saints, as expressed in the exhortation of the Psalmist: "Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright" (Psalm 33:1).
African-American Holiness and Pentecostal Worship Practices
There are numerous articles, books, and dissertations that describe in detail the worship practices of the Holiness and Pentecostal churches. James Shopshire (1975), Arthur Paris (1982), and Joseph Murphy (1994) have written descriptive narratives of black Pentecostal worship based on participant observation.[3] Moreover, I have analyzed my own observations concerning worship based on data gathered from 1990-1994 during visits to 75 churches and 28 college campuses in 21 states (and the District of Columbia), representing 25 mainline Protestant, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Holiness denominations. Based on this information, I have developed a composite portrait of worship in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition, with attention to eight basic elements, as follows: (1) call to worship; (2) songs and hymns; (3) prayer; (4) offerings; (5) Scripture reading; (6) preaching; (7) altar call; and (8) benediction.
The call to worship includes acts which initiate the worship experience. It may be a simple and informal verbal signal to "stop chatting and settle down," or a formal combination of choral introit and litany recited by minister and congregation. The call to worship may be a brief reading from the Bible, the church's hymnal, or from some printed worship aid that encourages people to become focused on worship. In some cases it is preceded by a devotional service, including songs, prayers, and testimonies. Also, it may be immediately followed with a processional of the clergy and choir. In the church Paris describes, the devotional service comprises half of all that happens in the entire worship experience, if not also half of the total worship time. In the church Murphy depicts, there are no formal devotions as such. In all cases some verbal signal is given to invite the congregation to worship.
The singing of some combination of songs, hymns, choruses, and Negro spirituals is a vital part of all these worship services. It is difficult to denote the role music plays in worship with any degree of precision because music tends to undergird everything else that is done. Unlike some of the other elements of worship, music is interspersed throughout the service, and not at just one or two points in the order of worship. In the composite outline, however, the singing of songs and hymns represents a major component of congregational involvement in the worship experience. The sacred repertoire is inclusive of hymns of the mainline evangelical Protestant church, gospel songs, praise choruses, and Negro spirituals. Shopshire seems given to understatement when he judges that worship in the Pentecostal church he observes is much the same as "any of the Protestant denominational worship gatherings, with the probable exception that the singing was better than average."[4] The African-American Holiness and Pentecostal churches certainly are known for their enthusiastic singing and response, as worship finds expression across a broad range of sacred musical forms. The sung repertoire of the tradition includes classical anthems, arias, and oratorios, hymns, gospel songs, spirituals, shouts, chants, and lined-out common-meter sacred folk songs.
The Hammond organ is the instrument of choice for the improvisational style of worship music in many of these churches. Murphy gives special attention to the importance of the organ in the worship, noting at many points in his narrative the manner in which the organ shapes the mood and expresses the energy of the songs, speech, and dance. The organ takes the lead in providing the rhythmic and tonal texture of the worship experience, and it is the principal instrument used to accompany the chanted sermon. Both Murphy and Shopshire describe the call and response between preacher and organist, which is actually a three-way conversation involving preacher, congregation, and musician. In the hands of a skilled and accomplished musician, the organ sings, speaks, and dances.
Prayer is an individual or collective appeal to God, which includes praise, thanksgiving, confessions, and various petitions. As is the case with music, it is difficult to fix one point in the outline of worship where prayer occurs, because it typically is done repeatedly throughout the service. Prayers are sometimes chanted in the Pentecostal churches in a manner not unlike the chanted sermon. They are seldom read or recited from a printed source, with the exception of the Lord's Prayer, which the worshippers may recite or chant from memory. The use of the Lord's Prayer represents a vital ecumenical connection with the prayer rituals of the universal church.
Offerings are taken by having the worshippers march to the front of the sanctuary to deposit their monetary gifts for the church in baskets, plates, or on a table. Also, the ushers may pass the offering receptacles up and down the rows of seated congregants in a precise, orderly fashion. Most of the African-American Holiness and Pentecostal churches emphasize tithing, and sometimes special prominence is given to the tithers by having them come forward individually to place their tithes in a special receptacle. The offerings can consume a considerable amount of time if the minister makes an appeal for a specific cause or if people are asked to bring their offerings according to the specific dollar amount, as is the case in the churches described by Murphy, Paris, and Shopshire. Usually some form of prayer and/or doxology is offered in connection with the offering, either before or after the monies are actually received.
Scripture reading is another indispensable element in African-American Holiness and Pentecostal worship. One or more texts may be read near the beginning of the service, or shortly before the sermon is preached. The Scriptures can be individually read from the pulpit, or read responsively by minister and congregation. The Bible is accorded the highest respect and regard in these churches, and in some cases there are special ritual procedures for transporting and handling the particular Bible from which the sermon is preached.
Preaching is a climactic event in this worship tradition because it is believed that the preacher actually speaks for God. Often the sermons are performed in the sense that the basic message and content are amplified through chants, moans, dancing, and other ecstatic behaviors. Each of the worship narratives analyzed here describes the interaction between preacher and congregation in multiple dimensions. Preaching is more than the simple verbal communication of the gospel of Jesus Christ based on some Scriptural text; it involves emotion, physical movement, various modulations of the preacher's voice, and is designed to bring the worshipping community into some form of climactic expression-shouting, tears, praise, repentance, and/or tongue-speaking. In some of the churches, specific provision is made for the preacher (typically male) to have an attendant (typically female) whose responsibility is to assist him with his liturgical cape, to administer juice or water as needed, to wipe the sweat from his brow, etc., adding to the dramatic impact of the preaching performance. Sociologist Harold Dean Trulear has described the ritual aspects of preaching as follows: "The use of robes, capes, etc., to enhance the preacher's appearance and the attendant nurse with her ever-present orange juice and fresh handkerchiefs are all part of the props or staging of the ritual drama where 'God speaks to His children.'"[5] Regardless of the size of the sanctuary, these churches all have electronic sound systems, some very sophisticated and advanced, and the preachers use hand-held and/or lapel microphones to enhance the modulation of the preaching voice. The sermon is always intended to elicit congregational response.
Altar call is a formal ritual of response to the preached word, which usually functions as an invitation to discipleship. Many African-American Holiness and Pentecostal churches adhere to the practice of issuing dual altar calls-the first an appeal for sinners to repent and receive salvation and the second an invitation for believers to receive sanctification or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Altar calls may also include the ritual laying of hands upon the sick or distressed, and anointing with oil, with the purpose of achieving healing or deliverance. Prayer is always a key element of this ritual, which may occur at some other point in the service, even prior to the sermon. In some churches the major objective of the altar call is to invite the worshippers to have hands laid on them so they can be "slain in the Spirit." The dissociative experience of temporary loss of consciousness represents a form of ritual empowerment. The altar call may serve a variety of purposes in worship. It is used to invite sinners to repentance, new converts to church membership, hurting persons to wholeness, and saved persons to sanctification and other forms of spiritual empowerment and blessing. For some worshippers, the altar ritual is as pertinent and significant to them personally as the sermon itself, if not more so. There are preachers who invest as much time and energy in directing the altar call as in preaching the sermon.
Benediction is a prayer or formula of blessing signaling that the worship experience has ended. It may include a final exhortation or commission of the worshippers to implement some particular truth or principle that has been preached. The minister who offers the benediction may raise one or both hands, and in some cases the worshippers also raise their hands while receiving the benediction.
There are some additional aspects of African-American Holiness and Pentecostal worship that distinguish these churches from the white North American Protestant mainstream. The list would include: (1) the holy dance; (2) the "Yes" chant; and (3) the use of white uniformed liturgical attendants. Many or most of these marks and symbols can be found in traditional black denominational churches, and definitely in "neo-Pentecostal" Baptist and Methodist congregations. These aspects of worship are rooted in African cultural identity, and may be reflective of specific worship patterns and cultural practices associated with slave religion in the rural South. As each of these practices is defined and illustrated here, an assessment will be offered of the specific ethical and aesthetic meaning ascribed to them within the community of the saints.
The holy dance is best exemplified as the ritual of the shout, the climactic expression of individual and collective Spirit possession that is especially characteristic of the black Pentecostal congregations. In her article "Dancing to Rebalance the Universe: African-American Secular Dance and Spirituality," Katrina Hazzard-Gordon comments that dance serves as a "kinetic vocabulary" through which the needs, perceptions, impressions, and responses of African-American people are articulated.[6] Her description of the juxtaposition of the "chaotic, the uncontrolled, and the unconscious" movements associated with the onset of full possession with the "ordered, contained, conscious, and controlled" conduit step is reflective of the static/ecstatic dialectic in Holiness-Pentecostal worship.[7]
In this perspective, the concept of liturgical dance can be expanded to include choreographed choir processions and a whole host of bodily gestures by choir and congregation, such as swaying, patting of feet, clapping of hands, raising one or both hands, and spontaneous standing on one's feet. In the Holiness churches, there are saints who do not do the "shout step" associated with the Pentecostals but rather leap straight up and down when they "get happy."
In his worship narrative, Shopshire gives some indication of the aesthetic and ethical norms the saints associate with the holy dance. His account is illustrative of the tension that sometimes exists between the static and ecstatic in fulfillment of the expectations of the worship leader:
Not being satisfied with the response, [the bishop] said in a scolding tone, "I can't understand how anyone can remain quiet and seated in such a spirit-filled gathering as this. Get up, and dance!" Speaking especially to the constituent members of the gathering, he took time to remind them that to dance is indicative of a meaningful experience in worship, and they "need not try to be cute" by not talking back and dancing.... As he talked he was moving back and forth across the length of the pulpit platform with a very agile gait, ever so often initiating a brief dance step and then stopping. By the time the point had been made about dancing being integral to meaningful worship experience he had reached a vocal peak, and performed a dancing frenzy for about 15 seconds.[8]
Clearly this bishop has mastered the technique of inciting the holy dance through measured demonstration. He seems to have a definite sense of the aesthetic requirements of the ritual dance. Moreover, he seeks to convince others of the ethical propriety, even necessity of ecstatic expression in worship.
Another of the salient marks of African-American worship in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition is the chant of affirmation, originated by Bishop C. H. Mason in the early days of the Church of God in Christ, and later written into an anthem by Dr. Arenia C. Mallory. Pearl Williams-Jones observes that the chant of "Yes, Lord" typically follows and brings closure to the shout:
Shouts may conclude informally through the intuitive consent and feeling of tensions released by the collective body, or may give way to a chant in slow tempo such as, "Yes, Lord" which is an unmetered chant originated in the early days of the Church of God in Christ.... Bishop Charles Harrison Mason was heard to enchant, "Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes to your word. Yes to your will. Yes to your way." The congregation chants in heterophany.[9]
The chant of affirmation has already been cited above in the excerpt from Shopshire's narrative where the bishop exhorts the worshippers to say "yes" and dance. Murphy also describes the chant of affirmation in his narrative of worship in the Church of God in Christ:
Mother Hall chants the Church of God in Christ national anthem, "Yes, Lord." In a sure, husky voice she asks the congregation to affirm the wonders of creation, the saving deeds of Jesus, and the power of the Spirit. With each pause the congregation affirms "Yes, Lord." As the enthusiasm grows, more and more people shout "Yes" and "Yes, Lord" as they feel moved. One woman comes out into the aisle to spin about with back bent, feet pumping in place, and hands raised high, fingers spread. "Oh Yes, Lord!"[10]
The chant of affirmation is sung with attendant gestures of submission such as lifting up holy hands, shouting, cries of "Hallelujah," "Glory," "Thank you, Jesus," or simply "Yes." Ethically speaking, there is a dialectic inherent in these signs of surrender-to say yes to God is to become empowered to say no to the world, and especially to the powers of evil and deception that would hinder the believer from having peace with God. Thus, the worshippers are exhorted repeatedly to drop their inhibitions and release themselves to follow the lead of the Spirit in worship. This release requires the full assent of the individuals. In this light, the inhibiting factor is ultimately sin or self-centeredness or even class consciousness. To say or sing "Yes" to God is to affirm God's acceptance of the sacrifices of praise, and to signal divine approval of the saints's worship in all its culturally aesthetic concreteness and particularity.
A visually striking feature of African American worship is the performance of specialized liturgical roles by women, e.g., deaconesses, ushers, attendants, and nurses. These uniformed attendants almost invariably wear white, a color which signifies purity and consecration. Most ushers and nurses are women, and most preachers are men, but there is sufficient flexibility in fulfilling these roles to allow men to serve as ushers or nurses, and women as preachers, even in the churches that do not ordain women. Even so, the women more consistently wear white when performing the liturgical roles of deaconess, usher, nurse, and preacher. White is almost always worn by deaconesses, especially on those Sundays when they are responsible for preparing the Communion Table, and is typically worn by women preachers. Candidates for baptism by immersion usually wear white.
Women's Day, an annual observance first instituted in the churches of the National Baptist Convention by Nannie Helen Burroughs in 1907 "to raise women, not money," is observed today in almost all black churches.[11] It is the one Sunday in the year when all the women worshippers are expected to wear white. In no way is the wearing of white an indication of a preference for white culture or assent to the biased color symbolism of a racist society. In ethical perspective, it seems to be more indicative of a desire to surrender all marks of personal style and distinctiveness in order to become totally identified with the worshipping community and its God-white is the one color that makes it possible to achieve complete aesthetic uniformity.
Static and Ecstatic Forms of Spirit Possession
Spirit possession is an important feature of virtually all the diasporic religions of New World Africans. For example, devotees of Cuban santeria, Haitian vodou, and Brazilian candomble enact elaborate rituals of possession and acknowledge a corresponding pantheon of possessing spirits and deities of African derivation. What separates the African-American Holiness and Pentecostal tradition from the others, however, is the belief that the possessing spirit bears the exclusive identity of Holy Spirit.
The perennial objective of Holy Spirit possession is achieved in some combination of ecstatic and static forms. Ecstatic worship forms have as their salient feature a trance resulting from religious fervor. Ecstasy literally means "out of place." In static worship forms, on the other hand, worshippers are at rest or in equilibrium. Static literally means "causing to stand." However, as is the case when the term is used to describe a form of electricity, it should not be assumed that static worship is necessarily dead or lifeless. Static electricity is electrical force produced and accumulated as potential energy; current electricity moves and flows in the form of kinetic energy. Static energy is stored, kinetic energy moves. The two are interdependent, because kinetic energy is the discharge of static energy through some conductor or channel. Yet, as anyone who has observed a thunderstorm can attest, static energy can be discharged at random, without conductor or channels, with a force that is not only impressive in magnitude, but frightening and potentially lethal in impact. On the other hand, the flow of kinetic energy can be entirely predictable and controlled. The two distinct forms of electrical energy suggest an analogy which can bring enhanced insights to the study of Holiness and Pentecostal worship, a dialectic of static/ecstatic worship structures and forms of spirit possession.[12] Along the continuum of Holiness-Pentecostal groups, the Holiness churches tend to favor the static forms and ideals of Spirit possession, while the Pentecostals insist upon ecstatic expression in worship.
To define ecstatic worship as worship "out of place" necessitates formulating some understanding of its dialectical opposite, worship "in place." Static worship is the state of equilibrium out of which the ecstasy flows; it is the requisite platform for the trance ritual to occur. In no way should this scheme be understood as indicative of the relative inferiority or superiority of static and ecstatic forms of worship. However, the fact remains that practically every Christian worship tradition tends to favor one over the other, sometimes to the exclusion of the other. Yet, the two are neither equal nor mutually exclusive in this sense; ecstatic experience absolutely depends on static structures, but static structures may or may not produce ecstatic experience. In fact, static forms and structures can be intentionally used to deny or suppress spirit possession. The ecstatic state may be forthrightly suppressed, scorned, or forbidden. So there can be static worship without spirit possession in any state or form. But it is not possible to have worship of any kind without some static structure to initiate and organize the ritual interaction of the worshippers. In other words, to say that static structures sustain ecstatic forms of worship is merely to agree that one cannot dance without a floor, sing without a scale, or speak without a language.
Static structures are those elements in worship that represent a state of equilibrium or rest. They include: hymn singing, Scripture reading, corporate prayers (esp. the Lord's Prayer), offerings, sermon, altar call, announcements, benediction. These are designated here as static structures because they embody the potential energy of the worshipping congregation to explode into ecstatic expression-shouting or holy dance, tongue-speaking, spontaneous utterances, lifting holy hands. Most of these structures can serve as a platform for ecstatic movement. For example, people may shout during hymn singing and sermons, speak in tongues during or after prayer, and engage in call and response as the Scriptures are read. The call to worship and the benediction are also static structures that frame the worship ritual by marking the boundaries of sacred time. Generally speaking, the offerings and announcements do not support ecstatic activity or evoke ecstatic response.
Thus, worship has fixed and fluid forms, rehearsed and unrehearsed, scripted and improvised, prepared and spontaneous. To make matters more complex, it is clear that some forms and events in worship reflect both fixed and fluid elements at the same time. For example, the quintessential ecstatic expression in Pentecostal worship is the shout, or holy dance, which usually occurs as a spontaneous eruption into coordinated, choreographed movement. There are characteristic steps, motions, rhythms, and syncopations associated with shouting. It is not a wild and random expression of kinetic energy. Rather, there is a culturally and aesthetically determined static structure which sustains the expression of ecstasy in a definite, recognizable form, whose existence may not be apparent to the casual or uninformed observer. Similarly, speaking in tongues may appear to be a strictly spontaneous and unrehearsed verbal expression, but in reality the practice is evoked by "tarrying" or other repetitive patterns of activity designed to encourage tongue-speaking. Glossolalia is not the only ecstatic speech used in worship. The vocabulary of utterances spoken spontaneously in worship is not random or undefined. There is a definite lexicon for intelligible ecstatic utterances in the sanctuary, which may manifest cultural and regional variants, but is nevertheless known to the group. Usually, these are terms found in the Bible with reference to the praise and attributes of God: "Hallelujah," "Amen," "Glory," "Holy," and "Praise the Lord." In the ecstatic state, the worshipper may repeat one or more of these expressions many times, in a loud or subdued voice.
Alternative Styles of Worship
Among black Protestant churches in general, there are two basic orientations toward worship that set the tone for worship in particular congregations: quietistic and lively. The quietistic congregations give priority to static structures, while the lively congregations value ecstatic expressions in worship. Quietistic worship traditions may exclude or control ecstatic worship forms in several ways, for instance by insisting that everything in worship be scripted, read, and timed; by restricting rhythm and repetition, especially in singing; or by direct intervention or verbal rebuke by authorized figures such as ushers or preachers. Lively worship traditions may devalue static worship forms by making statements such as "We are not here for form or fashion, we are here to praise the Lord" or by vigorously exhorting persons to speak aloud, stand, raise hands, shout, etc., and subjecting them to verbal ridicule if they refuse, as in "You think you're too cute and too sophisticated to shout." The quietistic worship leader imposes silence and stillness upon the congregation; the leader of lively worship invokes noise and motion.
Interestingly, the task of setting the tone for worship, whether quietistic or lively, is not always totally determined by the minister, singer or preacher who is standing in the pulpit-leadership may be exercised indirectly, but to great effect, by the one who organizes, reproduces, and distributes the order of worship, or by some individual or group in the congregation to whom the worship leader looks for cues and approval. Or the congregation as a whole may be predisposed to one or the other style of worship, and collectively by their silence or their utterances indicate approval or disapproval of what is taking place. For example, if one individual is given to loud utterances in a quietistic congregation, the response may be staring, frowns, or hushing actions. On the other hand, in a lively congregation the individual who prefers to remain still and silent may feel uncomfortable and self-conscious, and may even attract unwelcome public criticism or ridicule. In his study of black worship, Trulear defends the integrity of quietistic worship in black middle-class churches as a legitimate ritual verification of a particular concept of humanity:
If being human means to be dignified and intellectual, under control and logical, all patterns of behavior that this society has said Blacks are incapable of, then these congregations will model these ideas of human virtue in the context of worship. This is still a function of Black humanity. Those who would deny this as in some sense legitimate would have to eliminate people such as Du Bois and Daniel Payne from the Black religious world.[13]
In this perspective, it is helpful to bear in mind that competing ideals of black humanity may be at stake in debates between lively and quietistic worshippers concerning appropriate forms and expressions of black worship.
Gatekeepers
Static and ecstatic worship have their distinctive sets of gatekeepers. Ushers, nurses, deaconesses, i.e., uniformed attendants with some designated title and role, are the gatekeepers of the static aspects of worship. Singers, preachers, and to some extent dancers are the gatekeepers of ecstatic worship, the people who "usher" the congregation into and out of the ecstatic state. Ushers attend to the physical movement of worshippers in and out of the sanctuary, and demarcate the temporal and spatial boundaries that encompass the sacred space. In other words, as ushers greet and seat each worshipper they are defining and managing the ritual space; their tenure of duty spans the entire worship time, from prelude to benediction. The preachers and singers direct the emotional and spiritual dynamics of the worship experience, and ushers participate in this process by attending to the special needs and security of persons experiencing the transition from static to ecstatic worship.
With respect to gender roles, in general the African-American Holiness and Pentecostal churches tend toward a peculiar egalitarianism in assigning gatekeeping roles based on gender. The gatekeepers of static structures can be men, just as the gatekeepers of ecstatic expression, the preachers and worship leaders, can be women. Both men and women serve as lead singers and dancers, according to gifts and ability. For obvious reasons, the persons chosen as ushers, nurses, and attendants tend not to be easily and readily inclined to ecstatic spirit possession. Similarly, the other gatekeepers, including preachers, singers, and instrumentalists, are normally expected to know and honor the rules governing the static forms and structures of worship, and to maintain spiritual equilibrium whenever the congregation is swept into the ecstatic state. The biblical principle invoked as an explanation for the need for gatekeepers to maintain equilibrium is taken from 1 Corinthians 14:32, Paul's letter addressed to an early charismatic Christian congregation: "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets."
In the World, But Not of It
Given that the ultimate objective of worship in the African-American Holiness and Pentecostal church tradition is some form of Spirit possession, the aesthetic and ethical norms that govern movement toward this objective are derived from the Bible and black culture. The distinctive songs, speech, and dances of these churches symbolically "usher" the saints "out" of this world and into a more authentic one discerned within sacred time and space. There is a connection between the saints' rejection of the world and the world's rejection of the saints. The saints reject the world on the basis of biblically-derived ascetic commitments, i.e., the mandate to holiness; they are themselves "rejected" by the dominant host culture because of their race, sex, and class. When the saints sing "Holy" unto the Lord, lift up holy hands, do the holy dance, in effect they are expressing their allegiance to a world where God has determined who is accepted and who will receive power. Moreover, their worship shows that they believe God is accepting of the praise, performances, and aesthetic standards that are characteristic of Africans in diaspora. The Holy Spirit has freed at least some of them from the pressure to conform to the worship styles of the dominant culture.
The saints are "in" a world that is sinful, oppressive, and discriminatory; they demonstrate that they are not "of" this world by purging themselves of its secularizing influences through rituals that meet their own criteria for cultural authenticity and biblical interpretation. In worship, the saints replicate the "other" world, the place where the oppressed outsider can be at home. Ethically, their allegiance to this "other" world requires them to be loving, honest, and pure, even in relation to their enemies. Just as the sanctuary or temple is the place of ritual possession, their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Ritual purity in the sanctuary requires purity of body, mind, and spirit outside the sanctuary. By their worship the saints manifest the holy character of the God they serve; by clean living they demonstrate to the world that they possess the Spirit that possesses them in worship.
Endnotes:
