Abstract
The present title of this article is a restatement and reduction of the much larger topic, “African and Biblical Bases for Black Worship and the Ways in which Biblical Events, Characters, Places and Images Parallel and Interweave Black Experience, and are Remembered and Celebrated in Worship,” an extended project upon which I am constantly at work. It is to be noted, here, that I shall deal in this paper only with Biblical (i.e., not with African) characters, events, places and images. At the very beginning, I must say that what is here presented is to be viewed and evaluated as the first draft of a report of an investigation into the subject. The subject is so vast that several persons, working over an extended period of time, might give attention to it. Therefore, the best that I might hope for is that what is presented may serve as a suggestion for further research and writing. Worship consists of several elements. This investigation was limited to songs, sermons and prayers. In the course of the investigation I perused five hundred fifty Spirituals, chiefly by title; two hundred fifty Gospel Songs which date mainly from the 1930’s to the present; fifty “Tindley” and similar Black Gospel Hymns which date from 1885 to 1935; and three hundred sermons which date from 1800 to the present. Roughly twenty-five prayers, dating from 1785 to the present, were reviewed.