Abstract
This article on “worship in the black experience” is not intended to be exhaustive of the subject, but is an effort to highlight some of its main features and the environment in which this particular worship experience flourishes. Though worship in the black church varies from church to church, it is the common historical experience of a people that has provided the groundwork for a common theological interpretation of that experience. Of course, there are affinities to the experience of others, but affinities are not quite like the full experience. For many years, worship in the black church has been a subject of joy, curiosity, study and controversy. It has been a source of joy for millions of blacks who have been a part of the church long before it was called “the black church”—those fathers and mothers, grandparents, great grandparents, and so on, who found the black church to be “an oasis in a dry desert,” a “balm in Gilead” and a source of strength for the struggle and the fight. For them and many others, it was indeed their joy. Yet, there have been and still are those who look upon Christian worship in the black experience with great curiosity. It is seen as a spectacle to behold and not an experience to be shared. Much of the study and controversy arises at the point of how much of the African influence still remains in worship in the black experience, over the meaning of this particular “style” of worship, and whether it is a unique experience. This brief paper will speak to the historical situation, to a theological understanding and to the writer’s view of what the present black attitude is toward worship in the black experience, while at the same time attempting to set forth its uniqueness.