Readings in African American Church Music and Worship features important articles and essays on music and worship written by some of the most influential voices of the past century, including W. E. B. DuBois, Wendell P. Whalum, V. Michael McKay, Wyatt Tee Walker, J. Wendell Mapson Jr., and others.

This volume is a monumental assemblage of essays and articles discussing the role of music and worship in African American churches. A century's worth of writing—some previously unpublished—includes pieces from pastors, scholars, theologians, historians, ethnomusicologists, organists, and choral conductors. Topics include historical perspectives, surveys of hymnals and hymnody, liturgical hymnody, worship, composers, organs, and contemporary perspectives.

Examines different genres of African American sacred music of the twentieth century, emphasizing the role migration of blacks in the United States played in nurturing and spreading the evolution of gospel music.

Black churches in America have long been recognized as the most independent, stable, and dominant institutions in black communities. In The Black Church in the African American Experience, based on a ten-year study, is the largest nongovernmental study of urban and rural churches ever undertaken and the first major field study on the subject since the 1930s. Drawing on interviews with more than 1,800 black clergy in both urban and rural settings, combined with a comprehensive historical overview of seven mainline black denominations, C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya present an analysis of the Black Church as it relates to the history of African Americans and to contemporary black culture. In examining both the internal structure of the Church and the reactions of the Church to external, societal changes, the authors provide important insights into the Church’s relationship to politics, economics, women, youth, and music. Among other topics, Lincoln and Mamiya discuss the attitude of the clergy toward women pastors, the reaction of the Church to the civil rights movement, the attempts of the Church to involve young people, the impact of the black consciousness movement and Black Liberation Theology and clergy, and trends that will define the Black Church well into the next century. This study is complete with a comprehensive bibliography of literature on the black experience in religion. Funding for the ten-year survey was made possible by the Lilly Endowment and the Ford Foundation.

Reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition can help us connect with a rich faith history and address the urgent issues of our times. Demonstrating an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, New Testament scholar Esau McCaulley shares a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation.

Filled with creative and practical strategies for integrating self-care into the natural ebb and flow of vocational life, this compelling resource identifies the personal and cultural factors that influence overload and outlines plausible strategies to pull the weary pastor out of such bondage.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.