African-american Worship

Churches in the African-American community share a distinct worship culture that is the result of the integration of Christian worship forms with a worldview shaped by a traditional African ontology (understanding of being). In addition to the African heritage and religious perspective, the experience of blacks in American slavery has also helped to shape African-American worship patterns. Because most North American Christians are unfamiliar with the African heritage, this entry covers more background than the others in this chapter. Introduction Any discussion of Christian liturgy, regardless of particularities, begins from one basic premise: God, in the beginning of time, initiated and set the momentum for worship. God's initiative is a priori to the individual or corporate response of a people. In Jesus the Christ, God entered fully into the conditions of humanity and the world. In Jesus Christ God's initiative shaped ritual action, setting the direction for praise, adoration, t…