The Meaning of the Moan and Significance of the Shout in Black Worship and Culture and Memory and Hope

Abstract

In black worship we hear uttered the “language of the sacred” Long wrote of in the above quote taken from Significations. Black worship, of course, has no monopoly on this language of the sacred, but it does have its own way of speaking this language. This language is rooted in the signification of silence referred to earlier in chapter four, “Being, Nothingness, and the ‘Signification of Silence’ in African American Religious Consciousness.” I tried to show in chapter seven, “ ‘The Signification of Silence’ Revisited: African American Art and Hermeneutics,” how this language is given visual expression in that medium. In this chapter, I will engage in a phenomenology of the language of the sacred that is uttered in black worship but which, I also argue, structures the whole spectrum of black experience.KeywordsObjective ConditionBlack ChurchAfrican American CultureBlack ExperienceAfrican American HistoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.