The Hum

Description

In The Hum: Call and Response in African Preaching , Evans E. Crawford, with Thomas H. Troeger, relates his analysis of African American folk preaching by relying upon an indigenous scheme for evaluation.  The call/response tension in black preaching (derived from a West African tradition) is what drives the musicality of speech in black churches.  Crawford refers to this musicality as "hum thoughts" and one can imagine the choir responding with a low rumbling hum to the musical intonations of a motivated preacher. Key features: a new volume in the Abingdon Preacher's Library, edited by Thomas H. Troeger; a different approach to preaching, firmly rooted in the black experience; leads the reader to understand preaching as an oral event; uses the term "homiletical musicality" to describe the musical understanding of the way sermons are heard and the oral response they awaken in the listener; and, coins new phrases for describing the preaching event.