Preaching During a Pandemic: The Rhetoric of the Black Preaching Tradition, Volume I(1 Studies in Communication, Culture, Race, and Religion)

Preaching During a Pandemic: The Rhetoric of the Black Preaching Tradition is a two-volume collection of sermons from those who preach within the Black preaching tradition during the COVID-19 pandemic. By publishing these sermons, the editors address questions such as what were those who preached in the Black preaching tradition sharing with their congregants? How were they incorporating and infusing COVID-19 in their sermons? What shape did the prophetic and priestly sermon take when preaching during a pandemic? Were specific models or types of sermons—womanist, prophetic/liberation, narrative, contemplative, celebrative, expository, thematic, induction, deductive—more frequently employed during a crisis? Across the two volumes, the editors collate 29 sermons and provide detailed introductions to each book examining the context and themes of the texts in an illuminating and accessible manner. It will make fascinating reading for students and scholars of Communication and Religious Studies.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments – Introduction: The Rhetoric of the Black Pulpit: The Collection of Black Sermons – Ristina Gooden: What Happens in the Wilderness?: Genesis 16:7–13 (NRSV) – Heather S. Wills: Do Not Pass Me By: Exodus 11: 4–8 (NRSV) – Jamar Boyd II: Surviving Quarantine: Exodus 12:13, 22–23; Ephesians 3:16–19 (NIV) – Donna Vanhook: Hope in the Holla: Numbers 27:1– 5 (NRSV) – Howard-John Wesley: The Ministry of Manna: Deuteronomy 8:1–5 (NRSV) – Wallis C. Baxter III: What Does All this Mean?: Joshua 4:5–7 (NIV) – Tamara Kersey: Remembering God in Troubled Times: Psalm 20:6–8 (NKJV) – Aaron Marble: Singing Without a Sanctuary: Psalm 27:4–6 (NASB) – Andre E. Johnson: Pandemic Loneliness: Psalms 66:8–20, John 14:15–21 (NRSV) – Glencie Rhedrick: What’s Going On?: Psalm 82:1–6 (NIV) – R. Janae Pitts- Murdock: I Can’t Breathe: Isaiah 40:27–29 (NASB) – C. Dexter Wise III: Building Houses in Babylon: Jeremiah 29: 4–11 (NKJV) – Cory Jones: How Long? We Can’t Breathe: Habakkuk 1:2 (NIV) – Patricia Robinson Williams: Lines Written Upon Reflection on Contemporary Moral Decay – Contributors.

About the Author :
Andre E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies in the Department of Communication and Film at the University of Memphis. He teaches classes in African American public address; rhetoric, race, and religion; media studies; interracial communication; homiletics; and hip hop studies. He is the author of No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (2020). Dr. Johnson is also Senior Pastor of Gifts of Life Ministries in Memphis, Tennessee. Kimberly P. Johnson is Associate Professor in the Communication Studies concentration area at Tennessee State University. She brings to the Department of Communication her areas of specialization: political, religious, and African American rhetoric; rhetorical criticism; cultural criticism; and womanism. She is the author of The Womanist Preacher: Proclaiming Womanist Rhetoric from the Pulpit (2017). Dr. Johnson is also an Associate Minister at New Covenant Christian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Wallis C. Baxter III is the pastor of Second Baptist Church SW in District Heights, Maryland. He is a 2009 graduate of Duke Divinity School with an M.Div. degree and a 2017 graduate of Howard University with a Ph.D. in African American literature. Dr. Baxter’s research interests include the shape of prophetic ministry from Reconstruction to today, 19th-century African American literature and liberation, ethics in Black and White America, and Black identity and gentrification within capitalistic America. He is the author of You Must Be Born Again: Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet (2022).

Review :
Directly in line with the long tradition of African American preaching that brings hope, justice, and healing, these volumes curate sermons that are theologically rich and rhetorically creative, offering insights into contemporary and relevant preaching around social justice, COVID-19, and health disparities in America. An absolute must-read!!!! —Frank A. Thomas, Director of the Ph.D. Program in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric, Christian Theological Seminary This intergenerational, interdenominational compilation shows forth the multi¬vocality of Black preaching, the vastness of our theological imagination, and the richness of our rhetorical genius. Ultimately, this compilation draws our attention to the greatest powers of Black preaching in times of upheaval: to help God’s people make meaning of our lived experiences, to return to the transgenerational theological truths that have held our people together, and to give voice to the new things that God is saying and doing in our lifetimes. — Neichelle Guidry, Dean of Sisters Chapel, Spelman College Our most elegant preachers and theological thinkers remind us that the Divine exists in community. Likewise, they also remind us that preachers do not pro¬claim the gospel in isolation. What the pandemic(s) of 2020 reminded us of is that we are surrounded by a great cloud of contemporary witnesses whose gifts, struggles, and hermeneutical acumen can strengthen our own. Those who preach and love preaching are presented as colleagues and able craftspersons of sacred rhetoric in this well-curated volume. Preachers, the pandemics are not over. We cannot survive them homiletically by ourselves. Read these sermons. —William H. Lamar IV, Pastor, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Washington, DC The last few years of COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests, and political upheaval has left Black folx betwixt and between multiple crises in the village, all streaming live for the consumption of a global audience. Yet, beyond a rhetorical geography rifled with strange fruit, this timely text captures the prophetic prow¬ess and anointed adroitness of Black preachers who take up their pulpits to meet their communities where they are—and still find a way to lead them toward hope everlasting. —Dianna Watkins Dickerson, Chaplain, United States Air Force and President of the African American Communication and Culture Division of the National Communication Association