This research examines the role of preaching in worship in the Black Church in the United States. There is, of course, no denomination known as the Black Church, and, thus, an argument could be made against the use of capitalization in the term. The Black Church in the United States, however, is much more than a name for the various places where black Americans go to worship God, for black Americans worship God in churches of various kinds, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other related institutions. The Black Church in the United States is, among other things, a Christian institution, which transcends denomi national boundaries. Thus, for example, both black Methodist congregations, and black Baptist congregations are parts of the Black Church in the United States.
The thesis of this research is that preaching is an event in worship in the Black Church in the United States. This the sis implies that preaching is more than an adjunct to, or a facilitator of worship; that preaching is, in fact, integral to worship in the Black Church.
In order to understand how preaching is an event in wor ship in the black church, it is necessary to understand the black perception of the Christian religion in the United States, and the practice of worship in the Black Church. These two factors
1 2are essential to the concept of preaching as an event in wor ship in the Black Church.
BLACK CHRISTIANITY IN THE UNITED STATES
Lincoln (1974, p. 1) said that those people "who attempt to reduce black religion to nothing more than a cryptonym for the prevailing white expression of the faith run the inevitable risk of exposing how little they know about religion, or black people, or both." He continued to say that, whatever "other derivations it may have, religion derives in part from the experiences of the people who confess it, and the white exper ience is not in its critical essence the black experience in America" (Lincoln, 1974, p. ...