Moss III, Otis. Blue
Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World: Finding Hope in an Age of Despair. Westminster
John Knox Press, 2015. xvi + 127 pp.
Softcover.
Originally presented
as a series of Lyman-Beecher lectures at Yale Divinity
School, this slim book
includes three chapters, each based on an individual lecture, and four sermons which
serve as illustrative examples for the material covered in the lectures. Moss talks not just about preaching, but also
about the history of Black, or ‘blue note,’ preaching, what Valentino Lassiter
calls ‘the African American preaching heritage’ (Lassiter, preface, 9). Like Lassiter, Moss notes that modern day
preaching often fails to address contemporary needs. His lecture series and this book seek to
correct that situation.
This review offers
a brief summary of the book followed by a critique, and concludes with an
assessment and recommendation for the intended audience.
There are as many
styles and approaches to preaching as there are preachers. Moss adds his voice to a long list of
authorities on preaching, including his mentor Fred Craddock, David Buttrick,
Thomas Long, Kirk Jones, and others. His
influences are many, from Howard Thurman, Abraham Heschel, Martin Luther King,
Jr., Frank A. Thomas, Henry Emerson Fosdick, and his parents, Edwina and Otis. This book could sit on the shelf next to
Jones’ The Jazz of Preaching, as the
two authors both apply musical metaphors to the subject.
Moss intends to
show preachers – any preacher – how to ‘effectively communicate hope in a
desperate and difficult world’ (according to the publisher’s description). Preaching with a ‘Blue Note sensibility,’
that is, preaching with a blues aesthetic (Moss, xiii) as it developed in the
black American church in the South, is prophetic preaching; a ‘Blue Note
sensibility’ preaches about tragedy but refuses to fall into despair (6).
Writing from the
perspective of the black preaching tradition, Moss wants to recover and reclaim
this tradition from today’s church ‘where Christianity is nothing more than
capitalism in drag’ (4). Blue Note
preaching is meant to challenge the church and the preacher: ‘America is living stormy Monday, but the pulpit
is preaching happy Sunday’ (4).
Preaching the Blues tradition is now lost ‘in the clamor of material
blessing, success without work, prayer without public concern, and preaching
without burdens’ (4). Moss wants
preaching to regain a literary sensibility, prophetic speech, and a powerful
cultural critique, and names exemplars of each genre, for example, Flannery O’Connor,
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dorothee Solle (4-5).
For Moss, Blue
Note preaching is an oral art, rooted in sound not the printed page, nor is it confined
to the pulpit. It reaches the head,
heart, and hopes of the hearer. It is
performed in the sense of ‘using all sensory resources to communicate’ to
others, and not performed in the sense of being entertainment (36). Elsewhere, Moss says that the preacher ‘paints
with a homiletical brush upon a spiritual canvas’ (34) but also includes a
level of musicality (40). Blue Note
preaching is many things save for the preacher reading an essay from the
pulpit. And yet, Moss says, there is a
danger in preaching, for ‘preaching brings the purveyor into contact with a
world of conflict and contradiction’ (34).
Amen to that.
In chapter 3, Moss
develops the metaphor of digital/mobile culture versus analog/stationary
culture. The digital culture informs
Blue Note homiletics. There is always
something new being created from the old. Jesus moved the culture, metaphorically
speaking, from an analog to a mobile, digital culture. The introduction of movable type and the
printing of the Guttenberg Bible further pushed the culture into a digital
framework even as it was only part of a stationary, analog culture in terms of
who had access to it (48-50). This
analog-digital culture shift is occurring around us all time, and challenges the
preacher.
Moss is speaking
mainly to preachers, specifically black preachers but anyone who steps into the
pulpit on Sunday is welcome to apply what he has to say. This is a challenging book; not everyone will
be comfortable with what they read. As a
‘person of pallor’ reading this book, my responses ranged from feeling excluded
in some ways from this amazing-sounding tradition to feeling inspired to
include in my own preaching Moss’ call for preachers ‘to stare in the darkness
and speak the Blues with authority and witness the work of God’ (9). This preaching style ought to be valid not
only for black American preachers but to anyone who proclaims the good news of Jesus
and his ministry in their preaching.
Moss’ intent, I believe, is to open up the pulpit to powerful witness from
any source and not to preach the saccharine platitudes of a ‘happy Sunday’ (4). Our world, Moss writes, has been designed by
shadows, not truth (30).
In a time of civil
unrest, Moss sheds light on (a) how we can address the current sense of
despair, and (b) provides insight to preachers for ways to address contemporary
issues in authentic, relevant ways. This
book offers a good start for anyone to whom this is news. If you are a text-based, immobile preacher,
this might be unsettling stuff. For a
book based on a short lecture series, Moss presents his material in a logical,
coherent way with the caveat that some fine-tuning, some light editing, might
help tighten it up, but to do this is to risk stifling Moss’ engaging voice
which comes through on every page. He
quotes blues tunes, Scripture passages; he brings in just about every musical
form from classical to hip-hop. There
are a few typos – Larry Byrd? Hey, Moss
isn’t from Boston,
so we’ll let it go.
Mostly, we hear
Moss telling us to study out of our tradition. Blue Note preaching challenges us to do the
work, study our craft, and develop our own voices (61). Though Moss sometimes repeats himself and
occasionally makes the odd claim, this book is appropriate for its intended
audience. Moss displays some
showmanship, enthusiasm, and the movement of the Spirit through both the
lectures and the sermons (number four, How to Get Away with Murder, is
worth the price of the book).
The book is
significant and timely, given the recent situation in Ferguson, Missouri
and the Black Lives Matter protests. Moss
is biased toward preaching the truth and shedding light on injustice. His background as a preacher at Trinity United
Church of Christ in Chicago
makes him credible and persuasive. This
work is a useful addition to any preacher’s library, particularly to a
non-black audience that seeks understanding and new methods of proclaiming the
Gospel.
Critically
speaking, the book isn’t perfect but it comes close and it does the job as the
author intended it to. In terms of
presenting his ideas in an authentic voice, Moss hits a home run. He taught me that my way of preaching needs
to open up and he gave me ways to do that. There is much food for thought in this little
book and I would recommend it to anyone who preaches, period.
References
Valentino Lassiter, Martin Luther King in the African
American Preaching Tradition. Cleveland: The Pilgrim
Press, 2001.
Kirk Byron Jones, The
Jazz of Preaching: How to Preach with Great Freedom and Joy. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2004.
