I do. I looooooove gospel music. People who have known me for a long time are usually surprised by the amount of (Black) gospel music I have in my music library, especially since I’ve been an atheist for over a decade now. I love the choirs and I love the emotion and I love the women who become superstars with the magnificent voices they learned to control within the loving comfort of the congregation.
But I especially love old-school gospel that sounds like Sunday morning in a small, rural, Black church where the only accompaniment to the voices are handclaps and footstomps on a hardwood floor because the congregation couldn’t afford a piano. That’s my sound. And that’s the sound of my people.
If you’re unfamiliar with that sound, this is one of my favorites of the past few years:
On a Black atheist messasge board I read on occasion, someone made a post about gospel music, asking the members if any of us still listened to gospel, even though we no longer believe. I was surprised (and comforted) by the number of people who do. I thought I was the only one, but now that I know I’m not alone, I wanted to talk about how it makes me feel.
When I listen to gospel music, I don’t listen to the words. It’s not about the message. It’s about the sound and the feeling. Of course I don’t “believe” in the testimony, because I don’t believe in any gods. I wish people would stop giving praise to their god for everything they managed to do themselves, and I wish people would make more of an effort to lift themselves up instead of looking to a god to “make a way.” No matter how I feel about religion, and especially religion in relation to Black people, you can’t deny the emotion behind those words and the circumstances that led to the feeling.
Black gospel music has its roots in slavery. Black people in America built a community and a new heritage using a borrowed religion forced upon them and a combination of traditions they brought from Africa. If you were Yoruba and your bunkmate Fulani, you might not have a lot in common other than your shared experience of being brought here against your will and forced to adopt a belief system you had never heard of. Forced assimilation is a powerful thing, and over the generations, that becomes the only identity you know because it’s the only identity you’re allowed to express. It was a time when white people and Black people looked at Christianity through entirely different lenses. White Christians read the Bible, interpreted the passages, and decided on a set of rules and standards by which to live in order to be blessed in God’s eyes. Black slaves weren’t allowed that access to the source material and Christianity became about one thing – getting to eternal Heaven. Whatever your circumstances, believe in God and salvation will come. No matter the trials and hardships, God is testing your belief and your resolve and you will be rewarded in the afterlife. In the immortal words of Celie: This life be over soon. Heaven lasts always.
The way we expressed ourselves through music in Africa carried over to our new Christian beliefs. Singing songs in your native tongue was certainly not allowed and making reference to your ancestors was expressly forbidden. So we took those traditions and used them within the parameters allowed us in this country. The sorrow songs and jubilee songs of our homeland became the hymns and worship music of our new country. We used gospel music to comfort us through the bad times and rejoice during the good times. We used gospel music to pass secret messages to each other and to vent our frustrations at the life we had been forced into. We used gospel music to lift our spirits toward a brighter tomorrow and to assure ourselves that this can’t be all there is. That is the emotional basis behind gospel music, a foundation that has carried itself – and carried us – into the 21st Century.
Gospel music is built on conflicting emotions if you really listen. There’s the obvious praise and gratitude toward God for seeing you to another day or bringing you out of hardship…but there’s a lot of anger and desperation. There’s an element of “I’m so pissed and I’m so fed up with trial after tribulation and God is the only one I can talk to because everyone else I know is going through the same thing.” Gospel music is an emotional release. When people cry in church, that’s not purely out of love or thanks. It’s frustration. It’s an emotional cleansing and it’s recharging your batteries so you have enough strength to go out and do it again the next week.
That’s why I appreciate gospel music. Life for Black people in this country is riddled with so many hurdles and potholes and frustrations, and the music of the Black church is, and has been, our release for centuries. It’s how we tell each other “you’re not the only one” and “I’ve been there and got through it” and “there has to be something better on the other side because just look at what we have to put up with on this side.”
I don’t listen to gospel music because I personally believe any of that. I do have problems with the church and I do have problems with being so fervently attached to a belief system that was forced upon you by a community that put you in chains and beat you into submission. I wish the common thread in the Black community was something other than religion, but this is all we have. I don’t listen to gospel music because I miss the dogma or the hypocrisy of the Black church itself. I listen to gospel music because it makes me feel connected to my heritage and all of the amazing men and women who lived before and really did overcome.
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