Preachin’ the Blues

Last updated on: July 5, 2015 at 4:25 am by Scot McKnight

Preachin’ the Blues 2015-07-04T17:01:39-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Revd Dr Michael J. Lakey, Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, UK. Michael Lakey’s own new book Academic Vocation in the Church and Academy Today (eds. Shaun C. Henson, Michael J. Lakey) is out later this year. For details visit the Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781472460035

A review of Gary W. Burnett, The Gospel According to the Blues.

One possible way in which race and religious history has featured in recent biblical and ethical debate can be seen in Richard Burridge’s, Imitating Jesus (2007). In this volume, historical debates over race provide opportunities for a type of hermeneutical triangulation involving the Bible, an example debate (slavery, apartheid), and some other matter of present-day practice, most often gender or sexuality. Of course, to treat an issue as a hermeneutical exemplar in this manner is, however tacitly, to suggest that it might be en route to being successfully resolved, or at least settled enough to be safe to employ.

However, as I write this short review article (several weeks late, as it happens), I am excruciatingly aware from recent events[1] that the issue of race and religion in America and elsewhere has not been ‘put to bed’ with anything approaching adequacy. There is still a long way to travel!

It is for this reason that The Gospel According to the Blues,[2] by Dr Gary Burnett (Queen’s University Belfast), is a timely volume. Dr Burnett writes not to deploy the history of race and religion in America in the service of this or that ethical debate. Besides the New Testament (NT), his great obsession is African-American roots music—the blues. This book is, in effect, the result of a three-way conversation between Dr Burnett’s study of the Sermon on the Mount, of the historical experience of African Americans living and making music under Jim Crow, and of some recent works in the field of Black Theology. As such, it does more than to testify to the myriad ways in which the emotional, conceptual and narrative register of the Bible can frame ever new cultural forms of lament, praise, protest and witness. Rather, it shows Blues-making to be an effective form of contextual hermeneutics, a mode of drawing on a text to articulate a community’s experience in a way that permits that community’s experience to shed light upon the text. What makes Dr Burnett’s study significant is that he does due diligence to both of these settings: neither the ancient nor the modern horizon swallows up the other.

In part, this is because Dr Burnett does such a fine job of demonstrating the analogies that exist between the historically-distant communities of the early Jesus movement and of African Americans in the 19th-20th C postbellum South. He carefully guides his readers through the main themes of the Blues: suffering (pp.15-29); justice and injustice (pp.30-44); violence (pp.45-60); hope (pp.61-75); material wealth (pp.76-90); and the reality of evil (pp.91-111). At each stage, the ensuing analysis of Blues lyrics is rich in historical, political and biographical information, and is accompanied by genuine connections made to Burnett’s reading of Matthew 5-7. This is underpinned with recent scholarship on the experience of occupation in the Roman Imperial Period, which helps to show the elements of commonality of experience among oppressed peoples. The result is not only hermeneutically, but homiletically interesting. There is something about the ‘feel’ of the argument of this book that is shared with good Gospel preaching!

In terms of one or two evaluative observations, this is an extremely effective piece of accessible interdisciplinary work. In addition to this, it is immensely readable. Indeed, it was sufficiently engaging to hold this reader’s attention so that the entire book was completed in a single sitting. It can also be usefully employed as a study guide: the ‘Recommended Listening’ sections at the end of each main chapter are superb, and demonstrate the author’s mastery of his chosen field.

More generally, it rather feels as though in this book an idea has come full circle. The work of James C. Scott in the early 1990s,[3] regarding the various cultural ‘transcripts’ at play in the discourses of dominated peoples, helped to provide a theoretical framework for subsequent NT work on the experience of empire and on the aspects of NT writings that run counter to the then prevailing imperial ideology (e.g. Horsley, Wright, McKnight, Oakes). Since much of Scott’s initial data relates to the experience of African Americans, it is highly apt for Dr Burnett to use this specific sub-field of NT studies to illuminate African American Blues ‘transcripts’.

There is a human depth to the experiences of domination narrated in the Blues and in the NT. Dr Burnett has rightly found some of the places in which one deep calls out to another.

[1] I write this a fortnight after the Charleston massacre.

[2] Gary W. Burnett, The Gospel According to the Blues. Eugene, OR.: Cascade Books, 2014, Pp. viii+162, ISBN: 978-1-62032-725-8.

[3] James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. Yale: Yale UP, 1992.

Books

Previous Post

July 5, 2015

Prayer for the Week

Next Post

July 6, 2015 Ecclesiaphobia

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to James, what should you do if you lack wisdom?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Seek counsel from elders Study the Torah diligently Ask God, who gives generously Fast and pray for seven days