Podcast Episode: Dean Powery on the 'Wellspring of Wisdom' from the Spirituals
Music, and especially the spirituals, is an important part of Duke Chapel Dean Luke Powery’s preaching, scholarship, and Christian faith. A Baptist minister and professor of homiletics at Duke’s Divinity School, Dean Powery says the Spirituals “are musical memorabilia created on the anvil of misery in the crucible of inhumane slavery,” that have become “a wellspring of wisdom quite distinct from so many other sources of knowledge at a university.” In this episode of our Sounds of Faith podcast, he listens to recordings of spirituals—and sings himself!—explaining how "the spirituals connect with the human condition of hope, of healing, of suffering, of joy and spontaneity."
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Learn More
- Watch Dean Powery sing a spiritual as part of a sermon
- Read his book Dem Dry Bones: Preaching, Death, and Hope
Transcript
James Todd: Welcome to Sounds of Faith, a podcast exploring traditions of faith, sacred music, and spoken word here at Duke University Chapel.
Luke Powery: How can I keep from singing? I can't keep from singing?
James Todd: When Duke University Chapel, Dean Luke Powery preaches, he just might break into song.
Luke Powery: Let's have a hymn sing. I'm going to sing when the Spirit says a sing. I'm going to sing when the Spirit says a sing. I'm going to sing when the Spirit says a sing and obey the spirit of the Lord.
James Todd: Music and especially the spirituals is an important part of Dean Power's preaching scholarship and Christian faith, a Baptist minister and professor of hermolytics at Duke's Divinity School, Dean Powery says, the spirituals are a musical memorabilia created on the anvil of misery and the crucible of inhumane slavery that have become a wellspring of wisdom, quite distinct from so many other sources of knowledge at a university.
Luke Powery: When the spirit says to stand if you can, stand, and the spirit says to stand, I'm going to stand and the spirit to stand and obey the spirit of the Lord.
James Todd: That wellspring of wisdom may be as important as ever now, with the spirituals being an expression of suffering, a promoter of community, and a source of hope. I'm James Todd, director of Communications here at Duke Chapel, and I am here with the Dean of Duke Chapel, the Reverend, Dr. Luke Powery. Dean Powery, thanks for joining Sounds of Faith.
Luke Powery: Great to be with you, James.
James Todd: We were just listening to you singing. I'm going to sing when the spirit says sing is part of a sermon in 2016 that was based around the Magnificat passage in the Gospel of Luke. I'm wondering why did you decide, hey, now is the time I'm going to sing this song?
Luke Powery: Yeah. The name of that sermon was called Hymn sing. If I remember correctly. Sometimes with sermons and preaching, one tries to do what Tom Long would say, "The rhetorical thrust of the biblical text. Do what the text does." That's how a sermon then is shaped and thought about...
James Todd: Mary's singing?
Luke Powery: Exactly.
James Todd: You're going to sing.
Luke Powery: Exactly. that was some of the thinking, but it was also the Magnificat and the history. It's our song today. We're still singing it. We're still quoting it. It's very similar to the spirituals. We're still singing them. We're still quoting them. It's also that historically that Magnificat or this idea of God taking care of the oppressor, and flipping things on its head and lifting up the lowly very much connects to the spirituals. It's the same idea...
James Todd: Because the spirituals come out of slavery in the United States.
Luke Powery: Right. These are songs that come out of a context of suffering and oppression, and they're still singing today and so just as we sing the Magnificat today, we still sing. I'm going to sing and literally having the people sing, in that was a significant way to end that sermon, which is also a gesture towards homiletical traditions that are musical. That actually may end in a musical way. We see that in African American settings, in various church traditions. Not everyone, but a lot of them historically. There is a musicality to the preaching. It also gestures in that, in that direction.
James Todd: In that direction. Something that this particular spiritual, I think gets at, I'm going to sing when the spirit says sing, is how the spirituals get their name related to the Holy Spirit.
Luke Powery: Most definitely.
James Todd: Can, can you make that connection?
Luke Powery: Oh, most definitely. The backdrop to this is my interest as a scholar overall is a pneumatology, which is the study of the Holy Spirit pneumatology in relation to preaching and worship and et cetera. The spirituals are a part of that theme for me and particularly, there's an account, an interview that was with a formerly enslaved person and he's describing how these spirituals came about or how they would perform them and they were created. In this quote he says, "They were called spirituals because the Holy Spirit done revealed them." That's where their name comes from. They're seen as songs of the spirit. Now, we, in our time and coming out of a music background, you often hear in the classical musical training, they call them negro spirituals. You hear other people say black spirituals. You hear people say African American spirituals, but for the enslaved themselves. Which is what I love and what I try to do. They just call them spirituals and why? Because they are songs of the spirit, so there is no other adjective needed because It's just the spirituals and so for me, they are pneumatologically expressions. Musical expressions of the spirit of God in our time. Yes. They come from a particular history, but they still sing today.
James Todd: That is, a point that you make at some of your scholarly work so you've got your book Dem Dry Bones, about preaching in the spirituals. Two devotional books for Advent and for Lent ,related to the spirituals. You recently presented in Leipzig, Germany at a theological conference on preaching in the spirituals. What are some of the the academic points you make the study of the spirituals?
Luke Powery: Yeah. For me, first of all, like in theological education, there are only really a handful of folks . Historically that have written on the spirituals. There are many folks in musicology or history that come at, but not in theology and so for me, some of the points I make are first this idea, it's of memory. Anytime we open the Bible, the Bible is a memory book. In the same way, anytime we turn to the spirituals, which are the songs of the enslaved religious folk songs of the enslaved, that's a work of memory. We're going back, it's our inheritance. It's what's been passed on. It's a tradition and then it's a particular cultural memory for me, it's also remembering my ancestry in the African diaspora. It's like Maya Angelou would say, sometimes she would get up to a lectern or a pulpit or to give a talk, and she would start moving her arms and say, "move, give me some space, give me some space." No one was around her but she's, because she's saying my ancestors are with me. The cloud of witnesses.
For me, this memory is a memory of the long, long line of those who've come before me in my scholarship, before my life or my ministry and so it's, remember, don't ever forget the second, I think that's is significant and maybe more obvious is this history of suffering theologically. Even if though I'm interested in pneumatology and preaching, it's often at the intersections of human suffering. Which is why I've written on death and the spirituals written on lamentation in homiletics, my former students at Princeton Seminary used to call me Dr. Death.
James Todd: Okay. Wow. I guess that's a good title.
Luke Powery: The significance of, if you take God seriously, you have to take human suffering seriously and the spirituals help us in that. The third is, you've already referenced this pneumatologically emphasis because these are songs, or I would argue as I did in Dem Dry Bones, they are sermons of the spirit and in the spirit, and from the spirit. If you want to engage pneumatology in theological education, let's not forget the spirituals, like they're a resource for thinking Pneumatologically the fourth and the the last thing I'll say for today at least well, actually maybe I have five.
James Todd: Let's go four, two more.
Luke Powery: One is obviously the deep sense of community. There's a communal emphasis and especially in our enlightenment inherited individualistic, this is the spirituals. We don't even know who really wrote them, like as a specific individual. They are collective, they are the community. It is the body of Christ, so there's a deep emphasis on that. The last thing I'll say, the spirituals as music, meaning sound, if we think about what James Weldon Johnson talked about in his preface to, there were two volumes, the Book of American Negro spirituals that he edited with his brother, Jay Roseman Johnson, but Jay James Weldon Johnson. In the preface, one of those talks about how these songs, there was often a swing, he would say, in the performance of the song. It's hard to sing a spiritual and not move .
James Todd: Right. Yeah. Swing clapping.
Luke Powery: Right. He talked about the swing, and I've written about how that could have been a counter swing to the swing of black bodies swinging on a lynching trees.
James Todd: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Luke Powery: My point is, the embrace of the body is a new, not a new, but a emphasis in thinking about an epistemological resource for thinking about God or whatever the topic may be. Often in the academy, we think we're just ahead on top of books, on a stack of books. Neck up but what the spirituals and the spirit implies materiality. It implies the soma, the body, it implies our flesh that it is a resource. Our body, our human body and flesh is a resource for coming to know God and one another and so the spirituals remind us, don't forget your whole self.
James Todd: Yes. That's, so I want to pick up on that you wrote a column in Duke Chronicle about the spirituals and in one thing you said in there is that they have become a wellspring of wisdom, quite distinct from so many other sources of knowledge at a university. You're starting to talk about that, with the semester getting underway here. How might you introduce the spirituals to a first year student at Duke just getting started on their college journey in this other valuable source of wisdom?
Luke Powery: Yeah. I think in one way, and I wouldn't even come at it right away, to get to the human suffering of slavery. That's the historical context. That's true but I think I would come at it, which is why I think the spirituals are sung all over the world, every culture, it's the human experience.
James Todd: Okay.
Luke Powery: If you take one, I don't know necessarily the beginning of the year one that would set the right tone, but just as sometimes I feel like a motherless child. That sense of loneliness, which first year students or other students may go through up and down. We all do. At times, you feel lonely or you feel like your friends are, it's not the connection, human connection is not what it should be and sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long ways from home.
James Todd: It names suffering.
Luke Powery: It names it but it's the human condition. The spirituals connect with the human condition, of hope, of healing, of suffering, of joy and spontaneity of, there's a playfulness, there's a delight, there's a community. It's human life. The intersecting points of human life, that's a way of helping students come to know them. Not necessarily always the caricatures that we might see on YouTube or some other, but let's talk about your life. There is a balm in Gilead, there's healing. The verses, funny enough, sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work's in vain, man, you feel down. It's a descent but then the Holy Spirit, now it's an ascent. Then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. Every verse in that spiritual is down and...
James Todd: And up. Okay.
Luke Powery: Down and up. Definitely descent.
James Todd: First year shoots, I'm sure it can relate to the down and up of life.
Luke Powery: I think so It's bumpy.
James Todd: Super exciting, but also, new challenges. Yeah.
Luke Powery: New challenges.
James Todd: New community await.
Luke Powery: But there is a bomb. There's hope.
James Todd: Yes. We've been talking about the humble beginnings of the spirituals but over the last century, they've been adapted and arranged. Sometimes in elaborate ways, for large choirs and instrumentation and everything. I want to listen to a spiritual great day sung here at Duke University Chapel on the Centennial Founder's Sunday and then talk about the evolution of spirituals.
Choir singing: Redeemer righteous marching.
James Todd: That is the Duke Chapel choir in solos, Patrice Turner, duke Divinity School, alumna singing an arrangement by Moses Hogan of the Spiritual Great Day during a worship service in 2024, celebrating the university's centennial. Dean Powery, as you listened to that song that originated among people who were enslaved in the American South, but then here it is, centuries later being sung in four part harmony with a soloist and an incredible chapel. Can you make that connection between, the origins of the spirituals and how they're sung now?
Luke Powery: Sure. It is James Weldon Johnson, again, in that same preface, says "It's a miracle that these songs survived and that they still sing, are being sung." The Fisk Jubilee singers in the late 19th century began to sing spirituals. They had a patron, and they traveled in Europe. Singing spirituals as a group, in concert halls and that is seen as the time when these songs became popularized, across the world. As maybe a form of art song. Now, Zora Neal Hurston, in her book, sanctified Church makes a distinction between, she would refer to that singing choral arrangements, and maybe even what we do today as neo spirituals.
James Todd: Okay.
Luke Powery: She says, "We can't really get back to the authentic time of slavery and the singing of these spirituals." Let's be clear, the spirituals were not sang for art, for art's sake. There were a means for survival. There were a resistance to oppression, and there was a jagged edge a rawness but yet, I think it's beautiful that there's still sang, I guess, by choirs and have been. That's not anything new, but the question becomes the challenge, and the opportunity becomes how do our choirs, how do even individual singers capture the context of death and suffering, out of which these songs come. It's difficult because many people, when I go around different parts of even the world, not just the nation, and if I do a presentation on the spirituals, many people cross cultures will raise their hand. They sang spirituals as kids, at campgrounds and often the songs were playful, kumbaya...
James Todd: Kumbaya.
Luke Powery: Kumbaya. Kumbaya, my lord.
James Todd: That comes from, come around here.
Luke Powery: Yeah. Kumbaya here and there's a jovial nature to it, Playful and one could say it is a minstrel show so the question becomes, where is the death? Where is the suffering? How do you tap into that? Of course, none of us lived during that time, and maybe we are in, even in it from a different cultural, group, so there's a further connection, but how do we tap into human suffering and then bring that out musically so that it's not so sweet, so orderly, so nice because that's not what these spirituals were.
James Todd: I'm hearing you say that two things. That one, in a sense, there's a wrong way to sing the spirituals but there was a more appropriate way, but you're also not saying these only belong to the black church and shouldn't be sung outside the black Church?
Luke Powery: Most definitely.
James Todd: Can you talk about that tension of like, sure, they're for everybody, but, don't try and find their source, I guess, how would you explain that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think so. David Emmanuel Gully, who's now the president at Fuller Theological Seminary, but used to be at the Divinity School here, had this phrase out of the office of black church studies. The black church for the whole church. Love that and in many ways, that's why they're spirituals the spirit. You can't con box the spirit into one culture. That's why they cross time, they cross culture. They're transgressive. You can't hold back the spirit. Everybody's singing these songs and so that's a gift. Now, there are some, and that's even in different cultures, across cultures, even within black churches, historically, some did not want to sing them because they were seen as slave ditties. They did not want to remember that past or for some, they wanted to be more sophisticated. Social mobility in the culture so we're not going to sing slave songs and so, there's been these debates there's different approaches to this, but in my mind, the spirituals are really songs of the church. They're cultural hymns, however you want to say it. They talk about our life with God, our life on earth, our ups and downs and that is the life of faith. That's what happens as a Christian. To me, I love it when others are singing them, but the challenge becomes, maybe there needs to be more teaching and education, leading up to the singing about where they come from. To get what Zora Neale Hurston calls the mood. There was a certain mood of the spirituals and so how do you capture the mood
James Todd: Yeah. In talking about the spirituals having become part of the church's hymn book, writ large. I had to look up, Go Tell it on the Mountain to see, is this a gospel song, is a spiritual, was it a hymn? If I have it right, it is a spiritual. I want to play that as sang at Duke Chapel 2019 as part of the Chapel's Christmas special, and talk more about, where the spirituals are now.
Choir singing: Go tell it in the mountains.
James Todd: That is, go tell it on the mountains, sung in 2019 at Duke Chapels, part of the marvel of this night, Christmas special with the duke Chapel choir congregation, and the Reverend Joshua Lazard accompanying on piano. Dean Powery, I think if any spiritual part of the church cannon of music that's definitely one. One thing that strikes me is certainly this it's evangelical and can you talk about how the spirituals come to reflect the Christian faith?
Luke Powery: Oh, yeah. They tell the story. Go tell it on the mountains. That's the birth of Jesus. There are many other songs that focus on Jesus. Often is the suffering Jesus...
James Todd: Like Jesus on the cross.
Luke Powery: Yeah. Jesus. Were you there when they crucified my Lord, Calvary Calvary surely he died on Calvary. There's more emphasis on the suffering, Jesus. Which makes sense historically. For people who were enslaved and suffering. There is a balm in Gilead, which I mentioned earlier. It picks up from Jeremiah. Is there balm? Is there no balm in Gilead? Well, the spirituals turn that question mark into an exclamation point and say there is evolving and so in many ways, the spirituals were called by some enslaved, the Third Testament, so you have the Old Testament, new Testament, and the spirituals were the Third Testament and partly because, Howard Thurman talks about this as in his little book, Deep River on the sources of the spirituals. Many often the Bible nature and just life because, didn't my Lord deliver Daniel the Right. You pick up biblical characters or Wade in the water.
James Todd: It's Moses.
Luke Powery: Right. It's Moses. There's a verse on Moses. You have the biblical characters. Some of the stories, are, they're riffing off a biblical text.
James Todd: Yeah. Elijah, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, I just think that's.
Luke Powery: Right. Swing low Sweet Chariot is another one. Very popular one known. They get these Bible stories out there. They're helping to tell the story of God, of Jesus. Often for me, they're an expression of hope. Regardless of what they're saying, why just to sing is a sign of hope, That you still sing,
James Todd: You got breath.
Luke Powery: You got breath. Yeah.
James Todd: How did you come to know the spirituals? Was it in childhood or more through academic study?
Luke Powery: Yeah. It's funny. I grew up in, Holiness Pentecostal home. My father very ecumenical and worked for the New York Bible Society at one point so he was in Lutherans, Presbyterians Baptist and, at home we weren't necessarily singing spirituals, but, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, this little light of mine. You would sing those, but it wasn't like it was emphasized. We would hear them periodically sing them periodically. It wasn't until more formal study as an undergrad at Stanford in music, where we had to sing different genres. It was classical musical training, so singing in French, German, English, and often in English, it was the spirituals.
James Todd: Huh. Okay.
Luke Powery: In that art song form. In terms of musical diving in immersion in as a genre, I would say that was more of a beginning more in depth and then moved to theological education singing in choirs, I was doing there at seminaries while we sang some spirituals and then, you keep going. It wasn't until, I would say even through my doctoral work, my emphasis was on pneumatology interfacing and preaching, but particularly African American context so...
James Todd: Spiritual is in that mix. I mean you can't avoid it.
Luke Powery: Exactly. Then it went deeper when I was teaching at Princeton Seminary, and it was there because my book Dem Dry Bones, which was really my first really more in depth entrée, thinking about the spirituals as a hemolytic resource. I started the research, I was on a research leave at Yale Divinity School, and that's really in conversation with Tom Troger and Nor Tos Tisdale about that book, doing research at the Institute of Sacred Music and the Divinity School was a perfect context. The book came out in 2012, the summer, when I came to Duke. It was that research, that project that really pushed me further because what had happened is I started, I don't remember when I had the first talk on the spirituals. I was at Princeton Seminary, but I did some event for Christian colleges and it was weaving in these key themes of suffering community and hope, talking about the spirituals, singing the spirituals, getting people to sing. I'm singing. That was like 2008 or earlier.
James Todd: Yeah. Okay.
Luke Powery: The rest is history.
James Todd: Ever since. Yeah.
Luke Powery: The rest is history. It has surprised me. It has been a surprise of the spirit.
James Todd: Okay. Yeah.
Luke Powery: That the spirituals beyond preaching, which is what have become one of my themes.
James Todd: Wonderful.
Luke Powery: That was not on the radar.
James Todd: Right. That wasn't the original plan.
Luke Powery: Not at all.
James Todd: God surprises us.
Luke Powery: Yes.
James Todd: Dean Powery to wrap things up, as we're starting this semester here, is there a spiritual going through your mind or one that you would want to offer out there to get us all started on the year or peak curiosity?
Luke Powery: There is a ball in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there is a ball in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.
James Todd: The Reverend, Dr. Luke a Powery is Dean of Duke University Chapel and Professor of Homiletics in African American studies here at Duke University. Dean Powery, thank you for sharing your insights into the spirituals.
Luke Powery: Thank you, James. Great to be with you.
James Todd: That is the Duke Chapel School of Krum singing an arrangement of Bolman Gilead by m Roger Holland II during a 2023 concert at Duke Chapel. This has been Sounds of Faith from Duke University Chapel. Learn more about the Chapel's mission ministry events and programs@chapel.duke.edu.
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