Corwin Davis

In a Nobler, Sweeter Song: Black Protestant Sacraments and Ritualized Temporalities

Abstract

The two most recognized sacraments in Black Protestantism – namely, communion and baptism – serve as focal points of ritual activity and a specific type of ritual consciousness that relies upon their aesthetic and affective dimensions. I assert that the sacraments in Black Protestantism depend, in fact, upon the sounds, sights, smells/tastes, textures, and even embodiments of the ritual; the specific ways of preparing for the rituals are not ancillary tasks but instead are central to the spiritual technology. It is readily visible how, and why, many of the communities of practitioners are exacting about all aspects of the rituals, including codes and instructions around who can consecrate the elements for the ritual, who can enter the space of the altar or chancel, and when, and even which hands are trusted to distribute or touch the sacramental objects.

Particularly with an eye toward doctrinal and creedal professions in a “communion of the saints,” I argue that the rituals are established and guarded in such a way because they demonstrate an engagement with copresence, one that facilitates a spiritual technology concerning both the Divine and toward the ancestral realm. It is the affective expressions of the rituals which serve as the aperture to the copresence represented in a “communion of the saints,” a presence in Black Protestantism that can also be read in African diasporic religious terms. Moreover, the artistic natures of the liturgical construction, I suggest, are significant for cultivating such copresence, and even for signifying an alternative temporality. This paper will explore the white gloves adorning cleaned hands, the baked bread following recipes of cultural lineages, and the distinctive sonic preludes and invocations propelling the participants of such rituals toward an engagement with the invisible realm, wherein time is suspended, and the veil is thin.

Bio

Corwin Malcolm Davis is a PhD student in Emory University in the Person, Community, and Religious Life area of study, and earning a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. He earned a B.A. from Belmont University and a M.Div. from Vanderbilt University as the Dean’s Scholar, with a concentration in Black Religion and Culture Studies. At Emory, Davis has received the George W. Woodruff Fellowship, the Centennial Scholars Fellowship, and externally, a Louisville Institute Doctoral Fellowship. He currently serves as the Associate Director of the Theological Education between the Times project, and as the Director of the Writing Center for Emory’s Candler School of Theology. A third-generation minister, The Reverend Davis is an ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.