St. John tells us “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” And I think a lot of us have more truth than spirit. Certainly, my bias is towards theologically dense hymns, but there are some traditions (those less within the stream of the historically White traditions of hymnary and worship traditions). Specifically, I refer to the African American spiritual tradition.

I’d like to leave everyone with this:

Spirituals are characterized by repetitive and rhythmic lines. I think too often we in the European stream of worship disparage other cultures as too emotional, too undisciplined, too unlearned but I see in it an earnest desire to worship the God that we commonly serve and from it we can learn spirit, from a truth we otherwise emphasize.