Preaching During a Pandemic

Preaching During a Pandemic: The Rhetoric of the Black Preaching Tradition is a two-volume collection of sermons from those who preach within the Black preaching tradition during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By publishing these sermons, the editors address questions such as what were those who preached in the Black preaching tradition sharing with their congregants? How were they incorporating and infusing COVID-19 in their sermons? What shape did the prophetic and priestly sermon take when preaching during a pandemic? Were specific models or types of sermons—womanist, prophetic/liberation, narrative, contemplative, celebrative, expository, thematic, induction, deductive—more frequently employed during a crisis?　

Across the two volumes, the editors collate 29 sermons and provide detailed introductions to each book examining the context and themes of the texts in an illuminating and accessible manner. It will make fascinating reading for students and scholars of Communication and Religious Studies.

Andre E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies in the Department of Communication and Film at the University of Memphis. He teaches classes in African American public address; rhetoric, race, and religion; media studies; interracial communication; homiletics; and hip hop studies. He is the author of No Future in This Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (2020). Dr. Johnson is also Senior Pastor of Gifts of Life Ministries in Memphis, Tennessee.

Kimberly P. Johnson is Associate Professor in the Communication Studies concentration area at Tennessee State University. She brings to the Department of Communication her areas of specialization: political, religious, and African American rhetoric; rhetorical criticism; cultural criticism; and womanism. Dr. Johnson has presented her research at professional communication associations such as the National Communication Association, Rhetoric Society of America, Southern States Communication Association, and the Tennessee Communication Association. She is the author of The Womanist Preacher: Proclaiming Womanist Rhetoric from the Pulpit (2017).

Wallis C. Baxter III is the pastor of Second Baptist Church SW in District Heights, Maryland. He is a 2009 graduate of Duke Divinity School with an M.Div. degree and a 2017 graduate of Howard University with a Ph.D. in African American literature. Dr. Baxter’s research interests include the shape of prophetic ministry from Reconstruction to today, 19th-century African American literature and liberation, ethics in Black and White America, and Black identity and gentrification within capitalistic America. He is the author of You Must Be Born Again: Phillis Wheatley as Prophetic Poet (2022).