Here are additional excerpts from Geoff Alexander's article rAn Introduction To Black Preaching Styles:

AN INTRODUCTION TO BLACK PREACHING STYLES [continued]

THE SECULAR SERMON

Gerald Davis notes that so heavily is the preacher involved in citing specific secular references, that his use of sacred reference points seems casual by comparison, and notes that the goal of the sermon itself often seems to be "an expressly political end, the spiritual and physical liberation of African-Americans"(3,62-63). This heavy shift in the sacred/secular polarity toward the secular is "a key concept in distinguishing the African-American sermon from the sermons of other groups"(3,64).

One of the elements I find so highly dramatic in the secular portion of the sermon is the humor, which none of my reference materials think is important enough to mention...

Finally, I must make mention of a preaching form I can only refer to as the "Secular Rant", which one can generally hear at one time or another on late Sunday night radio broadcasts. It takes the form of a tirade against a type of person, or institution, with the pendulum swinging rapidly back and forth between sacred and secular, faster, in fact, than in a traditional sermon, due to the lack of the presence a congregation to provide response...

CONCLUSION

I feel that this great, pure, ethnic art form known as the Black Sermon remains perhaps the best example of the American oral tradition alive today. Handed down from father to son, preacher to congregation, and radio evangelist to listener, it is pervasive to the extent that it can be heard today in many venues within each major U.S. city, in many smaller communities, and in many rural areas as well. It does not change materially in differing geographical areas, nor does it change radically from "conservative" Baptist and Methodist churches to more "modern" churches such as the Church of God in Christ. It has influenced American "pop" music through infusion of the black Spiritual into the mainstream (note the early music of Sam Cooke), and today remains a strong influence on Black jazz musicians, whose improvisation over a matrix of chord changes parallels that of the preacher chanting extemporaneously of secular matters over a guideline sacred in nature.

Even the call-and-response patterns so plentiful in post-bop jazz improvisations (e.g. "trading fours" in which musicians "talk' to each other in four-bar sequences) seem to derive from the church. Jazzmen such as Cannonball Adderley and Lee Morgan loved to imitate the preacher in "vocalizing" many of their solos (those who are interested in this aspect of jazz as influenced by Spirituals may want to hear Adderley's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" or Art Blakey's "Moanin'" recordings, the latter with Lee Morgan on trumpet).

Black Preaching has been largely homogeneous, but what about its chance for survival as a relatively pure oratory form? Literacy was once seen as a threat, some feeling that the colloquial speech so important to the "sound" of the sermon would disappear as the preacher himself became "better educated" (5,96). This has not been the case, as preachers today are educated at all levels, from college, to seminary, to hardly any formal education at all, and still preach in the prescribed manner. The hemistich, colloquial, secular/sacred sermon is insisted upon and enjoyed by the majority of black churchgoers in the U.S., and is probably in as little danger of dying as a unique vocal style as White Presbyterianism. It was once said that the Catholic Church was dying because only "a few little old ladies" bothered to attend anymore, and once they were gone there would be no one left. Every generation, however, produced a new generation of little old ladies; the death knell was quite premature.

The Black Church is still vibrant, with all generations represented. It remains a "home", and a real refuge from the storm, come what may. Its sense of the dramatic, colloquialisms, and emphasis on the secular side of the sacred have kept it away from the white mainstream; relentlessly rhythmic, it had forged itself an identity that will, in all probability, assure its survival for generations to come. Those who love the sermon, and expect the preacher and the congregation to engage in a dialogue often frighteningly powerful in its intensity, continue to find that they're into "something they can't shake loose." "

- Geoff Alex