RE:BIRTH – Good Friday Play List

Some time ago, I wrote a post for a previous blog, Gospel Music as Message Music,where I argued that hip-hop is one contemporary musical space that reclaims the protest tradition of the Negro spirituals. My views have evolved a bit since then, but the core striving for black musical expression that speaks to and can…

What’s Going On: The Seven Last Words of Jesus

This has been a long time coming. Several years ago, I attended a U2Charist worship experience at Oglethorpe Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA and began to brainstorm on how to coordinate a similar worship experience but correlating black musics with traditional worship formats. The idea emerged to correlate the traditional Good Friday Seven Last Words…

Honoring Black Heritage

This is an article I wrote for the website of the General Commission on Religion and Race of the United Methodist Church.  I worked on staff for GCORR as the Coordinator for Advocacy for a good part of 2010.  Check it out: —- GCORR Celebrates Black History Month: Honoring Black Heritage BY Victor Cyrus-Franklin The…