The Spirit’s Work of Ignorance

Yesterday I saw a doctrine. I’m at the annual Hampton University Ministers’ Conference in Virginia, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. This year it gathers some 8,000 African American bishops, pastors, “first ladies,” music directors, and assorted church leaders for mutual encouragement and inspiration. These brothers and sisters love to “do church,” which means (among other things) getting heart, mind, soul, and body involved in worship.

It also means they take seriously the doctrine of the illumination of Scripture. That doctrine reminds us that before we can grasp—with heart and mind—the meaning of any given passage of Scripture, the Holy Spirit has to illumine us. For white intellectuals like me, that means experiencing a lucid moment, quiet and inward, of insight or inspiration. Not so for my black friends.

They begin preaching not merely assuming the illumination of the Spirit, but almost demanding it. They read the text, massage the text, and, as one seminar leader put it, make love to the text. Their cadences roll like an ever living stream, from a trickle to a roaring waterfall. Black preachers assume that the full range of emotions need to be elicited if we’re going to understand a text. By the time the preacher is through, the congregation is alive, hands are raised, bodies are dancing, voices are lifted in praise.

The expectation of illumination is so powerful in black worship, it can happen spontaneously. One preacher, James Forbes, asked someone from the audience to read the text he wanted to preach on. A woman stood, and as loudly as she could in the vast arena, read from Exodus 15, with Forbes repeating each phrase from his microphone. She wound her way to verse 26—”for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” She barely finished the sentence when she shouted out in praise and began gyrating in joy in her place. She not only understood, she grasped with her whole being the promise of that verse. The illumination of the Holy Spirit.

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