There is a FOUNTAIN- Pastor E.Dewey Smith Jr. Singing HYMN

"When Blood Cries"
July 16, 2006
(404) 243-9336

The Rev. E. Dewey Smith Jr. bangs on the pulpit with his fist. He shuts his eyes and moans. Then a high-pitched sound rises from his throat like the wail of a boiling tea-kettle.

"I wish you'd take the brakes off and let me preach," he tells his congregation during his Sunday morning sermon.

Rows of parishioners stand to shout. One woman in a satiny blue dress jumps up and down like she's on a pogo stick. A baby starts to cry.

Smith had already given his congregation the "meat" of his message: scriptural references, archaeological asides, modern application -- all the fancy stuff he learned in seminary. Now he was about to give them the gravy.

It was the time to "whoop."

"One Tuesday morning, I heard the voice of Jesus saying, 'C'mon unto me and rest," Smith shouts as he punctuates his delivery with a series of guttural gasps and shrieks backed up by an organist's riffs. "But can I tell you what I did? I came to Jesus, just as I was. And I found in him joy in sorrow. Somebody shout yes. Yeessssss!"

To whoop or not whoop?

Smith may have sounded like he was screaming. But those who grew up in the African-American church know better. He was whooping. He was practicing an art form that's divided the black church since slavery.

Whooping is a celebratory style of black preaching that pastors typically use to close a sermon. Some church scholars compare it to opera; it's that moment the sermon segues into song.

Whooping pastors use chanting, melody and call-and-response preaching to reach parishioners in a place where abstract preaching cannot penetrate, scholars say.

Whooping preachers aim "to wreck" a congregation by making people feel the sermon, not just hear it, says the Rev. Henry Mitchell, a scholar who identified the link between whooping and African oral traditions.

"The old folks used to say, 'If you ain't felt nothing, you ain't got nothing,''' Mitchell says.

Yet the black church has long been ambivalent about whooping. Some scholars say contemporary black churches are abandoning whooping because they think it's crass. But more white preachers are discovering it through YouTube and by sharing the pulpit with black preachers.

The most persistent debate over whooping revolves around its legitimacy. Is it fair to call it an art form? What's so hard about a preacher screaming and sweating in the pulpit?

Those are the critics who say whoopers are minstrels, not ministers.

"The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when people say that," says the Rev. Martha Simmons, a whooping preacher and scholar. "It is a genuine art form."

Simmons says the best whoopers use their voices like instruments. They're following rules of rhythm, tone and melody. All good whoopers have some "music" in their throat, says Simmons, editor of "Preaching with Sacred Fire," an anthology of black sermons dating back to 1750.

If you think whooping is easy, Simmons says, try listening to a preacher who can't whoop but tries to anyway.

"It's like listening to someone try to sing opera who is not an opera singer," she says. "It's a train wreck."

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[killertyann]

Thanks for re-posting. Hope the others follow Bless the lord and the others. woke up to these as my worship songs

[BrothaRollins]

@killertyann Post this video on Facebook and Twitter

[dedrickp]

is that cat yawning from 1:07 to 1:13

[BrothaRollins]

@dedrickp LOL LOL

[lollipoplollipop21]

hey i was looking for this for so long..thx for reposting his singing they have been such a blessing....when im down this is where i come to get encourage

[BrothaRollins]

@lollipoplollipop21 Share this video with your friends on Facebook and Twitter

[dzumara]

rollins, i can't even begin to tell you how much i'm grateful to you for uploading this again..

[dbassey3]

praise the lord.

[keysgoodwork357]

@dedrickp HAHAHAAAAA! Yes suh he was!

[johnp876]

I just happen to be playing gospel songs from the internet and this is one that poped up. This man is beessed and could be number 1 on any chart singing. Iam from Kansas city, and sure hope you come here and visit us.

[lovingthemaster]

Beautiful!!! Thanks BrothaRollins.

[apokalupsis27]

I am about to shout in my cubicle at work....Lord...have mercy....can hardly hold myself down....Thank you JESUS.....yes they lose all their guilty stains..when they come to that fountain.

[imjudah]

I grew up on this song, my hymn.

[goodstiff]

Brotha Rollins you are slaying me. You know how I love hymns; I'm originally from Rosebud Baptist Church, Excelsior, W.Va. We learned all kind of hymns, my Mother, Mrs. Beatrice Bess, was the church's musician. She taught that the hymns are the foundation of a church's music department. I also came to Chicago and joined the "Ship". You know Ms. LouDella, Minister of Music, and a hymn! Ms. LouDella could teach and direct a hymn on in to Heaven. My God, my God how I miss old Fellowship.