Analysis of Joy Unspeakable Contemplative Practices of the Black Church

Joy unspeakable focuses on factors that are beyond congregational gathering in the Black church to pay attention to mystical and communal spirituality which is not exclusive dominion or composition or particular religious church, dominion or gathering. The mystical aspect of the black church has well-being implications of the African American. However, the concepts that are covered in the book do not pay attention to their intentional reflection. The Traditions of the Black Church are deeply entrenched in its historical memory and the memory of the wider society. The history of the church can be found in Malcolm‘s exhortations, Coltrane‘s riffs, the leadership of former president of the United States Barrack Obama and the activist's activities of the Black Lives matters (Page, 247).

The book has been used as an academic source for many institutions across the world. Barbara Holmes begins the study in the church which can be seen as the center of the community where majority of the people gather for religious services. The main purpose why people attend the church services is to strength the faith of each other as well as for other social and religious activities. The worship experience in the Black church is described as “spiritual nirvana” (Page, 248). The characteristics of the church are described to be heightened by oneness, with the music played in the church, the word that is preached, the swaying and the shouting portraying a united social gathering. Barbara through the book "Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church" have significantly contributed to this understanding of the black church through providing well researched and supported arguments about the experience of the Black Church as well as the influence of the Church on the emerging factors such activists activities such as the “Black Live Matters” and politics in America and other parts of the world.

A conference known as Hampton University Ministers' Conference was organized in 2003 and brought together over 7000 black clergies was called to discuss the life of the Black Cleric. The main purpose of the meeting as noted by Walter Fluker at Morehouse College was to focus on cataloguing and publishing the papers that have been published by the late Howard Thurman. Secondary literature focusing on the spiritual topography of the Black Americans have increased in the recent past focusing on the religion of the blacks and both in American and other parts of the world. The book by Barbara has been noted as literature that has resulted in a better understanding of the African America societies. The first chapter of the book focuses on the history of Africana contemplative tradition.

The author notes in the first chapter that although the world contemplation have acquired meaning and attention in the recent past, it had deeper meaning and implication in the Christian society of the 16th century. In the early times, the word contemplation was used to refer to the ability to reflect the word of God as well as "resting in God. " The chapter also gives a better understanding of the Africana contemplative tradition through focusing on its reemergence in the 20th and 21st century. The second chapter of the book focuses on the West African cosmologies and religious practices. The third chapter of the book by Barbara provides good insights that can be used to describe the unification of the African American Christians under the “Black Church”.

The chapter provides necessary literature in the understanding of the “role of contemplation in the liturgical life of the Black Church”. The fifth chapter of the book focuses on the "contemplation as a recurring trope in African American biblical hermeneutics". It gives a history of the changes that have happened in the African American biblical hermeneutics giving a history of how the contemplative tradition has gained variant popularity at different times in history (Holmes 120). In the sixth chapter, the author focuses on the Africana contemplation as a foundation for the activism in the African American society. Frank Thomas who is a senior pastor Mississippi Boulevard Church describes the work by Barbara as “insight that the best religious practices of African Americans have been truly contemplative, involving the hold dance and the march for justice, inner reflection and blissful praise”.