Seven Signature Sermons by a Tuning Woman Preacher of the Gospel

“This volume of sermons makes a unique contribution to homiletical bibliography because of its incorporation of ‘tuning’ as an integral part of the performance mode. Little has been written or described of this chant mode of presentation that is common in large parts of the American rural south. Familiar to both African Americans and Appalachian whites as a vehicle for preaching, it involves the simultaneously in different ways. It draws attention to the biblical narrative, since it is primarily employed in extended quotations from a biblical text. The lilt and cadence serve to aid the hearer in remembering the text. The tuning portions imply a divine presence that is somehow other than the spoken parts of the sermon and add a numinous quality to the event, similar in some ways to the chanting of the Gospel in more traditional liturgies. “ – from the Foreword by Dr. Kendall Kane McCabe