An Eternal Pitch: Bishop G. E. Patterson, Broadcast Religion, and the Afterlives of Ecstasy

by Braxton D. Shelley

Overview

An Eternal Pitch examines the homiletic life and afterlife of Bishop G. E. Patterson, the dynamic spiritual leader of the Church of God in Christ from 2000 to 2007. Although Patterson died in 2007, his voice remains a staple of radio and television broadcast, and his sermons have taken on a life of their own online, where myriad YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok users enact innovative forms of religious broadcasting. Their preoccupation with Patterson’s “Afterliveness” punctuates the significance of Patterson’s preoccupation with musical repetition: across the decades of Patterson’s ministry, a set of musical gestures recur as sonic channels, bringing an individual sermon into contact with scripture’s eternal transmission.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520387140
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	10/31/2023
Series:	Phono: Black Music and the Global Imagination , #2
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Braxton D. Shelley is Associate Professor of Music, Sacred Music, and Divinity at Yale University, where he is also Director of the Program in Music and the Black Church. He is the author of Healing for the Soul: Richard Smallwood, the Vamp, and the Gospel Imagination.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations 
Author’s Note on Media Files 
Acknowledgments 
Prologue 

Introduction 
1. Broadcast Religion 
2. Broadcast Medium 
3. Broadcast Grammar 
4. Broadcast Frequency, or The Politics of Key 
5. Broadcast Ensemble: The Logic of the Prayer Cloth 
Eternal Life: An Epilogue 

Notes 
Bibliography 
Index