The journey
of the African diaspora in the United States to find a religious home has been
a winding and circuitous one, from tribal practices to Western Christian
denominations to Islamic ethno-nationalism.
This essay appearing at the Ludwell Orthodox Fellowship,
our recommendation that they consider the Orthodox Church as their home will be
unsurprising. Nevertheless, our
justification for that will come from what may seem an unlikely place: the life and influence of jazz virtuoso and
Southerner John Coltrane.
He was born in
North Carolina in 1926, the son and grandson of black Methodist preachers. Crushed by the loss of both of them in 1938,
he clung tenaciously to music (specifically the saxophone) as a way to cope
with it all. His service in the U. S.
Navy in WWII gave him access to G. I. Bill education funds, which he used to
take musical classes. From then on, his
life was dedicated to music. He became
addicted to heroin in 1948 but quit “cold turkey” in 1957 by turning to God for
help: “In the liner notes
of A Love Supreme, Coltrane states that in 1957 he experienced ‘by
the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer,
fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be
given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.’” From then on, his musical achievements soared
to brilliant heights. His albums, like
his religious life, began more and more to absorb elements from many different
cultures, becoming more universalist/transcendent/ecumenist in their style. His life was sadly cut very short in 1967 due
to liver cancer, thought to be a result of his heroin use earlier in life.
But though
his life ended, his influence did not.
Some have been profoundly impacted by him. Franzo and Marina King are two such people. They describe their encounter with Coltrane
as a religious experience, which led to other unique developments:
Two years before his untimely death from liver cancer in
1967, a young San Francisco couple heard him play — and their experience was
literally religious.
They founded a spiritual community inspired by his music
and 50 years later, they're still preaching that gospel at the Coltrane Church
in San Francisco.
Franzo and Marina King were already jazz fans on the
night that changed their lives. This was back when San Francisco was the Harlem of the West,
and the Fillmore District was packed with places to hear jazz. On the couple's
first wedding anniversary, in 1965, they went to hear John Coltrane play.
They managed to get seats in the front row. And that
night, they say, the Holy Spirit walked out with Coltrane onto the stage of the
Jazz Workshop.
"I think we were both slain in the spirit,"
Franzo King recalls. "It was like getting caught up in a rainstorm. And we
didn't know if it was going to bring a flood or flowers."
. .
.
On that night in San Francisco, the Kings say, they
experienced an awakening, thanks to Coltrane's horn. They call it their
"sound baptism."
John Coltrane became their Christ, their God. His 1965
album A Love Supreme became their central text, and "Coltrane
consciousness" became their guiding principle.
The Kings saw the Holy Trinity — Father, Son and Holy
Spirit — in the titles of the first three sections of A Love Supreme:
"Acknowledgement," "Resolution" and "Pursuance."
And they perceived the Trinity in the three building blocks of Western music:
melody, harmony and rhythm.
. .
.
The Kings eventually met Coltrane's widow — the musician
Alice Coltrane. They came to regard her as their guru and became members of
Alice Coltrane's own religious community, the Vedantic Center, which was based
on her interpretation of Hindu beliefs. The Kings even recorded Hindu devotional songs with
her.
But that oneness began to unravel; there were theological
splinters. In 1981, Coltrane sued the Kings for using her late husband's name
and likeness. The lawsuit was later dropped. But the publicity spurred an
invitation to the Kings church to join the African Orthodox Church (AOC), a
denomination of principally Black American adherents that was founded in the
early 20th century by Black Episcopalians who were put off by racism in the
dominant church.
As a condition of joining the AOC, the Kings had to
reduce John Coltrane's rank from God incarnate to patron saint. Franzo King —
now known as Archbishop F.W. King — agreed.
In September 1982, Coltrane was officially canonized as a
saint by the AOC. But in talking to the clerics at the Coltrane church these
days, you hear a panoply of perspectives.
"We recognize that John Coltrane is a saint, because
we have been born anew in the spirit of the Lord, and baptized in that anointed
sound," Archbishop King says. "We don't worship him, and we don't
exalt him. We recognize him.
When I grew up in that sanctified [Pentecostal] church, everybody that had been
saved is what we would call sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost. The
Pentecostal church wasn't waiting on a bunch of Roman cardinals to get together
and count miracles."
. .
.
Every week, visitors from all kinds of backgrounds and
around the world come to worship services, which include a monthly guided
meditation through A
Love Supreme and weekly Masses that feature mid-service jazz
jams.
Today, the Coltrane church is called the St. John
Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church. . . .
Many threads
here connect to the Orthodox Church. At
the outset, though, we must state that the African Orthodox Church referred to
is not part of the canonical Orthodox Church but is rather a 20th-century
(founded in 1918) invention of men associated with the Universal Negro
Improvement Association. Some of the
parishes it established in Africa were eventually united to the Orthodox
Patriarchate of Alexandria (which is reminiscent of a later occurrence between
the Evangelical Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Antioch); those in the
U. S. remain out of communion with the canonical Church.
With that
said, let us look more closely at what was said above and how it relates to
Africans and the Orthodox Church. A
wonderful interview in Road to Emmaus entitled “We Are Going to Live in
Paradise: Orthodoxy in the Congo” with a
Congolese priest, Fr. Theotimos (who was serving at a church in Greece at the
time of the interview), will be our main guide.
First is the
veneration of John Coltrane, first worshipping him as God, then later “reducing
his rank” to a saint. Fr. Theotimos says
this act of honoring departed loved ones and being engrossed with the spiritual
world is deeply ingrained in the African soul:
The majority of sub-Saharan
Africans, the Bantu, shared the same philosophy, focusing primarily on the
supernatural: on spirits, on eternity and on love. Pre-Christian Africans
venerate both the spirits of their ancestors and the supreme Spirit, which is
God. Philosophically, this is like the “seminal seed” of Blessed Augustine; the
impulse of the soul towards God and the otherworld that each human being
carries within himself. Africans also believe in eternal life, that death is
only a crossing over from earthly life to eternity. Meeting Christianity clears
the existing confusion and opens the way to real faith; eternal spirits are revealed
as those of the saints and angels, and the Supreme Spirit is the Triune God:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
. .
.
As a people, we believe in
the spirits of our ancestors, and pagan Africans are usually aware of the idea
of God as the Great Spirit. They believe in this. So, when the missionaries
tell them, “Yes, this Great Spirit is God, and this Spirit became human, and
that person is Jesus Christ, and whoever believes in Him and does what He says
will become holy,” they understand.
I tell them, “You don’t have
to call on the spirits of your ancestors anymore. You don’t know if they were
holy people or not. Instead, you can call on the spirits of the saints who we
know are close to God. We have their icons, and we can ask them to speak to
Christ, to pray for us.
Likewise,
the veneration of the belongings of those whom they revere (such as Coltrane’s
saxophone mentioned above, and seen in icons of him – e.g., in the NPR story; see
Sources below):
. . .
The rest is
at https://southernorthodox.org/john-coltranes-jazz-the-african-diasporas-search-for-a-religious-home/.
The sources
were not included in the published version, so we are providing them below for
those interested:
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Orthodox_Church
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coltrane
https://www.johncoltrane.com/biography
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/23/915846867/five-decades-on-an-eclectic-church-preaches-the-message-of-john-coltrane
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Evangelical_Orthodox_Church
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/john-coltrane-my-favorite-things-changed-american-music-180983453/
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e78f10494c7b26bc99e2fd2/t/5e7e1fa9844cdb3584ffeef5/1585323945878/18.We_Are_Going_to_Live_in_Paradise.pdf
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us
sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
