Negotiating Two Theologies in Sound: Theological Acoustics and Epistemic Justice in African Gospel Music

This paper critically analyses African gospel music as a theological phenomenon rather than simply an ethnographic one. The narrative delineates the progression of the genre, originating from African American gospel traditions and the Azusa Street Revival and extending to its adaptation in West, East, and Southern Africa, thereby uncovering a recurring history of musical and spiritual interchange. The analysis challenges the dominant secular-ethnographic perspective that frequently portrays African gospel as socially descriptive yet theologically mute, introducing the concept of epistemic deafness to highlight the oversight of “theology-in-sound.” By engaging with the works of scholars such as Kidula, Agawu, Meyer, and Engelke, alongside theologians like Oduyoye, Bongmba, and Wariboko, this paper posits a theological acoustics that perceives African gospel as a synthesis of worship and doctrine. Through the synthesis of African sonic cosmology and Christian sonic theology, African gospel manifests as a meeting point of invocation and confession—transforming ancestral sound into a form of Christian testimony. The research findings indicate that African gospel embodies a dual theological framework in its musical form, thereby enhancing both African music theory and global theological discourse through its tangible representation of the divine.