Psalms in the Key of Life: A Look at African American Spirituals and Hymns as Pastoral Care Tools in Crisis Counseling

Crises are inevitable in the lives of all people. Today, in every community people are facing crises in many different forms. It does not matter what the ethnicity of a person, their financial standing, class, race, color or other means of classification or identification, we all face grief and other crises. This is true of those whose lives are displayed to us in the pages of the Bible. They are often found in the book of Psalms and are referred to as psalms of lament. These psalms of lament were songs and poetic expressions of the psalmist declaring their crisis, their pain and their hope. In the same manner, the history of the African American church reflects the same type of expressions using hymns and spiritual.

Psalms in the Key of Life, explores the history and background of these hymns and spirituals as sources of hope through difficult periods and how they are relevant and useful as tools for pastoral care in grief and crisis situations today.