Wintley Phipps - Kumbaya

Topic: Theology - Seventh-day Adventist
Adventist leaders, like those of most churches in the United States today, behave more like the board of a multinational corporation than a religious brotherhood. This, of course, is partly because that, in fact, is what they are. In 1965, denomination adherents in the US represented one-quarter of the total membership; [1] in 2016 that percentage was down to 6%. [2]

More important, leaders throughout the hierarchy, from the president of the General Conference to local elders and deacons, had fiduciary obligations. That meant, they had to navigate an economic environment where they had to follow certain government rules to maintain their tax-exempt status. They also had to address the potential costs and liabilities that came from owning real estate open to the public and from hiring non-ministerial employees.

The authorities’ tendencies, again like those of most denominations in this country, were to retreat rather than face challenges. In 1965 they began having problems with the IRS over their policy of providing tax-exempt housing to both their ordained and licensed ministers. The second group included women. When faced with redefining ritual functions, they chose to disregard women rather than ordain them to meet IRS rules in 1975. [3]

This was similar to the hierarchy’s response in 1943 when African Americans demanded equal membership in the church. Rather than cede the authority of whites, the denomination introduced separate but equal conferences, state ones for whites and regional ones for Blacks. [4] That was just five years before Harry Truman integrated the military [5] and nine years before the Supreme Court ruled such arrangements were unconstitutional. [6]

The same tendency toward retrenchment characterized its response to the increased costs of maintaining a music department. In 1982, it simply eliminated the function. The King’s Heralds incorporated themselves and became independent contractors, available to work for any sponsor, not just Adventists. [7]

The long-term consequence of converting employees into independent contractors was diminished church activity because individuals no longer thought of bring the church new ideas for mission activity. Instead, they formed foundations or private corporations, then approached the church for contracts or commissions that enriched them, not the polity.

Wintley Phipps was an ordained minister between assignments [8] when he began recording gospel music in 1984. [9] Soon after, he was called to a Washington DC church, [10] where he pastored and continued to record; he was nominated for a grammy in 1988. A few years later, church members elected him to the General Conference Public Affairs Department. [11] He transferred to a Lanham, Maryland, church as an assistant pastor. [12]

During this time period, he began visiting prisoners and discovered the problems faced by their children. In 1998, he established a non-profit, tax-exempt organization to provide tutoring and mentoring to children between the ages of 7 and 11. [13] He then administered the US Dream Academy while preaching for the church and speaking for fees.

The problem with working as a part-time, independent singer was Phipps had limited control over his venues. His current agent’s website told would-be sponsors he had several standard speeches that came with one song, but that other arrangements could be made. [14]

In 2014, he recorded "Kumbaya" for a digital album released by an independent Christian distributor. He probably had two additional tapes made from the session - one with the music and chorus, but not his voice, and one with just the music. This enabled him to perform for a Maranatha function with no local musicians. When he performed the same song at the Oakwood Adventist Academy in Alabama and at a charitable organization’s meeting in Romania he was accompanied by the tape and local choral groups.

He had the greatest control at the Marantha function, which was held in an auditorium designed to make professional recordings. The YouTube video showed him at his best as a singer.

He also would have been comfortable at Oakwood. It was the K-12 school associated with the college he had attended, and he was performing in the college’s church. The video was made by a parent sitting some distance from the platform. From afar, the high school choir sounded like a choir who existed to support the soloist.

The trip to Romania would have been variation: [15] it involved at least one long plane ride to a city were English was not the primary language. The musical tradition also was different: polyphonic choral music had been introduced in the eighteenth-century and was learned orally through the end of the nineteenth. During the decades of rule by the Soviet Union, uniform melodies were adopted so congregations could participate in toto. [16]

Many of the young choristers in Grupo Voco may have been born after the end of Communist rule in 1989, but the older aesthetics persisted. They were able to learn from listening to Phipps’ recording, and transform the repeated background phrases into European part music to support a Caribbean-born gospel singer from the United States who shared their Adventist religion.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: Wintley Phipps, bass baritone
Instrumental Accompaniment: tape had an orchestra
Rhythm Accompaniment: tape also had a drum

Oakwood Adventist Academy 9-12 Choir
Vocal Group: I could see 10 girls and 19 boys
Vocal Director: Justin Jordan [17]

Grupul Voces
Vocal Group: its website said it had 8 sopranos, 7 altos, 5 tenors, and 6 basses [18]

Vocal Director: Emanuel Suciu

Credits
Album
Copyright: (c) 2014 Discovery House Music

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English

Pronunciation: when Phipps introduced the song in Romania, he said kum BYE yah with a downward intonation of three tones on yah

Verses: kumbaya, praying, crying, singing, original text

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord

Basic Form: verse-chorus
Verse Repetition Pattern: C₁ VV C VV C

Verses
Unique Features: "come by here" used instead of "kumbaya" with crying verse and, on album, with praying

Chorus
Verse Length: 4 lines
Verse Rhyme Pattern: AABB
Line Meter: trochaic Xx
Line Length: 11 syllables
Line Repetition Pattern: none

Line Format: reversed statement-refrain form; "kumbaya my Lord" was followed by original text.

Ending: repeated last two lines of the chorus that emphasize request to the Lord to be near

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5

Tempo: Phipps’ pacing did not vary, because the tape was the same, but it seemed faster with Grupo Voces and slower with the Oakwood senior high choir.

Basic Structure: vocal solo with accompanying group repeating key phrases during the singing

Singing Style: Phipps sustained tones, especially at the ends of verses. When he held the last syllable of "kumbaya" on the second line or "Oh Lord" in the last line, he dropped down several tones. A couple times he sang the "ing" much higher, and returned to the original melodic line for the following "Lord." He said he was influenced by Tom Jones:

"So I mimicked his breath control, his phrasing, the way he would hold a note for a long time and then break into a vibrato, and applied it to gospel." [19]

The vocal groups sang chords. Grupo Voces familiarity with part-singing allowed them to sound more percussive.

Notes on Performance
Oakwood Adventist Academy
Occasion: Alumni Day, 5 September 2015

Location: Oakwood University Church, Huntsville, Alabama. Phipps was at the front of the platform with an unused grand piano on one side and an organ on the other. The choir stood on risers divided by wooden rails; a row of potted plants was in front of the first row.

Microphones: Phipps used a hand-held mike. Floor mikes were spaced around the front of the stage, some distance from the choir.

Clothing: boys in dark suits or vests and white shirts, no ties. Girls wore dresses of various colors with their hair loose. Phipps and the director wore dark suits, white shirts, and no ties.

Grupul Voces
Occasion: convention of ASI Targu Mures.

Location: stage in a convention center with blue fabric draped on the ceiling like a tent. Doric columns stood on each side of center stage with large video screens projecting Phipps’ face to the sides. A row of potted white flowers was on the apron.

Microphones: Phipps and each chorister had a hand-held microphone

Clothing: men wore black shirts and slacks; the conductor and Phipps wore black suits, white shirts, and black ties. The women wore black dresses; most came to the knee, a few were a bit longer, and one was shorter. Their hair was loose, and several were blondes.

Maranatha
Occasion: not known

Location: studio auditorium with room for television cameras. Back of stage lined with flags on stands; one for Israel was prominent.

Microphones: cordless mike in right hand

Clothing: dark suit with matching dark tie and white shirt

Notes on Movement
Phipps
He bent his knees to keep time, and used his hands sparingly, and more toward the end than in the beginning. At Oakwood he raised his right hand on the key word of each phrase, and turned slightly toward the choir and raised his hand when the music was changing key. He used his arms more in Romania. At the Maranatha conference, he finished by spreading his arms wide and then rising them while he held the last note.

Oakwood Adventist Academy
The Oakwood choir stood still. The director used only his right hand in front of his body, which was raised, suggesting he was using the traditional cruciform pattern to mark time. His left arm stayed at his side.

Grupul Voces
The Romanian singers moved their heads a little. Their director mouthed or sang the words as he used his right hand to set the time and communicate the quality of sound desired. Occasionally, he used his left hand in front of his body.

Notes on Audience
All applauded at the end, but none made not any response during the performances. At Maranatha, not all the seats were filled and people were scattered.

Viewers’ Perceptions
The YouTube comments followed patterns found in many discussions of "Kumbaya." The ones in Romania wondered if rhythmic music was legitimate for praising God. The ones raised to heed and understand the word asked the meaning of the term "kumbaya."

Notes on Performers
Phipps was born in San Fernando, Trinidad, [20] to parents who moved to Montréal, Canada, where he attended an Adventist high school. When he began college in the 1970s, he selected the historically Black Oakwood College in Alabama, rather than a nearer, recently integrated Adventist school. Cleran Hollancid reported, the denomination’s primary seminary, Andrews University in southwestern Michigan, had a reputation for maltreating its African-American students. [21] Presumably those problems had subsided when Phipps earned his masters in theology there in 1979. [22]

His career was equally delimited by the denomination’s continued acceptance of segregation. The churches where he served as the senior pastor were in regional conferences: Capital Hill was in the Allegheny East Conference [23] and his current assignment in Palm Bay, Florida, was in the Southeastern Conference. [24] When he was on the General Conference staff and only an assistant pastor, his Seabrook Church was in the Potomac Conference. It was founded in 1883. [25]

Oakwood opened in 1896 as an industrial school that, by 1917, had expanded to teach college courses. [26] In 1974, the college shed the secondary school, which was taken over as a day-school by local churches in the South Central Conference. [27]

Maranatha organized volunteer efforts to support international missions. Its most visible activities were done by groups who traveled at their own cost to a site to build a church or school. It was organized in 1969 by John Freeman. [28]

Asociatia pentru Suport si Initiativa din Romania or ASI Romania was a Christian, voluntary association that supported missionary work. [29] Grupo Voces was organized in 2009 in the Transylvanian region of Romania and was affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist church in Târgu Mureº. [30]

Availability
Album: I Surrender All. Discovery House Music. 1 October 2014.

YouTube: uploaded by Wintley Phipps Networks on 9 March 2017.

Oakland Adventist Academy
YouTube: uploaded by TrishsMom on 12 September 2015.

Maranatha
YouTube: uploaded by Maranatha Mission Stories on 18 October 2015.

Grupul Voces
YouTube: uploaded by Pianistul Azs on 8 November 2015.

YouTube: uploaded by YOUR LIVING MANNA on 6 July 2016. This featured close-ups of Grupo Voces.

End Notes
1. Sydney E. Ahlstrom. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972. 959.

2. "Church Membership by World Divisions." 2016 Annual Statistical Report. Silver Spring, Maryland: Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research, revised 2 February 2017. 4. Canada and the United States were reported together as the North American Division.

3. Bert Haloviak. "The Internal Revenue Service and the Redefinition of Adventist Ministry." SDA Net website.

4. Samuel Koranteng-Pipim. "Separate Black and White Conferences--Part 1." His website. Based on his book Must We Be Silent? Berrien Springs, Michigan: Berean Books, 2001 edition. He was from Ghana.

5. Wikipedia. "Military History of African Americans." Truman signed executive order 9981 on 26 July 1948.

6. Wikipedia. "Brown v. Board of Education." Supreme Court published its ruling on segregation in public schools on 17 May 1954.

7. Dan Shultz. "The King’s Heralds." International Adventist Musicians Association website. 2007.

8. Wintley Phipps. Your Best Destiny: Becoming the Person You Were Created to Be. Carol Stream, Illinois: NavPress, 2015. No page numbers in on-line version.

9. D. S. "Wintley Augustus Phipps, Sr." International Adventist Musicians Association website. 2013. He was singing professionally while he was in college. (Wintley Phipps. "Finding My Voice." Guideposts website. 27 June 2016.)

10. "Our History." Capital Hill Seventh-day Adventist church website.

11. "Phipps, Wintley." Contemporary Black Biography. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 2005.

12. Robert Redding Jr. "Phipps: Spreading the Gospel." The Gazette website [The Washington Post]. 18 November 1999.

13. Thomas Gale. Phipps was influenced by Charles Colson.

14. Gold Stars Speakers Bureau. "Wintley Phipps." Its website.

15. He said "I take my family with me wherever I go. There are few African American families that have been able to visit all the countries of the world." Quoted by Redding in 1999. This may have changed when his sons got older.

16. Ivan Moody. "Music in the Orthodox Church." 531-546 in The Orthodox Christian World. Edited by Augustine Casiday. Abington, Oxford, England: Routledge, 2012. 535.

17. The Oakwood academy website identified Jordan as its high-school choir director.

18. "Despre noi." Grupul Voces website.
19. Phipps, Guideposts.

20. "Wintley Phipps, born in the city of San Fernando, Trinidad." OMG website. 30 July 2017.

21. Cleran Hollancid. "More about the Legacy of Race in Seventh-day Adventist Culture." Adventist Today website. 26 May 2017. Someone burned a cross on the campus in the 1960s.

22. D. S.
23. Capitol Hill Seventh-day Adventist church’s website.
24. Adventist Directory website entry for church.
25. Adventist Directory.
26. Wikipedia. "Oakwood University."
27. Wikipedia. "Oakwood Adventist Academy."
28. "History." Maranatha website.
29. "ASI Romania." Facebook.
30. "Grupul Voces." Facebook.