A South African choir that sings like a stadium: the story of Joyous Celebration
Joyous Celebration, the South African gospel choir founded in the mid-1990s, has released a live album almost every year since, selling millions of copies. Its mix…
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Feature Articles
Before Elvis and Chuck Berry, there was Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her electric guitar
Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a gospel singer who played electric guitar with fire, took church music into nightclubs in the 1930s and 1940s. Her 1944 hit "Strange…
“Be Thou My Vision” began as an old Irish poem. Two women turned it into one of the best loved hymns
"Be Thou My Vision" comes from an old Irish poem, "Rop tú mo baile". Mary Byrne translated it into English prose in 1905, and Eleanor Hull…
“On a hill far away”: George Bennard, a travelling evangelist, and the story of “The Old Rugged Cross”
George Bennard, a Methodist evangelist, wrote "The Old Rugged Cross" in 1912 and it was first sung publicly in 1913 in Michigan. It became one of…
Philip Quaque, the Cape Coast boy sent to England in 1754, became the first African ordained in the Church of England
Philip Quaque was born in Cape Coast around 1741, taken to England as a boy, educated and ordained in 1765, the first African to become a…
The archbishop who laughed, danced and wept: Desmond Tutu and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his opposition to apartheid and chaired South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1996. He…
An Irish missionary arrived in the Gold Coast in 1937. The church that grew from his work became the Church of Pentecost
James McKeown, an Irish missionary, arrived in the Gold Coast in 1937 to work with a young Pentecostal movement. After divisions and a split, the church…
Darlene Zschech wrote “Shout to the Lord” at an old piano in 1993. It carried Hillsong’s worship around the world
Darlene Zschech wrote "Shout to the Lord" in 1993 while worship leader at Hillsong Church in Sydney. The song spread across the world through recordings and…
Reginald Heber wrote “Holy, Holy, Holy” for Trinity Sunday. He died as Bishop of Calcutta before it was published
"Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!" was written by Reginald Heber, an English vicar who became Bishop of Calcutta and died in India in 1826. Set…
Did the Titanic’s band really play “Nearer, My God, to Thee”? The hymn Sarah Flower Adams wrote in 1841
Sarah Flower Adams wrote "Nearer, My God, to Thee" in 1841, based on Jacob's dream in Genesis 28. Survivors said the Titanic's band played it as…