7 May 2021 — 0828 mdt

First Baptist Dallas is not the Little Brown Church

There Is Power in the Blood, First Baptist Dallas style

When Lewis Edgar Jones wrote There Is Power in the Blood in 1899, he could not have imagined that 120 years later it would be performed to accompaniment of a megachurch orchestra featuring drums and electric guitars as well as strings and horns, and in the 13,000-member First Baptist Dallas’ $130 millon worship center.

Robert Jeffress, First Baptist Dallas’ senior pastor, is a Fox News contributor. This week The Dallas Morning News featured his efforts to combat Covid vaccination fears. His support for CV19 vaccination is not shared by all evangelicals and their clergy.

Jones was inspired by Revelation 7, 14:

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

That verse also inspired Alisha Hoffman, who wrote a similar song, Are You Washed in the Blood? in 1878 (Alan Jackson’s performance).

I’m featuring First Baptist Dallas’ performance of There Is Power in the Blood because for progressives it opens a window on the power of gospel music. Watching the faces and body language of the singers drives home how deep the bonds of church fellowship are, and how much joy and comfort the faithful derive from Christian music. This is why limits on the size of indoor gatherings and mandatory masking during the Covid pandemic have been so bitterly and energetically denounced and challenged by parishioners and pastors alike.

My interest in Christian and gospel music, incidentally, developed while I was in college in Houston in the mid-sixties. For a young man from the uptight north, the southern gospel tradition was a surprise and a revelation, and I learned as much about it as I could when I had the opportunity.

Here’s another First Baptist Dallas foot stomper and hand clapper: