An Eternal Pitch

An Eternal Pitch examines the life and afterlife of the vivid sermons of Bishop G. E. Patterson, the dynamic spiritual leader of the Church of God in Christ from 2000 to 2007. Although Patterson died in 2007, his voice remains a staple of radio and television broadcast, and his sermons have taken on a life of their own online-where a host of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok users enact innovative forms of religious broadcasting. Their preoccupation with Patterson's "afterliveness" clarifies the significance of Patterson's preoccupation with musical repetition: across the decades of Patterson's ministry, a set of musical gestures recur as sonic channels, bringing an individual sermon into contact with scripture's eternal transmission.