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.