Collects almost five hundred entries that cover the African response to spirituality, taboos, ethics, sacred space, and objects.

Preceded by three introductory essays and a chronology of major events in black religious history from 1618 to 1991, this A-Z encyclopedia includes three types of entries: * Biographical sketches of 773 African American religious leaders * 341 entries on African American denominations and religious organizations (including white churches with significant black memberships and educational institutions) * Topical articles on important aspects of African American religious life (e.g., African American Christians during the Colonial Era, Music in the African American Church)

This important new reference covers African and African-American religion in sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South America, and the Caribbean, and provides vital insights into its growing worldwide influence in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. Entries encompass individuals, concepts, specific religions, religious movements and churches, and include: Akan, Aladura, Azusa Street Mission, Black theology, candomble, Dominican vodun, the Harrist movement, Jamaa, Macumba, Mission des Noirs, Mt. Sinai Holy Church, Nuer, Pentecostalism, Pocomania, Santería, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Unification Church, Yoruba, and many more. Photos, illustrations, and source material round out the package.

In this historical handbook, readers will virtually hear the voices of select African-American religious leaders and learn of the events, movements, and organizations that have contributed to the formations and development of African-American Christianity.

An introductory overview of the development of African American religion and theology Down by the Riverside provides an expansive introduction to the development of African American religion and theology. Spanning the time of slavery up to the present, the volume moves beyond Protestant Christianity to address a broad diversity of African American religion from Conjure, Orisa, and Black Judaism to Islam, African American Catholicism, and humanism. This accessible historical overview begins with African religious heritages and traces the transition to various forms of Christianity, as well as the maintenance of African and Islamic traditions in antebellum America. Preeminent contributors include Charles Long, Gayraud Wilmore, Albert Raboteau, Manning Marable, M. Shawn Copeland, Vincent Harding, Mary Sawyer, Toinette Eugene, Anthony Pinn, and C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya. They consider the varieties of religious expression emerging from migration from the rural South to urban areas, African American women's participation in Christian missions, Black religious nationalism, and the development of Black Theology from its nineteenth-century precursors to its formulation by James Cone and later articulations by black feminist and womanist theologians. They also draw on case studies to provide a profile of the Black Christian church today. This thematic history of the unfolding of religious life in African America provides a window onto a rich array of African American people, practices, and theological positions.