Blackwell Reference Online

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[ iv ] The vast majority of African-Americans who are church members belong to black B aptist , M ethodist and, more recently, P entecostal denominations. In the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches the largest Baptist groups, the National Baptist Convention, USA Inc., the National Baptist Convention of America and the National Missionary Baptist Convention of North America, list, respectively, 8 million, 3.5 million and 2.5 million members. The African Methodist Episcopal Church claims 3.5 million and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 1.2 million; the (Pentecostal) Church of God in Christ lists 5.5 million members. Add to these the large number of small denominations and the independent (sometimes ‘store front’) congregations, and one can see that the black churches play a very large part in the economy of American religion. Almost all blacks who are Catholic are members of the R oman C atholic church; a small schismatic group has attracted few. Blacks who are Muslim, whether in the N ation of islam (‘Black Muslims’) or in more conventional Islamic bodies, technically would not list themselves under ‘black churches’, so it is appropriate to concentrate on Protestants. Theories as to why so many Africans became Baptist and Methodist are much contested. Some scholars suggested that the use of R evivalist techniques, the immersion rituals practised by Baptists, ... log in or subscribe to read full text