Abstract
An elemental bond of group identity is belonging to a religious community. For African Americans the church has long played a role of sanctuary. Social conditions placed a special burden on Black churches; they had to be social centers, political forums, school houses, mutual aid societies, refuges from racism and violence, and places of worship. The Black sacred cosmos or the religious worldview of African Americans is related to their African-American heritage, which envisaged the whole universe as sacred, and to their conversion to Christianity during slavery and its aftermath. Core values of Black culture like freedom, justice, equality, African heritage, and racial parity at all levels of human intercourse, are raised to ultimate levels and legitimated by the Black sacred cosmos and were given birth and nurtured in the womb of the Black Church.