Abstract
Listening to Gwen Neville makes clear why we blacks have had so many problems all these many years. I am going to give a statement on the black religious experience in an effort to put in focus what that experience is all about. Black religion is the product of African culture and the cultural environment of the American slave system. It was created out of the encounter of African religion with Christianity. These elements were woven together as the black slave underwent a conversion experience in the presence of the Almighty Sovereign God. This experience provided the slave with a historical possibility for existence in a situation of contradiction. It opened up the slave’s inner being, enabling him to discern levels of reality not known before. The Almighty Sovereign God became the very foundation for every dimension of the slave’s life.