Abstract
The Black Church in America continues to occupy a place of centrality and influence in African American communities. Proponents and detractors alike agree that it is epochal, spanning the long period of the beginning of North American slavery to the present time. While there is little doubt about its influence in shaping the African American community, honest critics admit that both psychological wellness and dysfunction have co-existed in this one institution. Little has changed since 1933, when Carter Woodson wrote of the Black Church’s valuable contribution to the “Negro race,” its unrealized potential, its divisiveness, its Black-on-Black exploitation, and its control by Whites (Woodson, 1969). The Black Church continues to be an ambivalent institution, uncertain of its relationship or mission to African Americans in the latter 20th century.