This chapter is a Black theological reading of the development, intent and characteristics of Black churches across the African Diaspora. It is based upon a clear theological rationale for the ideological and intentional collective agency of Black people in Black ecclesial spaces. My notion of Black churches is predicated on the notion of the “Black Church” in the African Diaspora. I am writing on the firm premise that there are a number of distinctive cultural and theological markers for Black churches in the African Diaspora.

This chapter is not an exhaustive distillation of the complex literature pertaining to ecclesiology and historical and theological markers that constitute what one might term the “authentic church” in terms of holiness, catholicity, apostolicity. Rather, this work is an attempt to apply the principles of Black theology to the collective agency of God's people meeting together in order to worship God and to undertake the work of God in the world as revealed in the person and work of Jesus the Christ.

This chapter, like all the sections in this book, is written in the form of combative polemic. This chapter, like all the others, is an ideologically driven one. Not all Black churches in the African Diaspora, for example, will either wish to be identified as being Black or perceived as being related to the liberative theological agenda within which this essay is constructed.