The last three decades have witnessed a rapid proliferation of African Christian communities, particularly in Europe and North American diaspora, thus resulting in the remapping of old religious landscapes. This migratory trend and development bring to the fore the crucial role, functions and import of religious symbolic systems in new geo-cultural contexts. The trans-national linkages between African-led churches in the countries of origin (Africa) and the "host" societies are assuming increasing importance for African immigrants. The links and networks that are established and maintained between these contexts are of immense religious, cultural, economic, political and social importance. This suggests how African Christianities can be understood within processes of religious transnationalism and African modernity. Based on extensive religious ethnography undertaken by the author among African Christian communities in Europe, the USA and Africa in the last 17 years, this book maps and describes the incipience and consolidation of new brands of African Christianities in diaspora. The book demonstrates how African Christianities are negotiating and assimilating notions of the global while maintaining their local identities.

An exploration of the rapid development of African Christianity, offering an analysis and interpretation of its movements and issues.

As Africans and descendants of slaves have sought to expand an understanding of their history, focus on the African diaspora - the global dispersal of a people and their culture - has increased. African studies have assumed a prominent place in historical scholarship, and a growing number of non-African scholars has helped revise a discipline established over several decades. The six contributions in this volume were compiled as a result of the thirtieth Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures held at the University of Texas at Arlington. The contributors, nationally recognized in the field, represent a collaborative analysis of the African diaspora from African and non-African perspectives.

It is ideologically driven to build a group of church historians who will tell the story of African Christianity, not Christianity in Africa, as an African story, by intentionally privileging the patterns of African agency without neglecting the noble roles played by missionaries. The effort has been to identify the major themes or story lines in African encounters and in the appropriation of the gospel. --from publisher description.

Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora collects selected essays from the First and Second African Diaspora Institutes and other essays. This revised second edition, with broader geographical scope than the first edition, places greater emphasis on historical and sociopolitical analysis. New essays that examine the African experience and slavery in the Mediterranean, the black experience in Brazil, African religious retentions in Latin American countries, and essays by women that focus on the experience and contributions of African women of the diaspora address significant areas omitted in the first volume.