The Black Church in the African American Experience.

The Black Church in the African American Experience by C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya; Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., $47.50

Regardless of your belief system (or lack thereof), if you are a serious student of African-American history, you'll want to read this book. It is an in-depth study of what many people say is "the cultural womb of the black community."

The book examines seven major historically black denominations within the Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal traditions and provides the most comprehensive documentation to date of the black church's complexity and uniqueness, not to mention its role in black Americans' quest for survival.