Protestant faith singularly influenced by ethnic background. It has always been so. The most important ethnic contribution to the history of Christianity in North America, however, has been African American. It is a fact that race as well as ethnicity has figured more centrally in American church history than in Europe. The effect on the churches began with the importation of African slaves in the seventeenth century and continues to this day. Russell R. Menard, a historian of the American colonies,