Blacks and Whites in Christian America

How Racial Discrimination Shapes Religious Convictions

Jason E. Shelton, Michael Oluf Emerson

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780814722787
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

2012 Winner of the C. Calvin Smith Award presented by the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc. 2014 Honorable Mention for the Distinguished Book Award presented by the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Section Conventional wisdom holds that Christians, as members of a“universal” religion, all believe more or less the same thingswhen it comes to their faith. Yet black and white Christiansdiffer in significant ways, from their frequency of praying orattending services to whether they regularly read the Bible orbelieve in Heaven or Hell. In this engaging and accessible sociological study of whiteand black Christian beliefs, Jason E. Shelton and Michael O.Emerson push beyond establishing that there are racial differencesin belief and practice among members of AmericanProtestantism to explore why those differences exist. Drawingon the most comprehensive and systematic empiricalanalysis of African American religious actions and beliefsto date, they delineate five building blocks of black Protestantfaith which have emerged from the particular dynamicsof American race relations. Shelton and Emerson find thatAmerica’s history of racial oppression has had a deep andfundamental effect on the religious beliefs and practices ofblacks and whites across America.

1
Why Do African Americans Pray So Often?

Long before we got serious about writing this book, we had concluded that black Christians more often publicly display their religious faith than white Christians do. Two observations shaped our beliefs about this. First, we stopped counting the number of times that we had seen a black athlete, actor, or musician give glory to God after winning the Super Bowl, an Emmy, or an American Music Award. It happened so often that it seemed customary. However, we both admitted that we still take notice when white athletes or artists do so (especially non-country-music singers).

Second, when asked the everyday obligatory question “How are you?” we noticed that many African Americans respond with “I’m blessed. And you?” It is worth noting that we are just as likely to hear this reply on a Wednesday afternoon as we are a Sunday morning. Moreover, the “And you?” reply is a thinly veiled test of one’s faith; it often inspires a public discussion over God’s impact on a person’s life. These testimonials can take place at any moment, in any setting from sanctuaries to subway trains, from Bible study groups to ball games.

Just to be clear, we are not saying that white Christians do not thank God in secular public settings or that they do not have their own faith-based adages (some might even respond with some variation of the expected reply, such as “I’m blessed by The Best. And you?”). But in our view, it seemed as if these small but noticeable differences were motivated by a distinct sense of Christianity among blacks rather than whites.

We did not get serious about writing this book until we experienced an awkward situation that forced us to deliberately engage the fault lines between religion and race. The following encounter supported our speculations about the unique manner in which African American Protestants go about their religious faith.

We had narrowed our search for an administrative assistant down to three people and had begun the final step of interviewing our top candidates. Sharon¹ — a tall, 30-something-year-old African American woman — was one of the final three. Her interview took place on a rainy Houston day, so we let her know that it was okay if she needed some extra time to freshen up before our meeting. The interview went pretty well. It was only awkward because Michael and I both instinctively knew that one of our other candidates was a better fit for the position.

Maybe Sharon sensed this. In our final moments together, she told us that she was “so nervous” about the interview that she had spent the additional time before our meeting praying in the bathroom. “I had to talk to the Lord,” she said with a smile. “I needed some extra strength!” We all shared in a good laugh. But then she went on to tell us how she prays several times a day, just about anywhere and everywhere and whenever she feels the need to “call on the Lord.” Sharon volunteered all of this information and even gave specifics — despite this being an interview for a secular job at a secular institution. Before leaving, she openly thanked the Lord for getting her to our offices safely and asked for His “mercy” in getting back home.

After the interview, Michael and I talked about Sharon at length. I told him that as far as I could tell, many churchgoing African Americans approach their religious faith in the same way that Sharon does. “Black folks pray all the time,” I said. “It’s just what we do.” I followed up this observation with a question: “How many white Sharons are out there?” I was curious to know whether he believes that whites often call on the Lord in a public bathroom or pray several times a day. I figured that he would have a better idea than I do, since I am black and he is white. Michael stopped and paused. “Probably not too many, perhaps a few evangelicals.”

That got us thinking: Do black Christians pray more often than white Christians do? And if so, why do African Americans pray so often? Conventional wisdom presumes that despite minor cultural differences, members of the same universal religion do not radically differ in their religious practices and convictions. This is largely because “universal religions” (such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism) are thought to have the same core beliefs and practices, no matter where a follower is located on the globe. Moreover, these universal religions, according to their own teachings, all ideally work to be vessels for bringing people together, building consensus, and inspiring camaraderie among their followers. If black Christians consistently pray more often than white Christians do and have distinctly faith-based reasons for doing so — and if this difference is merely one of many significant racial differences — then Christianity’s “universal” standing would seem untenable. Indeed, it would suggest that different groups think about and practice Christianity in perhaps fundamentally different ways.

In this book, we find out if there is any validity to our informal observations regarding racial differences in how black and white Christians go about their religious faith. This book has three goals. First, we bring together important ideas that are disseminated across the extensive literature on black religion. Second, we advance a new set of principles — what we describe as building blocks — for understanding the distinctive way that African Americans think about and practice Christianity. While some of our building blocks are familiar to scholars of black religion, we advance original contributions as well as new takes on established ideas. Third, and most important, we empirically assess the merits of these building blocks by way of rigorous research methods (surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews). This final contribution is what truly sets this book apart from the rest — our analysis of cutting-edge data sources allows us to move beyond theory and conjecture. We provide empirical evidence that supports our arguments in the form of statistical findings and emergent patterns from dialogue with everyday Christians. But there is no need to fret: we present what we find in plain English, in a way that is accessible to all our readers (that is why we ask those readers who are fluent in the language of statistics to please consult our appendices).

To be sure, the answers to such interesting and important questions as “Why do African Americans pray so often?” shed much-needed light on issues relevant to race relations among black and white Christians in the United States. At stake is not just knowledge for its own sake but rather knowledge relevant to the political, social, and religious functioning of this nation. For instance, the findings presented in this book suggest that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision of the “Beloved Community” — a spiritually based gathering of people from all walks of life motivated by goodwill, reconciliation, and justice — will remain unachievable until Christians engage in honest and forthright dialogue on the respective roles that racial oppression and privilege have played in shaping commitments to dissimilar models of Christianity. Efforts aimed at improving race relations will have limited success until social scientists, religious leaders, and the wider American public recognizes that there are profound similarities — and most especially differences — among blacks and whites with respect to how they think about and practice their religious faith.

What Is This Book About?

We argue that the cumulative effects of past and present racial discrimination and inequality have strongly influenced how African American Protestants go about their religious faith. The legacy of race-based oppression and privilege has helped to fuel differences in black and white Christians’ religious sensibilities (i.e., the scope and content of faith-based actions and beliefs). As a result, African Americans remain strongly committed to a unique form of Protestantism that was born out of — and continues to protect them against — the historical consequences of racial stratification in the United States. Identity politics — that is, political beliefs and actions that are associated with a group of people that someone identifies with — drive significant racial differences among everyday black and white Protestants with respect to their faith-based thoughts and practices. Blacks and whites not only approach faith matters differently, but faith matters differently to blacks and whites. This is mainly because African Americans tend to lean on their faith as a supernatural call for help to protect against the consequences of historical and contemporary racial discrimination and inequality.

We offer a new framework for understanding how racial group membership color-codes religious sensibilities among Christians. One of our key contributions is the establishment of the five building blocks of black Protestant faith. These touchstones address the nature of black religion by capturing the fundamentally distinct, dynamic, energetic, and at times intricate manner in which African American Protestants go about their religious faith. Scholars across various fields of study have made significant contributions to the vast literature on racial group membership and religious identity among blacks.² Although some features of our five building blocks of black Protestant faith are common to the study of black religion, we present fresh theoretical insights and fill some of the conceptual gaps in time-honored ideas. Moreover, the five building blocks of black Protestant faith are clear and straightforward. The African American Protestant religious tradition is steeped in a rich and dynamic history that is multifaceted. Our building blocks help to clarify confusion (among both scholars and the wider American public) over the connections between religion and race among Christians, and they elicit take-home points that are useful, easily understandable, and applicable to everyday life.

Furthermore, we supply greater empirical precision and specificity than has been previously attained. The overwhelming majority of studies in this line of research are theoretical and/or historical. Our research methodology allows us to move beyond prior research by testing the extent to which black and white Christians differ in their religious sensibilities. This book includes a critically important comparative aspect: we directly assess black and white believers across a range of important dimensions of religious identity, such as how often they pray and attend worship services. Each of our five building blocks of black Protestant faith is simple, logical, and most important, testable. Hence, we are able to document the depth of faith-based similarities and differences — as well as to discover complexities and nuances — that lie beyond the reach of speculative analyses. In sum, these two major contributions (our comprehensive theoretical/conceptual approach and our comparative empirical analysis) allow us to present a more exhaustive and decisive investigation of the links between racial group membership and religious identity among Christians than any other study to date.

We are not the first scholars to note a difference in how black and white Christians go about their religious faith. For instance, a recent Pew Research Center poll of 36,000 Americans revealed that racial group membership has at least some influence over faith-based thoughts and practices. Findings from the survey show that blacks do, in fact, report praying more often than nonblacks do.³ Furthermore, a greater percentage of African Americans than nonblacks attend worship services frequently and also report being an official member of a religious congregation.⁴ While these findings are important, they do not tell us why African Americans pray or attend church services more often than nonblacks do. The “why” component of this issue is paramount; it potentially taps into deep-seated historical and contemporary tensions at the root of race relations in America.

For some time now, many scholars of black religious studies have argued that African American Christians undertake a distinct approach to their religious faith. In particular, these intellectuals have maintained that black Christians’ beliefs and actions are strongly influenced by liberation theology⁵ and a distinct theology of suffering and evil.⁶ The former posits that Christ’s message should not be separated from but rather should be used to alleviate social, political, economic, and racial problems in society. The latter addresses a unique set of issues pertaining to how believers — most particularly the downtrodden — reconcile their faith in Christ alongside the consequences of inequality. (We will address liberation theology and the theology of suffering and evil in detail at various points throughout this book.) Both of these impressive bodies of work argue that the dynamics of power and racial stratification in America have fostered theological and doctrinal chasms between black and white Christians.

The five building blocks of black Protestant faith — and their supporting evidence — bolster these claims. More specifically, they provide support for noted scholars C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya’s influential (though untested) assertion that a black sacred cosmos lies at the center of the African American religious experience.⁷ Lincoln and Mamiya describe this defining feature of black religion in the following insightful way:

The black sacred cosmos or the religious worldview of African Americans is related both to their African heritage, which envisaged the whole universe as sacred, and their conversion to Christianity during slavery and its aftermath. It has been only in the past twenty years that scholars of African American history, culture, and religion have begun to recognize that black people created their own unique and distinctive forms of culture and worldviews as parallels rather than replications of the culture in which they were involuntary guests. … While the structure of beliefs for black Christians were the same orthodox beliefs as that of white Christians, there were also different degrees of emphasis and valences given to certain particular theological views. … The direct relationship between the holocaust of slavery and the notion of divine rescue colored the theological perceptions of black laity and the themes of black preaching in a very decisive manner, particularly in those churches closest to the experience.⁸

In this passage, Lincoln and Mamiya assert that while African American Protestants are committed to core Christian tenets (i.e., “orthodox beliefs”), they have also developed their own racially specific approach to and understanding of Christianity. The authors go on to pronounce that a “meaningfully different cultural form of expressing Christianity is found in most black churches, regardless of denomination, to this day.”⁹

Lincoln and Mamiya’s widely respected work should be viewed as a starting point rather than an ending. Although they painted the broad strokes, Lincoln and Mamiya left it to future studies to fill in the details regarding the formation and composition of the black sacred cosmos. In our view, the following are just a few of the critical questions that their book inspired yet remain unanswered: What exactly is “African” about the African American Protestant religious tradition? What are the “different degrees of emphasis and valences” that black Christians accentuate but white Christians do not? What specifically are the “meaningfully different cultural form[s]” that distinguish black Christianity from white Christianity?

The five building blocks of black Protestant faith advance our understanding of the black sacred cosmos’s shape, content, and structure. They not only address the aforementioned questions (as well as others) but help with clarifying the distinct manner in which African American Protestants go about their religious faith. The five building blocks of black Protestant faith are not mutually exclusive but rather are closely connected and often overlap as well as reinforce one another. Moreover, these five features of the uniquely African American model of Christianity operate at the group level — when blacks and whites are compared in aggregate: they are not applicable to and should not be imputed on all black individuals. Lastly, racial differences in religious sensibilities primarily result from the dynamic interplay between cultural and structural factors (we explain this in detail over the duration of this book). Neither African Americans nor whites are biologically or genetically programmed to think about and practice their religious faith in any way; they learn to think about and practice (or not) and make choices about their religious faith over the course of their lives. The five building blocks of black Protestant faith are as follows:

1. Experiential building block: black Protestant faith is active and experiential; it is less concerned with precise doctrinal contours than is white mainline or evangelical Christianity.

2. Survival building block: black Protestant faith is critical to survival and helps individuals cope with suffering associated with everyday trials and tribulations.

3. Mystery building block: black Protestant faith is mystical and expresses an appreciation for the mystery in life; it includes folklore and cultural components deriving from the African Diaspora, the consequences of racial inequality in America, and non-Christian religions.

4. Miraculous building block: black Protestant faith is confident and comprehensive; the miraculous is ordinary and the ordinary is miraculous.

5. Justice building block: black Protestant faith is committed to social justice and equality for all individuals and groups in society.

Our goal in this book is clear: to help Americans of all backgrounds better understand the links between race, religion, and identity politics. We provide an accurate, rigorous, and careful analysis of often conflicting, complicated, and controversial issues influencing how racial group membership color-codes faith-based thoughts and practices in the contemporary United States. We focus on religious identity among African Americans, and our driving theoretical and methodological contributions involve explicating and evaluating the five building blocks of black Protestant faith.

In accomplishing this goal, we undertake the most comprehensive and systematic investigation of African American religious actions and beliefs to date. Relatively few studies have carried out a rigorous empirical (i.e., quantitative and/or qualitative) examination of this topic.¹⁰ We rely on widely accepted social science research strategies that are transparent. Our analysis of contemporary survey data and in-depth interviews with everyday Christians provide us with a unique opportunity to bridge the impressive theory-based and historical literature with modern research techniques.

Let us be clear: our intentions in this book are not to reignite or fan the flames of historical ten...