Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America

by Michael O. Emerson

The last three chapters revealed two important findings: (1) The cultural tools of white evangelicals led them to minimize the race problem and racial inequality, and thus propose limited solutions. All these help reproduce racialization. (2) But in each chapter we found exceptions. Under the condition of extensive cross-race networks, white evangelicals modified the use of their cultural tools and their racial understandings, so much so that their understandings began to resemble those of African Americans. This suggests an important possibility. If white evangelicals were less racially isolated, they might assess race problems differently and, working in unison with others, apply their evangelical vigor to broader-based solutions. But it is of course no accident that the vast majority of white evangelicals—and other whites as well—are racially isolated. As long as the white American population is larger than the black American population, by mathematical law, whites will be more isolated from blacks than vice versa. And unfortunately, housing and other forms of segregation by race and class are institutionalized features of the American landscape. But one form of segregation carries particular importance in isolating evangelicals by race: congregational segregation. According to our survey, evangelicals are more likely to attend church overall, attend more frequently, and spend more time in congregational activities than are people in any other major American Christian t...