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

by Michael O. Emerson

So, within groups, religious leaders possess power and authority, to be sure, but only to the extent that they embody a group’s concerns and hopes. They can to some extent shape the direction of the group, yet if they stray too far from the felt needs of the group, from comforting and uplifting the group members, their authority and power are weakened and may be rejected. Evangelical leaders can call for an end to racialization, and are able to influence ordinary white evangelicals on race-relations issues, but only within a small range of possibilities, limited by the social positions and theological understandings of the mass of ordinary evangelicals. The radical message of the early racial reconciliation leaders, by the time it got to white, grassroots evangelicals, was minimized to little more than having respect for people of other races, or having a cross-race friendship. When a more radical message is pushed, as the leader of Promise Keepers, Bill McCartney, observed, the walls go up, and those in his conservative Christian subculture tune him out.