The ^AReligion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith

by Michael O. Emerson

Durkheim went to great lengths to arrive at a satisfactory sociological definition of religion. Religion, he says, is not about gods per se, since not all religions conceive of such supernatural beings. Religion is not about the afterlife, as not all religions include a belief in life after death. Instead, what all religions have in common, he argued, is that they divide the world into the sacred (things set apart as special, worthy of reverence) and the profane (everything else). These are two separate realities. A set of beliefs and practices arise that orient the believer to the sacred, specify what is sacred and what is profane, and prescribe how to interact with the sacred. He thus arrived at his now famous definition of religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things . . . beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called the Church, all those who adhere to them.”