The ^AReligion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith

by Michael O. Emerson

This is not a blame-game book. This is a book about naming reality—the architecture of race and religion—with the hope of changing it. We will explore the gravity of the betrayal and ask why so many white Christians engage in it. Our answer is that many white people have an additional faith that serves to distort their Christian faith, what we call the Religion of Whiteness. We will not argue, as some have, that white Christianity is different from other forms of Christianity. Nor will we claim that white Christianity has racial prejudice or racism embedded within it. Various powerful metaphors have been offered for this view, from the two going hand in hand, to racism being part of Christianity’s DNA, to it being “baked into the cake,” to faith serving as a parasitic host.6 And we will not be making the claim sometimes made by still others: that Christianity is merely a cover for a political movement. These claims, while they call attention to a vitally important issue, do not quite capture what we believe is actually occurring. Rather, we argue that most white Christians in the United States—our best estimate based on empirical data is two-thirds—are faithfully following what amounts to, in effect, a competing religion, or sect, or creed. This religion—the Religion of Whiteness—distorts people’s Christian commitments and raises race to creedal status over other aspects of historical Christianity.