The ^AReligion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith

by Michael O. Emerson

In this book, we propose a novel argument: They won’t go away because race is tangled up with another crucial marker of American identity, religion. That is, race has become “religionized” in the United States; it has taken on transcendent qualities.

We argue—and test the argument with data—that racism and racial injustice have not receded from American life because they are, in good part, the life-giving force of a dominant group’s religion. Put simply, we cannot understand racial injustice without understanding the religion that feeds on racial injustice.

It is what she calls betrayal trauma. Taken from the work of psychologist Jennifer Freyd, it can be defined thusly: Betrayal Trauma occurs when people or institutions on which a person depends significantly violate that person’s trust or well-being. The degree to which a negative event represents a betrayal by a trusted, needed other will influence the way in which that event is processed and remembered.

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.

In short, we argue in this book that the problem of racial injustice in the United States cannot be addressed until we understand that we are not merely dealing with interpersonal racism, or material racism, or Christian Nationalism, or the Christian Right. These all matter in vitally important ways, and we take them seriously. But we argue that something even larger is occurring. And that “something larger”—that race is “religionized” and how it is so—must be understood before progress can be made.

Being a Christian is supposed to be one’s master status, a status so dominant that all other characteristics take a back seat. If some group of Christians violates this agreement—this agreement of equality and non-preferential treatment—and does so systematically, repeatedly, and over the long term, they have betrayed their fellow believers. They have placed something else in a more important position than their brothers and sisters.

summary of how betrayal trauma works

the elections of 2016 and 2020, with most white Christians voting for Donald Trump despite, in the view of the leaders we interviewed, his personal immorality and support of white nationalism, was the breaking point. What broke? Their spirits. Their illusions. Their hope of ever being seen as truly equal by their white Christian brothers and sisters. The events of this five-year period, these leaders told us, showed definitively that white Christians do not really care about them. In the end, whatever issues white Christians are concerned about will always take precedence over seeking racial justice and finding unity across color lines. They saw this as a betrayal, and it sent many of them into tailspins. The common themes can be summarized in single words: “betrayed,” “duplicity,” “deception,” “rejected,” “trampled,” “unimportant,” “devastated.” They described feelings of anger, confusion, bewilderment, and hurt. In short, they were experiencing betrayal trauma.1

In a follow-up discussion, several months after 2020’s long summer of racial tumult, she told us: “If we had God right, we would get people right. You can’t be mistreating people and say you somehow have God right. You have missed God.” For this highly educated African American Christian woman, as with so many we interviewed, white Christians—who are supposed to be part of her faith family—are engaged in betrayal. They have long been engaged in it, they are actively engaged in it now, and she has lost hope that they will stop engaging in it in the future.

Of course, when we talked with white Christians, the majority saw no such gap, and in fact often saw the reverse. Many Christians of color, they felt, failed to see the progress that has been made and the well-intentioned hearts of so many white Christians. Instead, they complained.

An interesting aspect of these quotations is that these respondents of color are responding to being rejected by the white church corporately. They are not responding to hostility from insensitive individuals. They are responding to the group actions of their white Christian siblings and a sense of a lack of progress.

We’re a large church, Andre. And the way we stay large is by avoiding topics that might offend people [like racism]”).

The pain for Dr. King, as illustrated in this quotation, was that whites were able to Christianize their destructive racism. King beautifully stated the ugly truth, that white Christians’ contorting of the moral center of their religion has done deep violence to the essence of Christianity itself.

For Douglass, American history has witnessed two diametrically opposed forms of Christianity—one devoted to white supremacy, the other devoted to Christian siblinghood. We agree with his assessment. To Douglass, King, Baldwin, and our contemporary interviewees’ observations, we add scientific investigation of this question: Can white supremacy and historical Christianity coexist without one fundamentally distorting the other?

“opportunity hoarding.” This term describes the idea that groups will hoard opportunities and resources for themselves and their offspring, and do so by essentially any means necessary.1 Since no amount of resources, power, prestige, or other benefits can ever completely eliminate life’s struggles, there is no limit to opportunity hoarding other than one’s ability to acquire those things.

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.”

he defines religion by what it is and what it does, its function. And what is its function? To bring its followers into a single moral community,

That force, he argued, the very real spiritual power being worshipped and revered was—here is where it gets interesting—the group itself. If you have never heard this before, it can be disorienting. But it is Durkheim’s key argument: the object of worship is the group itself. Since the group is real, Durkheim argued, the worship of it is real.

This power that humans experience when they are together is something that they cannot directly grasp, so it is embodied in tangible symbols than can be named—be it a totem, a spiritual force, or a god. Durkheim called this collective effervescence, the unique feeling that people experience when acting in harmonious groups. You can think of it as the difference between watching sports at home alone and cheering with thousands at a stadium.

As Durkheim wrote, the force “awakens that feeling of support, safety, and protective guidance . . . that makes him rise above himself.” Believers are not simply those who see and feel truths; rather they become truly stronger, wrapped in the power of the group.

Now, as we attempt to understand white Christianity in the United States, particularly the beliefs, values, and actions of white Christians, we draw on Durkheim. We can think of White Christianity as a tribe, with three principal clans: Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism, and Evangelical Protestantism.7 Some of these white Christians have adopted sacred symbols beyond the cross. We argue that these sacred symbols include most centrally representations of a white, blue-eyed Jesus, the merging of the American flag and the cross, and, increasingly, firearms.8 For some clans of the tribe, the Confederate flag is also a sacred symbol.

Whiteness is not some ephemeral vague concept. It is white people (along with supporters of other hues) and their dominance.9 That is, whiteness is the imagined right that those designated as racially white are the norm, the standard by which all others are measured and evaluated. It is the imagined right to be superior in most every way—theologically, morally, legally, economically, and culturally. It is that power, now centuries upon centuries old, that is worshipped, felt, protected, and defended. As the legendary scholar W. E. B. Du Bois wrote in 1920: “ ‘But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?’ Then, always, somehow, someway, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is ownership of the earth forever and ever. Amen!”10

We are making an alternative argument. No ruse is occurring. Most of those we label as white Christians are also in fact faithful, dedicated practitioners of a Religion of Whiteness (ROW). The ROW is a unified system of beliefs and practices that venerates and sacralizes whiteness while declaring profane all things not associated with whiteness. We refer to adherents of the Religion of Whiteness as ROWers. If the Christian God is the central object of Christian worship, for ROWers it is a white Christian God, and the ultimate object of that worship—the source of collective effervescence for believers in the Religion of Whiteness—is whiteness itself. That is what unites the group. And the precepts and practices of the Religion of Whiteness enjoy canonical status in many churches.11

we are not saying the worship of whiteness is like a religion, or functions akin to a religion. We are saying the worship of whiteness is a religion of millions of people, complete with developed beliefs, practices, and social organization. And, as we noted in the opening chapter, the dilemma is that whiteness as a religion requires and feeds on racial inequality. Such inequality is source and proof of white dominance and thus is necessary for the religion to function and thrive. This is why racial inequality and racism do not “go away” but merely change shape over time.

Just as in the religions on which Durkheim focused, where the tribe’s and clans’ worship of their sacred symbols are real, so the worship of whiteness is real, made concrete through the sacred symbols of white Jesus, the merging of the cross and the American (or Confederate) flag, and, increasingly, the symbolism of firearms. Theologically, these believers may be worshipping a god, but sociologically, in Durkheim’s terms, what they are worshipping is whiteness.

as American historian Jemar Tisby states it: “Christianity in the United States has been coded as white, which means that any attempt to identify whiteness and white supremacy in it is taken as an attack on the faith.”

So, there is our explanation for the betrayal trauma. The ROW has elevated race to creedal status within Christianity. As Martin Luther King, Jr. concluded after surveying the history of white believers’ attitudes and actions and the church across U.S. history, “All of this represents disappointment lifted to astronomical proportions. . . . It is disappointment with the Christian church that appears to be more white than Christian. . . .”16

Religion consists of three main components: beliefs, practices, and social organization. We consider each here.

First and foremost, as the name implies, the ROW is a commitment to whiteness,

All of this adds up to what we can call white supremacy, the social system that functions to move symbolic and material resources from people of color to whites. It includes beliefs—whether implicit or explicit—that whites are better, superior, purer, more moral, more righteous, harder-working, more intelligent, more capable, and better leaders (or the converse, that others have less because they don’t work as hard, are not as dedicated, have poor morals, and related explanations). It also means that whites have superior access to material goods such as jobs, health care, housing, and neighborhood amenities. We hear such talk in our surveys all the time. We have inequality, our white respondents tell us, because some groups don’t work hard enough, and white people do work hard. We have inequality because some groups are not dedicated to achieving, and white people are. We have inequality because some groups have faulty cultural practices and lack role models, whereas white people have cultural practices that lead to success and support each other by modeling that success, where success is defined as educational, economic, and material achievement. The ROW believes whiteness to be natural, normative—God’s ordained order. This tree of belief has strong historical and theological roots in the Enlightenment and the Western world itself.

According to Goza, these philosophers wove into society three religious lies and three political lies of white superiority. These understandings were tightly bound together, fused at their very base. The three political lies: 1.From Hobbes, government is not about the common good or providing basic needs. It is about preserving property. 2.From Hobbes and Locke, economics is a moral-free math. Humanity’s equality need not translate to economic equity. 3.From Smith, justice is retributive—it is about punishing rule-breakers—not about making right what is broken, and it is not restorative. From these three political lies these philosophers developed three religious lies to create a fully fertile land for the ROW: 1.From Hobbes, Christians can be in right relationship with God without being in right relationship with the broken and abused of society. 2.From Locke, the only business of the church is salvation. Anything else is a sideshow. 3.From Smith, indifference to injustice is not a threat to one’s intimacy with Christ.

From the nutrient-rich feeding of this soil, the beliefs of the ROW grew into more developed form. It holds that God is on the side of the dominant group: the winners, sometimes denoted as the blessed or the chosen, in society’s competitive game. For believers in the ROW, material success indicates God’s favor, and God helps those who help themselves. Thus, it also holds that because there is equal opportunity for all, people are rewarded for their efforts, and success goes to the hard-working and wise.

Third, most of ROW adherents believe that whiteness is the universal.20 Whiteness doesn’t really exist as such because it is simply what is and what should be.

As such, ROWers believe, fourth, in the centering of white understandings, white theology, white values, and white actions. To be sure, following the above belief, these are not cast as white but as universal, so they are seen as simply the correct understandings, theology, values, and actions.

Fifth, ROWers believe in White Christian Nationalism. White Christian Nationalism is a political ideology and a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of symbols of Christianity with American civic life, including nativism, white supremacy, divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism, and allegiance to a national—read white racial—identity.

Finally, the ROW is committed to the doctrine of black inferiority. “Whiteness cannot operate in isolation. It needs an opposite other.”26 As the main foil with which the ROW must contend, it is essential that black ways of life, representations, institutions, and indeed black bodies themselves be deemed less-than.

whites, to maintain dominance, move the target. For example, Asians as a group have more formal education than whites. Whites respond to this fact by saying it is not due to white inferiority (that is not possible) but because Asians are not as well-rounded as whites. Asians only excel in one area by failing most everywhere else.

We identify five main practices. The first is a highly selective use of Christian scriptures.

A practice rising in importance is the epistemology of ignorance.28 Epistemology is the study of how people come to know. The epistemology of ignorance is the term we employ for how, in a nation always shaped in good part by race and racial inequality, generation after generation of whites don’t seem to know about race and racial inequality,

key practices include the veneration of the sacred symbols, again a white Jesus, and a merging of the cross and the flag (be that the U.S. or the Confederate flag), and, increasingly (representing freedom, independence, and power), firearms. Such worship has grown to an immense number of forms, from paintings to stained glass windows to guidebooks to hymns and worship songs to performative art to sermons and homilies to poetry, movies, television and radio programming, podcasts, websites, books, articles, social media sites, and much more. These have the commanding cumulative effect of reenacting and reinforcing the religion’s beliefs for its followers.

key set of practices function to actively protect whiteness. Such practices include voting, advocating, campaigning, protesting, boycotting, changing laws, surveillance, and others forms as needed.

The above actions mean that another practice is opposing Christians of color who do not subscribe to the ROW.

We began this chapter with a question given to us by the Christian leaders of color we have interviewed across the nation: “How can one group of Christians continually hurt and betray their fellow Christians from different racial backgrounds?” Our answer is perhaps unexpected, controversial to some, and yet crystal clear: We have had the wrong focus. We have been viewing the problem only through the lens of Christianity when we instead needed to consider both Christianity and the ROW. Through this lens, we can see that the betrayal occurs because many white Christians are practicing what we call the Religion of Whiteness. When Christians of color are unwilling to sufficiently venerate whiteness, it harms the group’s collective effervescence and creates a schism between them and many white Christians. ROWers attempt to heal this schism by offering Christians of color a painful choice: they can either adopt the ROW as well, or they can be disfellowshipped.

As Yale religion and race scholar Willie Jennings notes, whiteness is not a color, but a system, a perspective, a way of viewing and understanding the world that welcomes anyone to help further its dominance.

When you write about Christianity and political or social issues, as we do, and especially if your writing portrays some Christians in an unflattering light, one of the reactions you frequently get from Christians is that “not all of us are like that.” Scholars and others who write on these topics are accused of painting Christians with a broad brush. But one of the primary goals of this book is to better understand the differences within white Christianity—to draw distinctions between those who follow the Religion of Whiteness and those who don’t.

the White Might group views racial inequality as appropriate. Put another way, they agree minorities have been oppressed because they should be oppressed. That is part of the race problem, a competition to create and preserve the racial order. Such a view is consistent with majorities of White Might members saying it is appropriate for whites to have more wealth than others; their absence of negative emotions and their presence of positive emotions when asked about white privilege; and their view that some cultures (their culture) are simply better than other cultures.

Throughout this book, we have argued that it is impossible to understand the United States without understanding both the role of race and the role of religion in animating American life. Racism and racial injustice remain potent forces because race has become “religionized” in the United States, and thus taken on a transcendent character. Racism and racial injustice do not recede—they merely shape-shift—because they are a life-giving force of a dominant group’s religion. That religion is the Religion of Whiteness.

What does this mean for the problem of racism in the United States? It means, in part, that defeating American racism will be even more difficult than we might have previously believed. We are not merely dealing with material racism, or Christian Nationalism, or the Christian Right. Racism is not merely something with deep roots in American society. Whiteness has been made into something of transcendent importance by followers of the ROW.

What can we better understand by thinking of racism spiritually, as well? First, we should define what we mean by thinking of racism spiritually. We are social scientists, not religious leaders, so when we talk about thinking spiritually about racism we do not mean urging people to repent. Rather, thinking about racism through a spiritual lens means centering the way that it functions spiritually in people’s lives. For example, there is a feeling of collective effervescence—the power that people derive from a sense of belonging to a group. In our context, that means focusing on the collective effervescence and power white people derive from their shared dominance over people of color, in other words, the ROW.

Here is the thing. We can perfectly understand the causes of betrayal and racial injustice. And from that we can identify exactly what needs to be done to fix it. But understanding this achieves little. We don’t have betrayal, betrayal trauma, and gross injustice because people don’t understand they are causing it or because they are not sure how to fix it. We have those things because some people benefit from them, despite those benefits coming at the expense of others. We have those things in this case because an entire religion with tens of millions of followers—the ROW—feeds on racial injustice.

As we will explore in more detail when we outline the beliefs and practices of the ROW, whiteness is a claim to colonize the world (and in many ways it has succeeded), a claim that the only legitimate, real human life and culture is white. It is a perpetually expanding force in terms of its relations to other people, creating ironically a vortex that sucks all into its orbit. It is a project not to support and encourage, and not even to celebrate humanity and God’s creation, but to dominate, to own, and to become the singular universal. Thus, technically, there are not religions of [name whichever other group here]. Only the ROW is a claim to dominate, demean, and devalue all other forms and peoples, and honor itself as the universal.