The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

by Jemar Tisby

King saw an indissoluble link between the Christian faith and the responsibility to change unjust laws and policies. But his emphasis on the social dimensions of Christianity, especially regarding race relations, angered many white evangelicals in his day.

Graham never relented from the belief that “the evangelist is not primarily a social reformer, a temperance lecturer or a moralizer. He is simply a keryx, a proclaimer of the good news.”50 Though it is evident that Graham did more than many during his time, he held back from making bold public proclamations of solidarity with black citizens and from demonstrating alongside activists during the March on Selma, a move he later said he regretted.

Criswell was a magnetic preacher, but like Graham, he had a dim view of the civil rights movement and of activists like Martin Luther King Jr. When officials invited Criswell to preach at an evangelism conference for the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1956, he railed against government enforced integration. Criswell stated that desegregation is “a denial of all that we believe in.” He went on to say that Brown v Board was “foolishness” and an “idiocy,” and he called anyone who advocated for racial integration “a bunch of infidels, dying from the neck

During his lifetime and at the height of the civil rights movement, a large segment of the American church derided King and other activists and even resisted the efforts of the civil rights movement.

Before his untimely death from a brain tumor in 1991, Atwater had laid bare the racially coded appeals used by some Republicans to recruit voters: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.” He said all of this in an interview recorded in 1981.3 “Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites,” he continued. “ ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’

Atwater articulated what has become known as “color-blind conservatism.” By excising explicitly racial terms like “black,” “white,” or “nigger” from their language, practitioners can claim they “don’t see color.” As a result, people can hold positions on social and political issues that disproportionately and adversely harm racial and ethnic minorities, but they can still proclaim their own racial innocence. As Atwater articulated, it is clear that the switch from racial language to supposedly color-blind discourse was once a conscious and deliberate choice. Today, it has become second nature—and the unconscious practice of many American Christians.

From the late 1960s through the 1980s, conservative Christians coalesced into a political force that every major Republican politician had to court if they hoped to have lasting success. But there was also a cost to this influence; it meant that American evangelicalism became virtually synonymous with the GOP and whiteness.

While neither Democrats nor Republicans adequately addressed the multitude of issues that continued to plague black communities, people of color increasingly felt disregarded and even, at times, degraded by political conservatives.

In late twentieth century America, evangelicalism took on a decidedly more political tone. In their article on the reinvention of evangelicalism in American history, scholars Hannah Butler and Kristin Du Mez conclude that “it seems reasonable to assume that when Americans self-identify as evangelicals today, many are identifying with the movement as it has taken shape in recent decades—a conservative politicized movement—and not with a static conception rooted in a centuries-old history.”

An honest assessment of racism should acknowledge that racism never fully goes away; it just adapts to changing times and contexts. This is evident when we trace the development of the relationship between race and politics after the civil rights era.

Though it was necessary to enact civil rights legislation, you cannot erase four hundred years of race-based oppression by passing a few laws.

From the earliest years of slavery in the 1600s, through the legal end of Jim Crow in 1954, and in the numerous and varied ways in which racism is still enacted in law and culture today, the United States has had more than 300 years of race-based discrimination. A few short decades of legal freedom have not corrected the damage done by centuries of racism.

Today, the United States has just 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its incarcerated persons. While the reasons for this are many, some of the seeds were planted under Nixon’s administration when the federal government began issuing harsher sentences for criminal offenders, supporting the deployment of undercover police squads in cities, and providing incentives for the construction of prisons. The result was “a significant expansion in America’s carceral state.”

Graham had been in close contact with presidents since Truman, but this was the first time he had endorsed one. The well-respected preacher and evangelist not only lent his support but actively encouraged the president to court the evangelical vote. “I have been pointing out to you in a number of conversations that we have had that there is an emerging evangelical strength in this country that is going to have a strong bearing on social and political matters probably for a generation to come,” Graham said to Nixon. Graham believed that evangelicals would be the critical constituency to “promoting the president’s vision of ‘law and order.’

One of Nixon’s closest advisers, H. R. Haldeman, said, “[Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”

Since the late 1960s, the American church’s complicity in racism has been less obvious, but it has not required as much effort to maintain. Nowadays, all the American church needs to do in terms of compromise is cooperate with already established and racially unequal social systems.

Perhaps some will be surprised to learn that abortion has not always been the defining issue for evangelicals. In 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, passed a resolution on abortion that called upon Southern Baptists “to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”33 No less than W. A. Criswell, pastor of the largest SBC congregation, stated after the Roe v. Wade decision that “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had life separate from its mother . . . that it became an individual person.” He further explained, “It has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”

Like the Southern Baptists, many other conservative Christians were not uniformly against abortion in the early 1970s.

A lay Christian from Macon, Georgia, voiced the mentality of many conservative Christians when he said, “What are we doing as Christians while this awful thing called integration, that should be called communism, is destroying our way of life and our entire race?”63 Furthermore, Christian conservatives carefully coded any change, especially those related to race, as “liberal,” and they perceived themselves as constantly under attack by liberal operatives in the media and politics.

In addition, a stance against welfare led to stereotypes of black people and the poor as lacking in initiative and having no work ethic.

This contributed to the overall perception among black people that Christian conservatives did not care about the concerns of a historically oppressed group. Although their intentions may have been varied, in terms of political impact the Religious Right failed to demonstrate a clear commitment to black advancement.

The close of the twentieth century brought about many changes in the American church and race relations, changes that may have resulted in violence had they happened in earlier generations. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the nation’s largest Protestant denomination that had been founded to protect slaveholders within its ranks, finally apologized for its racist roots. They issued a resolution repenting of racism and slavery at their annual meeting on the 150th anniversary of the denomination, a statement which read in part, “We lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest, and we recognize that the racism which yet plagues our culture today is inextricably tied to the past.”

In addition to movements like Promise Keepers in the ’90s, the start of the new millennium witnessed the growth of intentional, multiethnic churches. The historic dictum that 11:00 a.m. on Sunday is the most segregated hour in America has been challenged by the growth of these churches. A 2010 survey found that about 12.5 percent of churches could be considered multiethnic—meaning no single ethnic group comprises more than 80 percent of the congregation.

Yet beneath this apparent racial progress, divisions have lingered. Voters elected Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president in 2008, and immediately talk began of a “postracial” society. Obama’s election, however, stimulated racist backlash in some quarters, only to be followed by a slew of grisly videos depicting police officers slaying unarmed black women and men.

The ensuing debate over “law and order” once again highlighted the stark racial divisions present in America today. In 2015, a white supremacist entered a Bible study at a historic black church and murdered nine worshipers, sparking divisive debates about monuments to and symbols of the Confederacy.

Amidst the furor of racist words and events, Christians today remain divi...

Hate crimes of various forms still occur, but most American Christians would call these acts evil. Yet the legacy of racism persists, albeit in different forms.

Racialization functions differently from straightforward racism. Emerson and Smith go on to explain that discrimination in a racialized society is increasingly covert, embedded in the normal operations of institutions, and it avoids direct racial terminology, making it invisible to most white people. The relative invisibility of these racialized structures to white Christians often leads them to unknowingly compromise with racism.

The particular religio-cultural tools that white evangelicals use to understand race actually tend to perpetuate the very racial problems they say they want to ameliorate.

Accountable individualism means that “individuals exist independent of structures and institutions, have freewill, and are individually accountable for their own actions.”9 This belief promotes skepticism toward the idea that social systems and structures profoundly shape the actions of individuals. The white evangelical understanding of individualism has this effect, and it tends to reduce the importance of communities and institutions in shaping the ways people think and behave.

Another belief in the cultural toolkit is relationalism, “a strong emphasis on interpersonal relationships.”10 According to relationalism, social problems are fundamentally due to broken personal relationships: “Thus, if race problems—poor relationships—result from sin, then race problems must largely be individually based.”

And antistructuralism refers to the belief that “invoking social structures shifts guilt away from its root source—the accountable individual.”12 In other words, systems, structures, and policies are not to blame for the problems in America; instead, the problems come from the harmful choices of individuals. “Absent from their accounts is the idea that poor relationships might be shaped by social structures, such as laws, the ways institutions operate, or forms ...

In accounting for the black-white wealth gap, for instance, black and white Christians have remarkably different understandings of the problem and the solution. Sixty-two percent of white evangelicals attribute poverty among black people to a lack of motivation, while 31 percent of black Christians said the same. And just 27 percent of white evangelicals attribute the wealth gap to racial discrimination, while 72 percent of blacks cite discrimination as a major cause of the discrepancy.

Observers not only considered the isolated incidents that led to the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, they looked at the longer history of similar events, from the absolute power of life and death slaveowners had held over black slaves to the decades of lynching during the Jim Crow era, when few of the murderers had paid for their crimes against black people and their communities. Even in the past few years, the list of black human beings who have become hashtags has grown ever longer—Stephon Clark, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Jamar Clark, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, to name just a few. Activists have deployed the phrase black lives matter because the cascade of killings indicated that black lives did not, in fact, matter.

Black lives matter served as a rallying cry for protests, but it also acted as an assertion of the image of God in black people. In Christian anthropology, saying that black lives matter insists that all people, including those who have darker skin, have been made in the image and likeness of God. Black lives matter does not mean that only black lives matter; it means that black lives matter too. Given the racist patterns of devaluing black lives in America’s past, it is not obvious to many black people that everyone values black life. Quite the contrary, the existential equality of black people must be repeatedly and passionately proclaimed and pursued, even in the twenty-first century.

It may be helpful for Christians to distinguish between Black Lives Matter as an organization and black lives matter as a concept and movement.

Many Christians, including some conservative black Christians, have rejected the concept or phrase black lives matter because of the Black Lives Matter organization. The organization that developed to channel passion into long-term change includes a strong platform advocating for gay, queer, and transgender rights, a position that is contrary to a conservative evangelical definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. The Black Lives Matter organization does not identify itself as a faith-based organization like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other organizations that formed during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. As a result, many evangelicals have distanced themselves from or even opposed both the Black Lives Matter organization and the phrase. But the American evangelical church has yet to form a movement as viable and potent that addresses the necessary concept that black lives do indeed matter. This is not to suggest that evangelicals have not responded to present-day racism but that the national presence and influence of Black Lives Matter, as both an organization and a concept, should prompt critical engagement rather than a reflexive rejection.

Many white Christians viewed the killings that made national headlines as isolated events, and they could not understand why black people and other keen observers had such strong reactions. Evangelicals would agree that black people should be treated fairly and have all the civil rights other citizens have. But the root of the disagreement over racial issues lies deeper beneath the surface. It is a failure to acknowledge the subtler ways that racism operates today. Because their religious beliefs reinforce accountable individualism, relationalism, and antistructuralism, many white Christians wrongly assume that racism only includes overt acts, such as calling someone the “n-word” or expressly excluding black people from groups or organizations. It is good that black and white people generally can agree that racism of this type is wrong, and it usually elicits swift and unequivocal condemnation in public discourse. But the longer arc of American history reveals that Christian complicity with racism does not always require specific acts of bigotry. Being complicit only requires a muted response in the face of injustice or uncritical support of the status quo.

When Grammy-winning hip hop artist Lecrae, who is both Christian and black, began speaking up about Ferguson and black lives matter, the backlash from his white evangelical fans came swiftly. In response to his posts on social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, commenters said he was playing the “race card” and creating division.22 And when Lecrae said he was praying for Ferguson, the first response in a long thread of replies reads “#Pray4Police” as if in rebuttal to the need to pray for the black people affected by the tragedy.23

After repeatedly using his platform as a famous artist to speak out against racialized injustice, Lecrae wrote an op-ed in the Huffington Post expressing the frustration he felt from battling the misperceptions of conservative Christians. “I hit a serious low on tour at one point. I was done with American Christian culture. No voice of my own. No authenticity. I was a puppet.” He went on to explain that his difficulties in talking to white Christians about race in America even affected his relationship with God. “I’d...

In a summary of the survey’s findings, researchers concluded, “If you’re a white evangelical Republican, you are less likely to think race is a problem, but more likely to think you are victim of reverse racism.” They further contended, “You are also less convinced that people of color are socially disadvantaged.” Citing the importance evangelicals attribute to the church in racial reconciliation, the researchers said, “This dilemma demonstrates that those supposedly most equipped for reconciliation do not see the need for it.”

Many Christians may agree with the principle that black lives matter, but they still wonder whether they should get involved with an organization that espouses beliefs contrary to his or her religious convictions. There is no single answer that will fit every person’s situation. There should be efforts to critically engage rather than reflexively dismiss, and Christians should consider that the best way to start is to start local. Many national organizations are intentionally decentralized, so the character of individual groups varies. It helps to learn who is involved and what issues they prioritize. Contact the nearest Black Lives Matter chapter and speak with representatives. It may be that the people involved are people of faith. Countless ministers, Christians, and other religious adherents have been involved with the organization. Organizations sometimes host their meetings at churches or religious venues. Some people decide that they can participate in certain actions but not others. Ultimately, the organizations with which one chooses to affiliate in the cause of antiracism is a matter of conscience. The only wrong action is inaction.

Add to these incidents the support the president has received from white nationalist groups, his call for a ban on Muslim immigration, and his tendency to positively and uncritically quote from white nationalist media sources, and it’s clear why Trump’s actions have elicited repeated accusations of racism.

Trump tapped into the latent sense among some evangelicals that they were losing their influence in American culture and politics. Increasingly, evangelicals believe they are the ones experiencing persecution. That gay marriage is now the law of the land, the lasting effects of Roe v. Wade, the controversy over whether Christians can refuse certain services to gay and lesbian customers, and the general trend toward liberalism make some evangelicals feel like people without a home in the American political landscape.

A Public Religion Research Institute survey found that the only religious group that thought Christians in America faced more discrimination than Muslims were white evangelicals: 57 percent of evangelicals thought Christians faced a lot of discrimination compared to 33 percent of Americans overall.

The forty-fifth president did not produce the racial and political divide between black and white Christians, but he exposed and extended longstanding differences while revealing the inadequacy of recent reconciliation efforts.

Christian complicity with racism in the twenty-first century looks different than complicity with racism in the past. It looks like Christians responding to black lives matter with the phrase all lives matter. It looks like Christians consistently supporting a president whose racism has been on display for decades. It looks like Christians telling black people and their allies that their attempts to bring up racial concerns are “divisive.” It looks like conversations on race that focus on individual relationships and are unwilling to discuss systemic solutions. Perhaps Christian complicity in racism has not changed much after all. Although the characters and the specifics are new, many of the same rationalizations for racism remain.

Centuries of racism in the American church cannot be overcome by “pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” that ignore the deep social, political, and cultural divides that persist across the color line.50 If the church hopes to see meaningful progress in race relations during the twenty-first century, then it must undertake bold, costly actions with an attitude of unprecedented urgency.

“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now,” King explained. “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. . . . Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”1 That was August 28, 1963. More than fifty years later, how far has the American church come in terms of race relations? The “Whites Only” and “No Negroes Allowed” signs have been taken down, but schools remain segregated. People of color are incarcerated at disproportionally high rates. Black unemployment remains double that of whites. Most poignantly, churches remain largely segregated. The reluctance to reckon with racism has led to a chasm between black and white Christians in theology, politics, and culture. This chasm only makes it harder to productively communicate and take effective action around racial issues. When it comes to opposing racism, have we as a nation overdosed on “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism”?

In some cases, they actively constructed ideological and structural impediments to equality. If the twenty-first century is to be different from the previous four centuries, then the American church must exercise even more creativity and effort to break down racial barriers than it took to erect them in the first place.