Why is racial diversity in each congregation a goal? Many/most churches are neighborhood churches, so that's one factor that this article didn't discuss. Then there are styles of worship, from drums and guitars to liturgical/classical music, and that might be correlated with race. Isn't it more important that the church overall help all kinds of people in all their preferred, effective style of worship rather than making each parish statistically diverse? Shouldn't God somehow come into the picture?
Racial diversity in every congregation simply isn't realistic seeing as though there are big chunks of the country that aren't racially diverse. I think it would be more feasible for congregations in sizable metropolitan areas to work towards such a goal if desired.
That is true, I live in a very ethnically homogeneous town and county but when I traveled to Boston with my wife I sought out a conservative Presbyterian congregation and it was very diverse and I would love to worship there but I live in Indiana. Do we self sort into ethnically homogeneous populations? Probably, and we go to church near where we live. The big takeaway is that no matter how diverse or non diverse the congregation was it didn’t change peoples views on ethnicity
I feel like there’s an extent to which the question can’t capture diversity, because there are lots of places where even if the worshiping community exactly mirrors the demographics of the surrounding population, it will still be majority white.
Like, if you took the same data for high school classes, which are usually much more demographically representative, I think you’ll see similar results.
Basically I’m not sold that 11am is the most segregated hour based on this data, is what I am saying. Biased because my parish is one of the two most diverse places I hang out, but it’s still technically MAJORITY white, I think.
Suppose a model that looked at every individual and compared them to their 100 closest neighbors (plus themselves). What percent of people would be in the majority race among their neighbors? How would that break down by race? How would that compare to the religion data presented in this post? It isn’t clear to me that the religious numbers obviously show less diversity.
For me, this may be the saddest paragraph of the entire article:
"But here’s something worth noting: across the last three graphs, the ‘entire sample’ is consistently more supportive of immigration and diversity. Why? Because that group includes people who seldom or never attend religious services—and they are generally more inclusive in their outlook on America’s future."
I'm inferring that church attendees are generally less inclusive. Maybe we should turn off the lights and close the doors.
In terms of the original quote itself, I'm still left hanging for analysis on the comparative side - is 11am MORE divided than the neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools people come from?
Last year I read the book "The Religion of Whiteness; How Race Distorts Christian Faith by Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II, one author black, the other white. It's chock full of graphs and interviews, and a few personal stories.
Their conclusion: The majority of white churches don't worship Jesus, they worship whiteness.
From the Amazon description:
Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the role that White Christian Nationalism plays in American society. As White Christian Nationalism has become a major force, and as racial and religious attitudes become increasingly aligned among whites--for example, the more likely you are to say that the decline of white people as a share of the population is "bad for society," the more likely you are to believe the government should support religious values--it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.
In this book, Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II respond definitively: the answer is "white." The majority of white Christians in America, they argue, are believers in a "Religion of Whiteness" that shapes their faith, their politics, and more. The Religion of Whiteness, they argue, raises the perpetuation of racial inequality to a level of spiritual commitment that rivals followers' commitment to Christianity itself. This religion has its own unique beliefs, practices, sacred symbols, and organizations. What is more, this religion affects more than just churches. It drives the nation's politics, divides families, and is especially harmful to communities of color.
Using national survey data, in-depth interviews, and focus group results gathered over several years, Emerson and Bracey show how the Religion of Whiteness shapes the practice of Christianity for millions of Americans--and what can be done to confront it.
--------------
That book has shaped my understanding of white churches more than anything else. While I agree many churches may be diverse in the pew, this book has convinced me that most aren't nearly so diverse in their hearts.
Just asking people's opinions about a subject is always going to get some cultural bias. Asking control questions first and compiling that data as Emerson and Bracey did, and then asking race related questions second reveals an entirely different picture of the divisive understanding of Jesus in the United States.
Don't take my word for it. Get the book and read it.
Full disclosure: I'm a white cisgender Marine Corps Vietnam veteran.
This book is worth a read for those who really enjoy the nitty-gritty of interpreting charts about religion.
I'd like to see his response as well. You need to read the book. I grew up in the 1960's in Alabama and Mississippi. Much of what these two guys write about existed then. And my family was very racist. Example:
My paternal grandfather was telling me about heaven when I was about 15 yeas old. We were in his house in Denham Springs, LA and a black man had just come up to the back porch asking for food. Grandpa gave him some and told him he could eat it on the back porch.
"Why don't you invite him in, Grandpa?" I asked.
"Oh, son, that wouldn't be right," he replied
"Why not?"
"Because God doesn't want black and white people mixing together," he nodded sagely.
"But aren't black people going to heaven, too?" I asked.
"They certainly are, son," he replied, "God has created one corner of heaven to keep them all together."
I loved my grandpa, but was he a racist? You betcha. And The Religion of Whiteness book confirms everything I grew up with. My grandpa worshiped whiteness despite his 70 years being first a Baptist and then a Church of God member.
In fact I took the control questions and test questions myself.
I did not pass with flying colors on every question.
For a more personal, specific view of how black people are affected by white religion, read Faith Unleavened: The Wilderness Between Trayvon Martin & George Floyd by Tamice Spenser-Helms, It's also an Amazon title. (I solely read books on Kindle).
"At a young age, the Black church introduced her to a God of love, empowerment, and joy. But an encounter with White Jesus set her on a path that nearly destroyed her faith altogether. Persistent police brutality against Black people, and the white church's persistent excuses for it, forced Spencer-Helms to carefully identify how the idol of whiteness keeps Christians captive, and how we can burn the idol down. With brilliant prose and gripping storytelling, she takes us on the painful but liberating journey of extracting the leaven from spirituality, and rediscovering the parts of ourselves that a colonized Christianity seeks to suppress. This book will confront readers with the stomach-turning reality of constant injustice, but also delight and overwhelm them with the freedom of Christ."
I found this interesting and hopeful. While it doesn’t exactly reveal anything very specific, it does say that some change has occurred and we should see that as a good thing. My own experience in our own church has been to see some change. With the complexity of the subject it would be very difficult to study it. I remember Voddie Baucham relaying a story of a white pastor asking him in tears what they were doing wrong that other people of color or nationality were not coming to their church. Baucham said that he had never known a “black” church to be that passionate about seeking to draw a multicultural church together. That conversation caused Bachman to leave his church and attend the white pastor’s church. It would be interesting to look at who is working toward building multicultural congregations.
As some have suggested, maybe it isn’t that important, but more about how we engage in our communities and with our neighbors. How we define neighbor may reveal more about ourselves in the church than anything else.
I agree with Baucham's observation and the reason for that is the historical opposition to Black American attempts to fully enter mainstream society and how the burden of legalized desegregation of the public realm has been disproportionately shouldered by Black Americans, often resulting in the deterioration of our own valuable institutions.
The PCUSA requires congregations to report racial make-up in an annual report, and congregations seeking a new minister need to provide age breakdown as well as ethnic mix. I would guess the UCC does the same, and perhaps other denominations. So there's some demographic info available.
My parish is quite mixed. A lot of Puerto Ricans, some Mexicans, some White (or Anglo as old timers in South Texas call it), an India Indian, and I'm probably missing something. Well, we had a Nigerian family for some time.
You know how we got that way? By caring about Truth, righteousness, right worship, and about each other. We frankly don't care about ethnic backgrounds. We don't think about it much, to be honest. Shine as a light in the darkness, and people from different backgrounds will be attracted to that.
It helps that our city does not have as much racial tension and woke politics as most cities.
Why is racial diversity in each congregation a goal? Many/most churches are neighborhood churches, so that's one factor that this article didn't discuss. Then there are styles of worship, from drums and guitars to liturgical/classical music, and that might be correlated with race. Isn't it more important that the church overall help all kinds of people in all their preferred, effective style of worship rather than making each parish statistically diverse? Shouldn't God somehow come into the picture?
Another triumph of the Null Hypothesis (with a "maybe" level of confidence).
Why is racial diversity in each congregation a goal? Many/most churches are neighborhood churches, so that's one factor that this article didn't discuss. Then there are styles of worship, from drums and guitars to liturgical/classical music, and that might be correlated with race. Isn't it more important that the church overall help all kinds of people in all their preferred, effective style of worship rather than making each parish statistically diverse? Shouldn't God somehow come into the picture?
Racial diversity in every congregation simply isn't realistic seeing as though there are big chunks of the country that aren't racially diverse. I think it would be more feasible for congregations in sizable metropolitan areas to work towards such a goal if desired.
That is true, I live in a very ethnically homogeneous town and county but when I traveled to Boston with my wife I sought out a conservative Presbyterian congregation and it was very diverse and I would love to worship there but I live in Indiana. Do we self sort into ethnically homogeneous populations? Probably, and we go to church near where we live. The big takeaway is that no matter how diverse or non diverse the congregation was it didn’t change peoples views on ethnicity
I feel like there’s an extent to which the question can’t capture diversity, because there are lots of places where even if the worshiping community exactly mirrors the demographics of the surrounding population, it will still be majority white.
Like, if you took the same data for high school classes, which are usually much more demographically representative, I think you’ll see similar results.
Basically I’m not sold that 11am is the most segregated hour based on this data, is what I am saying. Biased because my parish is one of the two most diverse places I hang out, but it’s still technically MAJORITY white, I think.
Suppose a model that looked at every individual and compared them to their 100 closest neighbors (plus themselves). What percent of people would be in the majority race among their neighbors? How would that break down by race? How would that compare to the religion data presented in this post? It isn’t clear to me that the religious numbers obviously show less diversity.
right that’s exactly what I’m saying.
With the youngest Catholics attending less diverse parishes, could this be Spanish speaking Catholics attending Mass in their preferred language?
For me, this may be the saddest paragraph of the entire article:
"But here’s something worth noting: across the last three graphs, the ‘entire sample’ is consistently more supportive of immigration and diversity. Why? Because that group includes people who seldom or never attend religious services—and they are generally more inclusive in their outlook on America’s future."
I'm inferring that church attendees are generally less inclusive. Maybe we should turn off the lights and close the doors.
In terms of the original quote itself, I'm still left hanging for analysis on the comparative side - is 11am MORE divided than the neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools people come from?
Last year I read the book "The Religion of Whiteness; How Race Distorts Christian Faith by Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II, one author black, the other white. It's chock full of graphs and interviews, and a few personal stories.
Their conclusion: The majority of white churches don't worship Jesus, they worship whiteness.
From the Amazon description:
Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the role that White Christian Nationalism plays in American society. As White Christian Nationalism has become a major force, and as racial and religious attitudes become increasingly aligned among whites--for example, the more likely you are to say that the decline of white people as a share of the population is "bad for society," the more likely you are to believe the government should support religious values--it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.
In this book, Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II respond definitively: the answer is "white." The majority of white Christians in America, they argue, are believers in a "Religion of Whiteness" that shapes their faith, their politics, and more. The Religion of Whiteness, they argue, raises the perpetuation of racial inequality to a level of spiritual commitment that rivals followers' commitment to Christianity itself. This religion has its own unique beliefs, practices, sacred symbols, and organizations. What is more, this religion affects more than just churches. It drives the nation's politics, divides families, and is especially harmful to communities of color.
Using national survey data, in-depth interviews, and focus group results gathered over several years, Emerson and Bracey show how the Religion of Whiteness shapes the practice of Christianity for millions of Americans--and what can be done to confront it.
--------------
That book has shaped my understanding of white churches more than anything else. While I agree many churches may be diverse in the pew, this book has convinced me that most aren't nearly so diverse in their hearts.
Just asking people's opinions about a subject is always going to get some cultural bias. Asking control questions first and compiling that data as Emerson and Bracey did, and then asking race related questions second reveals an entirely different picture of the divisive understanding of Jesus in the United States.
Don't take my word for it. Get the book and read it.
Full disclosure: I'm a white cisgender Marine Corps Vietnam veteran.
This book is worth a read for those who really enjoy the nitty-gritty of interpreting charts about religion.
I would love to see Ryan respond to that book as it sounds like propaganda to me but I haven’t read it.
I'd like to see his response as well. You need to read the book. I grew up in the 1960's in Alabama and Mississippi. Much of what these two guys write about existed then. And my family was very racist. Example:
My paternal grandfather was telling me about heaven when I was about 15 yeas old. We were in his house in Denham Springs, LA and a black man had just come up to the back porch asking for food. Grandpa gave him some and told him he could eat it on the back porch.
"Why don't you invite him in, Grandpa?" I asked.
"Oh, son, that wouldn't be right," he replied
"Why not?"
"Because God doesn't want black and white people mixing together," he nodded sagely.
"But aren't black people going to heaven, too?" I asked.
"They certainly are, son," he replied, "God has created one corner of heaven to keep them all together."
I loved my grandpa, but was he a racist? You betcha. And The Religion of Whiteness book confirms everything I grew up with. My grandpa worshiped whiteness despite his 70 years being first a Baptist and then a Church of God member.
In fact I took the control questions and test questions myself.
I did not pass with flying colors on every question.
For a more personal, specific view of how black people are affected by white religion, read Faith Unleavened: The Wilderness Between Trayvon Martin & George Floyd by Tamice Spenser-Helms, It's also an Amazon title. (I solely read books on Kindle).
"At a young age, the Black church introduced her to a God of love, empowerment, and joy. But an encounter with White Jesus set her on a path that nearly destroyed her faith altogether. Persistent police brutality against Black people, and the white church's persistent excuses for it, forced Spencer-Helms to carefully identify how the idol of whiteness keeps Christians captive, and how we can burn the idol down. With brilliant prose and gripping storytelling, she takes us on the painful but liberating journey of extracting the leaven from spirituality, and rediscovering the parts of ourselves that a colonized Christianity seeks to suppress. This book will confront readers with the stomach-turning reality of constant injustice, but also delight and overwhelm them with the freedom of Christ."
https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Unleavened-Wilderness-Between-Trayvon/dp/173583372X
My pastor is attending a doctoral class with Tamice. She has asked Tamice to join us this coming Thursday to our noon Bible study. I can hardly wait.
Blessings on the journey, James.
I found this interesting and hopeful. While it doesn’t exactly reveal anything very specific, it does say that some change has occurred and we should see that as a good thing. My own experience in our own church has been to see some change. With the complexity of the subject it would be very difficult to study it. I remember Voddie Baucham relaying a story of a white pastor asking him in tears what they were doing wrong that other people of color or nationality were not coming to their church. Baucham said that he had never known a “black” church to be that passionate about seeking to draw a multicultural church together. That conversation caused Bachman to leave his church and attend the white pastor’s church. It would be interesting to look at who is working toward building multicultural congregations.
As some have suggested, maybe it isn’t that important, but more about how we engage in our communities and with our neighbors. How we define neighbor may reveal more about ourselves in the church than anything else.
I agree with Baucham's observation and the reason for that is the historical opposition to Black American attempts to fully enter mainstream society and how the burden of legalized desegregation of the public realm has been disproportionately shouldered by Black Americans, often resulting in the deterioration of our own valuable institutions.
The PCUSA requires congregations to report racial make-up in an annual report, and congregations seeking a new minister need to provide age breakdown as well as ethnic mix. I would guess the UCC does the same, and perhaps other denominations. So there's some demographic info available.
My parish is quite mixed. A lot of Puerto Ricans, some Mexicans, some White (or Anglo as old timers in South Texas call it), an India Indian, and I'm probably missing something. Well, we had a Nigerian family for some time.
You know how we got that way? By caring about Truth, righteousness, right worship, and about each other. We frankly don't care about ethnic backgrounds. We don't think about it much, to be honest. Shine as a light in the darkness, and people from different backgrounds will be attracted to that.
It helps that our city does not have as much racial tension and woke politics as most cities.
Why is racial diversity in each congregation a goal? Many/most churches are neighborhood churches, so that's one factor that this article didn't discuss. Then there are styles of worship, from drums and guitars to liturgical/classical music, and that might be correlated with race. Isn't it more important that the church overall help all kinds of people in all their preferred, effective style of worship rather than making each parish statistically diverse? Shouldn't God somehow come into the picture?