Blacks and Whites in Christian America: How Racial Discrimination Shapes Religious Convictions

Epilogue: The Race Problem and Beloved Community

199 Epilogue The Race Problem and Beloved Community The findings presented in this book are clear: black and white Protestants often think about and practice Christianity in vastly dissimilar ways. Results from our survey and in-depth interview data show that racial group membership strongly influences how black and white Protestants go about their religious faith. In conversation with members of our own respective racial groups, we have heard people question whether blacks and whites pray to or believe in the “same God” (you may know people who have wondered this as well). Questions and criticisms of this sort are not baseless, because it is true that black and white Protestants approach faith matters very differently, and faith matters very differently to these distinct groups of believers. But make no mistake about it: the findings presented in chapter 3 strongly suggest that black and white Protestants pray to and believe in the same God. The area of our analysis where there is widespread agreement among the races—and arguably the area of our analysis where there should be widespread agreement—concerns Christianity’s core tenets. Black and white Protestants are largely of the same mind with respect to their beliefs about the Apostles’ Creed. However, beyond this, the results presented here show that black and white Protestants are committed to distinct models of Christianity . The legacy of racial discrimination and inequality in America has strongly influenced black and white Protestants’ religious sensibilities. The long shadow of American slavery helps to explain why blacks pray and attend worship services (among other activities) more often than whites do, as well as subscribe to certain faith-based beliefs more strongly than whites. Furthermore, the consequences of past and SheltonEmerson_pp001-270.indd 199 SheltonEmerson_pp001-270.indd 199 7/30/12 10:02 AM 7/30/12 10:02 AM 200 Epilogue present racial stratification shed meaningful light on explaining why African Americans remain strongly committed to a racially specific form of Protestantism. We offered a new framework for understanding how racial group membership color-codes faith-based thoughts and practices among Christians. We established and provided robust empirical support for our five building blocks of black Protestant faith: (1) Experiential, (2) Survival, (3) Mystery, (4) Miraculous, and (5) Justice. These touchstones addressed the nature of black religion by capturing the fundamentally distinct, dynamic, energetic, and at times intricate manner in which African American Protestants go about their religious faith. Moreover, our comprehensive research methodology allowed us to break new ground by presenting fresh theoretical insights, to fill some of the conceptual gaps in established ideas, and to capture the complexity of the black sacred cosmos. This study has provided greater quantitative and qualitative detail on black religion than has any other study to date. In many ways, our results challenge Christianity’s status as a “universal religion” since different groups think about and practice Christianity in often fundamentally different ways. In these final pages, we explain how the findings presented in this book supply knowledge relevant to the political, social, and religious functioning of this nation. In chapter 8, we showed how identity politics drive major differences between black and white Protestants’ (a) beliefs about the causes of racial inequality, (b) levels of support for redistributive policy, and (c) definitions and understandings of “racial reconciliation.” These results are central to our book’s climax. To quickly review, black Protestants are more structural in orientation than whites are and tend to favor government efforts to reduce racial inequality. In contrast, white Protestants are more individualistic in orientation and tend to oppose government efforts. As a result, blacks Protestants tend to favor racial reconciliation efforts that include structural interventions, while white Protestants tend to favor efforts that emphasize strengthening interpersonal bonds and cultural connections . These wide and deep differences attest to obstacles we face as a nation with respect to solving our contemporary “race problem.” Furthermore, they suggest that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision SheltonEmerson_pp001-270.indd 200 SheltonEmerson_pp001-270.indd 200 7/30/12 10:02 AM 7/30/12 10:02 AM Epilogue 201 of the “Beloved Community”—a spiritually based gathering of people from all walks of life motivated by goodwill and reconciliation—will remain unachievable for the foreseeable future. What Is the Beloved Community? Dr. King did not coin the term “Beloved Community.” Nor was he the first theologian or philosopher to articulate a vision for the...