The Contrast in America
Are most white American Christians actually committed to a Religion of Whiteness? Using national survey data, in-depth interviews, and focus group results gathered over several years, Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II explore the values that have fueled the rise of White Christian Nationalism. In this excerpt from their new book The Religion of Whiteness they explore the contrast in religious experiences that are visible in America.
On a bright, crisp, and colorful Saturday morning in October 2020, we set out by car from Chicago, Illinois to Delavan, Wisconsin, a journey of about one hundred miles. Fall had arrived after a long summer of racial tumult. The presidential election was on the horizon and on everyone’s minds. A close friend of ours, a white member of an overwhelmingly white megachurch, had sent us a link to a sermon from another predominantly white church on the East Coast. He had prefaced it by saying something like, “I wanted you to know the issues that matter to me and my community.”
A long car ride was an excellent time to listen to the sermon, which was well over an hour long, so we tuned in (we’d later watch it on video as well). It was entitled “The Election Sermon,” and it focused on how Christians should think about issues facing the nation and how they should vote to be consistent with their faith.
The pastor gave a repeated challenge: “Wake up!” He began, “I cannot be silent, I will not be silent, and neither should you. America needs to wake up, and it starts with the church of Jesus Christ.” There was a great deal of clapping from the congregation. He continued:
This is a battle. This is a war. This is not a game. It is a spiritual battle that we are facing for the heart and soul of America and for the heart and soul of the next generation. I have never felt as passionate for and concerned about America as I am today. We as the Church of Jesus Christ are God’s restraining force in the world today against evil.
He began naming what he believes are the most important issues facing the country and, in each case, which political party is more in line with “the biblical worldview.” He asked the congregation to play a little game he called “Guess the party platform.” He named five issues, read both parties’ official statements, and asked the congregation which was closer to a biblical worldview.
As our friend suggested, the issues the pastor chose to highlight are important for understanding what matters to this community. They are not necessarily the issues that turn up at the top of polls showing what voters care about. The pastor named them, in order: religious freedom, marriage and sexuality, Israel, life, and the economy. But he didn’t just name them. He chose sides: The Democratic Party doesn’t care about religious freedom. They seek to destroy traditional marriage and sexual morality. Donald Trump showed who is Israel’s biggest supporter when he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. Donald Trump is the most pro-life president of all time.
[T]he issues the pastor chose to highlight are important for understanding what matters to this community. They are not necessarily the issues that turn up at the top of polls showing what voters care about. The pastor named them, in order: religious freedom, marriage and sexuality, Israel, life, and the economy.
Despite noting early in the sermon that the past months had been exhausting — because of the pandemic, of course, but also because of racial unrest roiling the country — there were only two mentions of race in the talk. Both were references to African Americans who personally told the pastor that he is right: that he is being truly biblical, that all lives matter, that black people overwhelmingly vote Democratic because they don’t think about it — it’s just cultural and what is expected by other black people, and that if he just keeps teaching the Bible, the sin of racism will be eradicated because God will change the hearts and minds of the people. In short, the issues he identified as important are the same issues that are important to black people, at least those who understand scripture and can move beyond their cultural encapsulation.
The clarity of the sermon was inescapable. What is Christian, what is biblical, what is right had been laid bare, just as what is un-Christian, what is unbiblical, and what is wrong had been made clear. Republicans are the former; Democrats are the latter. Not surprisingly, two weeks later, white Christians overwhelmingly voted Republican for president and in most every other race across the nation.¹
By the time we set out for the return trip to Chicago that evening, the weather had turned blustery and cold, with fallen leaves swirling in the darkness. Once again, a friend, this one African American, had some recommended listening for us: a new episode of the podcast “In the Light.” And once again, we used our one hundred miles of car captivity to listen in. Hosted by Dr. Anita Phillips, an African American Christian counselor, Instagrammer (with well over 100,000 followers), and podcaster, the episode was entitled “Betrayal.”
Phillips opened the podcast by telling listeners that the episode would focus on racial division within the church. She had been receiving an ever-growing number of requests from African Americans asking for prayer and counseling “regarding the white-led racially mixed churches they attend and the completely absent or near-absent response to their lived experiences as black Americans. And the most heartbreaking elements of those talks have centered on the spiritual damage they have suffered.”²
She then introduced the first of her two guests, a young African American woman who had, until recently, been a worship leader in a white-led racially diverse congregation. The guest, who grew up in a black church, was introduced as “anonymous” to protect her from backlash. She was asked to describe her experience in her most recent, white-led church.
The guest began by saying she continually noted she was not treated with gentleness or with grace. She said when she acted “too black,” as defined by the white leadership and members, she was told they “find it distracting.” She also said, “[t]hey continually questioned my character, saying I was calling attention away from where the focus should be.”
Earlier that year, Ahmaud Arbery, an African American man out for a jog, was murdered by two white men. The young woman said that this event had changed her, making her fearful for her safety: “I was running three miles every morning, and I stopped being able to run. I was eating only once every forty-eight hours and sleeping maybe two hours a night.” But at church, things seemed to be going along as usual — as if nothing had happened and the world had not changed. “And I realized, oh yes, your [white] world hasn’t changed. Everything is normal for you.” That realization crushed her. It meant she and her white parishioners really were not in this struggle together.
Then came the murder of George Floyd. In an excruciating video that shocked the nation, Floyd was shown lying on the ground, pleading for mercy as a white police officer kneeled on his neck. The officer’s knee remained there for more than nine minutes, as Floyd’s breath weakened. Soon, he was dead. Shortly thereafter, the young woman’s church hosted a previously scheduled community night. She hoped desperately that the George Floyd atrocity would be discussed, that the pain would be acknowledged. It wasn’t. There was no mention whatsoever. “I hit a point where I said, ‘OK, I can’t do this anymore.’ ” She soon left the church, as did at least eight other African Americans.
She reflected on her time at the church:
When they want diversity and representation in the choir, we are valued. But the moment we use the same voices to talk about Trump or other issues, then those voices need to be silenced immediately and we are no longer welcomed in this space.
After saying goodbye to the guest, Phillips addressed the audience directly. We need to name this type of trauma, she told them. It needs to be given a language. She noted that what is happening is something beyond racial trauma, something beyond religious trauma, and something beyond their overlap.
[1] According to the Public Religion Research Institute’s analysis of the AP/ VoteCast exit poll, in the 2020 presidential election 57 percent of white Catholics, 58 percent of white mainline Protestants, and 81 percent of white evangelical Protestants voted for Donald Trump. This compares to, for example, 32 percent of Hispanic Catholics and 7 percent of Black Protestants.
[2] Anita Phillips, “The Betrayal,” October 26, 2020, podcast, In the Light with Dr. Anita Phillips. https://wom anevolvedranitaphillips.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=betrayal
Michael O. Emerson, Chavanne Fellow in Religion and Public Policy, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, and Glenn E. Bracey II, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Villanova University. They most recent book The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith is available from Oxford University Press this spring.
