Racial Inequality: Is the Church Correcting or Perpetuating It?
October 21, 2006
As I matured into and through young adulthood, my worldview solidified into a form of radical personal, political and economic individualism. I conceived of little communal obligation other than the requirement that we all act in our own rational, long-term self-interest. When questions of racial or economic injustice were raised, in law and business school classrooms and private discussions, I was among the more strident defenders of the American meritocracy. I still can hear myself: “We have no caste system. Racial discrimination is illegal and has been for decades. Material success is available to all who are willing to sacrifice and strive.”
I had little to no sympathy or appreciation for arguments that there exist structural inequalities – between rich and poor, black and white – that cause our would-be meritocracy to produce unjust outcomes. I didn’t dispute the existence of apparently unjust outcomes, or that those outcomes might be the result of structural inequalities. I argued that structural barriers were minimal compared to the power and ability of a free individual of strong motivation and will to succeed. “Each of us, from across the demographic spectrum, encounters innumerable barriers to success in life,” I would argue. “Certainly, some have been born into tougher circumstances. But can we reasonably hope to correct such imbalances through the unwieldy hand of government?” As an educated (some would say overeducated), upper-middle-class, white male raised in a safe suburban neighborhood, these were very convenient positions for me to adopt.
Well, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere (e.g., Greed, Political Giving, Halloween), my relatively recent submission to the unbounded sovereignty of Jesus Christ has resulted in His welcome yet uncomfortable intrusion in many corners of my life. That questions of racial and economic injustice are no exception comes as no surprise. What does surprise me is learning that members of His Church may be unwittingly perpetuating racial inequality in America by emphasizing, in part, individualism and free will, much like I used to.
The required reading for this year’s Centurions Program includes a 2000 book by sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. Relying on a telephone survey of 2,000 people and 200 more face-to-face interviews, the authors explore the role that evangelical Christians play in undermining or perpetuating the racialized nature of American society. By “racialized,” Emerson and Smith mean “a society wherein race matters profoundly for differences in life experiences, life opportunities, and social relationships” (p.7).
In the post-Civil Rights United States, the racialized society is one in which intermarriage rates are low, residential separation and socioeconomic inequality are the norm, our definitions of personal identity and our choices of intimate associations reveal racial distinctiveness, and where “we are never unaware of the race of a person with whom we interact.” (id.)
Race is a strong predictor of whether an American has access to quality health care, education, economic opportunity and political influence; it informs us whether they are likely to suffer job discrimination or residential segregation. To get a sense for the nature and extent of black-white socioeconomic inequality, consider:
African Americans fall below the poverty line more than three times as frequently as non-Hispanic whites, are substantially less likely to own homes than are white Americans, and their median household wealth is only 8 percent that of Anglos. Even middle-class African Americans . . . are on shaky footing. For example, the median net assets for college-educated whites are nearly 20,000 dollars. But for college-educated blacks, median net assets are a miniscule 175 dollars. (pp.93-94)
Emerson and Smith conclude that white evangelical Christians, despite their best intentions and efforts to the contrary, unwittingly tend to contribute to racial inequality and the racialized nature of America. Let’s take a brief look at some of the authors’ findings and reasoning.
Based on the authors’ survey, white evangelicals, not unlike white Americans in general, are unconcerned with the facts of racial inequality. Survey “respondents were not at all bothered by . . . racial inequality itself. . . . It was matter of fact, par for the course, as acceptable as a Sunday-afternoon nap” (p.110). White evangelicals’ indifference is the result not of active racism but their theological emphasis on individualism, free will and personal relationships. While the wider American culture is individualistic, white evangelicals are even more so. They are perhaps the strongest, most consistent adherents to the biblical notions that “individuals exist independent of structures and institutions, have freewill, and are individually accountable for their own actions” (pp.76-7).
Moreover, white evangelicals strongly emphasize that human nature is fallen and redemption and reconciliation with God can come only through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They then extend the importance of this relationship to relationships among family, friends, church members, etc.
Healthy relationships encourage people to make right choices. For this reason, white evangelicals, as we see, often view social problems as rooted in poor relationships or the negative influence of significant others. (p.78)
As a result of these theological beliefs, white evangelicals more strongly favor individualistic rather than structural explanations for the existence of black-white inequality. When asked to explain the black-white socioeconomic gap, white conservative Protestants “blame blacks more” than other whites do. Sixty-two percent of white conservative Protestants attribute black poverty to insufficient motivation, as compared to 51 percent of other white Americans and just 40 percent of theologically liberal Protestants. While 58 percent of liberal white Protestants and nearly half (46 percent) of other white Americans recognize lack of access to quality education as an explanation for black-white inequality, only one-third (32 percent) of white conservative Protestants do. (p.96)
Given white evangelicals’ preferred explanations for racial inequality, they predictably believe that only individualistic solutions can remedy the situation. The two solutions they most often emphasize are (1) converting people to Christianity and (2) reaching across racial lines to make friends. White evangelicals firmly believe that race problems will disappear miraculously as people convert, leading the authors to dub this first approach the “miracle motif.” Emerson and Smith offer harsh words for those who would use this approach in isolation:
[T]he miracle motif, while holding much appeal and “not a little Christian truth,” is a major hindrance to the fulfillment of Christian responsibility. [It] overlooks that people do not automatically become mature Christians on conversion. [It] mistakenly presumes that multilevel problems can be solved by unilevel solutions. [It] directs the church to become so focused on evangelizing that new converts are taught that Christian maturity consists of preparing for and actually evangelizing, to the exclusion of taking on social responsibility. (p.131)
I would add that the miracle motif ignores the biblical expectation that not nearly all people will be converted.
What about the making-friends approach? Sociological evidence suggests that having one or even two close, cross-race friendships has minimal effects on whites’ attitudes and support for public job, school and housing programs designed to redress racial inequality. Changes in racial perspectives typically do not occur unless a white American has an interracial network of contacts, i.e., lives in a mixed neighborhood, attends a mixed church, etc.
[E]ven if these conditions were not necessary for the cross-race friendship approach to work, the massive extent of residential, congregational, and other forms of segregation and racial inequality (all of which are structurally maintained) continually mitigates against the successful formation of friendships and precludes the opportunity of enough people ever forming enough friendships to make a difference. (p.131).
Emerson and Smith thus conclude that white evangelical solutions are “limited and, by themselves, ultimately doomed to failure” (p.132).
By not seeing the structures that impact on individual initiative – such as unequal access to quality education, segregated neighborhoods that concentrate the already higher black poverty rate and lead to further social problems, and other forms of discrimination – the structures are allowed to continue unimpeded. (p.112)
[W]hen problems are at least in part structural, they must be addressed at least in part by structural solutions. If a building is on the verge of collapse due to an inadequate design, improving the quality of the bricks without improving the design is not a solution. (p.130)
I am hesitant to claim that I now possess a reformed perspective on racial inequality. I haven’t yet moved my family to a mixed-race neighborhood or church or taken any other concrete steps to develop a network of interracial contacts. I will say that my mind and heart are changing. Emerson and Smith’s work has significantly enhanced my understanding of the extent of the structural barriers to equality, and the need for any racial reconciliation efforts to address them. They have shed light on not only what was wrong with my pre-Christian racial attitudes but also what is largely wrong with the attitudes of my brothers and sisters in Christ. The question remains: what will I do – what must I do – with this knowledge?
