The following excerpt comes from The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II. The book explores how the majority of white Christians—based on survey data, focus groups, and interviews over years—worship within and contribute to systems of racial inequality.

This excerpt comes from the book’s first chapter.

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Why won’t racism and racial injustice just go away? Why have efforts to eradicate racism failed? We propose a novel argument: They won’t go away because race is tangled up with another crucial marker of American identity: religion. That is, race has become “religionized” in the United States; it has taken on transcendent qualities. But because we tend to study race and religion separately, we have missed this crucial fact, and thus have grossly underestimated the challenge we face as a nation.

In this book, we aim to offer a new way of looking at race and religion in America by bringing both into focus simultaneously, showing how they interact with and reinforce each other. We argue—and test the argument with data—that racism and racial injustice have not receded from American life because they are, in good part, the life-giving force of a dominant group’s religion. Put simply, we cannot understand racial injustice without understanding the religion that feeds on racial injustice.

The Contrast

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. 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.” 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.

The pastor then went on to explain what the proper purpose of government is and how Christians should think about it:

Look around at the issues of our day and ask yourself which policies and procedures as put forth by the two main parties in America will accomplish God’s purpose of government—cultivating the good and punishing the evil. We have to look at all these different issues that we are surrounded by and there’s a lot. We have to ask ourselves . . . how can we do our best to look at policies and procedures sepa­rated from personality contests and recognize what policies and procedures best come closest to, most represent our convictions with a biblical worldview in order for the government to advance the good and to punish the evil?

Getting down to specifics, 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.” As our friend suggested, the issues the pastor chose to highlight are important for understanding what matters to this community. 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.

And on the economy, the least obviously “religious” issue on his list, he launched into a stemwinder. A biblical worldview, he argued, is one that values individual hard work and the willingness to be kind to the poor, but only voluntarily. Helping the poor is not the government’s role. The Democratic platform’s use of buzzwords such as “shared prosperity,” he claimed, is contrary to the biblical worldview. “That’s political speak; its socialism, it’s the redistribution of wealth.” He went on:

The Bible doesn’t teach socialism. You know what the Bible teaches? The Bible teaches that hard work will be rewarded, and the Bible teaches that we should also be mindful of the poor among us, because that also will be rewarded, if you’re kind to the poor. But not redistribute the wealth. That’s unbiblical [much clap­ping]. In Proverbs 13:4 it says that “But those who work hard will prosper,” and Proverbs 22:9 “He who has a generous eye will be blessed if he gives of his bread to the poor.” That’s the combination that works in America, and around the world. That’s God’s design. It’s not redistributing the wealth.

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.

He concluded: “Listen to me, I am going to speak truth to you. If you are a lifelong Democrat, your party has left you. That ship has sailed. [clapping] It’s true.” He went on to emphatically say he could not and would not vote for the Democratic Party candidates. The congregation erupted in cheers and shouts of encouragement.

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.

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, 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.”

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, “They continually ques­tioned my character, saying I was calling attention away from where the focus should be.”

These repeated occurrences led her to question herself and her faith. She reported experiencing nine separate anxiety attacks dur­ing her first year at the church. She became unsure of who she was or what she should be doing.

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.

While the white congregants were going about their lives unchanged, the black community was grieving and hurting. This disconnect was deeply disturbing to the young woman. During this period, she had a severe anxiety attack while singing on stage with the worship team. “It was embarrassing, and it felt like no one understood why I was losing it.”

After the service, there was a debrief meeting of the worship team. Still trying desperately to hold it together, she spent much of the meeting looking down at her phone. A short while later, she texted the worship leader to apologize for being “out of it” during the meeting, noting that she was experiencing an anxiety attack. Rather than show any concern, the worship leader simply told her perhaps she would do better if she were not on her phone during such meetings. She was devastated. She told Phillips that she began to spiral, feeling disoriented and confused. She realized that people at the church did not have her back.

Then came the murder of George Floyd. There was no mention of the tragic event 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. The moment that I started discussing, hey, this is racist behavior, [it was] “Hey, you cannot be part of teams anymore.”

Phillips asked her how she was doing now:

Spiritually, I don’t want to talk about Jesus or church. [Crying] I know what I know, the truth is unchanging, but I don’t have a desire to interact. I don’t want to go to a church, I don’t want it at all.

Phillips addressed the audience directly. We need to name this type of trauma, she told them. She noted that what is happening is something beyond racial trauma, something beyond religious trauma, and something beyond their overlap. It is a unique, egre­gious phenomenon. It is what she calls betrayal trauma. Taken from the work of psychologist Jennifer Freyd, it can be defined thusly:

Betrayal Trauma occurs when people or institutions on which a person depends significantly violate that person’s trust or well-being. The degree to which a negative event represents a betrayal by a trusted, needed other will influence the way in which that event is processed and remembered.

Because so many African Americans are so deeply spiritual, Phillips told her audience that being racially and religiously traumatized constitutes a betrayal by a needed other. “We need each other. Here where race, religion, and betrayal overlap we find the language” for this deep pain, shaking too many of us. “The trauma is real, and worthy to be given voice.” 

What Does It Mean?

In the course of one round trip on one October day, we experienced two distinct visions of race and faith in American life. They hardly encapsulate the entire range of views on these subjects; but they do reveal the vast gulf separating people who ostensibly share the same faith.

But this book is not about the gulf. It is about the deep damage it is doing to human beings—warping people, communities, and the nation. It is about what we describe as the grand betrayal perpetrated by many white Christians—overwhelmingly concerned with their own within-group issues and position—against Christians of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. It is about how and why many white Christians are rejecting their Christian family and the severe consequences that follow for the entire nation.

This is a book about naming reality—the architecture of race and religion—with the hope of changing it. We explore the gravity of the betrayal and ask why so many white Christians engage in it. Our answer is that many white people have an additional faith that serves to distort their Christian faith, what we call the Religion of Whiteness. We will not argue, as some have, that white Christianity is different from other forms of Christianity. Nor will we claim that white Christianity has racial prejudice or racism embedded within it. And we will not be making the claim sometimes made by still others: that Christianity is merely a cover for a political movement.

Rather, we argue that most white Christians in the United States— our best estimate based on empirical data is two-thirds—are faith­fully following what amounts to, in effect, a competing religion, or sect, or creed. This religion—the Religion of Whiteness—distorts people’s Christian commitments and raises race to creedal status over other aspects of historical Christianity. Once we come to see this competing religion for what it is, things that might have seemed confusing begin to make perfect sense. The seemingly endless contradictions disappear. And we begin to see racial injustice in a whole new light, which is hopefully a step toward overcoming it.

In short, we argue in this book that the problem of racial injustice in the United States cannot be addressed until we understand that we are not merely dealing with interpersonal racism, or marital racism, or Christian Nationalism, or the Christian Right. These all matter in vitally important ways, and we take them seriously. But we argue that something even larger is occurring. And that “some­thing larger”—that race is “religionized” and how it is so—must be understood before progress can be made. We as a nation must confront the distorting power of the Religion of Whiteness.

 

Michael O. Emerson is the author of more than 15 books and is the Chavanne Fellow in Religion and Public Policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Glenn E. Bracey II is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Villanova University.