This is part 2 of my review/summary of Divided by Faith. Read part 1 here.
Chapter 6 moves us to consider proposed solutions to the race problem. Given what is known about white evangelical beliefs about race and the race problem, their solutions fall into predictable categories. (1) "the miracle motif" - "that as more individuals become Christians, social and personal problems will be solved automatically." (p. 117) This view is rooted in a theology that sees individual Christians taking on a life of love and respect and equality of persons, and so personal prejudice and discrimination should simply evaporate. The authors don't say this, but a quick glance back to the historical chapters make clear that simply having an overwhelming number of Christians did not make slavery disappear. Indeed, it maintained it. Anyway, to return to our book, universalism is applied interpersonally for white evangelicals - you express this through one-to-one friendships and get to know peoples of different races and build friendships. What you don't do, is look for other solutions, least of all structural ones. Structural solutions are considered doomed to failure, because they are seen as superficial, not dealing with the heart.
The research in this chapter is largely based on a phone survey, offering four main options:
1. Try to get to know people of another race
2. Work against discrimination in the job market and legal system
3. Work to racially integrate congregations
4. Work to racially integrate residential neighborhoods
(p. 120)
White evangelicals favour strongly options 1 and 2, less so 3, and least of all 4. They favour 1 because it's interpersonal and individual, they favour 2 because they think of this as a level playing field and equal opportunity, not systemic change. 3 is welcomed but only if it's done by individual preferences and choices, and importantly they see it as white churches being open to non-white presence, never as them going to an integrated or non-white church. 4 is least advocated because it's seen as a violation of freewill and a structural solution to a personal problem. As the authors drill down into individual interviews, they explain how "racial reconciliation" for white evangelicals generally means "individuals of different races developing friendships", it never means group relations. Indeed, the idea of group relationships is almost anathema to evangelicals. Groups simply aren't a category they think in.
Perhaps one of the most striking observations at this point of the book is that, not only are white evangelical solutions profoundly atomised, but:
although several evangelicals discuss the personal sacrifice necessary to form friendships across race, their solutions do not require financial or cultural sacrifice. They do not advocate or support changes that might cause extensive discomfort or change their economic and cultural lives. In short, they maintain what is for them the noncostly status quo. (p. 130).
Like most people, costly actions are avoided precisely because they cost. But, and here Emerson and Smith take off the gloves just a little, proposed evangelical solutions radically fail. Simply converting people has little impact on race relations. It reductively oversimplifies a complex multivalent and multifaceted problem, and history ought to show us that profoundly Christian people are capable of sustaining a system of endemic racialization, as they continue to do so. Making friends in itself is not enough, based on other research, unless certain other conditions are met, notable sustained multiple-context interactions with networks of people of colour. But the very existence of racialised social networks works strongly against such networks. Precisely because social networks are segregated, white people do not engage significantly with Black people, and so do not generally form those social connections.
Let me intervene for a moment in this long review and say that by no means are those things bad or wrong - and I wouldn't say that Emerson and Smith are saying that either. I.e., it's entirely reasonable to think that (i) Christians ought to want other people to become Christians, (ii) that the Christian faith has profound resources for transformational change both individually and structurally, (iii) that people ought to strive to make personal friendships across racial divisions, and yet (iv) recognise that these are insufficient in and of themselves to bring about solutions to racial problems.
The Structures of Racialization
Chapter 7 changes tack once more, to provide a model of why religion in America is so highly segregated. This section is provocative in a different way. It explores how the dynamics of American religion function, unintentionally, to perpetuate and increase segregation in congregations. The authors present a model of how religion in American functions as a marketplace. In other contexts, you were born into a religion and you stay in it, but in America you shop for religion, and you choose among the range of options. That means you are most likely to choose a church that meets your felt and real sociological needs, and that is most likely filled with people who are similar to you, including racially. "people select among options to satisfy personal preferences." (p140). That means, too, that churches (congregations and denominations) are competing for consumers, and they do that most effectively when they specialise. The more you attempt to make your congregation all things to all people, the more you lose out until you close down the church. So churches specialise, and people worship with people most like them.
From the perspective of race relations, evangelicals, and religious groups in general are in a quandary. The processes that generate church growth, internal strength, and vitality in a religious marketplace also internally homogenize and externally divide people. (p. 142).
Emerson and Smith drill down into this by looking at the way groups function - they provide meaning, establish group boundaries, and create social solidarity. Boundaries are necessary because otherwise groups aren't groups, they lack identity. Similarly, they need to provide solidarity, group cohesion. The more this falters, the more people drift away from the group through its permeable boundaries and it becomes not-a-group. That solidarity is reinforced and strengthened when people invest and expend their own resources in a group, producing social benefits that they desire to consume. Those social benefits can move out to others, but only if they are also building internal solidarity. So, in this view, the more homogenous a group is internally, the less costly that is in terms of social expenditure, so people are more likely to expend themselves in a less costly context for greater gain. And if it seems too costly, they will go elsewhere. And so long as race already exists as a boundary between groups, it is likely in and by itself to increase racial segregation. This is kind of an amplifying effect on other factors - social networks, other types of similarities. Because race is already bundled into these, racial segregation increases almost by itself, without meaning too, simply because race exists as a social construct.
Where chapter 7 overviews this kind of perspective, chapter 8 moves to consider structural arrangements of religion itself that perpetuate or increase racial division, looking primarily at "racially homogenous religious ingroups and the segmented religious market" (p. 154). So, one of the things they talk about here is how, the very same forces that create strong ingroup bonding at a micro-level, create greater fragmentation at a macro level. Then, because race is a kind of "fault line", associated with a whole other range of differences, the ties that bind at a micro level reinforce the distance at a macro level, contributing to macro-level segregation. Emerson and Smith also look at research about how we tend to view insiders and outsiders - we treat outsiders as representatives of their groups, and individualise insiders. So, let's be frank, if a white person meets a Black person, they are far more likely to have negative views of them, and consider this representative of Black people generally. This kind of bias is mitigated when someone belongs to multiple intersecting groups, e.g. if a white lawyer and a Black lawyer meet, the commonality of law mitigates to some extent the effects of race. But, because America is so racialized, there are not multiple types of intersection, but multiple layers of segregation.
On another tack, the authors look at "the ethical paradox of group loyalty", which means that even when groups are composed of unselfish individuals, they will still, inevitably, preference their own groups in ethical behaviour, because at a group level this isn't considered selfishness, but loyalty. The effect in a racialised society, where goods and resources are already unequal, is that distribution of goods for those in need by default will likewise replicate inequity.
The second half of this chapter looks at how the segmented market fragments the church's ability to be a prophetic witness. Because of the marketplace, that means people are able to 'shop' to find a religious community that matches, e.g., their political views. Which means it's very hard for denominations or congregations or ministers to offer a true prophetic critique, because there's always someone down the road peddling the status quo. Yet, because of the marketplace again, white majority voices are the loudest, most dominant, and least prophetic. There's a fascinating historical example here, about clergy in Chicago involved in a training program for inner city mission in 1965. During Civil Rights protests in that year, the participants were given the freedom, and encouraged, to participate in the marches. 25 of 48 clergy were arrested. What factors lead to those clergy and not others? Hadden (the researcher) found one determinative factor, "structural freedom" - those more likely to participate either had (a) integrated, inner-city congregations, or (b) were not currently pastors; while those who were least likely to participate were (c) pastors of white city churches, or even less likely (d) pastors of white suburban churches. The shape of clergy action was determined largely, not by their own personal convictions, but the expectations of their laity. I find this a compelling and powerful (and depressing) case study. Emerson and Smith conclude a little later:
Evangelical leaders can call for an end to racialization, and are able to influence ordinary white evangelicals on race-relations issues, but only within a small range of possibilities, limited by the social positions and theological understandings of the mass of ordinary evangelicals. (p. 167).
Hope?
Chapter 9 is their conclusion, and thanks for reading this far. Either I've helpfully summarised the book for you, or else convinced you to read it for yourself. While this book first offers its conclusion in terms of summarising their own study, the authors do want to make a point forward. They, wisely, do not attempt to offer any general or specific 'solutions', so much as suggest possible paths forward. Primarily, to resist the evangelical trend to quick action and reductionistic solutions, and instead seek a more serious, multifaceted, complex engagement with the problem, tied with a rich (and perhaps broader?) “Christian understanding of freedom, love, universalism, justice, unity, and community.” (p. 172).
Post-script
I don’t live in America, and frankly there’s a lot about America that I don’t understand. I think this book was indeed fascinating to me because the way it showed two things clearly that I hadn’t thought about so deeply. Firstly, a kind of why for why white evangelicals think about certain problems in certain ways, and refuse to think about them in other ways. The set of ideas around ‘cultural toolkit’ do a lot of work here. Secondly, an explanation in terms of sociology for how and why individual and group choices unintentionally perpetuate and further segregation, and why its so hard to reverse this in churches.
Lots to think about here in multiple dimensions…