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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.
Two African American individuals affirmed the pastor’s beliefs, stating that he was in alignment with biblical teachings, emphasizing the importance of all lives, and pointing out that many black individuals vote Democratic out of cultural expectations rather than deep consideration. They expressed faith that teaching the Bible would eliminate racism by transforming hearts and minds. This resonated with the pastor, who then declared that lifelong Democrats had been abandoned by their party, leading him to reject Democratic candidates. The congregation enthusiastically supported his stance.
The sermon made it clear that Republicans represented Christian and biblical values, while Democrats did not. This message was so compelling that white Christians predominantly voted Republican in the following elections. Later that evening, another African American friend recommended a podcast episode titled “Betrayal” by Dr. Anita Phillips, which discussed racial divisions within churches.
The episode featured a young African American woman who had faced discrimination in a white-led racially diverse church, leading to anxiety attacks and a crisis of faith. The church’s lack of response to events like Ahmaud Arbery’s murder and George Floyd’s death highlighted the disconnect between the experiences of black and white congregants. The guest ultimately left the church, feeling ostracized for speaking out against racist behavior.
The woman’s experience revealed the church’s selective acceptance of diversity and its reluctance to address systemic racism. She expressed a loss of faith and desire to distance herself from organized religion. Dr. Phillips emphasized the need to acknowledge and address the unique trauma experienced by individuals like the guest, which goes beyond racial and religious trauma.
It is what she calls betrayal trauma. Taken from the work of psychologist Jennifer Freyd, it can be defined as:
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 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.
