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Worship Discourse and White Race-Based Policy Attitudes

  • Original Paper
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Review of Religious Research

Abstract

The current study relies upon the 2004 National Politics Study to examine the association between exposure to race-based messages within places of worship and White race-based policy attitudes. The present study challenges the notion that, for White Americans, religiosity inevitably leads to racial prejudice. Rather, we argue, as others have, that religion exists on a continuum that spans from reinforcing to challenging the status quo of social inequality. Our findings suggests that the extent to which Whites discuss race along with the potential need for public policy solutions to address racial inequality within worship spaces, worship attendance contributes to support for public policies aimed at reducing racial inequality. On the other hand, apolitical and non-structural racial discussions within worship settings do seemingly little to move many Whites to challenge dominant idealistic perceptions of race that eschews public policy interventions as solutions to racial inequality.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

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Notes

  1. This is comparable to the median response rate (30 %) reported by Groves (2006) in his study of over 200 response rates in 35 published articles.

  2. These measures were not combined in an additive index because of its low alpha score (0.554).

  3. We recognize the limitation of dichotomously ordered variables aimed at measuring exposure to issue based discussions and sermons in houses of worship. While not excusing this limitation, we would like to point out that the discourse variables in this study are measured nearly identically to the way which these constructs have been measured by survey-based for nearly 50 years. The 1964 Negro Politics Study, the 1968 and 1969 Detroit Area Studies, 1997 Civic Involvement Study, studies commissioned by the Pew Charitable Trust, the Religion and Politics Studies of 1996 and 2000, and other large surveys all assess worship discourse in a nearly an identical manner as the National Politics Study.

  4. We recognize that the alpha score for the racial discourse congregation index falls below the standard threshold of 0.7 for conducting indices. However, the results of the relationship between racial discourse congregation and race-based policy attitudes are nearly identical to what we find when we separately examine the relationship between exposure to race-based sermons and attending a congregation that hosts forums race relations with race-based policy attitudes. Furthermore, because the alpha score is partially based upon the number of items examined, it is quite plausible that our limited number items-2-impacts our alpha score. To that end, we utilize the current index for our study.

  5. Religious Faith: This study relies upon Steensland et al.’s (2000) RELTRAD classification of religious faiths. This classification scheme is largely based upon the theology, political ideology, and racial backgrounds of varying religious adherents, and provides the best statistical fit in classifying religious groupings to date. This scheme is fairly consistent with the religious faith membership in national religious organizations, such as the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Evangelicals. Using the RELTRAD classifications, various Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian denominations are grouped into Evangelical and Mainline Protestant traditions. The nominal categories of Catholic, Non-Christian, and the religiously unaffiliated are also included as faith traditions.

  6. Missing values for worship attendance, age, and income are replaced by the Imputation by Chained Equations multiple imputation method on STATA 10. The imputed variables do not substantively or significantly change the outcomes of these analyses.

  7. Although we did not display a table on the matter, we also examined the moderating role of religious denomination on the relationship between exposure to racial discourse in houses of worship and racial attitudes. Because we found no statistical difference in the interaction term, we did not include it in the manuscript. We also ran separate analyses for Mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, and Catholics to determine if the relationship between exposure to race discourse and racial attitudes was substantively different among these groups; it was not. These analyses are available upon request.

  8. The probability estimates listed in Figs. 1 and 2 are derived from logit regression analyses that examine the likelihood of individuals supporting a race-based policy by the degree to which they attend racial discourse congregations while holding all of the control variables listed in Table 2 at their mean. The estimates for Figs. 1 and 2 are based upon the following formula; Pr(y = 1|\( \overline{\text{X}} \), max xk) − Pr(y = 1| \( \overline{\text{X}} \), min xk), in which Y represents Support for Job Preferences/Affirmative Action and X represents attending a racial discourse congregation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

    R. Khari Brown

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Angela Kaiser

  3. The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    James S. Jackson

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  1. R. Khari Brown
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  2. Angela Kaiser
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  3. James S. Jackson
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Correspondence to R. Khari Brown.

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Khari Brown, R., Kaiser, A. & Jackson, J.S. Worship Discourse and White Race-Based Policy Attitudes. Rev Relig Res 56, 291–312 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-013-0139-9

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