Christians and the Color Line

J. Russell Hawkins

ISBN 10: 0199329508 / ISBN 13: 9780199329502

Published by Oxford University Press Inc, US, 2013

About this Item

Since OUP's publication in 2000 of Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's groundbreaking study, Divided by Faith (DBF), research on racialized religion has burgeoned in a variety of disciplines in response to and in conversation with DBF. This conversation has moved outside of sociological circles; historians, theologians, and philosophers have also engaged the central tenets of DBF for the purpose of contextualizing, substantiating, and in some cases, contesting the book's findings. In a poll published in January 2012, nearly 70% of evangelical churches professed a desire to be racially and culturally diverse. Currently, only around 8% of them have achieved this multiracial status. To an unprecedented degree, evangelical churches in the United States are trying to overcome the deep racial divides that persist in their congregations. Not surprisingly, many of these evangelicals have turned to DBF for solutions. The essays in Christians and the Color Line complicate the research findings of Emerson and Smith's study and explore new areas of research that have opened in the years since DBF's publication. The book is split into two sections. The chapters in the first section consider the history of American evangelicalism and race as portrayed in DBF. In the second section the authors pick up where DBF left off, and discuss how American churches could ameliorate the problem of race in their congregations while also identifying problems that can arise from such attempted amelioration.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780199329502

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Christians and the Color Line
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, US
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199329508
• ISBN 13: 9780199329502
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 23.4W x 15.6H x 2.06D centimeters 23.4 centimeters width by 15.6 centimeters height by 2.06 centimeters depth
• Weight: 517 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Christians and the Color Line analyzes the complex entanglement of race and religion in the United States. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples of racialized religion, the essays in this volume consider the problem of race both in Christian congregations and in American society as a whole.
Belying the notion that a post-racial America has arrived, congregations in the US are showing an unprecedented degree of interest in overcoming the deep racial divisions that exist within American Protestantism. In one recent poll, for instance, nearly 70 percent of church leaders expressed a strong desire for their congregations to become racially and culturally diverse. To date, reality has eluded this professed desire as fewer than 10 percent of American Protestant churches have actually achieved multiracial status.
Employing innovative research from sociology, history, philosophy, and religious studies, the contributors to this volume use Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's groundbreaking study Divided by Faith (Oxford, 2000) as their starting point to acknowledge important historical, sociological, and theological causations for racial divisions in Christian communities. Collectively, however, these scholars also offer constructive steps that Christians of all races might take to overcome the color line and usher in a new era of cross-racial engagement.

About the Author

J. Russell Hawkins is Assistant Professor of Humanities and History in the John Wesley Honors College at Indiana Wesleyan University. His research interests cover the intersection of race, evangelical religion, and politics in recent American history.

Phillip Luke Sinitiere is Professor of History at the College of Biblical Studies, a multiethnic school located in Houston's culturally rich Mahatma Gandhi District. A scholar of American religion and culture, he is co-author of Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace (2009). With Amy Helene Kirschke he edited Protest and Propaganda: W. E. B. Du Bois, The Crisis, and American History (2013).