It occurred to me that I know plenty of individuals and organizations who are white and described as fundamentalist Protestant but hardly anyone who is non-white and described as a fundamentalist Protestant. Am I correct that it’s far less common? If so, how come?
To the extent they exist, how much intermixing is there between white and black fundamentalist Protestants?
If it’s about biblical inerrancy, why would it split strongly along racial lines?
Theologically, most black Protestants fall on the Fundamentalist side. They tend to be in Baptist Churches. You don’t hear about them because they vote differently than white Fundamentalists, so it screws with the narrative.
Pentecostalism actually owes much of its origin to southern black churches, particularly their modes of worship.
I’m pretty sure that Church of God In Christ, which is mostly black, is quite fundamentalist.
Since you mention non-white, here are the ones I know about. The black people that I know who are religious tend to be either Baptist or Catholic (this is South Texas after all). The Jehova’s Witnesses tend to be mostly Hispanic. We also have a few predominantly Korean churches, mostly Presbyterian, but I don’t know if they qualify as fundamentalist or not.
I grew up in that church. Much of its dogma is fundamentalist, but as with any organization, there is diversity. My father is a faithful devotee who has taught COGIC Sunday School for adults for 35+ years. He does not teach from a biblical literalist perspective and he discourages his students from doing so. His classes always have lively debates, which makes his a very popular class. There’s a curriculum the teachers are supposed to follow, but he only does the bare minimum with it because he (privately) thinks it’s dumb. I think the only reason he hasn’t abandoned the church is because he has friends there and he really digs the music (and the music there is jamming, I must say).
My mother couldn’t handle the church’s stance against women in leadership. They refused to grant her a title besides “evangelist”, even though she had graduated from seminary and was an ordained ministry. So she left for more progressive pastures and now ministers at a LGBT-inclusive nondenominational church (which I would have never guessed would ever happen if you’d asked me just 15 years ago). Holy Ghost dancing occurs there just like it does at COGIC churches, but there’s no talk about people burning in hell. Also, the service there only lasts a billion years, rather than the eleventy-billion years of a COGIC church.
There are tons of black fundamentalist churches, including congregationalists unaffiliated with large denominations, and non-chirstian/sorta-christian groups, like the Black Hebrew Israelites. A lot of the fundamentalist churches are also racist, so white churches don’t mix with black churches. It splits strongly along racial lines because racists didn’t want to go to church (or heaven) with people not just like them.
Whenever I see a fundamentalist Protestant argue in favor of Creationism being taught in schools, it’s always been a white person. Is Creationism, especially the Young Earth type, more of a white thing?
That requires a cite.
It’s true that churches are highly segregated, but it’s not true that it’s due to heavy racism. To be honest, no one is completely sure why it happens. The first thing to note about American Protestantism is that it essentially functions as anarcho-communism. There is nothing preventing people from choosing their own rough collective in which to belong. American Protestants as a general rule engage very loosely with their theologies and most either do not understand or don’t care about the differences between say a Baptist and a Methodist or an Episcopalian and a Lutheran. They are more likely to focus on modes of worship than actual theological differences. This isn’t necessarily a ‘hyuk-hyuk, what a bunch of dummies’ issue, but is rather rooted in American Protestant individuality where it is completely acceptable and even expected to have disagreements with your church. You will frequently see denominations that are relatively liberal in leadership whose congregants are one step away from snake handling. My own denomination is relatively liberal in most things, but you can go to little country churches that think all of the bishops are going to burn in hell. It’s extremely common to bounce between denominations and churches throughout your life. Barma Group is a Christian polling and data firm and has found that people are more likely to change their religion over political differences than their politics over religious differences. In other words, the default behavior is that if your pastor is saying something you don’t like, you simply leave. Pastors that confirm presuppositions are the popular ones BECAUSE they confirm presuppositions, not because they are changing people’s minds. Denomination shifting is very normal and people flit between denominations their whole lives.
OK, with that said, you start to see where integrated churches run into problems. Leaders and pastors can talk about integration all they want, but deep down, people don’t want it. The reasons why are complex. There have been interviews with people in integrated churches that have fallen apart and there’s not a good answer. There are themes though. The first is obviously simple grouping behavior. These integrated churches that have fallen apart tend to view the other racial body as ‘other’ and a competing interest. This is not uncommon among members of the same racial groups as well. It’s very common to hear complaints about ‘cliquey’ churches or to see divisions over education level or mode of worship (e.g. hymns vs stage shows.) Race is an easy line to default to.
When you have this grouping behavior, you start to have power struggles. People who are going to church for ostensibly spiritual reasons frequently have difficulty dealing with these power struggles. When they occur, the default behavior is to leave as soon as you see which way the wind is blowing.
There’s also an issue with cultural modes of worship. One of the big paradoxes of American Protestantism is that the most liberal and progressive denominations are also the least integrated and it’s not even close. Episcopalians are about as welcoming and progressive of a church as you’ll ever see (They frequently poll as the farthest left religious group in the country, including atheists and agnostics-though Jews sometimes beat them depending upon the issue and poll.) and they are also 90% white according to Pew. Mode of worship is one of the main sticking points. As I said earlier, American Protestants tend to identify much more strongly with mode of worship than actual theology (within limits of course) Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism as I mentioned above owe much of their mode of worship to black southern churches. Pastors screaming at the congregation, running back and forth across the stage, congregant hands raised in the air, fast paced music, congregational feedback, etc. are things that are very common in both black churches and white Evangelical churches. They are very uncommon in white mainline churches which frequently function more like a university lecture than an emotional experience. What we know is that mode of worship is extremely important to people. Changing those traditional modes of worship causes a great deal of dismay and is an extremely common source of church break-ups. When churches begin to integrate, one of the big sources of discord is mode of worship (It might be the largest single thing, but there are no studies, only anecdotes and it gets mentioned more than anything else.) People have these very strong preconceptions about what church ‘should’ be and become very uncomfortable when even minor changes are made to that. When white people begin coming to black churches in number, there is often a perceived fear that they will make the services ‘dry’ or ‘boring’ or ‘limit the Holy Spirit.’ Conversely, black people coming to white churches often bring up fears of ‘emotionalism’ or ‘services extending forever.’ Again, this is MOST pronounced in extremely liberal churches largely because there is such a divide between their modes of worship. When you begin to meddle with the traditional social scripts that people come to expect from churches, it causes serious problems. A good anecdote is Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s wedding. They had a black Episcopalian minister there named Michael Curry. Reverend Curry’s sermon ran less than 15 minutes and if you have ever been to a ‘black church’ was extremely formal and subdued (I recommend watching it if you haven’t, excellent sermon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIZpos-ME4), but I digress.) For the traditional Episcopalian crowd, it was ‘long’ and ‘fiery.’ and you could see discomfort on the congregation’s faces at times. It was a noticeable intrusion on traditional norms that provoked comment. It would have been interesting to see how they would have reacted to most of the southern black ministers I have heard through my life. Pearls would have been clutched I’m sure.
To get back to the topic though, grouping behavior is common to humans and in environments that don’t require togetherness frequently sort. It’s not necessary to posit vehement racism as the source when simple mundane human behavior suffices. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work to overcome these sorting behaviors, but it’s not necessary to demonize them either.
As a child in Sunday School, I once asked the teacher to explain where dinosaurs fit in the Bible. And she informed us that dinosaurs didn’t actually exist. The “fossils” that have been found belong to cows and horses, but the evil Satanic scientists have told us otherwise for the sole purpose of destroying our faith.
While my parents were quick to tell me she was incorrect once I told them what she had said, I have no doubt some of the other kids in that class swallowed that nonsense unquestioningly.
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You can actually get the data for this. For mainline Protestants, slightly more than half believe Evolution is the best explanation for life. For Historically Black churches, it’s 38% and for Evangelical Churches it’s 24%. Of course, it should be noted that Evangelical churches are about 1/3 minority, so you can’t get a complete picture, but there’s the trend. The reason you always see white people is that Democrats do not tend to argue for Creationism and black people are overwhelmingly Democrat. The politics of the black community precludes them from taking the position.
It’s funny because it’s true.
I am going to echo senoy on this one. Churches tend to be split on racial lines today because they were split for so long. The result is that they “church” very differently and there is no major driving force to integrate them.
I grew up in a white evangelical church that had a major goal of becoming an integrated church. We probably peaked at about 10-15% black attendance (in a city that was 50% black), but it never went beyond that. Why? Well, think of it from a potential black attendee’s perspective. They have dozens of other black churches that they could attend. In all those churches:
(a) They would not feel like a minority. It doesn’t matter how welcoming the white church is, feeling like a minority can be uncomfortable.
(b) They would feel more comfortable with the style of worship and preaching since it would be closer to what they grew up with and are used to.
(c) They would feel like they have more in common with other members. Lets face it, growing up black and growing up white are different cultural experiences and people want to hang out with people that have a more shared experience.
With that in mind, there is no reason to go to a majority white church, even if it is slightly integrated.
Once that is understood, you can simply turn the argument around 180 degrees for a white person going to a black church.
OR
We could just conclude that since they are white Christians they must be racist and they don’t want to share the same heaven as a black person. :rolleyes:
The one thing about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they are completely integrated as to race. They may be the only fundamentalist faith that is.
I think this is a big one.
Also, don’t forget black folk peer pressure. Church-going friends and family are already inclined to judge you if you attend a non-traditional black church (like my mother’s very liberal LGBT church). So you will definitely get some side-eye if you start hanging out at white folk church, with their short services, bland sermons, and quiet congregations. The sitcom Blackish touched on this in one episode.
Though, we need to remember there is diversity in black churches. Despite the TV and movies trope, not all black churches do the “dancing in the aisles” bit. Some call and response is generally allowed, but loud shouts of “Hallelujah” may not be. Getting “happy” at church is something I tend to associate with Pentecostal and Baptist churches more than AME and CME churches. And there are black Methodists, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches that are similar stylistically to their white counterparts, except maybe with different food options at potlucks. My grandmother used to attend the Lutheran church in her neighborhood. It was an all-black congegation, but the church didn’t fit the stereotypes folks generally associate with black church.
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No, not really. What they are is heavily minority. There’s a difference. A completely integrated faith would be one whose members are proportionally distributed according to their occurrence in the general population, not one that has an equal number of members of each race. (Although I guess one could quibble over the definition, if we’re trying to talk about racism though, then my definition seems more appropriate since it would be the result of a color blind policy.) The winner on that one is Charismatic Churches (roughly they could be described as churches that believe in faith healing and glossolalia) 68% white, 14% black, 11% Hispanic and 8% other/mixed which is pretty close to US demographics. Every Evangelical grouping except Baptists, Nazarenes and Lutheran-Missouri Synod is below 75% white.
All I know is, I went to one of their picnics in a forest preserve that had several groups having picnics at the same time at various lot throughout the preserve. There were no signs. The only way I was able to spot which was the Witness Picnic was that they had a roughly equal number of blacks and whites. The other groups were mostly black or mostly white.
I don’t think faiths actively recruit members of races according to demographic statistics. At regional assemblies in Chicago, again, the mix was roughly 50/50, in my experience.
But Charismatic Churches integrated on the congregational level? That has not been my experience. JW may well be more integrated at the day-to-day level.
there is a saying that in the US the most segregated time is Sunday morning. Probably not as true was it once was .
From my observation (I lived up the road from a regional campground), the Seventh Day Adventists are the most integrated of any denomination I’m familiar with.
The Catholic Church is extremely diverse but I wouldn’t call it integrated because so often each cultural/linguistic group has their own service in their own language (often in the same building just at a different time).
Catholic churches have Spanish masses but now protestant churches also have Spanish services.