Description
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.
Table of Contents
Table of ContentsForewordMichael O. EmersonContributorsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionJ. Russell Hawkins & Phillip Luke SinitiereChapter One"Neoevangelicalism and the Problem of Race in Postwar America"Miles S. Mullin, IIChapter Two"Healing the Mystical Body: Catholic Attempts to Overcome the Racial Divide in Chicago, 1930-1948"Karen Joy JohnsonChapter Three"'Glimmers of Hope': Progressive Evangelicals and Racism, 1965-2000"Brantley W. GasawayChapter Four"'Buttcheek to Buttcheek in the Pew': Interracial Relationalism in a Mennonite Congregation, 1957-2010"Tobin Miller ShearerChapter Five"Still Divided by Faith? Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, 1977-2010"Ryon J. CobbChapter Six"Worshipping to Stay the Same: Avoiding the Local to Maintain Solidarity"Mark T. MulderChapter Seven"Beyond Body Counts: Sex, Individualism, and the Segregated Shape of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism"Edward J. BlumChapter Eight"Color-Conscious Structure-Blind Assimilation: How Asian American Christians Can Unintentionally Maintain the Racial Divide"Jerry Z. ParkChapter Nine"Knotted Together: Identity and Community in a Multiracial Church"Erica Ryu WongChapter Ten"Much Ado About Nothing? Rethinking the Efficacy of Multiracial Churches for Racial Reconciliation"Korie L. EdwardsTheological Afterword"The Call to Blackness in American Christianity"Darryl Scriven
