From: jondyoungsaddictioncounselor@gmail.com   
      
   Over the last several weeks, the United States has engaged in a long-   
   overdue reckoning with the racist symbols of the past, tearing down   
   monuments to figures complicit in slavery and removing Confederate flags   
   from public displays. But little scrutiny has been given to the cultural   
   institutions that legitimized the worldview behind these symbols: white   
   Christian churches.   
   In public opinion polls, a clear pattern has emerged: White Christians are   
   consistently more likely than whites who are religiously unaffiliated to   
   deny the existence of structural racism.   
   A close read of history reveals that we white Christians have not just   
   been complacent or complicit; rather, as the nation's dominant cultural   
   power, we have constructed and sustained a project of perpetuating white   
   supremacy that has framed the entire American story. The legacy of this   
   unholy union still lives in the DNA of white Christianity today — and not   
   just among white evangelical Protestants in the South, but also among   
   white mainline Protestants in the Midwest and white Catholics in the   
   Northeast.   
   For more than two decades, I've studied the attitudes of religiously   
   affiliated Americans across the country. And year over year, in question   
   after question in public opinion polls, a clear pattern has emerged: White   
   Christians are consistently more likely than whites who are religiously   
   unaffiliated to deny the existence of structural racism.   
   For example, surveys conducted by PRRI in 2018 found that white Christians   
   — including evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics —   
   are nearly twice as likely as religiously unaffiliated whites to say the   
   killings of Black men by police are isolated incidents rather than part of   
   a pattern of how police treat African Americans.   
   Christians are about 30 percentage points more likely to say   
   monuments to Confederate soldiers are symbols of Southern pride rather   
   than symbols of racism. White Christians are also about 20 percentage   
   points more likely to disagree with this statement: "Generations of   
   slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult   
   for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class." And these trends   
   generally persist even in the wake of the recent protests for racial   
   justice.   
   White Christian who was raised Southern Baptist and shaped by a   
   denominational college and seminary, it pains me to see these patterns in   
   the data. Even worse, these questions only hint at the magnitude of the   
   problem.   
   To determine the breadth of these attitudes, I created a "Racism Index," a   
   measure consisting of 15 questions designed to get beyond personal biases   
   and include perceptions of structural injustice. These questions included   
   the three above, as well as questions about the treatment of African   
   Americans in the criminal justice system and general perceptions of race,   
   racism and racial discrimination.   
   Even at a glance, the Racism Index reveals a clear distinction. Compared   
   to nonreligious whites, white Christians register higher median scores on   
   the Racism Index, and the differences among white Christian subgroups are   
   largely differences of degree rather than kind.   
   Not surprisingly, given their concentration in the South, white   
   evangelical Protestants have the highest median score (0.78) on the Racism   
   Index. But it is a mistake to see this as merely a Southern or an   
   evangelical problem. The median scores of white Catholics (0.72) and white   
   mainline Protestants (0.69) — groups that are more culturally dominant in   
   the Northeast and the Midwest — are not far behind. Notably, the median   
   score for each white Christian subgroup is significantly above the median   
   scores of the general population (0.57), white religiously unaffiliated   
   Americans (0.42) and Black Protestants (0.24).   
   This disparity in attitudes about systemic racism between white Christians   
   and whites who claim no religious affiliation is important evidence that   
   the common — and catalyzing — denominator here is religious identity. This   
   consistent perception gap was the central research finding that launched   
   the work on my new book, "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in   
   American Christianity," out on Tuesday.   
   When confronted with unsettling results such as these, many of my fellow   
   white Christians tend to explain them away with two objections. First,   
   they assert that it is not white Christian identity itself but other   
   intervening variables that account for such correlations. Second, they   
   argue that even if white Christian identity is implicated, the results are   
   muddied by the inclusion of people who have no real connection to actual   
   churches, folks who are "Christian in name only."   
   But even when controls are introduced in a statistical model for a range   
   of demographic characteristics, such as partisanship, education levels and   
   region, the connection between holding racist attitudes and white   
   Christian identity remains stubbornly robust.   
   he results point to a stark conclusion: While most white Christians think   
   of themselves as people who hold warm feelings toward African Americans,   
   holding racist views is nonetheless positively and independently   
   associated with white Christian identity. Again, this troubling   
   relationship holds not just for white evangelical Protestants, but also   
   for white mainline Protestants and white Catholics.   
   The legacy of this unholy union still lives in the DNA of white   
   Christianity today — and not just among white evangelical Protestants in   
   the South.   
   Moreover, these statistical models refute the assertion that attending   
   church makes white Christians less racist. Among white evangelicals, in   
   fact, the opposite is true: The relationship between holding racist views   
   and white Christian identity is actually stronger among more frequent   
   church attenders than among less frequent church attenders.   
   I suspect many of my fellow white Christians will be appalled by these   
   findings, asking with genuine dismay: "How can this be?" Haven't white   
   Christians created charities of all kinds, built the infrastructure of   
   much of our civil society and provided leadership on a host of social   
   reforms, including the abolitionist movement, which was led in part by   
   Christians moved by their faith?   
   Before the civil rights movement, it was common to call something   
   'racist.' What happened?   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)