Apr 8, 2010
Does Christianity Contribute to Racism?
You may remember Wendy Wood, the professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California who, along with her colleagues, looked through 55 studies and found strong evidence that religious people are more racist.
They explained in their paper that this kind of religious racism partly reflects intergroup dynamics. That is, a strong religious in-group identity was associated with derogation of racial out-groups. Other races might be treated as out-groups because religion is practiced largely within race, because training in a religious in-group identity promotes general ethnocentrism, and because different others appear to be in competition for resources (Personality and Psychology Review).
White people tend to practice religion with other white folks, and they tend to believe that their own religious group is morally right. This situation leads to racism.
So we were intrigued to hear that a team of researchers at Baylor University had decided to directly test how exposure to religious concepts might affect racial attitudes. They subliminally primed one group of students with neutral words like “butter” and “hammer” and another group of students with Christian words like “gospel” and “heaven,” each of which flashed on a computer screen for half a second while the students were performing a task. Then the researchers tested the students attitudes toward blacks. (Overall, the participants were mostly white and predominantly Protestant or Catholic.)
The results? Those students who had been primed with the Christian concepts expressed more racial prejudice—an effect that remained even when the scientists controlled for pre-existing levels of religiosity and spirituality. These students scored higher both in terms of “covert” racism—where individuals evaluated whether conclusions were supported by certain arguments rather than whether they agreed with those arguments or conclusions themselves—and “overt” racism—negative attitudes expressed in responses to questions like how afraid they are of African Americans as a group or whether or not they like them (Associated Baptist Press). However, the religious words did not change the underlying emotions of fear and disgust.
So how can we explain the “Christian-racial-prejudice hypothesis”? One possibility, the researchers say, is that the religious words activate Protestant Puritanism concepts, of which the Protestant work ethic is a part, and the “Protestant ethic, in turn, has been shown to activate anti-black attitudes.” Another possibility is that the Christian concepts increase things like right-wing authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism (both of which are correlated with prejudice) or political conservatism (linked to the justification of inequality).
Indeed, the speculations fit with the conclusions of past studies like Wood’s, as the researchers write in their paper:
Religion’s possible activation of other dimensions or core values (e.g., RWA, fundamentalism, political conservatism, or PWE) could lead to both hard work and in-group prosociality but also denigration of out-group members who are perceived as violating that particular core value. Denigration may occur because religion is often practiced as an in-group phenomenon, causing individuals to view racial minorities as out-group members who do not share their core values (Social Psychological and Personality Science).
1. There are plenty of non-white people who are Christians. The study should have included them as well.
2. Sounds to me like it isn’t Christianity per se that may be linked to racism, but rather, conservative forms of it. Sadly, people tend to equate conservative Christianity with Christianity itself.
..that said, i know plenty of conservative congregations that are highly multi-racial.
Please keep in mind that to understand Christian concepts is a differnt thing than being a Christian. To be a Christian is to recognize that we are sinners and in need of Jesus Christ as our Savior. Christianity is about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and not a set of legal or ethical principles.
When one understands his/her own need of forgiveness, there is little basis for standing in judgment of another.
Please do not judge Christianity by those who claim some allegience to it’s principles but do not know its true focus which is Jesus Christ.
A test of American students at a Texas university and their attitudes toward blacks is supposed to give us conclusions about all people’s religious/racial biases? I recommend holding a variety of international experiments, let alone in other US regions with different histories of encounters between Christianity and race, before drawing conclusions about religious in-groups and racial out-groups.
Why single out Christians? Religious groups have a long history of treating other belief systems/ non believers with disrespect. It occurs along racial lines when the demographic mix of the groups concerned is allied with the religion, when the groups are mixed it becomes mere bigotry.
Some believers think they are the special chosen ones headed for heaven, so they try and convert (or perish) approach. Or perhaps they consider it karma that others live in degrading circumstances and nothing need be done to assist.Either way, bigotry. There is nothing repectful about a missionary.
Lets examine the motives and cultural worldview of the people who carry out these studies. Wendy Wood is Professor of Psychology and Business, how exactly are Psychology and Business related to each other as academic disciplines? Psychology is a notoriously malleable social science which can be manipulated to mean almost anything.
The researchers seem to have approached the studies with their own preconceived anti-Christian bias and selected those students who would conform to their own preconceptions.
Christianity teaches that there is one race, the human race, and all people are created equal by God. People should be judged on their character, as the great Christian preacher Martin Luther King said.
On the contrary, Atheism says nothing against racism and actually encourages racism due to it’s materialistic worldview.
Atheist scientist Dr. James Watson said that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.
‘National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.’
- Senior Nazi and committed Atheist Martin Bormann
Wow, a lot of interesting dialogue going on here. I stumbled across this post on a Google search. You and/or your readers my be interested in By Their Strange Fruit, a blog about racism and Christianity:
http://bytheirstrangefruit.blogspot.com/
This post, on the importance of the issue, is a good place to begin: http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=1475128319218423248
Sorry, the second one is a bad link. Corrected:
http://bytheirstrangefruit.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-it-is-important.html
Yet another “study” denouncing whites as racist and Christianity as the cause of it…
And we wonder why western nations are being flooded with massive immigration, middle class job losses and so many articles such as this one.
Satan’s religion of humanism is working a treat.