Divided By Faith
A Review by Joseph Esposito

Tracing the Thesis:
“Religion, as structured in America, is unable to make a great impact on the racialized society. In fact, far from knocking down racial barriers, religion generally serves to maintain these historical divides, and helps to develop new ones…in short, religion in the United States can serve as a moral force in freeing people, but not in bringing them together as equals across racial lines. American religion is thus one embodiment of larger American contradictions. ”
But, how is this a real possibility? How is it that religion makes no difference in bringing persons together? Isn’t religion the one thing that might have the power base sufficient to challenge this arrangement? This is of course the burden of the rest of the work, to build the case that religion in America is so deeply affected by its situation in both historical racialization as well as unrestrained capitalism, that change is so very complex and difficult.
At the root of much of the initial resistance to take this issue seriously is that “because evangelicals view their primary task as evangelism and discipleship, they tend to avoid issues that [the perceive will] hinder these activities. Thus, they are not generally countercultural…this… unwittingly leads to granting power to larger economic and social forces. ” By understanding evangelism itself to be directed toward individuals rather than the structures, systems and persons, our witness is drastically constrained to the arena of the private .
By focusing on private “individuals only, then justice does not mean working against structures of inequality, but treating individuals as equals, regardless of actual economic and political facts. Equality is spiritually and individually based, not temporally and socially based” . Thus the reality that “the most segregated hour is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning” is seen as simply a result of choice of a private person, rather than a systemic issue that requires our attention. Largely because white evangelicals perceive the race problem as either benign or simply individuals treating individuals poorly, “the racialized system itself is not directly challenged. What is challenged is the treatment of individuals within the system. ” This of course renders the system unchanged. This type of thinking most readily arises out of the dominant individualist tradition “dating back to shortly after the sixteenth-century reformation ”. In most discussions, there is not then the ability to recognize that “poor relationships might be shaped by social structures, such as laws, the ways institutions operate, or forms of segregation ”.
Even after weeding through many of the less system wide realities of racialization, there remain two major structural arrangements—“racially homogenous in-groups” and the “segmented market”—that “not only generate congregational segregation by race, but contribute to the racial fragmentation of American society, generate and sustain group biases…and generally fragment and drown out religious prophetic voices calling for an end to racialization” . The former inherently lends itself toward sustaining and reproducing this racialization by making the problem invisible. Even our relative isolation as white, middle-class Americans, makes invisible the depth of the problem of race. Thus, “for most white evangelicals, it is obvious that prejudice and discrimination are minimal, and if others realized this, the race problem would essentially disappear ”. Thus, the in-groups themselves have never experienced life in those geographies which are so devastatingly affected by the movement of resources out of the urban centers. This leaves only those incapable of migrating away (because of means) from the desperate circumstances to shoulder the cost of the systemic realities.
Market segmentation produces a literal smorgasbord of choices for individual consumers to make. And given the choice, most will choose to associate with those whom they feel most comfortable with, in surroundings that affirm the music they like and theologies that affirm their current sitz im leben. As economic animals, fallen humanity will almost always choose to consume that product or service which will give them the most benefit for the least cost. Thus, “church growth specialists capitalize on this” using the homogenous units principle and “churches grow, and religious strength is increased…thereby consolidating racial division” . Indeed, “those who are successful in the world…in positions of power…rarely come to church to have their social and economic positions altered” . The net effect of this is that the prophetic voice is often diminished, not because it lacks merit, but because it would often lead to just another casualty of choice as the congregation either a) fires its “employee”, or if ‘a’ proves untenable, b) begin a mass exodus to somewhere more comfortable. Unfortunately, even the best intentioned efforts that produce the vigor necessary to challenge these systems, says Emerson, are undercut by their “heavy reliance on racially homogenous in-groups and the segmented market” .

Personal Reflection:
Let me begin by offering a critique—the work that was done here most certainly is descriptive and thus helpful in beginning to determine a new way of practicing our faith together. However, this text stops short of offering any real solutions to the very big problems that it outlines. It would have been more helpful to get a sense of what the authors may offer in order to begin to counteract the obvious issues explored here. One cannot help but be left with a feeling of relative hopelessness if one merely reads the text and has no ideas as to how to begin to challenge the system wholesale . Having said all of those things, I understand that the authors set out to describe the oppression that exists at the systemic level and not so much at the ‘individual’ level. This certainly makes any sort of remedy terribly complex, almost paralyzing anyone who wants to effect change. Thus, it is understandable to some extent that this text is mainly a ‘deconstruction’ of the dominant understandings of how race affects poverty and oppression. It then becomes our task to use this research and critique to ‘reconstruct’ an adequate response. Their critique provides the church with a gift—the ability to see that which often remains hidden in the shadows. This text will be an ongoing resource for me as I think more deeply about issues of social justice and what the church’s appropriate response must be to these realities.

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