Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T09:04:31.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Igniting Change: An Evangelical Megachurch’s Racial Justice Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2022

Hahrie Han Open the ORCID record for Hahrie Han [Opens in a new window]  and
Maneesh Arora Open the ORCID record for Maneesh Arora [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Congregations, with their size, breadth, and legacy of shaping political activism, have the potential to be important sites of action for addressing racial injustice in America. Yet historical legacies of racism and persistently high levels of racial animus have made white evangelical communities in particular resistant to addressing racism. Most efforts to address racism in these communities begin with prejudice reduction programs that often fail. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, we examine the effectiveness of a different kind of six-week racial justice program in one of the nation’s largest evangelical megachurches that focuses on animating action among people open to tackling racial injustice in their church. We find that program participation is associated with increased feelings of efficacy, amplified perceptions of community, a greater commitment to cross-racial perspective taking, and greater likelihood of engaging in meaningful action. We argue that the program works by focusing on cross-racial relationship building to equip a people pre-disposed to action to actually take action. Developing such leaders is potentially the first step in a program other congregations can take to tackle racial injustice.

Type
Special Issue Articles: Black Lives Matter
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 20 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Black Lives Matter , December 2022 , pp. 1260 - 1274
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

A list of permanent links to Supplemental Materials provided by the authors precedes the References section.

Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/9JVZD5

References

Arora, Maneesh, Phoenix, Davin L., and Delshad, Archie. 2019. “Framing Police and Protesters: Assessing Volume and Framing of News Coverage Post-Ferguson, and Corresponding Impacts on Legislative Activity.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 7(1): 151–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bandura, A. 1999. “Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 2(1): 21–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bethlehem, Jelke, and Biffignandi, Silvia. 2011. Handbook of Web Surveys. Vol. 567. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Beyerlein, Kraig, and Chaves, Mark. 2020. “The Political Mobilization of America’s Congregations.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 59(4): 663–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, Warren, and Thumma, Scott. 2020. “Megachurch 2020: The Changing Reality in America’s Largest Churches.” Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Indianapolis: Congregational Resource Guide. (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/2020_Megachurch_Report.pdf).Google Scholar
Brown, R. Khari, and Brown, Ronald E.. 2003. “Faith and Works: Church-Based Social Capital Resources and African American Political Activism.” Social Forces 82(2): 617–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calhoun-Brown, Allison. 2000 “Upon This Rock: The Black Church, Nonviolence, and the Civil Rights Movement.” PS: Political Science and Politics 33(2): 169–74.Google Scholar
Callegaro, Mario, and DiSogra, Charles. 2008. “Computing Response Metrics for Online Panels.” Public Opinion Quarterly 72(5): 1008–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaves, Mark, Anderson, Shawna, Eagle, Alison, Hawkins, Mary, Holleman, Anna, and Roso, Joseph. 2020. National Congregations Study. Cumulative Data File and Codebook. Duke University, Department of Sociology.Google Scholar
Dobbin, Frank, and Kalev, Alexandra. 2018. “Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia.” Anthropology Now 10(2): 48–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dougherty, Kevin D., Chaves, Mark, and Emerson, Michael O.. 2020. “Racial Diversity in US Congregations, 1998–2019.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 59(4): 651–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Korie L. 2008. The Elusive Dream: The Power of Race in Interracial Churches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finkel, Steven E. 1985. “Reciprocal Effects of Participation and Political Efficacy: A Panel Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 29(4): 891–913.Google Scholar
Fulton, Brad R., and Wood, Richard L.. 2017. “Achieving and Leveraging Diversity through Faith-Based Organizing.” In Religion and Progressive Activism: New Stories about Faith and Politics, Vol. 6, ed. Braunstein, Ruth, Fuist, Todd Nicholas, and Williams, Rhys H., 29–55. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Fulton, Brad R., Oyakawa, Michelle, and Wood, Richard L.. 2019. “Critical Standpoint: Leaders of Color Advancing Racial Equality in Predominantly White Organizations.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 30(2): 255–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ganz, Marshall. 2010. “Leading Change: Leadership, Organization, and Social Movements.” In Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, ed. Nohria, Nitin and Khurana, Rakesh, 509–550. Brighton, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Groves, R.M., and Peytcheva, E.. 2008. “The Impact of Nonresponse Rates on Nonresponse Bias.” Public Opinion Quarterly 72(2): 167−89. doi:10.1093/poq/nfn011 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Hahrie. 2009. Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Han, Hahrie. 2014. How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Hahrie, McKenna, Elizabeth, and Oyakawa, Michelle. 2021. Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Fredrick C. 1999. Something Within: Religion in African-American Political Activism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jasper, James M., and Duyvendak, Jan Willem, eds. 2015. Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Jack. 2020. American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Jones, Robert P. 2020. White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
LaFayette, Bernand. 2004. “The Role of Religion in the Civil Rights Movement.” Presented at the Faith and Progressive Policy: Proud Past, Promising Future Conference, Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, June 9. (https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/kf/rel_Bernard_Lafayette.pdf).Google Scholar
Larson, Ronald B. 2019. “Controlling Social Desirability Bias.” International Journal of Market Research 61(5): 534–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebron, Christopher J. 2017. The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Markofski, Wes. 2018. “The Other Evangelicals.” The Immanent Frame, January 11. Series on American Religion, Humility, and Democracy. (https://tif.ssrc.org/2018/01/11/the-other-evangelicals/).Google Scholar
Markofski, Wes. N.d. Good News for Common Goods: Multicultural Evangelicalism and Ethical Democracy in America. Oxford University Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Oyakawa, Michelle, McKenna, Elizabeth, and Han, Hahrie. 2021. “Habits of Courage: Reconceptualizing Risk in Social Movement Organizing.” Journal of Community Psychology 49(8): 3101–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paluck, Elizabeth Levy, Porat, Roni, Clark, Chelsey S., and Green, Donald P.. 2020. “Prejudice Reduction: Progress and Challenges.” Annual Review of Psychology 72(1): 533–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rindfuss, Ronald R., Choe, Minja K., Tsuya, Noriko O., Bumpass, Larry L., and Tamaki, Emi. 2015. “Do Low Survey Response Rates Bias Results? Evidence from Japan” Demographic Research 32(1): 797–828.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuman, Howard, Steeh, Charlotte, and Bobo, Lawrence. 1997. Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sears, David O. 1993. “Symbolic Politics: A Socio-Psychological Theory.” In Explorations in Political Psychology, ed. Iyengar, S. and McGuire, W. J., 113–149. Duke Studies in Political Psychology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Shih, Tse-Hua, and Fan, Xitao. 2007. “Response Rates and Mode Preferences in Web-Mail Mixed- Mode Surveys: A Meta-Analysis.” International Journal of Internet Science 2(1): 59– 82.Google Scholar
Shih, Margaret, Wang, Elsie, Bucher, Amy Trahan, and Stotzer, Rebecca. 2009. “Perspective Taking: Reducing Prejudice towards General Outgroups and Specific Individuals.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 12(5): 565–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, Marshica, Roycroft, Jessica, Amaya, Ashley, Dever, Jill A., and Srivastav, Anup. 2020. “The Effectiveness of Incentives on Completion Rates, Data Quality, and Nonresponse Bias in a Probability-based Internet Panel Survey.” Field Methods 32(2): 159–79.Google Scholar
Steensland, Brian, and Goff, Philip. 2014. The New Evangelical Social Engagement. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Teeny, J.D., Siev, J.J., Briñol, P., and Petty, R.E.. 2021. “A Review and Conceptual Framework for Understanding Personalized Matching Effects in Persuasion.” Journal of Consumer Psychology 31(2): 382–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tesler, Michael. 2015. “Priming Predispositions and Changing Policy Positions: An Account of When Mass Opinion Is Primed or Changed.” American Journal of Political Science 59(4): 806–24.Google Scholar
Tisby, Jemar. 2019. The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism. New York: Zondervan.Google Scholar
Todd, Andrew R., Bodenhausen, Galen V., Richeson, Jennifer A., and Galinsky, Adam D.. 2011. “Perspective Taking Combats Automatic Expressions of Racial Bias.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100(6): 1027–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Brady, Henry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, Mark R. 2010. Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Andrew L., and Perry, Samuel L.. 2020. Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilmore, Gayraud S. 1983. “Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People.” 3rd ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.Google Scholar
Wilson, E.J., and Sherrell, D.L.. 1993. “Source Effects in Communication and Persuasion Research: A Meta-Analysis of Effect Size.” JAMS 21(2): 101–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Richard L., and Fulton, Brad R.. 2015. A Shared Future: Faith-Based Organizing for Racial Equity and Ethical Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Richard L., Fulton, Brad R., and Partridge, Kathryn. 2012. Building Bridges, Building Power: Developments in institution-Based Community Organizing. Denver: Interfaith Funders.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Han and Arora Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/9JVZD5
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Han and Arora supplementary material

Han and Arora supplementary material

Download Han and Arora supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 1.4 MB