Blacks and Whites in Christian America: How Racial Discrimination Shapes Religious Convictions

2012 Winner of the C. Calvin Smith Award presented by the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

2014 Honorable Mention for the Distinguished Book Award presented by the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Section

Conventional wisdom holds that Christians, as members of a
"universal" religion, all believe more or less the same things
when it comes to their faith. Yet black and white Christians
differ in significant ways, from their frequency of praying or
attending services to whether they regularly read the Bible or
believe in Heaven or Hell.

In this engaging and accessible sociological study of white
and black Christian beliefs, Jason E. Shelton and Michael O.
Emerson push beyond establishing that there are racial differences
in belief and practice among members of American
Protestantism to explore why those differences exist. Drawing
on the most comprehensive and systematic empirical
analysis of African American religious actions and beliefs
to date, they delineate five building blocks of black Protestant
faith which have emerged from the particular dynamics
of American race relations. Shelton and Emerson find that
America's history of racial oppression has had a deep and
fundamental effect on the religious beliefs and practices of
blacks and whites across America.

Author: Jason E. Shelton, Michael Oluf Emerson
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 10/08/2012
Pages: 290
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780814722763

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2013

About the Author
Shelton, Jason E.: - Jason E. Shelton is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Shelton's articles have appeared in Social Science Quarterly, Du Bois Review, Sociological Perspectives, Journal of African American Studies, and other respected publications.Emerson, Michael Oluf: - Michael Oluf Emerson is Provost and Professor of Urban Studies at North Park University in Chicago, and a Kinder Fellow at Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research. He has authored or co-authored fifteen books, including Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, Transcending Racial Barriers, and Against All Odds: The Struggle for Racial Integration in Religious Organizations (NYU Press, 2005).