The Religion of Whiteness

these phrases raise more negative emotion for white practicing Christians than for other groups. White practicing Christians express, on average per person, a half a negative emotion more than other groups.4

Angry Sad Afraid Guilty Powerless Exhausted Anxious Judged Encouraged Empowered Hopeful Joyful The first line contains negative emotions, and the second line contains positive emotions. Additionally, respondents could select “indifferent” or “other.” If they selected “other,” we asked them to write their feelings out.

it really is one’s religion that matters, even when we account for other factors.8

When asked whether racial minorities use racism as an excuse for economic inequalities, white Christians stand alone. Robert Jones, founding Director of the Public Religion Research Institute, reports that among the white Christian clans of evangelicalism, mainline Protestantism, and Catholicism, more than 70 percent of each group agree that racial

They exhibited what we referred to as an epistemology of ignorance, an actual concerted effort to not know.

The decline among white practicing Christians was found across age groups—white Boomers declined, white Gen Xers declined, and even white Millennials declined. The white Millennial decline is especially notable in that a majority believed America had a race problem in 2019, but only a minority said the same in 2020.

Fifth, ROWers believe in White Christian Nationalism. White Christian Nationalism is a political ideology and a cultural framework that idealizes and advocates a fusion of symbols of Christianity with American civic life, including nativism, white supremacy, divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism, and allegiance to a national—read

ROWers believe, fourth, in the centering of white understandings, white theology, white values, and white actions.

three cultural tools that white evangelical Christians use to interpret their world. Those cultural tools are (1) accountable free-will individualism (individuals are the only true reality in a society, each individual has choice, and will be held accountable—they shall reap what they sow—for those choices); (2) relationalism (all of life happens w