Conservative Protestants and Views on Racial Inequality
Stephen M. Merino
Pennsylvania State University
smm530@psu.edu
(814) 867-1428
211 Oswald Tower
University Park, PA 16802
Marylee C. Taylor
Pennsylvania State University
taylor@pop.psu.edu
(814) 865-1411
211 Oswald Tower
University Park, PA 16802
Influential recent research suggests that white evangelical Protestants are
disproportionately likely to reject structural explanations and favor individual
explanations for racial inequality. This religious group is said to possess a cultural "tool
kit" that emphasizes the importance of individual accountability and personal
relationships, leading to anti-structural views of social problems, including racial
inequality. We employ two different measures of conservative Protestantism found in
previous research. One measure classifies respondents as conservative Protestant based
on their denominational preference and produces a rather large group. The other uses
measures of religious self-identification and beliefs and produces a much smaller group.
Using recent General Social Survey (GSS) data, we find that, net of appropriate controls,
the larger group differs little from mainline Protestants and Catholics on several racerelated attitudes. The smaller group has more distinctive race-related attitudes and differs
significantly from other Protestants and Catholics in their explanations of racial
inequality and in their policy views. We report that more highly educated conservative
Protestants are more likely than those with less education to oppose government spending
on blacks. Finally, we find that the major divide in race-related attitudes is between
Christians and non-Christians.
Racial conservatism among white conservative Protestants, often a presumption in
public discourse, has also been claimed by influential scholars of religion. The writings
of Michael Emerson and his colleagues are central. Using data from the 1996 General
Social Survey (GSS) and their own survey, these researchers reported that white
conservative Protestants are distinctive in their preferred explanations for racial
inequality (Emerson et al. 1999, Emerson and Smith, 2000). Compared to other white
Americans, conservative Protestants are more likely to attribute black/white inequality to
characteristics of African American individuals, in particular to low motivation and
effort, and less likely to acknowledge such structural bases of racial inequality as
discrimination and poor schools. In adhering to these attributions, conservative
Protestants are said not to differ in kind from other white Americans, who share much of
the same perspective -- the difference is one of degree (Emerson et al. 1999).
Emerson and his colleagues discount background characteristics of conservative
Protestants as reason for their perspective on racial inequality, concurring with Greeley
and Hout’s (2006) contention that conservative Protestants are a demographically
heterogeneous group. Nor do Emerson and his colleagues point to race prejudice as the
root of the conservative Protestant pattern. “Moral entrepreneurs,” claimed by some to
be responsible for other social and political positions of conservative Protestants1, rarely
speak explicitly about causes of racial inequality; thus the patterns observed within this
religious category aren’t plausibly the product of elite opinion leaders (Emerson et al.,
1999; Note 1).
Rather, Emerson and his colleagues understand the perspective of conservative
Protestants as an “independent” effect of religion, a reflection of the cultural “toolkit”
1
Felson and Kindell (2007) emphasize this dynamic as they explain their finding that the
positive correlations of religious conservatism and political conservatism holds only for
the highly educated, who, they suggest, may be more attentive to the elite opinion
leaders.
(Swidler 1986) provided by their theology itself. Conservative Protestants are said to
hold fast to three convictions: “accountable freewill individualism,” “relationism,” and
“anti-structuralism.” Theological understandings portray individuals as responsible for
their own behavior and fate; the importance of a ”personal relationship with Christ” for
salvation is translated into emphasis on the potential positive or negative impact of
interpersonal relationships; and claims that macro-level structural dynamics shape human
outcomes are deemed incompatible with accountable individualism.
Emerson et al. (1999) find that “strong” conservative Protestants are especially
individualistic and anti-structuralist in their attributions for racial inequality. Members of
this group report more enlightened attitudes if they have a history of interracial contact
(Emerson and Smith 2000). But conservative Protestants are in fact disproportionately
residentially segregated, and their outreach/charity is focused on their own members
rather than outsiders (see Blanchard 2007). This isolation may intensify their beliefs
about causes of racial inequality.
The practical importance claimed for this pattern is that conservative Protestants’
attributions for racial inequality shape their positions on public policy. Conservative
Protestants’ adherence to individualistic explanations and rejection of structuralist
explanations predictably lead them to oppose ameliorative government programs and
policies, potentially tipping the political balance against efforts to address racial inequity
(Emerson et al. 1999:398). Structural solutions represented by government programs and
policies tend to be seen not just as useless, but as counterproductive (Emerson et al.
1999:414). Support comes from findings reported in Emerson and Smith (2000) that
conservative Protestants look to friendships and integrated congregations rather than
attempts to prevent and remedy job discrimination and neighborhood segregation as
means to improve the position of blacks. The perspective typical of conservative
Protestants may be even more difficult to change than attitudes rooted in defense of
material privilege, being a “defense… of identity, culture, and worldview” (Emerson et
al. 1999:414.)
Though prominent, the perspective of Emerson and his colleagues has not been
universally shared among social science researchers. Hinojosa and Park (2004) took
another look at the 1996 General Social Survey attributions for racial inequality, using
Steensland’s (2000) classification of religious affiliations as the central predictor, and
found that conservative Protestants were not consistently different from the unaffiliated.
However, Hinojosa and Park included black respondents in their analyses without
looking for interaction between race and religion. This and their control for political
conservatism keep their findings from directly countering the conclusions of Emerson
and his colleagues. Hinojosa and Park end by examining respondents race differences in
attributions within the several Christian religious categories.
An intricate and provocative article by Edgell and Tranby (2007) makes a set of
useful distinctions that enriches the discussion of conservative Protestantism and racial
attitudes and might be taken as a challenge to the conclusions of Emerson and his
colleagues. Edgell and Tranby differentiate religious affiliation from religious orthodoxy
and religious involvement, suggesting that any or all might affect attributions for racial
inequality and other racial attitudes. A useful catalog of reasons to expect religious
involvement to breed racial conservatism is provided: joiners show through their
behavior their faith in mainstream institutions; churches are heavily segregated; and
mainstream white churches propound individualistic analyses of racial inequality. Also
important is Edgell and Tranby’s (2007) call to look for gender and education to
moderate any effects of conservative Protestantism on racial attitudes.
Using data collected for the American MOSAIC Project (Edgell et al. 2003), these
researchers conclude that both gender and education moderate the impact of religion on
attributions for racial inequality. The most straightforward religion effects they report are
for other racial opinion measures – support for public and private giving to aid blacks.
However, at least two factors complicate any application of their findings to the claims
made by Emerson and his associates. First, religious involvement and orthodoxy are
included along with religious affiliation as predictors in their multivariate analyses.
Correlations among these dimensions of religion must be taken into account in
interpreting the partial effects of each. Second, in their search for religious affiliation
effects, they compare conservative Protestants and Catholics, groups in which they had
special interest, to a conglomerate including all other religious categories, from
mainstream Protestants to non-affiliates. Without information on the possibly quite
varied positions of the various religious categories collapsed into Edgell and Tranby’s
reference category, differences between conservative Protestants and the conglomerate
reference category are difficult to interpret.2
Further exploration of the MOSAIC data is reported in Tranby and Hartmann’s
(2008) paper, along with provocative and important arguments that racial attitudes of
white conservative Protestants (along with other whites) are more extensively implicated
in attributions for racial inequality than Emerson and his colleagues acknowledge.
However, the comparison Tranby and Hartmann report is between white conservative
Protestants and all others in their sample – white members of all other religious
categories and racial minorities whatever their religious affiliation. Results of this
comparison are very difficult to interpret.
The Present Project
2
Like Hinojosa and Park (2004), Edgell and Tranby (2007) underline the different
meanings of conservative Protestantism for blacks and whites. This observation might be
taken as a challenge to the perspective of Emerson and his colleagues: If a subcultural
“toolkit” defined by the theology of conservative Protestant churches drives the
individualistic and anti-structuralist ideas of white conservatives, why not blacks as well?
However, Emerson et al. acknowledge that implications of the toolkit may be conditioned
by structural location, most centrally race (1999:Note 2).
This research takes off from the literature reviewed above, examining attributions
for racial inequality, other racial attitudes, and racial policy positions among white
conservative Protestants, using more recent data and multiple definitions of conservative
Protestantism. Importantly, our analysis calls attention to the nature of the comparisons
being made. If conservative Protestants are indeed “more racially conservative,” we need
to answer the important question: “more conservative than whom?”
METHODOLOGY
General Social Survey Samples
The General Social Survey is administered biannually to stratified, multi-stage
samples of non-institutionalized English-speaking Americans over the age of 17 by the
National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. The sampling
technique is designed to identify a nationally representative sample of households. For
the 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 samples employed in this project, the GSS
Cumulative Codebook reports response rates of 76%, 76%, 70%, 70%, 70% and 72%
respectively.
For the 1996-2000 samples central to our analyses, the non-Hispanic whites who
provided responses number 6,153. Across the 2002-2006 surveys used for selected
confirmatory analyses, non-Hispanic whites number 6,784. NORC administration of
selected questions to random sub-samples of respondents, inclusion of some measures in
only one or two survey years, item-specific refusals, and a handful of other exclusions
left smaller samples for any given analysis; Ns are reported in table notes.
Focal Predictors: Religious Affiliation/Identity
Emerson et al. (1999: Note 6) argue that the patterns they report are robust, true
whether conservative Protestantism is defined by religious denomination or by the selfidentity and belief measure they employ. However, the findings of Alwin et al. (2006)
should discourage sanguine assumptions that alternate measures of conservative
Protestantism are interchangeable. In 1996-2000 GSS data, Alwin et al. demonstrate that
denomination-based assignment and self-identification of conservative Protestants are
imperfectly related to each other and have differing relationships with religious beliefs.
Variation in the measures of conservative Protestantism used in the research described
above may account for some of the conflicts in reported findings. Accordingly, two
alternate measures of conservative Protestantism are used in our central analyses.
An elaborate “RELTRAD” classification scheme developed by Steensland et al.
(2000) assigns individuals to one of seven categories based on their denominational
preference: “Evangelical Protestant,” “Mainline Protestant,” “Black Protestant,”
“Catholic,” “Jewish,” “Other Faith,” or “None.” A similar system was developed by
Greeley and Hout (2006), who separate out black churches, as do Steensland et al.,
otherwise using the GSS RELIG variable in conjunction with Smith’s (1990) designation
of Protestant denominations as “fundamentalist” rather than moderate or liberal
(represented in the GSS variable FUND).3 Of the 1686 white 1996-2000 GSS
respondents assigned to the conservative Protestant category by Greeley and Hout, some
1605 fall into Steensland et al.’s RELTRAD conservative Protestant group. We will refer
to the RELTRAD evangelical Protestants as conservative Protestants throughout the
current study. To mirror its use in earlier research, we used the Steensland et al.
RELTRAD breakdown of religious affiliations in central analyses reported here, making
one minor adjustment: Our focus on non-Hispanic whites led us to exclude the Black
Protestant group from analysis.4 We did also conduct confirmatory analyses using the
substantially overlapping the category system of Greeley and Hout; results are available
from the authors.
3
Their other, minor adjustments area detailed in Greeley and Hout 2006:6-7.
The very small number of non-Hispanic whites naming a Black Protestant church as their religious
affiliation did not allow reliable examination.
4
Our second central measure of conservative Protestantism models that of Emerson
et al. (1999), reflecting self-identification and religious beliefs. Emerson and his
colleagues, using 1996 GSS data, defined conservative Protestants to be those identifying
themselves as fundamentalist or evangelical rather than mainline, liberal, none, or other,
as well as reporting that they believe in an afterlife and take the Bible as either the literal
or inspired word of God. The self-identification item (RELIGID) used by Emerson et al.
was available in the 1998 GSS as well, and a nearly identical self-identification item
(RELID1) appeared in the 2000 GSS, different only by the addition of a “Pentecostal”
alternative. Using the 1996-2000 data, we kept the full set of non-Protestant categories of
the RELTRAD scheme developed by Steensland et al. (2000), but divided conservative
from other Protestants using the criteria put forth in Emerson et al. (1999): Conservative
Protestants self-identified as fundamentalist or evangelical (or in the 2000 survey
Pentecostal), as well as believing in an afterlife (based on GSS variable POSTLIFE) and
taking the Bible as either the literal or inspired word of God (from GSS variable BIBLE);
Protestants not meeting these criteria are represented in an “Other Protestant” category.
Dependent Variables
Anti-structuralist and individualistic attributions for racial inequality, the focus of
Emerson and his colleagues, are represented with the three items used by these
researchers, asking whether or not discrimination, poor schools, and lack of motivation or
effort are important in explaining racial inequality (GSS variables RACDIF1, RACDIF3,
and RACDIF4). Respondents were asked about these possibilities separately, providing
three sets of dichotomous responses.5 For efficiency, we collapsed the discrimination and
This GSS battery includes a fourth question, asking whether “in-born ability to learn” is an important
explanation for racial inequality. However, the portrayal of conservative Protestant belief offered by
Emerson et al. (1999) doesn’t encompass this type of individualist attribution, and we follow the earlier
research in letting the effort/motivation question stand alone to represent individualistic attribution.
5
poor schools questions into an Anti-Structuralist scale. Answers to the lack of
effort/motivation question served as the Individualistic measure. With our coding
reversal of the individualistic attribution item, high values on these measures represent
the pattern Emerson and his colleagues describe as typical for conservative Protestants -denial of structural causes and affirmation of individual causes of racial inequality. The
Anti-structuralist and Individualistic attribution measures correlate with each other at the
level of .23.
Four other dimensions of racial attitudes were examined as well – stereotyping,
social distance, racial resentment, and affective orientation. The Stereotyping scale is the
mean of the differences in the placement of whites in general and blacks on dimensions
representing intelligence, industriousness, and propensity to violence (GSS variables
INTLBLKS, INTLWHTS, WORKBLKS, WORKWHTS, VIOLBLKS, VIOLWHTS).
Social Distance registers respondents’ reactions to the idea of living near blacks or
having them marry into the family (GSS variables LIVEBLK, MARBLKS).
Racial Resentment is a scale built from a question asking whether blacks should work
their way up like earlier immigrants purportedly did, and whether blacks are pushing too
hard (GSS variables WRKWAYUP and RACPUSH). The measures of Affect combines
respondents’ expressions of warmth and closeness to blacks and whites (GSS variables
FEELBLKS, FEELWHTS, CLOSEBLK, CLOSEWHT).
Importantly, three racial policy measures were examined – opposition to
Affirmative Action, denial of government obligation to Help Blacks, and calls for
decreased National Spending on Blacks (GSS variables AFFRMACT, HELPBLK, and
NATRACE/NATRACEY – split ballot question wording variants combined for these
analyses).
And for comparison, three poverty policy measures were analyzed – denial of
government obligation to Help the Poor, calls for decreased National Spending on
Welfare, and calls for decreased National Spending on the Poor.
Controls
Two control variables are particularly important because of their non-trivial
relationship to religious affiliation: Education, measured as years of schooling, and
region, labeled South because Southern localities were coded 1, other localities 0. Other
controls include Age in years; gender, labeled Male to indicate coding of males as 1,
females as 0; Family Income (standardized on the income distribution for the
respondent’s survey year); Marital Status (married or not); Metropolitan (a dichotomy
based on the GSS variable “XNORCSIZ” designation of respondents’ residence as lying
inside or outside a metro area); Size (GSS-reported population of the place where the
respondent lived); Pop Occ (prestige of father’s occupation when the respondents was
growing up, ranging in these data from 17 to 86); and South16, regional location of
respondent’s residence at age 16. Finally, dummy variables were included to indicate
year of the survey, 1996 serving as the reference category.
Overview of Analyses
Because self-identification as an evangelical, fundamentalist, or Pentecostal
Protestant was represented only in the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys, analyses using
Emerson’s self-identification and religious belief criteria for conservative Protestantism
could only be conducted for these survey years. Detailed results reported here from
analyses using Steensland et al.’s RELTRAD scheme were also based on the three 19962000 surveys, so that the two operationalizations can be compared without being
confounded with period. However, we also performed analyses using RELTRAD for the
three more recent 2002, 2004, and 2006 General Social Surveys and summarize observed
patterns in the text.
OLS regression is used here, with one exception: The dichotomous single item
representing individualistic attribution for racial inequality to effort or motivation
requires logistic regression.
For all dependent variables, the strategy for our analyses was the same: The
outcome measure was regressed first on the set of dummy variables representing religious
affiliation/self-description, then on this set of dummy variables and the controls.
Following up on the findings of Edgell and Tranby (2007), we also examined the
attribution data for evidence that religious affiliation effects are moderated by region,
education, or gender.
Results
Preliminary observations.
Before evaluating the impact of conservative Protestantism on racial beliefs and
attitudes, it is fitting to ask about the nature of people defined as conservative Protestants
by the Steensland et al. RELTRAD scheme and by the self-identification and religious
belief criteria used by Emerson et al.
The RELTRAD scheme yields a conservative Protestant group that is a
substantial segment of white GSS respondents represented in our central analyses – some
29.9%. In contrast, the self-identification/religious belief criteria used by Emerson et al.
yield a very much smaller conservative Protestant group, some 7.6% of the total.6
Compared to the self-identified conservative Protestants spotlighted by Emerson
and his colleagues, the RELTRAD conservative Protestants are more acutely
distinguished from other white Americans by their lower levels of education and their
disproportionate location in the South. RELTRAD white conservative Protestants
6
The Emerson et al. conservative Protestants are largely drawn from the RELTRAD conservative
Protestant category, but not entirely so: Nearly one-fourth (23%) of the small conservative Protestant group
identified by the Emerson et al. self-identification and religious belief criteria belong to denominations
classified as “mainline” in the Steensland et al. RELTRAD scheme, primarily United Methodist or
Lutheran.
average 12.77 years of schooling, whereas the mean years of schooling for self-identified
white conservative Protestants is 13.48, and for whites in neither of these categories
13.82. Some 51% of the RELTRAD white conservative Protestants live in the South,
compared to 42% of self-identified white conservative Protestants and 26% of other
whites.
On the other hand, it is the small group of self-identified white conservative
Protestants who are politically distinctive. Some 58% of self-identified conservative
Protestants but only 42% of RELTRAD conservative Protestants and 43% of other whites
say they are fairly or very interested in politics. The self-identified conservative
Protestants report higher political efficacy than the other two groups, although they do
not report exceptional inclination to engage in extra-institutional politics such as protest
meetings or marches. Rather, their institutional political behavior and inclinations set
them apart. Self-identified conservative Protestants are most likely to say they voted in
the last Presidential election (82% of this group, compared to 71% of RELTRAD
conservative Protestants and 74% of other whites), and the self-identified conservative
Protestants are a good deal more likely to claim Republican political affiliation (56% of
this group, as opposed to 44% of RELTRAD Protestants and 29% of other whites).
Denominationally-defined conservative Protestants.
We begin with analyses of the 1996-2000 GSS data using the RELTRAD
categories based on denominational affiliation, as outlined by Steensland et al.
Attributions for racial inequality. Findings from regression analyses of the
Anti-Structuralist and Individualistic measures central to this study are reported in Tables
1 and 2. Table 1 reports OLS results when the Anti-Structuralist scale was regressed on
religious affiliation before controls (Model 1) and with the full set of controls (Model 2).
As noted earlier, conservative Protestantism is the reference category, so regression
coefficients indicate the difference between each other group and conservative
Protestants, high scores reflecting anti-structuralist views. Model 1 findings show that
before background characteristics of respondents are taken into account, conservative
Protestants are significantly different from all other religious groups. As a group,
conservative Protestants are more likely than any other category, including mainline
Protestants and Catholics, to deny that the structural explanations of discrimination and
poor schools are responsible for racial inequality.
However, Model 2 results indicate that the differences between conservative
Protestants and the other two Christian groups are attributable to differences in
background characteristics. Especially, conservative Protestants have somewhat less
education and are considerably more likely to live in the South than other religious
categories. When these and other background differences are controlled, the significant
gap disappears between conservative Protestants and the other Christian groups, mainline
Protestants and Catholics.7 Not only are these gaps non-significant; they are
exceptionally small. On the Anti-Structuralist scale, conservative Protestants are .02 of a
standard deviation less likely to hold structuralist attributions than mainline Protestants
and are virtually identical to Catholics. It is those of other faiths and the non-affiliated
who are significantly more likely than conservative Protestants to acknowledge structural
causes of racial inequality.8
Table 2 reports logistic regression results when the Individualistic attribution
measure, pointing to effort and motivation as causes of racial inequality, was regressed
on the RELTRAD categories and controls. Results are parallel to those for the AntiStructuralist scale. The bank of significant negative coefficients for Model 1, with no
7
In fact, with controls just for education and Southern residence, the significant differences between
Conservative Protestants and the other two Christian groups disappear.
8
The pattern of non-significant differences between conservative Protestantss and the other Christian
groups holds when conservative Protestantism is defined as suggested in Greeley and Hout (2006).
controls, shows conservative Protestants to be more likely than any other religious
category to claim the individualist view. However, after controls are introduced, the
difference between conservative Protestants and the other two Christian categories are
modest and non-significant. It is Jewish respondents, those of other faiths, and the nonaffiliated who are significantly different from conservative Protestants. For example, the
odds that conservative Protestants will affirm effort and motivation as causes of
inequality are only 1.06 those of mainline Protestants, but they are 1.74 those of the nonaffiliates.
Our core analyses included region, gender, and education as controls, but we also
asked whether these variables moderate the relationship between religious affiliation and
explanations for racial inequality, as suggested by Edgell and Tranby (2007). In these
data, the dearth of significant net differences between conservative Protestants and the
other Christian groups held for both males and females, and for those with just twelve
years of education as well as those with more. Also, this pattern was as true in the South
as outside the South.
The pronounced differences seen in Tables 1 and 2, even for Model 2 with full
controls, are between the Christian and non-Christian groups. When religious affiliation
is dichotomized into Christian and non-Christian categories, Christians as a group are
significantly less likely (p<.001) to affirm structural explanations; the magnitude of this
effect is .29 of a standard deviation. And Christians are more likely (p<.001) to affirm
individualist explanation than non-Christians; with an odds ratio of 1.51.9
Racial attitudes. What about racial attitudes more generally? Is there evidence
that conservative Protestants are more racially prejudiced than other groups? Table 3
presents results when conservative Protestants were compared with other religious
9
The patterns reported here are evident as well in data from the more recent General Social Surveys of
2002, 2004, and 2006 (results available from the authors).
categories on four racial attitude dimensions -- stereotyping, social distance, racial
resentment, and affect toward blacks. As with attributions for racial inequality, the big
differences are between conservative Protestants and the non-Christian groups. Across
the four dimensions of racial attitudes, conservative Protestants are never significantly
different from Catholics. Only in their “racial resentment” are conservative Protestants
more negative (p = .013) than mainline Protestants. And conservative Protestants report
significantly more positive affect toward blacks than do mainline Protestants (p = .019).
Race and poverty policy opinions. How do conservative Protestants compare
with the other RELTRAD groups in their support for policy intervention to benefit
blacks? Table 4 shows some indication of the racial conservatism Emerson et al. (1999)
discuss. Conservative Protestants are no less supportive of affirmative action in
employment than other white Christian groups. (Those of other faiths and non-affiliates
are significantly more supportive.) However, conservative Protestants are significantly
more likely than mainline Protestants, as well as those of other faiths and non-affiliates,
to deny government responsibility to help blacks. Finally, when asked their opinion
about spending levels for “improving the conditions of blacks” or for “assistance to
blacks,” conservative Protestants are significantly less enthusiastic about spending than
any of the other religious categories. Though the non-Christian groups are most
different, all five other religious categories are significantly more positive about national
spending for black Americans than are conservative Protestants.
Following Edgell and Transby’s (2007) suggestion, and in line with Felson and
Kindell (2007), we asked whether education moderates the impact of religion on policy
opinions. Is it the highly educated conservative Protestants who are particularly attuned
to the messages of religious opinion leaders and who are thus more likely to oppose
policies to help blacks? Yes, it is. Among those with twelve years of education or less,
conservative Protestants were statistically indistinguishable from any other RELTRAD
category in their opinions on all three policy measures. However, among those with
more than twelve years of schooling, conservative Protestants are significantly different
from all five other groups in their opinions that government is not obliged to help blacks
and that less should be spent in this area.
Importantly, the policy conservatism of conservative Protestants extends beyond
racial policy to poverty policy. As shown in Table 5, conservative Protestants are
significantly less likely than Catholics, Jews, and the non-affiliated to say that the
government has an obligation to help the poor; they are less supportive of spending on
“welfare” than Catholics, Jews, and the non-affiliates; and they are less supportive than
mainline Protestants of spending to assist the poor. In fact, on differences between
perceived government obligation to help blacks and the poor, and between spending to
assist blacks and the poor, conservative Protestants are significantly different from other
RELTRAD categories for only one of the ten comparisons (results available from the
authors).
Self-identified conservative Protestants.
We now assess the distinctiveness of race-related views held by the 7.6% of
whites who claim some variety of conservative Protestant identity and meet the criteria
set by Emerson et al. (1999) for beliefs about the Bible and an afterlife.
Attributions for racial inequality. Tables 6 and 7 report results from regression
analyses of the Anti-Structuralist and Individualistic measures. The OLS results for the
Anti-Structuralist scale shows that even after the full set of controls was introduced
(Model 2), conservative Protestants are significantly more anti-structuralist than other
Protestants. Conservative Protestants are more likely than Catholics to affirm the
individualistic attribution, pointing to low effort and motivation. However, as for the
RELTRAD measure, the differences between conservative Protestants and the other
Christian sub-groups are indeed small in comparison to differences between Christians
and the three non-Christian groups.
Racial attitudes. As Table 8 reveals, self-identified conservative Protestants are
not significantly different from either of the two other Christian groups on any of the four
racial attitudes.
Racial and poverty policy opinions. As Table 9 reveals, the gaps between selfidentified conservative Protestants and other religious categories are larger than the gaps
for RELTRAD conservative Protestants on all three race policy issues, although the count
of significant effects is not very different. In terms of poverty policy, represented in
Table 10, the noteworthy observation is that RELTRAD conservative Protestants are
much less likely than other Protestants or Catholics to think that the government has an
obligation to help the poor. Compared to mainline Protestants and Catholics, conservative
Protestants are more opposed to spending on the poor than to spending on blacks.
Discussion
In this study, we employ two different classification schemes to identify
conservative Protestants. One categorizes respondents as conservative Protestant based
on their stated denominational preference (Steensland et al. 2001) and the other uses a
self-identification measure and beliefs about the Bible and an afterlife (Emerson et al.
1999). We have compared conservative Protestants’ race-related attitudes to those of
respondents in several other religious categories, including other Protestants and
Catholics. Previous research has used both different measures of conservative
Protestantism and different comparison groups to evaluate the relationship between
conservative Protestantism and race-related attitudes. Our methodology allows us avoid
these pitfalls and get a more accurate picture of conservative Protestants’
The large group of RELTRAD conservative Protestants does not hold attributions
for racial inequality that distinguish them from mainline Protestants and Catholics. This
finding seems to argue against the notion that conservative Protestants’ cultural ‘toolkit,’
rooted in evangelical theology, leads them to have particularly individualistic
explanations of racial inequality. On the other hand, these conservative Protestants are
generally more opposed than other whites, including other Christians, to government
spending to aid blacks. This is especially the case among more highly educated
conservative Protestants. Edgell and Tranby (2007) suggest two possible explanations.
First, conservative Protestants may view their educational success as the result of their
own hard work, which may reinforce evangelical individualism. Second, among highly
educated conservative Protestants, religious conservatism may cohere with a broader
overall social and conservatism, of which racial issues are a part. Felson and Kindell
(2007) favor the latter explanation in their study of the link between conservative
Protestantism and conservative economics. The authors argue that more highly educated
conservative Protestants are more tuned in to elite opinion and are more likely than other
Protestants to accept conservative ideology across the board.
The smaller group of self-identified conservative Protestants does significantly
differ from other Christian groups in their attributions of racial inequality. In addition,
they differ from other whites in their policy views even more than RELTRAD
conservative Protestants do. Emerson et al. (1999) argue that understanding the racial
attitudes of white conservative Protestants has implications for addressing racial
inequality since public opposition or indifference to government policies can prevent
effective action. While the group of self-identifying conservative Protestants considered
in their study make up only a small percentage (7.6%) of white Americans, their higher
levels of political involvement suggests that they may wield influence disproportionate to
their size.
Whichever definition of conservative Protestant is used, the real divide seen
throughout is between the Christian groups and the others – Jews, those of other faiths,
and the non-affiliates. Consistently, Christians as a group are more likely than others to
hold anti-structural, individualistic views of racial inequality, to be more racially
prejudiced, and to oppose government action on addressing racial inequality. Future
research should address the notable gap between Christians and non-Christians in racial
attitudes.
References
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“Measuring religious identities in surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly 70:530564.
Blanchard, Troy C. 2007. “Conservative Protestant congregations and racial residential
segregation: Evaluating the closed community thesis in metropolitan and
nonmetropolitan counties.” American Sociological Review 72:416-433.
Davis, Nancy J. and Robert V. Robinson. 1996. “Are the rumors of war exaggerated?
Religious orthodoxy and moral progressivism in America.” American Journal of
Sociology 102:756-788.
Edgell, Penn, Joe Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann. 2003. American Mosaic Project
(AMS) [MRDF] Madison, WI: UWSC [producer].
Edgell, Penny and Eric Tranby. 2007. “Religious influences on understandings of racial
inequality in the United States.” Social Problems 54:263-288.
Emerson, Michael O., Christian Smith, and David Sikkink. 1999. “Equal in Christ, but
not in the world: White conservative Protestants and explanations of black-white
inequality.” Social Problems 46:398-417.
Emerson, Michael O. and Christian Smith. 2000. Divided by Faith: Evangelical
Religion and the Problem of Race in America. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Felson, Jacob and Heather Kindell. 2007. “The elusive link between conservative
Protestantism and conservative economics.” Social Science Research 36:673687.
Greeley, Andrew and Michael Hout. 2006. The Truth About Conservative Christians:
What They Think and What They Believe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hinojosa, Victor J. and Jerry Z. Park. 2004. “Religion and the paradox of racial
inequality attitudes.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43: 229-238.
Smith, Tom W. 1990. “Classifying Protestant denominations.” Review of Religious
Research 31:225-245.
Steensland, Brian, Jerry Z. Park, Mark D. Regnerus, Lynn D. Robinson, W. Bradford
Wilcox, and Robert D. Woodberry. 2000. “The measure of American religion:
Toward improving the state of the art.” Social Forces 79:291-318.
Swidler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in action: Symbols and strategies. American Sociological
Review 51:273-286.
Tranby, Eric and Douglas Hartmann. 2008. “Critical whiteness theories and the
evangelical “race problem”: Extending Emerson and Smith’s Divided by
Faith.”Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47: 341-359.
Table 1. Religious Affiliation (RELTRAD) and Anti-Structuralism Among White
Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Model 1
Model 2
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.070***
-.007
Catholic
-.056**
.000
Jewish
-.183***
-.060
Other Faith
-.177***
-.097**
No Affiliation
-.145***
-.111***
Control Variables
Education
-.021***
South
.107***
Age
-.003***
Male
.088***
Family Income
.014
Marital Status
.041*
Metropolitan
-.012
Size
-.000*
Pop Occ
-.002**
South 16
.022
Year 1998
.010
Year 2000
-.012
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients. Conservative Protestant is the reference
category for the religion dummy variables. N = 2888.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 2. Religious Affiliation (RELTRAD) and Individualism Among White
Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Model 1
Model 2
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.271**
-.056
Catholic
-.460**
-.189
Jewish
-1.413***
-.773**
Other Faith
-1.288***
-.863***
No Affiliation
-.830***
-.551***
Control Variables
Education
-.189***
South
.409**
Age
.014***
Male
.272***
Family Income
.056
Marital Status
-.055
Metropolitan
.031
Size
.000
Pop Occ
-.008*
South 16
.095
Year 1998
-.258**
Year 2000
-.107
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are logistic regression coefficients. Conservative Protestant is the reference
category for the religion dummy variables. N = 2723.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 3. Religious Affiliation (RELTRAD) and Racial Attitudes Among White
Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Stereotyping
Social Distance
(N = 2500)
(N = 2593)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.005
-.034
Catholic
-.030
-.058
Jewish
-.294*
-.141
Other Faith
-.266*
-.358***
No Affiliation
-.144*
-.221***
________________________________________________________________________
Racial Resentment
Affect
(N = 4321)
(N = 2315)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.094*
-.137*
Catholic
-.037
.061
Jewish
-.295***
-.306*
Other Faith
-.380***
-.171
No Affiliation
-.295***
-.168*
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients estimated from analyses where the model
also included controls for education, region, age, gender, family income, marital status,
metropolitan residence, size of locality, father’s occupation, region of residence at age 16,
and survey year. Negative racial attitudes are scored high. Conservative Protestant is the
reference category for the religion dummy variables.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 4. Religious Affiliation (RELTRAD) and Racial Policy Opinions Among
White Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Affirmative Action
Help Blacks
(N = 2755)
(N = 2854)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.079
-.132*
Catholic
-.059
-.099
Jewish
-.148
-.305*
Other Faith
-.259**
-.282**
No Affiliation
-.269***
-.351***
________________________________________________________________________
National Spending for Blacks
(N = 3869)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.082**
Catholic
-.071*
Jewish
-.229**
Other Faith
-.156**
No Affiliation
-.155***
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients estimated from analyses where the model
also included controls for education, region, age, gender, family income, marital status,
metropolitan residence, size of locality, father’s occupation, region of residence at age 16,
and survey year. Negative racial policy opinions are scored high. Conservative
Protestant is the reference category for the religion dummy variables.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 5. Religious Affiliation (RELTRAD) and Poverty Policy Opinions Among
White Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Help the Poor
(N = 2873)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.061
Catholic
-.190***
Jewish
-.332*
Other Faith
-.194
No Affiliation
-.214***
________________________________________________________________________
National Spending
National Spending
For Welfare
for the Poor
(N = 2113)
(N = 2117)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Mainline Protestant
-.043
-.096*
Catholic
-.093*
.081
Jewish
-.366***
-.183
Other Faith
-.075
-.103
No Affiliation
-.112*
-.029
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients estimated from analyses where the model
also included controls for education, region, age, gender, family income, marital status,
metropolitan residence, size of locality, father’s occupation, region of residence at age 16,
and survey year. Negative poverty policy opinions are scored high. Conservative
Protestant is the reference category for the religion dummy variables.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 6. Religious Self-Identification and Anti-Structuralism Among White
Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Model 1
Model 2
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.066**
-.068**
Catholic
-.079**
-.052
Jewish
-.206***
-.111*
Other Faith
-.200***
-.149***
No Affiliation
-.168***
-.163***
Control Variables
Education
-.021***
South
.107***
Age
-.003***
Male
.088***
Family Income
.014
Marital Status
.041*
Metropolitan
-.012
Size
-.000*
Pop Occ
-.002**
South 16
.022
Year 1998
.010
Year 2000
-.012
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients. Conservative Protestant is the reference
category for the religion dummy variables. N = 2888.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 7. Religious Self-Identification and Individualism Among White Respondents
to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Model 1
Model 2
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.235
-.237
Catholic
-.529***
-.354*
Jewish
-1.482***
-.934**
Other Faith
-1.358***
-1.026***
No Affiliation
-.899***
-.719***
Control Variables
Education
-.190***
South
.413**
Age
.013***
Male
.273***
Family Income
.058
Marital Status
-.065
Metropolitan
.032
Size
.000
Pop Occ
-.008*
South 16
.100
Year 1998
-.239*
Year 2000
-.105
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are logistic regression coefficients. Conservative Protestant is the reference
category for the religion dummy variables. N = 2723.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 8. Religious Self-Identification and Racial Attitudes Among White
Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Stereotyping
Social Distance
(N = 2500)
(N = 2593)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.021
.005
Catholic
-.045
-.038
Jewish
-.308*
-.120
Other Faith
-.280*
-.338***
No Affiliation
-.158
-.202***
________________________________________________________________________
Racial Resentment
Affect
(N = 4321)
(N = 2315)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.046
-.012
Catholic
-.050
-.013
Jewish
-.278***
-.226
Other Faith
-.315***
-.245
No Affiliation
-.315***
-.241*
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients estimated from analyses where the model
also included controls for education, region, age, gender, family income, marital status,
metropolitan residence, size of locality, father’s occupation, region of residence at age 16,
and survey year. Negative racial attitudes are scored high. Conservative Protestant is the
reference category for the religion dummy variables.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 9. Religious Self-Identification and Racial Policy Opinions Among White
Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Affirmative Action
Help Blacks
(N = 2755)
(N = 2854)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.105
-.153
Catholic
-.106
-.173*
Jewish
-.190
-.372*
Other Faith
-.306***
-.355**
No Affiliation
-.319***
-.427***
________________________________________________________________________
Spending for Blacks
(N = 3869)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.175***
Catholic
-.182***
Jewish
-.335***
Other Faith
-.266***
No Affiliation
-.267***
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients estimated from analyses where the model
also included controls for education, region, age, gender, family income, marital status,
metropolitan residence, size of locality, father’s occupation, region of residence at age 16,
and survey year. Negative racial policy opinions are scored high. Conservative
Protestant is the reference category for the religion dummy variables.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001
Table 10. Religious Self-Identification and Poverty Policy Opinions Among White
Respondents to the 1996-2000 General Social Surveys.a
________________________________________________________________________
Help the Poor
(N = 2873)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.367***
Catholic
-.483***
Jewish
-.620***
Other Faith
-.485***
No Affiliation
-.507***
________________________________________________________________________
National Spending
National Spending
For Welfare
for the Poor
(N = 2113)
(N = 2117)
________________________________________________
Religious Affiliation
Other Protestant
-.164
-.146*
Catholic
-.127*
-.162*
Jewish
-.397***
-.258*
Other Faith
-.108
-.185
No Affiliation
-.147*
-.111
________________________________________________________________________
a Values
are unstandardized OLS coefficients estimated from analyses where the model
also included controls for education, region, age, gender, family income, marital status,
metropolitan residence, size of locality, father’s occupation, region of residence at age 16,
and survey year. Negative poverty policy opinions are scored high. Conservative
Protestant is the reference category for the religion dummy variables.
*
p < .05
**
p < .01
***
p < .001