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2/15/2006 12:03:00 AM

 

Why some churches integrate successfully and others don't

While less than eight percent of America's churches are considered multiracial, studies show their numbers are growing. In a new book titled "People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States," author and Rice sociologist Michael Emerson suggests that a church is more likely to integrate successfully if diversity is part of its congregation's mission or if its members agree it needs to become multiracial to survive. When churches are forced to accept new members from outside their racial group, their congregations are less likely to remain multiracial.

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While racial integration has been occurring where people work, attend school and live, racial segregation is still the norm in the overwhelming majority of churches. Religious congregations in this country remain largely segregated by race, according to a Rice University sociologist, primarily because they cannot legally be forced to change. Churches that voluntarily become multiracial based on their mission are more likely to be successful than those congregations that are mandated to become multiracial by their church's authorities or because they need new members to survive.  

"Congregations that mainly draw their diversity out of their culture and purpose will be more likely to sustain their multiracial compositions," said Michael Emerson, Rice University's Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Professor of Sociology and founding director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice.

On the other hand, churches that are less likely to remain multiracial are those that merge with another congregation to survive or because a higher authority in their church mandated that they come together, Emerson said.

Given that congregations are the largest, most extensive voluntary associations in the U.S., Emerson and others believe congregations may have a significant impact on race relations in this country. For example, researchers have found that multiracial congregations like other racially integrated organizations help reduce economic inequality among their members. This is partially because they are exposed to networks that might not exist for them in segregated congregations. And, Emerson claims, multiracial congregations do change racial attitudes, most significantly for whites.

"Many of the people who join or help create multiracial congregations generally hold more egalitarian racial attitudes before they arrive to such congregations, but their attitudes change even more after they've been with the group," he said.

As part of a national study on racial diversity in Catholic and Protestant congregations, Emerson analyzed 20 multiracial churches across the U.S. and identified seven models to explain how and why these congregations formed. He also looked into the reasons why over 90 percent of America's 300,000 churches remain segregated. His findings are the basis for the upcoming book "People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States," to be released by Princeton University Press in April.

Emerson and his research staff collected data for the book over seven years. The data includes more than 2,500 telephone interviews, hundreds of written surveys, and extensive visits to mixed-race congregations throughout the United States.

The author found that over one-half of the 20 congregations in which he did field studies became multiracial because of their mission, with five doing so as a result of a change in their neighborhood's population and their mission to embrace anyone in the community. Other congregations began as multiracial because racial inclusiveness was central to their missions.

About one-third of the study's congregations changed from uniracial to multiracial in response to declining membership.

"When neighborhoods change, most congregations sell their church building and move or stay and close their doors when members no longer remain," said Emerson.

"But a few take a different strategy."

Churches that recruit members from their neighborhood's changing population and alter their mission and program of worship often survive and even thrive, as in the case of Houston Episcopal. The same is true when two churches, each with different racial congregations, face diminishing memberships and merge to survive. However, bringing together two or more uniracial congregations that are otherwise doing well is fraught with potential difficulties, as Emerson observed. Equally problematic are congregations mandated to become multiracial by church authorities against their memberships' objections.

"Congregations whose mission and members support becoming multiracial are much more likely to succeed than those forced to open their congregations to other racial groups," concluded Emerson. "The irony is that this fact significantly curtails the number of multiracial congregations."

An expert on race and ethnic relations and religion, Emerson is the co-author of several books, including "American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving," "Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America," "United by Faith: A Response to the Problem of Race in America" and "Against All Odds: The Struggle for Racial Integration in Religious Organizations."

For more information on this research, contact Emerson at moe@rice.edu or B.J. Almond in the Office of News and Media Relations at balmond@rice.edu.