As COVID-19 vaccination rates slowed this spring, Americans’ attention turned toward the groups less likely to get the shot, including white evangelicals.
Black Protestants were initially among the most skeptical toward the vaccine, but they grew significantly more open to it during the first few months of the year, while white evangelicals’ hesitancy held steady.
With African Americans, many credit robust campaigns targeting Black neighborhoods, launching vaccination clinics in Black churches, and convening discussions featuring prominent Black Christian voices for reducing rates of hesitancy. So for those eager to see higher levels of vaccination, the question became: Are white evangelical leaders doing enough to engage their own?
Reverend s remarks on race divide the body of Christ helenair.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from helenair.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Christianity Today, produced his watershed volume
The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. This work represented Henry’s clarion call for evangelicals to engage with the social ills facing the world, to apply the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith to address the needs of society without being trapped into preaching a mere “social gospel.” Fundamentalists of the prior generation, he argued, showed a troubling “reluctance to come to grips with social evils” as they isolated themselves from the surrounding world.
Listed with “aggressive warfare,” “the liquor traffic,” “exploitation of labor or management,” and other social sins that Henry identified as too removed from fundamentalist rhetoric and conscience was, notably, “racial hatred and intolerance.” And this was, by and large, an accurate assessment, at least among those whom Henry here envisioned as “fundamentalists” a category essentially white in its composition.
Despite multiracial congregation boom, some Black congregants report prejudice
A third of Black Christians say it is hard to gain leadership positions in a multiracial congregation, a new report says. “Beyond Diversity: What the Future of Racial Justice will Require of U.S. Churches” report by Barna Group and the Racial Justice and Unity Center. Courtesy image
April 28, 2021
(RNS) Most practicing Christians believe the church can enhance race relations in this country by welcoming people of all races and ethnicities, new research finds.
But 29% of Black practicing Christians say they have experienced racial prejudice in multiracial congregations, compared to about a tenth who report such an experience in monoracial Black churches. And a third of Black Christians say it is hard to gain leadership positions in a multiracial congregation.
Image: Jason Armond / Getty Images
Most practicing Christians believe the church can enhance race relations in this country by welcoming people of all races and ethnicities, new research finds.
But 29 percent of Black practicing Christians say they have experienced racial prejudice in multiracial congregations, compared to about a tenth who report such an experience in monoracial Black churches. And a third of Black Christians say it is hard to gain leadership positions in a multiracial congregation.
The new report, released Wednesday, April 28, by Barna Group and the Racial Justice and Unity Center, examines the views of what researchers call “practicing Christians” people who self-identify as Christians, say their faith is very important to them, and say they attended worship in the past month.