American evangelicalism in the post-civil rights era: a racial formation theory analysis

Sociology of Religion, Fall, 2004 by Antony W. Alumkal

INTRODUCTION

Michael Omi and Howard Winant are responsible for one of the most influential schools of racial theory, known as racial formation theory. First put forward in response to reductionist theories that treated race as an epiphenomenon of class, ethnicity, or nation, racial formation theory has reshaped the sociological study of race. However, it has had only a limited influence on sociologists and other scholars engaging in the empirical study of religion. For example, a review of the emerging literature on the post-1965 new immigrant communities reveals that many of these studies have focused on issues of ethnicity and assimilation (issues that figure prominently in the older literature on European immigrant religion) while giving little attention to the ways in which these communities are affected by the ideological and structural dimensions of race (see for example Williams 1988; Palinkas 1989; Kim 1993; Chai 1998; Sullivan 2000).

This article will argue that racial formation theory can make an important contribution to the sociological study of religion by providing tools for analyzing the development of racial discourses and practices in religious communities. (1) I will attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of the theory by applying it to the case of American evangelicalism in the post-civil rights era. I will focus on two major racial phenomena in American evangelicalism--the development of racial reconciliation theology and the influx of Asian Americans into evangelical campus ministries. Finally, I will discuss how my analysis of evangelical racial ideology differs from that offered by Emerson and Smith (2000) in their book Divided by Faith.

A definitional note: I use the term "evangelicalism" to refer to the Protestant subculture that broke from fundamentalism in the middle of the twentieth century over the question of mission strategy (fundamentalists emphasizing the maintenance of doctrinal purity through separatism, evangelicals emphasizing engaging the broader society with their message), yet retaining much of fundamentalism's biblical hermeneutics. Its leaders originally referred to this religious subculture as "neoevangelicalism" before shortening the name to "evangelicalism." Evangelicalism has historically been predominantly white, and it remains so despite recent growth among racial minorities. The historically black churches, while doctrinally similar to evangelicalism, are generally considered by scholars to form a separate religious culture. (2)

RACIAL FORMATION THEORY: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

Racial formation theory is explicated in Omi and Winant's (1986 and 1994) two editions of Racial Formation in the United States, as well as in works by the individual authors (especially Winant 1994 and 2001). Omi and Winant (1994:55) define racial formation as "the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed." They attempt to chart a middle course between two extremes. The first extreme is an "essentialist" formulation that views race as "a matter of innate characteristics, of which skin color and other physical attributes provide only the most obvious, and in some respects most superficial, indicators" (Omi and Winant 1994:64). The other extreme is a view that trivializes the category of race, arguing that since it is a social construction, race will disappear if we simply ignore it. This latter view ignores the ways in which race has deeply structured Western civilization for the last 500 years.

Key to their perspective on the construction of race is the concept of the "racial project," which they define as "simultaneously an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines" (Omi and Winant 1994:56). Racial projects connect "what race means in a particular discursive practice and the ways in which both social structures and everyday experiences are racially organized, based upon that meaning" (Omi and Winant 1994:56, italics original). They give the example of the neoconservative racial project that links what race means (it is not a morally valid basis for treating individuals differently from one another) with a specific conception of the role of race in the social structure (it can play no part in setting government policy). Competing racial projects are developed by elites, popular movements, state agencies, cultural and religious organizations, and intellectuals. Racial projects also operate at a micro-social level "not so much as efforts to shape policy or define large-scale meaning, but as the applications of 'common sense'" (Omi and Winant 1994:59).

Central to racial formation theory is Omi and Winant's interpretation of the "great transformation" in the American system of race. The authors describe the years stretching from the colonial period until the civil rights movement as a period of "racial dictatorship." Other than during the brief period of reconstruction following the Civil War, non-whites faced formidable barriers preventing effective participation in the political sphere, including legally sanctioned segregation, the widespread denial of the vote, and the inability to become naturalized citizens. The system of racial dictatorship was finally challenged by the civil rights movement that brought the entry of racial minority group members into the political process. The extension of voting rights, elimination of de jure segregation, and the reform of immigration laws were among the movement's major accomplishments.