All major religions promote a common kinship of humankind, in which all people are neighbors and equally valuable in the eyes of the creator. At the same time, religious doctrine has often been used by dominant groups to reinforce hegemony. This dialectic is well exemplified by the Civil Rights Movement where prophetic clergy and lay persons successfully challenged laws and behaviors that, they argued, violated universal and God-given human rights [1-3]. On the other hand, it was not uncommon for White church members to reject the political appeals of their civil rights oriented clergy [2,4,5]. A number of studies suggest that White church members were more heavily opposed to civil rights than were others [4-7]. The conflicting nature of the association between religion and prejudice is also seen in empirical studies that, at times, suggest that worship attendance heightens prejudice among dominant group members while other studies call these relationships into question [6,8,9].

Given that religious congregations are, in many ways, America's central civil societal institution, it is important to investigate their capacity to inform racial attitudes. Nearly two centuries ago, French philosopher Alex De Tocqueville [10] argued that the potential of American religious congregations to inspire independent thought lies in the free space it provides citizens to deliberate in small groups about their roles in protecting and extending their freedoms and opportunities. This is still true today as more Americans are members of, volunteer for, and donate money to congregations than any other non-profit organization [11]. Religious institutions are also one of the top three institutions in which Americans hold a high level of confidence [12,13].

Despite the potential importance of religion in informing American political attitudes, the degree to which worship attendance informs American attitudes about racial segregation has not been well established in survey research. And, the extent to which religious congregations are associated with the willingness of racial/ethnic minorities to live and function within racial/ethnically diverse settings is even less clear. Past studies on religion and out-group attitudes have generally investigated the connection between the dominant group's religion and their tolerance of minority racial/ethnic and immigrant groups [6-8]. While tolerance is a prerequisite for members of diverse social groups to view their life chances as inter-dependent, in isolation, it makes no such assumption [14]. Alternatively, a willingness to live and send one's child to school with members of racial/ethnic out-groups moves one closer to viewing race/ethnicity as an artificial social construct. The current study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by assessing the relationship between worship attendance and racial segregation attitudes among Black and White Americans.

A majority of Mainline Protestant clergy believe that churches should engage in social justice including reducing racial prejudice, and roughly a fifth of White Mainline, Catholic and Evangelical clergy classify their congregations as maintaining a commitment to social justice [15,16]. Similarly, social justice tends to inform the political behavior of both Mainline and Catholic clergy [15,17]. Congregants are seemingly aware of such discourse, as over half of church-attending Whites report hearing messages about the importance of improving race relations at least once a year in their houses of worship [18]. Over forty percent report that their congregations have hosted or sponsored a program to improve race relations [18].

Nonetheless, few survey and experimental studies find an association between worship attendance and reduced racial prejudice among Whites. Rather, some studies find frequent worship attending Whites--those that attend once a week--to be less prejudiced than individuals that attend between once or twice a year to once a month, but no different than those that never attend [6-8]. Allport [19] explains this relationship by making a case that religious intent informs worship attendance patterns. That is, moderate attendees, those that attend between once or twice a year to once a month, do not truly believe in the core religious tenets of universal love as they attend worship services just enough to satisfy social norms or for self interest reasons. Alternatively, the intrinsically religious attend worship services regularly out of their genuine interest in living a religious life which, in part, emphasizes a universal love of all God's children [19]. However, other studies challenge Allport's [19] argument that distinctions in the religious motivations of the intrinsically and extrinsically religious account for the relationship between worship attendance and attitudes of prejudice. These studies suggest that worship attendance is either unrelated or associated with increased prejudice towards and a desire to maintain distance from racial/ethnic out-groups [6-8,20,21].

The inconsistency in the relationship between worship attendance and racial attitudes may, in part, be linked to the exclusion of secular individuals from many religion and tolerance studies. Given that over three-quarters of secular adults were reared in a religious faith and then became unaffiliated at some point during adulthood implies a questioning of the role that religion plays in their lives and, potentially, of its broader societal importance [6]. Subsequently, secular individuals are more likely than others to question the dominance of a given faith relative to others and the accuracy of religious texts [22,23]. For dominant members, such questioning may lend itself to also questioning social constructions of race/ethnicity historically based upon dominance and marginalization. It follows that secular Whites tend to hold less stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes towards racial/ethnic out-groups than do others [6,8,24]. The fact that only two-thirds of secular individuals report never attending worship services suggests that a substantive number of these individuals are questioning hegemony while attending houses of worship [25]. By excluding such individuals, many religion and tolerance studies are somewhat limited in their ability to explain the connection between worship attendance and racial attitudes. Worship attendance may associate with prejudicial attitudes because secular individuals attend less than do their religiously affiliated counterparts. However, the degree to which secular individuals attend worship services at a similar rate as others may weaken and even reverse the relationship between worship attendance and racial prejudice.

Accounting for cohort effects may add further clarity to the connection between worship attendance / involvement and out-group attitudes. Whites that came of age during the post-civil rights eras of the mid to late 1960s and early 1980s and the Reagan and Bush eras of the early 1980s to the mid 1990s tend to hold less stereotypical attitudes of Blacks [26]. Younger cohorts of Whites also tend to have more positive evaluations of racially integrated neighborhoods and schools and are more likely to support polices that outlaw racial segregation than previous generations [26]. Along these lines, the Religion and Politics Study [22] suggests that younger Whites are more likely than older Whites to be concerned about racial discrimination. Like secular Whites, younger White cohorts that question racial inequality may also raise larger questions about hegemony which includes looking to dominant religious institutions as the primary source for moral instruction. Moreover, in the same way that younger cohorts of Whites tend to question the basis of racial inequality, they are also more likely than others to question the inerrancy of the Bible, believe that all religions contain some truth, and that all religions are equally good ways to relate to God [22]. The fact that young adults attend worship services less often than do older cohorts may partially explain why worship attendance rarely contributes to racial progressive attitudes among Whites.

It is unlikely that cohort effects, worship attendance or religious affiliation have the same impact on Black racial attitudes as it does for Whites. Given that marginalized groups tend to be restricted from opportunity structures, they are unlikely to face the same moral dilemma over the extent to which institutions should allow for increased opportunities for all social groups. The reasoning follows that because Blacks are socio-economically disadvantaged, racial integration tends to reduce concentrations of these groups in communities with few social economic resources in the form of jobs, quality education, health care facilities, and other qualities of life [27-29]. The socio-economic benefits of racial integration for racial/ethnic minorities likely contributes to Blacks of disparate age groups and religious affiliations maintaining relatively high levels of support for racial integration. Such an outlook may, in part, explain why Black clergy and laity were over-represented in civil rights demonstrations during the 1950s and 1960s [1,2]. Relative to Whites, there was also much greater support among Blacks for open housing campaigns and civil rights efforts more generally [25].

The vast majority of Blacks continue to support racial integration and policies that encourage neighborhood and school racial/ethnic diversity [30,31]. In addition, Blacks remain more supportive than Whites of religious institutions participating in political movements and in fighting poverty and Blacks are more supportive than Whites of religious institutions fighting racial discrimination [22]. Such attitudes may explain why Blacks are more likely than Whites to hear sermons about poverty and why Blacks are more likely than Whites to hear sermons about racial discrimination [22]. Along these lines, Black congregations are over-represented in faith-based community organizing firms that are committed to improving the quality of life within poor communities via interracial grassroots political coalitions [32]. Moreover, while secular and younger individuals may partially explain the relationship between worship attendance and racial attitudes among Whites, this is not likely the case for Blacks. This leads to the following research question: to what extent does religious affiliation and age cohort explain the relationship between worship attendance and racial segregation attitudes among White and Black Americans?

This study relies upon the 1972-2008 General Social Survey (GSS) cumulative data file. In most years since 1972, the National Opinion Research Center conducted the GSS via face to face interviews, computer-assisted personal interviews, and telephone interviews [33]. The GSS is a national representative sample of adults 18 years and older living in non-institutionalized settings within the U.S. [33]. This study is the largest project receiving funding from the National Science Foundation's Sociology Program. Outside of the U.S. Census, this data is more heavily analyzed than any other source of social science data. For the purpose of replication, many of the demographic and attitudinal questions have remained constant since 1972 to allow for longitudinal studies and the replication of previous results. A number of studies also contain questions of special interests, such as religion in 1991, 1998, and 2008. And, while the exact wording for some questions has changed from survey to survey, the cumulative data file retains consistency across surveys [34]. In total, the 1972-2010 GSS has roughly 5,400 variables, time-trends for nearly 2,000 variables, and 257 trends with over 20 data points.

Up until 1994, 1,500 was a typical sample size. After 1994, the GSS became biennial and sample sizes increased to 3,000. Response rates vary between 74 and 82 percent [33]. Depending upon the years in which the dependent variable questions were asked, the Black sample ranges from 263–2,173 and the White sample from 1,685–16,468.

This current study suggests that the connection between worship attendance and White racial attitudes is largely a function of religious affiliation and age-cohort. For Whites, worship attendance is associated with more conservative racial attitudes because the religious affiliated and older cohorts attend more often and are more supportive of racial segregation than are secular persons and younger cohorts. Moreover, when the worship attendance gap is eliminated between secular and religious affiliated Whites and between younger and older Whites, attendance weakens support for racial segregation. These findings are consistent with research that suggests that secular and younger adults maintain more tolerant and progressive attitudes towards out-groups [6-8]. The same desire to understand the meaning of life that drives such individuals to question religious doctrines also likely fuels a desire to understand constructions of race/ethnicity that contributes to separation and conflicting interests between Whites and non-Whites. As such, the presence of secular and younger age cohorts of Whites within houses of worship are key to understanding the degree to which worship attendance is associated with support for racial segregation in residential and school contexts.

These findings may suggest that the attitudes attendees bring to their worship services reinforce existing racial attitudes. This is not to suggest that clergy have no influence over congregant racial attitudes. A number of studies suggest that clergy are capable of influencing congregant political attitudes and ideologies [36-40]. At the same time, clergy are particularly sensitive to member preferences as religious congregations are voluntary associations that are almost completely dependent upon congregants for money, gifts, and volunteers [4,5]. As such, even in instances in which Mainline, Evangelical, and Catholic clergy are more racially progressive than their congregants, they are unlikely to push too hard against entrenched attitudes. At this point, however, claims about the capacity of congregants relative to clergy to inform racial attitudes are merely speculative. The present study is not able to assess the degree to which congregants are exposed to discussions about race from; clergy, other religious leaders, congregants, and/or if they are taking part in such discussions in their houses of worship. Future research in this area is necessary to make more definitive claims about how the source of race discourse within houses of worship may inform the connection between worship attendance and White racial attitudes.

Conversely, for Blacks, attendance of worship services, religious affiliation, and age cohorts are largely unrelated to racial segregation attitudes. Such findings are understandable given that Blacks are under-represented among the American middle class and over-represented among the poor. Moreover, it is conceivable that both worship going and non-worship going blacks have a compelling interest to support racial/ethnic integration as a means to improve their individual and group life chances. This may explain why worship attendance is largely unrelated to Black racial segregation attitudes. However, at this point, the provided explanation serves, again, as only speculation. Further research is required to determine if perceptions of racial inequality and opportunity structures largely explain the connection between religion and racial attitudes among Blacks. That being said, these findings are consistent with Brown's study that found religious and non-religious Blacks to maintain similar positions on the importance of racism and economic barriers in explaining racial inequality [41].

In sum, for Whites, questions about dominance and marginalization among the secular and young adults likely contribute to their more progressive racial attitudes. The fact that these groups also tend to possess more critical attitudes about religious institutions likely contributes to their lower attendance rates, which, in part, explains why worship attendance is associated with increased support for racial segregation among Whites. Alternatively, the fact that racial integration extends social-economic opportunities to Blacks likely contributes to age cohort, religious affiliation, and worship attendance maintaining a limited relationship with their racial segregation attitudes.