The Connection between Worship Attendance and Racial Segregation Attitudes among White and Black Americans

The present study finds that, for Whites, worship attendance is associated with heightened support for racial segregation. This has much to do with the fact that the individuals that attend worship service the least, secular and young adults, tend to be more racially progressive. That is, the extent to which secular and Generation X and Y individuals attend worship services as often as others, worship attendance is associated with weakened opposition to racial segregation. Conversely, worship attendance, religious affiliation, and age cohort are largely unrelated to Black racial segregation attitudes.


Introduction
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][2][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][5][6][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].

OPEN ACCESS
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][7][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.

Religion and Tolerance among Whites
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][7][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][7][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.

Religion and Tolerance among Black Americans
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][28][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?

Sample
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.

Dependent Variables: Racial Segregation Attitudes
To get as complete a picture as the General Social Survey allows on Americans' racial segregation attitudes, this study relies upon a number of racial segregation variables asked between 1972 and 2008.Between 1972 and2008, opposition to open housing was assessed by the extent to which respondents would support a policy that allowed them to decide to whom they are willing to sell their house, even if they preferred not to sell to (Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans).Between 1972 and 1996, support for homeowner discrimination was assessed by the extent to respondents believed that White people have a right to keep (Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans) out of their neighborhoods if they want to, and (Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans) should respect that right.Between 1988 and 2008, opposition to living near Blacks was assessed by the extent to which respondents were opposed living in a neighborhood where half their neighbors were Black.This same question was asked about Whites between 2000 and 2008.Between 1972 and 1996, opposition to sending one's child to school with [Whites/ (Negroes /Blacks/African-Americans)] was assessed by the extent to which respondents were opposed to the idea of sending their child to a school in which half of the children are [Whites/(Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans)].Between 1972 and 1996, opposition to busing was assessed by the extent to which respondents opposed the busing of (Negro/Black/African-American) and White school children from one school district to another to integrate the schools.The varying years in which these racial segregation variables are included in the analyses presented below are based upon the years in which the GSS presented those questions on their survey.

Religious Affiliation and Worship Attendance
This study relies on Steensland et al.'s [35] classification of religious denominations.Membership status in national religious organizations such as the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Evangelicals are used to classify various Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian denominations into Evangelical, Mainline, and historically Black Protestant traditions.Respondents were divided into the nominal categories of Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Black Protestant, Other Protestant, Other-Faiths, and Secular.The secular category includes those who do not identify with or affiliate with a religion.Because of sample size considerations, there are slight differences in the denominations/faiths represented among the varying racial/ethnic groups included in this study.There are no separate dummy variables of Black Protestant Churches in the White American analyses.Jewish and other Protestant dummy variables are not included in the African American analyses.Such individuals along with followers of many other faiths are instead grouped in an -other faith‖ category.This study relies upon a standard worship attendance variable that assesses the frequency to which individuals attend houses of worship on a scale that ranges from 1-never attending, to 8-attending more than once a week.(1966)(1967)(1968)(1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980), Generation X came of age between 1981 and 1995, and Generation Y came of age after 1995.Because small samples of individuals from Generation Y were asked many of the racial segregation questions, they were grouped with Generation X to form the Generation XY cohort.

Control Variables
The current study controls for the standard demographic factors of college education, family income, gender, children in the household, party identification, and living in the South. 1 This study also takes into consideration the years during which the racial segregation attitude questions were asked. 2

Religion, Age Cohort, and Racial Segregation Attitudes among White Americans
In all cases but one, the analyses presented in Tables 1 through 3 suggest that both religious affiliation and age cohort serve as lurking variables that impact the relationship between worship attendance and White racial segregation attitudes.Because secular and younger Whites attend houses of worship less often and are more likely to oppose racial segregation than others, worship attendance, on average, contributes to heightened support for racial segregation.However, the extent to which secular and younger Whites attend at the same rate as others, attendance contributes to increased opposition to racial segregation to the point that previous effects are nullified or reversed such that attendance reduces opposition to racial segregation.In addition, the likelihood ratio tests suggest that the addition of religious affiliation and age-cohort significantly improves the fit of the models presented in these analyses.Missing values for family income, age cohort, and church attendance were imputed from an imputation procedure that organizes missing cases by patterns of missing data so that the missing-value regressions can be conducted efficiently.
The imputations did not significantly or substantively alter the analyses.The reduced model of the support for homeowner discrimination analyses, also reported in Table1, suggests that worship attendance heightens support.However, taking into account age-cohort and religious affiliation weakens this relationship to the point that worship attendance is unrelated to support for homeowner discrimination in the age cohort and religious affiliation models.The full model indicates that worship attendance actually reduces support for homeowner discrimination.These analyses also indicate that the pre civil rights, civil rights, and post civil rights cohorts are more supportive of homeowner discrimination than are generation XY cohorts.In addition, Evangelicals, Mainliners, and Catholics are more supportive than are secular Whites.
The reduced model of the opposition to living near Blacks analyses reported in Table 2 suggests that worship attendance is unrelated to such preferences.Worship attendance nearly reduces such opposition when age cohort and religious affiliation are respectively accounted for in the age-cohort and religious affiliation models.When both religious affiliation and age cohort are accounted for in the full model, worship attendance does reduce opposition to living in integrated neighborhoods with Blacks.These analyses also indicate that the pre civil rights, civil rights, and post civil rights cohorts are more opposed than are generation XY cohorts.In addition, Evangelicals, Mainliners, Catholics, Jews, and other Protestants are more opposed than are secular Whites.Contrary to the other cases, Table 2 also reports that age cohort does not explain the relationship between worship attendance and opposition to living near Hispanics.These analyses also indicate that Evangelicals are more likely than are secular Whites to oppose living near Hispanics.
The reduced model of the opposition to school integration reported in Table 3 suggests that worship attendance is unrelated to such preferences.Taking into account age-cohort and religious affiliation strengthens this relationship to the point that worship attendance reduces opposition in both the age cohort and religious affiliation models.In the full model, worship attendance continues to reduce opposition to school integration.These analyses also indicate that the pre civil rights, civil rights, and post civil rights cohorts are more opposed to school integration than are generation XY cohorts.In addition, Evangelicals, Mainliners, Catholics, Jews, and Other Protestants are more opposed than are secular Whites.The reduced model of the opposition to busing analyses, also reported in Table 3, indicates that worship attendances increases opposition.Although worship attendance continues to heighten opposition in both the age cohort and religious affiliation models, the relationships are weakened.In the full model, worship attendance is no longer associated with opposition to busing.These analyses also indicate that the pre civil rights, civil rights, and post civil rights cohorts are more opposed to busing than are generation XY cohorts.In addition, Evangelicals, Mainliners, Catholics, and Other Protestants are more opposed than are secular Whites.The predicted probability estimates listed in the appendix further illustrates that worship attendance reduces support for racial segregation attitudes as age cohorts and religious affiliation are taken into account.Overall, Tables 1 through 3 also suggests that college graduates, non-southerners, women, and individuals that were interviewed more recently tend to oppose racial segregation.

Religion, Age Cohort, and Racial Segregation Attitudes among African Americans
The analyses presented in Tables 4 and 5 largely suggest that, for Blacks, age cohort and religious affiliation play a very limited role in explaining the connection between worship attendance and racial segregation attitudes.It appears that religious affiliation and age-cohorts weaken the relationship between worship attendance and support for homeowner discrimination among Blacks in Table 4.It also appears that religious affiliation strengthens the relationship between worship attendance and opposition to busing such that worship attendance weakens opposition to busing.In all other cases, religious affiliation and age-cohort do not further explain the association between worship attendance and Black racial segregation attitudes 4 .Age cohort and religious affiliation are fairly inconsistent predictors of Black racial segregation attitudes.Demographic factors also do a poor job in predicting such attitudes among Blacks.

Discussion and Conclusion
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][7][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][37][38][39][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.

2
These analyses are weighted to account for non-respondents within the sampling design[33].housingattitudes.These analyses also indicate that the pre civil rights, civil rights, and post civil rights cohorts are more opposed to open housing than are generation XY cohorts.In addition, Evangelicals, Mainliners, and Catholics are more likely than are secular Whites to oppose open housing policies.
5.2.2.Age Cohort This study borrows Schuman et.al.'s [26] coding of age cohorts in which the youngest persons included in the pre-civil rights age cohort are persons that reached age 18 in 1953, a year before the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision.The civil rights cohort includes those individuals that came of age during the successful civil rights struggle between 1954 and 1965.The post civil rights cohort came of age during the mid 1960s to early 1980s

Table 1
indicates that religious affiliated and older cohorts of Whites are more likely than others to attend worship services.The reduced model of the opposition to open housing analyses suggests that worship attendance heightens opposition.However, taking into account age-cohort weakens the relationship between worship attendance and open housing attitudes to the point that worship attendance is no longer associated with such preferences.Although worship attendance still heightens opposition to open housing in the religious affiliation model, accounting for religious affiliation weakens this relationship.The full model indicates that worship attendance is unrelated to open 1

Table 1 .
Impact of worship attendance, religious affiliation and age cohort on White racial attitudes: Logit Regression Analyses.

Table 2 .
Impact of worship attendance, religious affiliation and age cohort on White racial attitudes: Logit Regression Analyses.

Table 3 .
Impact of worship attendance, religious affiliation and age cohort on White racial attitudes: Logit Regression Analyses.

Table 4 .
Impact of worship attendance, religious affiliation and age cohort on Black racial attitudes: Logit Regression Analyses.

Table 5 .
Impact of worship attendance, religious affiliation and age cohort on Black racial attitudes: Logit Regression Analyses.