THE relationship between
religion and political radicalism is a confusing one. On the one hand, established
religious institutions have generally had a stake in the status quo and hence
have supported conservatism. Furthermore, with the masses having an
otherworldly orientation, religious zeal, particularly as expressed in the more
fundamentalist branches of Christianity, has been seen as an alternative to the
development of political radicalism. On the other hand, as the source of
universal humanistic values and the strength that can come from believing one
is carrying out God’s will in political matters, religion has occasionally
played a strong positive role in movements for radical social change.
This dual role of religion is clearly indicated in
the case of the American Negro and race protest. Slaves are said to have been
first brought to this country on the "good ship Jesus Christ.” 1 While there was
occasional controversy over the effect that religion had on them it appears
that most slaveowners eventually came to view supervised religion as an
effective means of social control. Stampp, in commenting on the effect of
religion notes:
...through
religious instruction the bonds-men learned that slavery had divine sanction,
that
insolence was as much an offense against God as against the temporal master.
They received the Biblical command that servants should obey their masters, and
they heard of the punishments awaiting the disobedient slave in the hereafter.
They heard, too, that eternal salvation
would be their reward for faithful service... 2
In discussing the period
after the Civil War, Myrdal states that “...under the pressure of political
reaction, the Negro church in the South came to have much the same role as it
did before the Civil War. Negro frustration was sublimated into emotionalism,
and Negro hopes were fixed on the after world.” 3 Many other analysts, in considering the
consequences of Negro religion from the end of slavery until the early 1950’s
reached similar conclusions about the conservatizing effect of religion on race
protest. 4
However, the effect of
religion on race protest throughout American history has by no means been
exclusively in one direction. While many Negroes were no doubt seriously
singing about chariots in the sky, Negro preachers such as Denmark Vesey and
Nat Turner and the religiously inspired abolitionists were actively fighting
slavery in their own way. All Negro churches first came into being as protest
organizations and later some served as meeting places where protest strategy
was planned, or as stations on the underground railroad. The richness of pro-test
symbolism in Negro spirituals and sermons has often been noted. Beyond this
symbolic role, as a totally Negro institution, the church brought together in
privacy people with a shared problem. It was from the church experience that
many leaders were exposed to a broad range of ideas legitimizing protest and
obtained the savoir faire, self-confidence, and organizational
experience needed to challenge an oppressive system. A recent commentator states that the slave churches were "the
nucleus of the Negro protest” and another that “in religion Negro leaders had
begun to find sanction and support for their movements of protest more than 150
years ago.” 5
Differing perceptions of the
varied consequences religion may have on protest have continued to the present
time. While there has been very little in the way of empirical research on the
effect of the Negro church on protest, 6 the literature of
race relations is rich with impressionistic statements which generally
contradict each other about how the church either encourages and is the source
of race protest or inhibits and retards its development. For example, two
observers note, “as primitive evangelism gave way to a more sophisticated
social consciousness, the church became the spearhead of Negro protest in the
deep South,” 7 while another indicates “the Negro church
is a sleeping giant. In civil rights participation its feet are hardly wet.” 8 A civil rights activist, himself a clergyman, states:
“...the church today is central to the movement... if there had been no Negro
church, there would have been no civil rights movement today.” 9
On the other hand, a sociologist, commenting on the more involved higher status
ministers, notes: “...middle class Negro clergymen in the cities of the South
generally advocated cautious gradualism in race activities until the mid-1950’s
when there was an upsurge of protest sentiment among urban Negroes ...but most
of them [ministers] did not embrace the more vigorous techniques of protest
until other leaders took the initiative and gained widespread support.” 10 Another sociologist states, “Whatever their previous
conservative stance has been, the churches have now become ‘spearheads of
reform.’” 11 Still another indicates: “...the Negro
church is particularly culpable for its general lack of concern for the moral
and social problems of the community... it has been accommodating. Fostering
indulgence in religious sentimentality, and riveting the attention of the
masses on the bounties of a hereafter, the Negro church remains a refuge, and
escape from the cruel realities of the here and now.” 12
Thus one faces opposing
views, or at best ambiguity, in contemplating the current effect of religion.
The opiating consequences of religion are all too well known as is the fact
that the segregated church is durable and offers some advantages to clergy and
members that might be denied them in a more integrated society. On the other
hand, the prominent role of the Negro church in supplying much of the ideology
of the movement, many of its foremost leaders, and an institution around which
struggle might be organized – particularly in the South – can hardly be denied.
It would appear from the bombings of churches and the writings of Martin Luther
King and other religiously inspired activists that for many, religion and
protest are closely linked.
Part of this dilemma may lie
in the distinction between the church as an institution in its totality and
particular individual churches within it, and the further distinctions among
different types of individual religious concern. This paper is concerned with
the latter subject; it is an inquiry into the relationship between religiosity
and response to the civil rights struggle. It first considers how religious
denomination affects militancy, and then how various measures of religiosity,
taken separately and together, are related to civil rights concern. The
question is then asked of those classified as “very religious” and “quite
religious,” how an “otherworldly orientation” – as opposed to a “temporal"
one – affects militancy.
In a nationwide study of
Negroes living in metropolitan areas of the United Slates, a number of
questions were asked about religious behavior and beliefs as well as about the
civil rights struggle.“ 13 Seven of the questions dealing
with civil rights protest have been combined into an index of conventional
militancy. 14 Built into this index are a number of
dimensions of racial protest such as impatience over the speed of integration,
opposition to discrimination in public facilities and the sale of property,
perception of barriers to Negro advancement, support of civil rights
demonstrations, and expressed willingness to take part in a demonstration.
Those giving the militant response to five or more of the questions are
considered militant, those giving such a response to three or four of the
questions, moderate, and fewer than three, conservative.” 15
DENOMINATION
It has long been known that
the more fundamentalist sects such as the Holiness groups and the Jehovah’s
Witnesses are relatively uninterested in movements for secular political
change.16 Such transvaluational movements with their
otherworldly orientation and their promise that the last shall be first in the
great beyond, are said to solace the individual for his lowly status in this
world and to divert concern away from efforts at collective social change which
might be brought about by man. While only a minority of Negroes actually belong
to such groups, the proportion is higher than among whites. Negro literature is
rich in descriptions of these churches and their position on race protest.
In Table I it can be seen
that those be-longing to sects are the least likely to be militant; they are
followed by those in pre-dominantly Negro denominations. Ironically those
individuals in largely white denominations (Episcopalian, Presbyterian, United
Church of Christ, and Roman Catholic) are those most likely to be militant, in
spite of the perhaps greater civil rights activism of the Negro denominations.
This pattern emerged even when social class was held constant.
TABLE 1: Proportion Militant (%) by Denomination *
|
|
|
Denomination |
% Militant |
|
Episcopalian |
46 (24) |
|
United Church of Christ |
42 (12) |
|
Presbyterian |
40 (25) |
|
Catholic |
40 (109) |
|
Methodist |
34 (142) |
|
Baptist |
32 (658) |
|
Sects and Cults |
20 (106) |
*25 respondents are not shown in this table because they did not specify a denomination, or belonged to a non-Christian religious group, or other small Christian group.
In their comments members of
the less Conventional religious groups clearly ex pressed the classical
attitude of their sects toward participation in the politics of the secular
world. For example, an Evangelist in the Midwest said, “I don’t believe in
participating in politics. My church don’t vote – they just depends on the
plans of God.” And an automobile serviceman in Philadelphia stated, “I, as a
Jehovah’s Witness, cannot express things involving the race issue.” A housewife
in the Far West ventured, “In my religion we do not approve of anything except
living like it says in the Bible; demonstrations mean calling attention to you
and it’s sinful.”
The finding that persons who
belong to sects are less likely to be militant than the non-sect members is to
be expected; clearly this type of religious involvement seems an alternative
for most people to the development of radicalism. But what of the religious
style of those in the more conventional churches which may put relatively less
stress on the afterlife and encourage various forms of secular participation?
Are the more religiously inclined within these groups also less likely to be
militant?
TABLE 2: Militancy by Subjective Importance Assigned to Religion *
|
|
|
Importance |
% Militant |
|
Extremely important |
29 (668) |
|
Somewhat important |
39 (195) |
|
Fairly important |
48 (96) |
|
Not too important |
56 (18) |
|
Not at all important |
62 (13) |
*Sects are
excluded here and in all subsequent tables.
RELIGIOSITY
The present study measured
several dimensions of religious involvement. Those interviewed were asked how
important religion was to them, several questions about orthodoxy of belief,
and how frequently they attended worship service. 17 Even
with the sects excluded, irrespective of the dimension of religiosity
considered, the greater the religiosity the lower the percentage militant. (See
Tables 1, 3 and 4.) For example, militancy increases consistently from a low of
only 29 percent among those who said religion was “extremely important” to a
high of 62 percent for those who indicated that religion was “not at all
important” to them. For those very high in orthodoxy (having no doubt about the
existence of God or the devil) 27 percent were militant while for those totally
rejecting these ideas 54 percent indicated great concern over civil rights,
Militancy also varies inversely with frequency of attendance at worship
service. 18
TABLE 3: Militancy by Orthodoxy
|
|
|
Orthodoxy |
% Militant |
|
Very high |
27 (414) |
|
High |
34 (333) |
|
Medium |
39 (144) |
|
Low |
47 (68) |
|
Very low |
54 (35) |
Each of these items was
strongly related to every other; when taken together they help us to better characterize
religiosity. Accordingly they have been combined into an overall measure of
religiosity. Those scored as “very religious” in terms of this index attended
church at least once a week, felt that religion was extremely important to
them, and had no doubts about the existence of God and the devil. For
progressively lower values of the index, frequency of church attendance, the
importance of religion, and acceptance of the belief items de-cline
consistently until, for those scored “not at all religious,” church is rarely
if ever attended, religion is not considered personally important and the
belief items are rejected.
Using this measure for
non-sect members, civil rights militancy increases from a low of 26 percent for
those labeled “very religious” to 30 percent for the “somewhat religious” to 45
percent for those “not very religious” and up to a high of 70 percent for those
“not at all religious.” 19 (Table 5.)
Religiosity
and militancy are also related to age, sex, education, religious denomination
and region of the country, The older, the less ediicated, women, Southerners
and those in Negro denominations are more likely to be religious and to have
lower percentages scoring as militant, Thus it is possib1e that the
relationship observed is simply a consequence of the fact that both religiosity
and militancy are related to some third factor. In Table 6 it can be seen,
however, that, even when these variables are controlled the relationship is
maintained. That is, even among those in the North, the younger, male, more
educated and those affiliated with predominantly white denominations, the
greater the religiosity the less the militancy.
TABLE 4: Militancy by Frequency of Attendance at Worship Services
|
|
|
Frequency |
% Militant |
|
More than once a week |
27 (81) |
|
Once a week |
32 (311) |
|
Once a month or more but
less than once a week |
34 (354) |
|
Less than once a month |
38 (240) |
TABLE 5: Militancy by Religiosity
|
||||
|
Religiosity |
Very Religious |
Somewhat Religious |
Not Very Religious |
Not at All Religious |
|
% Militant |
26 |
30 |
45 |
70 |
N
|
(230) |
(523) |
(195) |
(36) |
TABLE 6: Proportion Militant by Religiosity, for Education, Age, Region,Sex and Denomination
|
||||
|
|
Very Religious |
Somewhat Religious |
Not Very Religious |
Not at All Religious |
Education |
|
|
|
|
|
Grammar School |
17 (108) |
22 (201) |
3l (42) |
50 (2) |
|
High School |
34 (96) |
32 (270) |
45 (119) |
58 (19) |
|
College |
38 (26) |
48 (61) |
59 (34) |
87 (15) |
|
|
||||
Age |
|
|
|
|
|
18-29 |
33 (30) |
37 (526) |
44 (62) |
62 (13) |
|
30-44 |
30 (53) |
34 (180) |
48 (83) |
74 (19) |
|
45-59 |
25 (71) |
27 (131) |
45 (33) |
50 (2) |
|
60 + |
22 (76) |
18 (95) |
33 (15) |
100 (2) |
|
|
||||
Region |
|
|
|
|
|
Non-South |
30 (173) |
34 (331) |
47 (159) |
70 (33) |
|
South |
22 (107) |
23 (202) |
33 (36) |
66 (3) |
|
|
||||
Sex |
|
|
|
|
|
Men |
28 (83) |
33 (220) |
44 (123) |
72 (29) |
|
Women |
26 (147) |
28 (313) |
46 (72) |
57 (7) |
|
|
||||
Denomination |
|
|
|
|
|
Episcopalian,
Presbyterian, United Church of Christ |
20 (I5) |
27 (26) |
33 (15) |
60 (5) |
|
Catholic |
13 (15) |
39 (56) |
36 (25) |
77 (13) |
|
Methodist |
46 (24) |
22 (83) |
50 (32) |
100 (2) |
|
Baptist |
25 (172) |
29 (354) |
45 (117) |
53 (15) |
The incompatibility between
piety and protest shown in these data becomes even more evident when considered
in light of comments offered by the respondents. Many religious people hold beliefs which clearly inhibit race
protest. For a few there was the notion that segregation and a lowly status for
Negroes was somehow God’s will and not for man to question. Thus a housewife in
South Bend, Indiana, in saying that civil rights demonstrations had hurt
Negroes, added: “God is the Creator of everything. IVe don’t know why we all
dark-skinned. We should try to put forth the effort to do what God wants and
not question.” 20
A Negro spiritual contains
the lines “I’m gonna wait upon the Lord till my change comes”. For our
respondents a more frequently stated belief stressed that God as the absolute
controller of the universe would bring about change in his own way and at his
own time, rather than expressing segregation as God’s will. In indicating her
unwillingness to take part in a civil rights demonstration, a Detroit housewife
said, “I don’t go for demonstrations. I believe that God created all men equal
and at His appointed time He will give every man his portion, no one can hinder
it.” And in response to a question about whether or not the government in
Washington was pushing integration too slowly, a retired clerk in Atlanta said:
"You can’t hurry God. He has a certain time for this to take place. I
don’t know about Washington.”
Others who desired
integration more strongly and wanted immediate social change felt that (as Bob
Dylan sings) God was on their side. Hence man need do nothing to help bring
about change. Thus a worker in Cleveland, who was against having more civil
rights demonstrations, said; "With God helping to fight our battle, I
believe we can do with fewer demonstrations.” And in response to a question
about whether Negroes should spend more time praying and less time
demonstrating, an Atlanta clergyman, who said “more time praying," added
"praying is demonstrating.” 21
TABLE 7: Religiosity by Civil Rights Militancy
|
|||
|
Religiosity |
Militants |
Moderates |
Conservatives |
|
Very religious |
18% |
24% |
28% |
Somewhat religious
|
48 |
57 |
55 |
Not very religious
|
26 |
17 |
16 |
Not at all religious
|
8 |
2 |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
Total
|
100% |
100% |
100% |
N
|
332 |
419 |
242 |
RELIGION AMONG THE MILITANTS
Although the net effect of religion
is clearly to inhibit attitudes of protest it is interesting to consider this
relationship in the opposite direction, i.e., observe religiosity among those
characterized as militant, moderate, and conservative with respect to the civil
rights struggle. As civil rights concern increases, religiosity decreases
(Table 7). Militants were twice as likely to be scored “not very religious” or
“not at all religious” as were conservatives. This table is also of interest
because it shows that, even for the militants, a majority were scored either
“very religious” or “somewhat religious.” Clearly, for many, a religious
orientation and a concern with racial protest are not mutually exclusive.
Given the active involvement
of some churches, the singing of protest spirituals, and the ideology of the
movement as it relates to Christian principles of love, equality, passive
suffering, 22 and the appeal to a higher moral law, it
would be surprising if there were only a few religious people among the
militants.
A relevant question
accordingly is: Among the religious, what are the intervening links which
determine whether religion is related to an active concern with racial matters
or has an opiating effect? 23 From the comments reported
above it seemed that, for some, belief in a highly deterministic God inhibited
race protest. Unfortunately the study did not measure beliefs about the role of
God as against the role of men in the structuring of human affairs. However, a
related variable was measured which would seem to have much relevance – the
extent to which these religious people were concerned with the here and now as
opposed to the afterlife.
The classical indictment of
religion from the Marxist perspective is that by focusing concern on a glorious
afterlife the evils of this life are ignored. Of course there are important
differences among religious institutions and among individuals with respect to
the importance given to other worldly concerns. Christianity, as with most
ideologies, contains within it, if not out-and-out contradictory themes, then
certainly themes which are likely to be in tension with one another. In this
fact, no doubt, lies part of the explanation of religion’s varied consequences
for protest. One important strand of Christianity stresses acceptance of one’s
lot and glorifies the afterlife; 24 another is more
concerned with the realization of Judeo-Christian values in the current life.
King and his followers
clearly represent this latter “social gospel” tradition. 25
Those with the type of temporal concern that King represents would be expected
to be higher in militancy. A measure of temporal vs. other-worldly concern has
been constructed. On the basis of two questions, those interviewed have been
classified as having either an other-worldly or a temporal orientation. 26 The evidence is that religiosity and otherworldly concern
increase together. For example, almost 100 percent of the “not at all
religious” group were considered to have a temporal orientation, but only 42
percent of the “very religious.” (Table 8). Those in predominantly white
denominations were more likely to have a temporal orientation than those in
all-black denominations.
TABLE 8: Proportion (%) with Temporal (as against Otherworldly) Concern,by Religiosity
|
|
|
Religiosity |
% with Temporal
Concern |
|
Very religious |
42 (225) |
|
Somewhat religious |
61 (531) |
|
Not very religious |
82 (193) |
|
Not at all religious |
98 (34) |
Among
the religious groups, if concern with the here and now is a relevant factor in
over-coming the opiating effect of religion then it is to be anticipated that
those considered to have a temporal religious orientation would be much higher
in militancy than those scored as otherworldly. This is in fact the case. Among
the otherworldly religious, only 16 percent were militant; this proportion
increases to almost 40 percent among those considered “very religious” and
“somewhat religious” who have a temporal religious outlook. (Table 9). Thus it
would seem that an important factor in determining the effect of religion on
protest attitudes is the nature of an individual’s religious commitment. It is
quite possible, for those with a temporal religious orientation, that – rather
than the effect of religion being somehow neutralized (as in the case of
militancy among the “not religious” groups) – their religious concern serves to
inspire and sustain race protest. This religious inspiration can, of course, be
clearly noted among some active civil rights participants.
TABLE 9: Proportion Militant (%) by Religiosity and Temporal or
Otherworldly Concern
|
||
|
Concern |
Very religious |
Somewhat religious |
|
Temporal |
39 (95) |
38 (325) |
|
Otherworldly |
15 (130) |
17 (206) |
CONCLUSION
The
effect of religiosity on race protest depends on the type of religiosity
involved. Past literature is rich in suggestions that the religiosity of the
fundamentalist sects is an alternative to the development of political radicalism.
This seems true in the case of race protest as well. However, in an overall
sense even for those who belong to the more conventional churches, the greater
the religious involvement, whether measured in terms of ritual activity,
orthodoxy of religious belief, subjective importance of religion, or the three
taken together, the lower the degree of militancy.
Among
sect members and religious people with an otherworldly orientation, religion
and race protest appear to be, if not mutually exclusive, then certainly what
one observer has referred to as “mutually corrosive kinds of commitments.” 27 Until such time as religion loosens its hold over these
people or comes to embody to a greater extent the belief that man as well as
God can bring about secular change, and focuses more on the here and now,
religious involvement may be seen as an important factor working against the
widespread radicalization of the Negro public.
However,
it has also been noted that many militant people are nevertheless religious.
When a distinction is made among the religious between the “otherworldly” and
the “temporal,” for many of the latter group, religion seems to facilitate or
at least not to inhibit protest. For these people religion and race protest may
be mutually supportive.
Thirty
years ago Donald Young wrote: “One function which a minority religion may serve
is that of reconciliation with inferior status and its discriminatory
consequences ...on the other hand, religious institutions may also develop in
such a way as to be an incitement and support of revolt against inferior
status." 28 The current civil rights struggle and
the data observed here certainly suggest that this is the case. These
contradictory consequences of religion are somewhat reconciled when one distinguishes
among different segments of the Negro church and types of religious concern
among individuals.
1.
Louis Lomax, When the Word is Given,
New York: New American Library, 1964, p. 34.
2.
Kenneth
Stampp, The
Peculiar Institution, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956, p. 158.
3.
Gunnar Myrdal et al., An American Dilemma,
New York: Harper, 1944, pp. 851-853. About the North he notes that the church
remained far more independent “but on the whole even the Northern Negro church
has remained a conservative institution with its interests directly upon
otherworldly matters and has largely ignored the practical problems of the
Negro's fate in this world.”
4.
For example Dollard reports that
“religion can be seen as a mechanism for the social control of Negroes"
and that planters have always welcomed the building of a Negro church on the
plantation but looked with less favor upon the building of a school. John Dollard, Caste and Class in a
Southern Town, Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1957,p. 248. A few of the
many others reaching similar conclusions are: Benjamin E. Mays and J. W.
Nicholson, The Negro’s Church, New York: Institute of Social and
Religious Research, 1933; Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom, New York:
Viking Press, 1939, p. 285; Charles Johnson, Growing Up in the Black Belt,
Washington, D.C.: American Council of Education, 1941, pp. 135-136; Horace
Drake and St. Clair Cayton, Black Metropolis, New York: Harper and Row,
1962, pp.424-429; George Simpson and Milton Yinger, Racial and Cultural
Minorities, New York: Harper, rev. ed., 1958, pp. 582-587. In a more
general context this social control consequence of religion has of course been
noted throughout history from Plato to Montesquieu to Marx to Nietzsche to
Freud to contemporary social theorists.
5.
Daniel
Thompson, "The
Rise of Negro Protest,” Annals of the American Acodemy o/ Political and
Social Science, 357 (January, 1965).
6.
The empirical evidence is quite limited.
The few studies that have been done have focused on the Negro minister.
Thompson notes that in New Orleans Negro ministers constitute the largest
segment of the Negro leadership class (a grouping which is not necessarily the
same as “protest leaders") but that “The vast majority of ministers are
primarily interested in their pastoral role. Their sermons are essentially
biblical, dealing only tangentially with social issues.” Daniel Thompson, The
Negro Leadership Class, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963,
pp. 34-35. Studies of the Negro ministry in Detroit and Richmond, California
also stress that only a small fraction of Negro clergymen show any active
concern with the civil rights struggle. R. L. Johnstone, Militant and Conservative
Community Leadership Among Negro Clergymen, Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1963, and J. Bloom, The Negro Church and the
Movement for Equality, M.A. thesis, University of California, Berkeley,
Department of Sociology, 1966.
7.
Jane Record and Wilson Record,
“Ideological Forces and the Negro Protest,” Annals, op. cit., p. 92.
8.
G.
Booker, Black
Man's America, Englewood Cliffs, N J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964, p. 111.
9.
Rev. W.
T. Walker, as quoted
in William Brink and Louis Harris, The Negro Revolution in America, New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1964, p. 103.
10.
N.
Glenn, “Negro
Religion in the U.S.” in L. Schneider, Religion, Culture and Society,
New York: John Wiley, 1964.
11.
Joseph Fichler, "American Religion and
the Negro," Daedolus, Fall 1965, p. 1087.
12.
E. U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism, New
York: Dell Publishing Co., 1963, p. 358. Many other examples of contradictory
statements could be offered, sometimes even in the same volume. For example,
Carleton Lee stresses the importance of religion for protest while Bayford
Logan sees the Negro pastor as an instrument of the white power structure (in a
book published to commemorate 100 years of emancipation). Carleton Lee,
"Religious Roots of Negro Protest,” and Rayford Logan, "Educational
Changes Affecting American Negroes," both in Arnold Rose, Assuring
Freedom to the Free, Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1964.
13.
This survey was carried out in 1964 by the
Survey Research Center, University of California, Berkeley. A non-Southern
metropolitan area probability sample was drawn as well as special area samples
of Negroes living in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta and Birmingham. Since the
results reported here are essentially the same for each of these areas, they
are treated together. More than 90% of the interviews were done with Negro
interviewers. Additional methodological details may be found in Gary Marx,
Protest and Prejudice: A Study of Belief in the Black Community, New York:
Harper & Row, forthcoming.
14.
Attention
is directed to
conventional militancy rather than to that of the Black Nationalist variety
because a very small percentage of the sample offered strong and consistent
support for Black Nationalism. As in studying support for the KKK, the Birch
Society or the Communist Party, a representative sample of normal size is
inadequate.
15.
Each of the items in the index was
positively related to every other and the index showed a high degree of
internal validity. The index also received external validation from a number of
additional questions. For example, the percentage belonging to a civil rights
organization went from zero among those lowest in militancy to 38 percent for
those who were highest, and the percentage thinking that civil rights
demonstrations had helped a great deal increased from 23 percent to 58 percent.
Those thinking that the police treated Negroes very well decreased from 35
percent to only 2 percent among those highest in militancy.
16.
Liston Pope, Millhands and Preachers,
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942, p. 137. J. Milton Yinger, Religion,
Society, and the Individual, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957, pp,
170-173
17.
These dimensions and several others are
suggested by Charles Y. Clock in “On the Study of Religious Commitment,” Religious
Education Research Supplement, 57 (July-August, 1962), pp. 98-100. For
another measure of religious involvement, the number of church organizations
belonged to, the same inverse relationship was noted.
18.
There is a popular stereotype that Negroes
are a "religious people." Social science research has shown that they
are "over-churched” relative to whites, i e, the ratio of Negro churches
to the size of the Negro population is greater than the same ratio for whites.
Using data from a nation-wide survey of whites, by Gertrude Selznick and
Stephen Steinberg, some comparison of the religiosity of Negroes and whites was
possible. When these various dimensions of religiosity were examined, with the
effect of education and region held constant, Negroes appeared as significantly
more religious only with respect to the subjective importance assigned to
religion. ln the North, whites were more likely to attend church at least once
a week than were Negroes; while in the South rates of attendance were the same.
About the same percentage of both groups had no doubts about the existence of
God. While Negroes were more likely to be sure about the existence of a devil,
whites, surprisingly, were more likely to be sure about a life beyond death.
Clearly, then, any assertions about the greater religiosity of Negroes relative
to whites are unwarranted unless one specifies the dimension of religiosity
19.
When the sects are included in these
tables the results are the same. The sects have been excluded because they
offer almost no variation to be analyzed with respect to the independent
variable. Since virtually all of the sect members scored as either "very
religious” or “somewhat religious,” it is hardly possible to measure the effect
of their religious involvement on protest attitudes. In addition the import of
the relationships shown in these tables is considerably strengthened when it is
demonstrated that religious involvement inhibits militancy even when the most
religious and least militant group, the sects, are excluded.
20.
Albert Cardinal Meyer notes that the
Catholic Bishops of the U.S. said in their statement of 1958: “The heart of the
race question is moral and religious." “Interracial Justice and
Love," in M. Ahmann, ed., Race Challenge to Religion, Chicago: ll.
Regnery, 1963, p. 136. These data, viewed from the perspective of the activist
seeking to motivate Negroes on behalf of the civil rights struggle, suggest
that this statement has a meaning which Their Excellencies no doubt did not
intend.
21.
A study
of rninisters in
Richmond, California notes that, although almost all questioned were opposed to
discrimination, very few had taken concrete action, in part because of their
belief that God would take care of them. One minister noted, "I believe
that if we all was as pure... as we ought to be, there would be no struggle.
God will answer my prayer. If we just stay with God and have faith. When
Peter was up, did the people march to free him? No. He prayed, and God did
something about it." (Bloom, op, cit., italics added.)
22.
Non-violent
resistance as it
relates to Christianity’s emphasis on suffering, sacrifice, and privation, is
discussed by James W. Vander Zanden, "The Non-Violent Resistance Movement
Against Segregation,” American Journal of Sociology, 68 (March, 1963),
pp. 544-550.
23.
Of
course, a most
relevant factor here is the position of the particular church that an
individual is involved in. Unfortunately, it was difficult to obtain such
information in a nationwide survey.
24.
The Muslims
have also made much
of this theme within Christianity, and their militancy is certainly tied to a
rejection of otherworldly religiosity. The Bible is referred to as a
"poison book" and the leader of the Muslims states, "No one
after death has ever gone any place but where they were carried. There is no
heaven or hell other than on earth for you and me, and Jesus was no exception.
His body is still... in Palestine and will remain there.” (As quoted in C. Eric
Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America, Boston: Beacon Press, 1961, p.
123).
However, while they reject the otherworldly theme, they
nevertheless rely heavily on a deterministic Allah, according to E. U.
Essien-Udom, this fact leads to political inactivity. He notes, “The attainment
of black power is relegated to the intervention of “Almighty Allah” sometime in
the future... Not unlike other religionists, the Muslims too may wait for all
eternity for the corning of the Messiah, the predicted apocalypse in 1970
notwithstanding.” E. U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism, op, cit., pp.
313-314.
25.
He
states: “Any
religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men end is not
concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle
them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.” He further adds, perhaps in a
concession, that “such a religion is the kind the Marxists like to see – an
opiate of the people.” Martin Luther King, Stride Toward Freedom, New
York: Ballantine Books, 1958, pp. 28-29.
John Lewis, a former
SNCC leader and once a Baptist Divinity student, is said to have peered through
the bars of a Southern jail and said, "Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword,” (Matthew 10:34.)
26.
The two items used in this index were: "How sure are you
that there is a life beyond death?"; and "Negroes should spend more
time praying and less time demonstrating.” The latter item may seem somewhat
circular when observed in relation to civil rights concern. However, this is
precisely what militancy is all about. Still it would have been better to
measure otherworldly vs. temporal concern in a less direct fashion;
unfortunately, no other items were available. Because of this the data shown
here must be interpreted with caution. However it does seem almost self-evident
that civil rights protest that is religiously inspired is related to a temporal
religious outlook.
27.
Rodney Stark, 4Class, Radicalism, and Religious Involvement,” American
Sociological Review, (October, 1964), p. 703.
28.
Donald Young, American Minority Peoples, New York:
Harper, 1937, p. 204. These data are
also consistent with Merton’s statement that it is premature to conclude that
"all religion everywhere has only the one consequence of making for mass
apathy” and his insistence on recognizing the “multiple consequences" and
"net balance of aggregate consequences” of a given institution such as
religion. Robert Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Glencoe:
Free Press, 1957, revised edition, p 44.
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