The growth in multiracial churches in America stems from the belief among most Christians that the church can help improve race relations by welcoming people of different races and ethnicities.  Recent studies provide a mixed but somewhat encouraging picture of the success achieved so far in making American congregations more diverse.

Martin Luther King famously said:

“We must face the sad fact that at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning when we stand to sing ‘In Christ there is no East or West,’ we stand in the most segregated hour of America.”

In an article published on November 12, 2020 on the website of Religious News Service, Yonat Shimron cites a new study that concludes that the number of multiracial congregations – defined as congregations in which no ethnic group is more than 80% of the membership – has increased substantially in the past 20 years, growing from 6% in 1998 to 16% in 2019, while the percentage of people in multiracial congregations increased from 13% to 24%.  The study also showed an increase in the number of Black pastors leading these churches.

Shimron notes that “The expansion can be found across the Christian spectrum, but particularly among mainline Protestant churches such as Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians, and evangelical and Pentecostal churches. Catholic churches saw the smallest growth in multiracial congregations.”

Another article published by Daniel Silliman on December 21, 2020 in Christianity Today cites a new study by sociologists Warren Bird and Scott Thumma on megachurches in America.  According to the study, 58% of the 1750 churches in the nation are now multiracial, while 40% are predominantly white and 2% are predominantly black.

The study also shows that while 94% of the senior pastors in the multiracial megachurches are still white, the distribution in the pews is consistent with the national percentages for whites, blacks, Asians and Native Americans.  Hispanics are underrepresented by 8 percentage points, and biracial people are overrepresented.  Smaller churches are also becoming more diverse, but at a slower pace.

In his article, Shimron mentions one of the conclusions of the study he referred to: “Diversity is a one-way street. Blacks are joining predominantly white congregations. Few whites join predominantly Black churches.” In fact, the percentage of black congregations seeing an influx of white worshippers is less than 1%.  A possible explanation is that “Black churches are typically smaller and poorer, with fewer programming options.”

Shimron also quotes Korie Little Edwards, a sociologist at Ohio State University who wrote The Elusive Dream: The Power of Race in Interracial Churches, and whose assessment of the situation is as follows:

“In many ways (people of color) are expected to assimilate to the dominant white culture. They end up having to hide or let go of their own cultural preferences and minimizing their ethnic and racial identity.”

This obviously means limited success has been achieved so far in the goal of improving race relations.  However, multiracial churches have been an improvement over earlier efforts to diversify churches.  Gerardo Marti, a sociologist at Davidson College, explained to Shimron that many of the initial attempts consisted in featuring black people in church literature and website photos, adding black gospel or Latin hymns to their services, or hiring non-white worship leaders.  According to Marti,

“After attempting to do this for quite a while, most churches have given up on the project. That energy has dissipated. It’s too hard.”

He adds that “To truly do a multiethnic church it has to start off as a church plant.”  In other words, congregations that are built as multiracial from the start have a better chance of success.

But in the current political climate, he gives a warning: “The project of creating a multiracial church has become more suspect among some conservative white churches.” One obvious obstacle is presented by white nationalists who have supported the Trump presidency and, accordingly, have overtly opposed diversity efforts.  Shimron notes that many white evangelicals are against the Black Lives Matter movement and that many conservative pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention oppose critical race theory, a theory that recognizes the impact of racism on the power structures inherent in the legal system.

A recent article published by Adelle Banks on April 29, 2021 in Christianity Today discusses the results of a study by Barna Group and the Racial Justice and Unity Center on the views of practicing Christians, defined as Christians who say their faith is important to them and who attended a church service in the past month.  The study shows that 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.”  Here, a multiracial church was defined as one in which no ethnic group was more that 60% of the membership.

The report produced by the study provides insights about differences in perceptions regarding the causes of racial problems.  Some of the conclusions are listed below:

• In some multiracial congregations, there is a tendency to normalize white traditions and understandings while expecting congregants of color to assimilate.
• Among black practicing Christians, 68% link racial inequalities in housing, income and jobs to ongoing discrimination, while only 32% of whites do so. Among white practicing Christians, 32% say such inequality occurs “because many Black fathers leave their families,” while only 11% of blacks say the same.

Commenting on the last item above, the authors of the report said it suggested “a pattern in which the powerful and advantaged deny or minimize the social structures that sustain their dominance.”  They also said “it appears that racial divisions and stereotypes in society are not only present, but often more concentrated, in the Church.”

On a more positive note, the report showed that “white practicing Christians in multiracial churches appeared to have a greater sense of awareness about past and present racial injustice and have more of a desire to deal with it.”  Specifically,

• Among white practicing Christians in multiracial congregations, 48% agreed that “Historically, the United States has been oppressive to minorities,” compared with 38% of those who attend primarily white congregations.
• Among white practicing Christians attending multiracial churches, 51% say they are motivated or very motivated to address racial injustice, compared with 28% of those who attend primarily white congregations.

In the Old Testament, there is initially an emphasis on identifying the Israelites as God’s people and separating them from the surrounding nations.  The Israelites were to be a nation of priests faithful to their God who delivered them from oppression in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land.  They were to live their lives in compliance with the covenant God made with them through Moses.  Very importantly, they were to avoid idolatry and any flirting with foreign gods.  To avoid the seduction of foreign worship practices, they were to limit contacts with foreigners.  In Deuteronomy 7:6, Moses tells them:

“The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”

Later in Israelite history, the prophets have new insights and visions of a more inclusive future under a messianic leader.  That messianic leader will not only bring a new covenant, but will be a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6).  The Gentiles will eventually join the Israelites in worshiping the one and only God of Israel.

The New Testament recognizes Jesus Christ as the messianic leader announced by the prophets.  New Testament teaching also emphasizes the idea of universal brotherhood, and love of neighbor, no matter where the neighbor came from.  It started with Jesus himself who, while recognizing that he had to go first to the Jews, carried his ministry to Gentile regions, and often recognized that Gentiles had more faith in God than many of his fellow Jews.  Paul summarized the inclusive aspect of the Christian faith when he said “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

One trick used by those who, throughout history, have used the Bible to advance their own interests, is the refusal to admit that the biblical narrative presents an evolution through time in perceptions about God’s nature and his expectations.  They claim that Old Testament teaching is just as authoritative as the teaching of Christ.  This way, they can conveniently navigate back and forth between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  That is how Christian nationalists, for example, justify their focus of the notion of the chosen people and reject efforts to achieve diversity.

But Christ is presented in the New Testament as God’s true representative, the one the entire narrative leads to.  That is succinctly stated in John 1:17-18 as follows:

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”

To help those who may struggle with these ideas, I wrote the book Grace and Truth: How the Biblical Narrative Affirms that Christ is Supreme and Parts of the Bible Are Obsolete.