This article is part of the Religious Freedom Reframed series, which is exploring perspectives on religious freedom that have historically been left out of public discourse, as well as implications for individuals, institutions, and society overall. In this series, authors will use a public justice framework to explore narratives that are traditionally left out of the conversation on religious freedom. This series is designed to introduce fresh perspectives, feature new voices, and examine historical and present injustices in the application of religious freedom. The Center for Public Justice, a Christian faith-based organization with a strong commitment to religious freedom, has intentionally invited authors from diverse faith traditions and perspectives on religious freedom to share their insights and experiences of religious freedom in the United States.
Editor’s Note: This article contains excerpts from Jacqueline C. Rivers’, Ph.D. The Paradox of the Black Church and Religious Freedom, published in the University of Saint Thomas Law Journal (Volume 15, Issue 3, Pg. 676, Spring 2019). It has been republished with permission from the University of St. Thomas Law School. In the article, Dr. Rivers explores the Black Church’s relationship with religious freedom in the United States.
BY JACQUELINE C. RIVERS, PH.D.
Considerable attention has been paid to religious freedom claims and the laws that protect those freedoms; less attention has been paid to how religious freedom is used. African Americans, from the time of slavery, have been greatly impacted by how whites enacted their religious freedoms, and even more by how Blacks themselves did so. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the abolitionist movement were among the most consequential exercises of enacted religious freedom. Both of these efforts transformed the nation. The benefits that African Americans derived from these struggles might lead one to expect that the Black church would be a natural ally in the struggle to defend religious freedom in the United States. Moreover, Black people, given the moral standing derived from their being targets of the most egregious and violent racial hostility in the U.S., are uniquely positioned to rebut a popular argument being made against religious freedom, that it is tantamount to discrimination. However, whites have used their religious freedom to the great detriment of Blacks. In the middle of the twentieth century, they justified hostile actions against Blacks with claims of religious freedom. In addition, the whites who most vigorously made appeals to religious freedom were those associated with the defense of slavery and with racial hatred during the early and mid-twentieth century. Now, Blacks are slow to identify with religious freedom, threatening the loss of a valuable partner in maintaining religious rights in America.
WHAT IS ENACTED RELIGIOUS FREEDOM?
Enacted religious freedom is an important concept central to discussing the consequences of the First Amendment for African Americans. Much of the discussion around this subject to date has focused on the underlying principles and how they ought to be applied in specific conditions or their implications in specific cases before the courts. Enacted religious freedom by contrast focuses on how religious freedom is used, often taken for granted, often without specific claims of that right being made. To ground the discussion of the effect on the Black community, this article opens with a very brief consideration of the history and principles of religious freedom in the United States, which demonstrates the enduring importance of religious practice in the formulation of this right.
Prior to the Civil War, religion played a pivotal role, both for good and for ill, in an issue fundamental to the wellbeing of Black people: slavery. The actions justified by the faith commitments of both Blacks and whites were pivotal in this period, a fact that was perhaps unsurprising in an era when religion was a significant force in the lives of the overwhelming majority of the population. A hundred years later, while the centrality of religion had declined to some extent, it was still a potent force in the United States. Once again, religiously inspired action was critical to another great event in the lives of Blacks, the Civil Rights Movement. The life and work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. provides a powerful example from that era. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, there had been a further decline in the societal influence of religion, but in the Black community, faith commitments have remained strong and continue to play an important role in meeting the needs of the poor. Clearly enacted religious freedom has been important for Blacks throughout their history in the United States. A discussion of the paradox of their failure to engage in the struggle to ensure support for religious freedom in the current period, given its importance in their history, closes the article.
The question of practice has always been central to the issue of religious freedom. While the First Amendment is undeniably a noble statement protecting religious freedom, its framers acted in a way that undermined religious freedom. The very act of formulating the laws of the colonies was a denial of the freedom of enslaved people who shared the faith of the writers. Action based on religious belief and the assumption of the right to be guided by those beliefs has continued to be extremely significant in American society. Many actions motivated by religious beliefs are carried out without any reference to religious freedom; rather there is an unquestioning presumption of the right to exercise that freedom, to act as one’s faith convictions dictate without the expectation that such an action might be prohibited or otherwise constrained. This is what I have been referring to as enacted religious freedom: acting in a manner consistent with faith commitments even when appeals to religious freedom are not expressly articulated by the actors.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND SERVICE
The Black church’s being involved with service to the poor and needy is arguably a national phenomenon that contributes substantially to the good of society at large by addressing the needs of individuals who may already require extensive public support. It is likely that these actions are motivated by religious beliefs and are executed with the assumption that Blacks are free to fulfill what they perceive as their religious obligation: assisting the poor. If so, although these services are provided without any reference to religious freedom, they are another example of enacted religious freedom, the taken-for-granted freedom to act as faith commitments dictate. There is some evidence that suggests the impact of religious convictions in motivating churchgoers. Barnes’s study investigated the effect of priestly and prophetic influences on the provision of social services and found that the number of religious programs, such as Bible study, available to congregants was predictive of the level of social service provided by a church even when other variables such as pastoral education and socioeconomic status were taken into account. In a related study that drew on the same national database, Barnes found that the frequency of prayer reported in a congregation was positively related to provision of social service and to advocacy on social justice issues. Both studies by Barnes also found that the content of sermons was relevant to social action: the frequency of sermons about the love of God was related to the number of services provided. Similarly, sermons that focused on Black liberation and womanist theology were associated with both the presence of voter registration programs and social justice advocacy. These findings make it clear that particular religious activities and messages are associated with a variety of community service. Thus, the findings support the inference that various programs provided by Black churches to serve their communities are examples of enacted religious freedom, believers acting on deeply held religious beliefs.
THE FAILURE TO DEFEND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Given the importance of enacted religious freedom in the Black community, it might reasonably be expected that the Black church would be in the forefront of any defense of this right. And this would be particularly true in a situation where there was waning support for, or growing intolerance of, religious freedom. Yet that has not been the case. A more muscular liberalism, related to the growing secularization discussed earlier, has been pushing at the boundaries regarding gender and sexual mores and has been increasingly at odds with religion and people of faith in the last decades. At the same time there has been sharply reduced acceptance of religious freedom claims when they are at odds with other social issues.
In the current decade, there has been a sharp acceleration to the point where the tensions are high, debate is rancorous, and religious freedom is viewed with suspicion if not hostility.
“The deep and enduring historical connections between white evangelicals and virulent racism have had an undeniable impact on the attitudes of Black church leaders towards the debate regarding religious freedom.”
Making clear the important role that religious freedom has played and continues to play in the lives of Black people would do much to burnish its credentials with Americans, especially less-religious millennials. It would greatly benefit the cause to be able to induce a more positive attitude toward religious freedom among the American public, to create an atmosphere that is more supportive of claims for exemptions based on convictions of faith or of conscience. The failure to do this is the opportunity cost of the lukewarm attitude of the Black church towards religious freedom.
The lack of involvement of the Black church is closely linked to the identity of some of the most ardent proponents of religious freedom. The face of the strenuous defense of the First Amendment’s clauses on religion has often been Southern white evangelicals.
The deep and enduring historical connections between white evangelicals and virulent racism have had an undeniable impact on the attitudes of Black church leaders towards the debate regarding religious freedom. While Black pastors are concerned about religious freedom, they are unwilling to work closely with white churches that historically perpetuated brutal and bloody racial practices.
The right to act on one’s religious convictions has always been an integral aspect of formulations of religious freedom since they were articulated by America’s Founding Fathers, despite their egregious failure to live up to their own principles. This assumption of the right to live in accordance with the dictates of one’s faith is highlighted in the concept of enacted religious freedom. The taken for granted right to do this, often without any explicit appeal to religious freedom, has had a powerful impact on the lives of African Americans, for ill in the case of slavery, but with overwhelmingly positive results in many other major historical developments. These include the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and essential services provided to the needy in the Black community today. However, despite the many benefits that Black people have reaped from enacted religious freedom, they have stood apart from efforts to defend that right in the face of growing criticism and skepticism in the American public. This disengagement is related to the powerful association of religious freedom with white evangelicals, who have often been on the wrong side of racially charged issues and who have failed to act in the interest of Black people. Thus, an essential partner in the effort to preserve religious freedom, the Black church, is alienated from the effort.
Jacqueline C. Rivers is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow for Social Science and Policy of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies. She is currently a Senior Fellow at The King’s College in New York City and has served as a lecturer in both Sociology and African American Studies at Harvard University. She has presented at Princeton University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, the Vatican, Stanford University, the United Nations and in several other venues. Her publications include “The Paradox of the Black Church and Religious Freedom”, a chapter in the volume Not Just Good but Beautiful and another co-authored with Orlando Patterson in The Cultural Matrix published by Harvard University Press.
Jacqueline holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University where she was a Doctoral Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy of the J. F. Kennedy School of Government and a Graduate Research Fellow of the National Science Foundation. She graduated from Harvard Radcliffe College (B.A. summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and M.A., both in Psychology).
READ MORE FROM THIS SERIES
Introducing Religious Freedom Reframed by Joshua Seiersen and Chelsea Langston Bombino
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