by Ethan Starr and Annemarie Arnold
On Feb. 16, the Pew Research Center released a landmark report on African American religious life. Pew calls it the “most comprehensive, in-depth attempt to explore religion among Black Americans.” The report, which features nationally representative data from interviews of 8,660 Black Americans from fall 2019 to summer 2020, spans 176 pages. The Pew Center complements the data from these surveys by quoting participants of focus groups of “Black adults of various ages and religious leanings” and in-depth interviews of 30 Black clergy. It represents a continuation of regular surveys conducted by the Pew Center to gauge generational and demographic trends within America’s religious landscape in the 21st century. This most recent report is the first comprehensive analysis of African American religious practices since “A Religious Portrait of African-Americans,” issued by the Center in January of 2009.
The study identified a number of trends in religious identification among African American adults that evidence similarity in many elements of religious worship, as well as several key areas in which Black religious practices and preferences markedly differ from other sectors of the American population. It found that “Black Americans are more religious than the American public as a whole on a range of measures of religious commitment,” including a higher likelihood of believing in God or a higher power and regular attendance of religious services. Likewise, in comparison to the American population at large, they are more likely to identify religion as “very important” in their lives and to be affiliated with a religion. Responses to the survey questions indicate not only that a majority of respondents considered predominantly Black churches in having “some” or “a great deal” to help African Americans move toward greater equality in the U.S., but also that many see “opposing racism and opposing sexism as essential to their religious identity.”
Between Black Catholics and Protestants, the study revealed significant similarities in beliefs around the purpose of church services and engagement through service. Among Black Catholics and Protestants alike, seven in ten agree that the top three functions of the church are spiritual comfort, a sense of community or fellowship, and moral guidance. Music ministry and gospel choirs were common to church services frequented by Black Catholics and Protestants. Eighty-two percent of Black Catholics and 90% of Black Protestants said that their congregations always have music at their services. Sixty-five percent of Black Catholics and 78% of Black Protestants reported having a gospel choir at their church. Beyond church services, 34% of both Black Catholics and Black Protestants engage in service or volunteer activities, exceeding the 23% of volunteering religiously unaffiliated, sometimes referred to as “nones.”
A comparison of Catholic and Protestant responses to the Pew study suggests a trend of lesser engagement and prioritization of faith among Black Catholics than among Black Protestants. Twenty-seven percent of Black Catholics attend weekly religious services, compared to 42% of Black Protestants. Under a third (26%) of Black Catholics see religious service attendance as essential to their faith, compared to the 30% of Black Protestants in agreement. When asked to rate the importance of religion in their lives, 49% of Black Catholics and 73% of Black Protestants reported that religion is “very important” to them. In terms of community engagement, only one in ten Black Catholics reported occupying a leadership role in the congregation, compared to nearly three in ten Black Protestants, perhaps reflecting the inherent differences in hierarchical structure between Catholic and Protestant congregations.
Typical Protestant-Catholic differences were evident among the Black Protestants and Catholics surveyed. Fewer Black Catholics (12%) than Black Protestants (28%) reported participating in weekly religious or Bible study. Nearly twice as many Black Protestants reported reading Scripture regularly than did Black Catholics. Liturgy length varied according to denomination. Most Black Catholics attend services lasting one hour or less. Most Black Protestants attend services ranging from one and a half to two hours. Liturgy content varied by denomination and demographics as well, with 29% of Black Catholics reporting services including “speaking or praying in tongues,” compared with 54% of Black Protestants at Black and multiracial Protestant churches, and 35% of Black Protestants at white/other Protestant churches.
The survey also broke down the content of sermons among predominantly Black churches of different denominations. While Catholics reported hearing homilies addressing racial relations or inequality, voting or political engagement, or criminal justice at rates near the surveyed average, the 39% of Catholic respondents reporting having heard a sermon on abortion was nearly double the average for Black Americans attending at least a few services a year. Among Black adults who had heard a sermon about abortion in the calendar year preceding the study, 45% said that the practice should be illegal in most or all cases, a jump from the 31% who had not heard such a sermon. In comparison, 90% of Black adults who had heard a sermon about criminal justice in the previous year were in favor of reform, not significantly different from the 87% of Black adults in agreement who had not heard a sermon on the issue. The Pew Center did not claim to determine a causal relationship between these findings.
When it came to polling views on the hot-button issue of abortion, 66% of Mass-attending Black Catholics and 71% of all Black Catholics expressed the view that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, greater than the average (68%) among Black adults; a smaller fraction (65%) of Black Protestants were in agreement. While the high percentage of Black Catholics in favor of legalized abortion may seem shocking when considered in conjunction with the Church’s moral guidance against the practice, this is evidently not a new development. A 2009 Pew Study showed only 35% of Black Catholics expressing the view that abortion should be illegal. Today only 22% of Black Catholics and 22% of Black Protestants consider anti-abortion views to be essential elements of their faith.
The survey results also present findings that might shed light on the future of the Catholic Church among African American populations in the United States. Nine percent of Generation Z individuals surveyed reported being Catholic, higher than the six percent rate across all other age groups. Compared to the six percent of U.S.-born Blacks identifying as Catholic, 15% of Caribbean-born Blacks and 20% of African-born Blacks indicate a Catholic affiliation. Of these groups, the study notes, African immigrants are the most likely “to say religion is very important in their lives, to report that they attend religious services regularly, and to believe that people of faith have a religious duty to convert nonbelievers.”
For Black Catholics and Protestants, choosing a parish or congregation can involve a choice between a congregation where most or all parishioners and clergy are Black and a congregation that is multiracial. A majority (67%) of Black Protestant church-goers attend a church where most or all clergy and congregation are Black, whereas only 12% of Catholics attend a Black church. When asked whether Black congregations should increase their diversity, 36% of Black Catholics said that Black churches should “preserve their traditional racial character” and 59% said they should “become more racially and ethnically diverse.” Black Protestants held similar views on the issue; most surveyed indicated a preference for increased diversification.
The Pew study was published just after the conclusion of a landmark year for national discourse surrounding the situation of African Americans within American society. It also comes at a time of declining religiosity in the United States. As evidenced in the study, this decline has also touched Black religious communities: nearly half of Black adults represented in the Pew survey say that Black churches are less influential today than they were 50 years ago. Questions concerning the role of the church in societal change preoccupy many comments contributed by lay and clergy participants in the study’s focus groups and interviews. Rev. Desmond Drummer, pastor of Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in South Fulton, Georgia shared his own insight into the role of the Black Catholic church: “We are firmly in the tradition of the proverbial ‘Black Church,’ because people who are descendants of slaves are in our church. … Black clergy at a Catholic church are never presumed to be committed exclusively to the Black population alone, or the pan-African population alone. And that shapes the way we engage the world.”
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