Christianity is widely mocked and belittled by our cultural elite, which seem to enjoy citing statistics that purport to show that Christianity is in decline in America. But actually only white Christianity is showing declines in affiliation. Fewer young white people may be going to church, but that is not the case with young blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. In fact, Christianity is booming among demographics that the cultural elite claims to care about: women, blacks, and immigrants.
So says Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg Magazine. He begins by citing the ugly bigotry displayed by New York journalists in their indignation that Chick-Fil-A, a business run by evangelical Christians, has come to Manhattan. But then he delves into statistics that most people, Christians as well as secularists, do not realize.
From Stephen L. Carter, The Ugly Coded Critique of Chick-Fil-A’s Christianity:
A 2015 Pew Research Center study of race and ethnicity among U.S. religions provides some basic facts. In the first place, if you’re mocking Christians, you’re mostly mocking women, because women are more likely than men to be Christians. The greatest disproportion is found among black Christians, of whom only 41 percent are male. So you’re mocking black women in particular.
Overall, people of color are more likely than whites to be Christians — and pretty devout Christians at that. Some 83 percent of all black Americans are absolutely certain that God exists. No other group comes close to this figure. Black Christians are far more likely than white Christians (84 percent to 64 percent) to describe religion as very important in their lives. Of all ethnic groups, black Christians are the most likely to attend services, pray frequently and read the Bible regularly. They are also — here’s the kicker — most likely to believe that their faith is the place to look for answers to questions about right and wrong. And they are, by large margins, the most likely to believe that the Bible is the literally inerrant word of God. In short, if you find Christian traditionalism creepy, it’s black people you’re talking about.
It’s true that, politically, black Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats, and that’s true of black Christians as well. On the other hand, black Christians tend to be socially conservative: the least tolerant of homosexuality, the most likely to oppose same-sex marriage and the least likely to believe in evolution. 2 If you’re maligning traditional Christianity, the people you’re maligning are disproportionately black.
