Paulina Napierała:Black Evangelicals and Their Response to the Current Socio-political Problems
Channel: GIRES-Global Research Institute
Date: 2021-08-09

Paulina Napierała received her Ph.D. in political science from Jagiellonian University, Cracow, in 2011. She works at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, JU. Her research explores a variety of issues concerning the role of religion in American politics and public life as well as the history of church-state relations. Currently, she is focusing on the social and political role of the Black Church. She is a board member of GIRES.

ABSTRACT
Evangelicalism is inextricably connected with African American religion in the US. Although at first ‘white religion’ (understood mostly as Protestant Christianity) was culturally distant to the enslaved Africans, thanks to Evangelicalism they soon developed their own kind of Christianity. Evangelicalism as an emotional religious movement that stressed individual spiritual experience rather than hierarchies of the formal churches, was not only embraced, but also enriched by African Americans. It contributed to the creation of separate Black congregations and denominations, which have often been viewed as early expressions of
social and racial protest.
Black churches went through segmentation into different denominations, but what is even more important, they also experienced the most significant split in American Christianity, connected to the so-called “fundamentalist/modernist controversy.” The split led to the formation of two major branches of Protestant Christianity: mainline Protestantism that generally adopted liberal theology, and conservative Evangelicalism (that in some cases transformed into Protestant fundamentalism). This diversification and the creation of many new (and sometimes) fundamentalist sects within Black Christianity (that usually focused on transforming individual souls, self-improvement and personal piety) influenced the variety of Black churches’ attitudes to the socio-political engagement. And while Evangelicalism is nowadays popularly (and politically) associated with white Christianity, and despite the common equation of the “Black Church” with an Afro-Protestant mainline, it is worth remembering that there are Black Evangelicals who are not only a part of white or multiethnic Evangelical denominations, but also of some historically Black churches (especially among the Baptists and Pentecostals).
Black Evangelicals are quite a diverse group and their political choices often vary greatly. In general, despite more conservative views, they usually still vote Democratic – just like other Black Christians. Their responses to more specific socio-political problems, including race and protest politics, #BLM, gender and LGBTQ issues, “Me Too” campaign or abortion, while situating them closer to conservatives and white Evangelicals, are however much more complex. In this presentation I will discuss this complexity.

CONFERENCE INFORMATION
"Religion and Politics in the United States"
Organizer: GIRES-Global Institute for Research Education & Scholarship  
Date: 17-18 July 2021
Place: Amsterdam (Virtual)
More information: https://www.gires.org/activities/conferences/religion-and-politics-in-the-united-states/