Abstract
This paper explores the role that membership in a politicized church and believing in a black Christ have on the political mobilization and participation of African Americans. Using data from the 1993–94 National Black Politics Study (NBPS), the authors conclude that imagining a black Christ is a radicalizing force on political participation. Hearing politicizing messages in a place of worship and believing that Christ is black appears to shift African Americans from relatively conservative or traditional forms of political participation, such as contacting officials, to more non-traditional political protest. Further, it appears that imagining a black Christ is distinct from other aspects of a racial belief system and while it has political implications, it clearly has religious roots that separate it from other racial beliefs.
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Notes
The factor analysis portion of a structural equation model (SEM) is a measurement model, or Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), that begins by assuming: (1) the observed variables are generated by a smaller number of underlying, unobserved variables; (2) the observed variables are measured with some error; (3) the factors are uncorrelated; (4) while the covariances between the observed variables are known, they are contaminated by measurement error, and (5) the effects of measurement errors can be eliminated by allowing the factors to covary. The CFA is then used to construct the SEM. Variables loading on a Direct Oblimin rotation at less than .60 and not theoretically justified were assumed not to be a part of the resulting factors.
The relationships between religiosity, political messages, black Christ beliefs, and black economic autonomy are identical in direction and significance for contacting and campaigning behaviors. The only difference is that political autonomy increases campaigning behavior. Full analysis results for campaigning are available from the authors upon request.
A number of other measurement schemes have been used in past research to examine various forms of political participation. Many have been constructed based on theoretical rather than empirical typologies. For example, work by Brown and Wolford combined contacting a public official, signing a petition, attending a protest meeting, and picketing/sit-in/boycotting into a scale representing “protest-demand” political action (1994). A similar theoretically derived additive index was employed by Calhoun-Brown (1996). Much of this research is based on Verba and Nie’s original classification (1972) that defined contacting behavior to include seeing, speaking, or writing to a political official or other member of the local community as well as such contacting at the state and federal level. A similar scheme based on factor analysis was employed by Bobo and Gilliam (1990). Thus, the measures used here closely follow this classification scheme and present an alternative political participation “concept” empirically derived through factor analysis.
Racial identity has also been measured in a number of ways in previous research. Miller and colleague’s (1981) scheme of separating identity into group identification, polar power, polar affect, and system blame has been well cited and serves as the basis for much subsequent research (see Calhoun-Brown, 1996; Reese & Brown, 1995, for examples). In short, racial identity or belief systems have been found to have several components; closeness to one’s group and similar groups, distance from other groups, feelings of power differentials between groups based on race, belief that the system is biased against groups of color, and support for autonomy of one’s own group (Allen et al., 1989; Miller, Gurin, Gurin, & Malanchuk, 1981; Reese & Brown, 1995). Two racial belief indexes have been constructed from the same data set used here in other research, neither based on factor analysis (Calhoun-Brown, 1999). One mixed most of the economic and political autonomy and questions together. The other measured closeness to other black groups. The economic autonomy index employed here is most similar to Allen, et al.’s (1989) concept of black autonomy that included use of a black language, voting for black candidates, shopping in black stores, and using African names for children. However, with more questions regarding identity issues in this survey, a second and more radical political “autonomy” concept emerges which indicates a desire for fairly extreme separation for African Americans from the current power system. It should be noted that initial factor analysis for this research identified the presence of two other racial identity concepts that closely resembled Miller’s closeness to other blacks and system blame. These, however, related to few other variables and were not included in further analysis in the interests of parsimony. Davis and Brown (2002) and Brown and Shaw (2002) have found two separate measures of Black Nationalism using the 1992 National Black Politics Study. This paper takes an agnostic approach, largely arguing that a racial belief system can include either one or two statistical dimensions based on the items included in the analysis. The analysis here employs similar but different sets of variables to construct the measure of black economic and political autonomy since the interest is in testing a racial belief system rather than testing a measure of Black Nationalism.
A variety of schemes have been employed to measure the concept of religion or religiosity. However, efforts to measure personal theology are relatively new. The indexes representing perceptions of God working in the community and the black Christ are innovations in this research with little or no precedent; Calhoun-Brown employed a variant of the former but not the latter (1999). Religiosity and politics within the place of worship have been included in previous research, however. Measures of religiosity have essentially varied from simple frequency of attendance (Calhoun-Brown, 1996; Harris, 1994) to more complex measures depending on the particular questions included in the survey being used. For example, Allen, et al. (1989) used reading religious books, attending religious programs, requesting prayer, and how religious the respondent was as indicators of religiosity. Similarly, in empirical categorization schemes based on factor analysis Reese and Brown (1995) used frequency of attendance at a place of worship, the importance of religion and the extent to which religion provided guidance for living in an index measuring religiosity. Harris (1994) included frequency of prayer, closeness to God, and commitment to religious preference. Harris also separated church activism from church attendance with the former including being a member of a church organization, membership in a church group that solves problems, being active in a church organization, and being more active in church than in any other organization. Calhoun-Brown (1999) separated religious guidance (one question measuring extent of guidance religion provides) from religious participation (involvement in church activities). The index of religiosity used here is a combination of these approaches. Like religiosity, politicization of the place of worship has also been measured in a variety of ways depending on the survey at hand. For example, Calhoun-Brown used whether respondents hear political announcements at church as a single indicator (1996). Indexes of church based political discussion have included attending anything at the place of worship, supporting a candidate, working for a candidate and taking collections for candidates at church (Brown & Wolford, 1994) as well as attending political meetings at the place of worship, collecting money for candidates, and working for candidates at a place of worship (Reese & Brown, 1995).
The SPSS CFA resulted in a measurement model that had a cumulative total variance explained of 55.56%. This CFA was then used to estimate the SEM model, with the addition of the black Christ index and the exogenous variables. The basic SEM allows for error in the equation. Both measurement error and equation error are allowed for in the covariance model produced by AMOS. AMOS estimates all factor loadings, direct and indirect effects, and errors as part of the model.
While many of the potential independent variables could be and likely are correlated to black Christ beliefs (age, education, and income for example) in bivariate correlation analysis, these variables are not included because they did not perform up to statistical standards in the full model. Thus, being younger is significantly correlated with black Christ beliefs in bivariate correlation as is having a lower income; education is not significantly correlated.
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Reese, L.A., Brown, R.E. & Ivers, J.D. Some Children See Him...: Political Participation and the Black Christ. Polit Behav 29, 517–537 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-007-9033-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-007-9033-x