Download - The Impact of Church Activities and Socialization on African-American Religious Commitment*

The Impact of Church Activities andSocialization on African-AmericanReligious Commitmentn

Peter W. Wielhouwer, Regent University

Objective. This article examines religious commitment (church involvement, pri-vate devotionalism, and religious salience) among African Americans as a functionof being served by a religious congregation, perception of the historical role of thechurch in relation to the group, and religious and racial socialization. Meth-ods. Drawing on traditional Christian expectations of the church, hypotheses aretested using the 1979–1980 National Survey of Black Americans. Three alternativemodels are tested that explicitly compare the effects of church activities with con-ventional socialization and demographic models of religious commitment. Re-sults. The results show that the church’s fulfillment of its normative roles ofdiscipleship and ministry is profoundly important for understanding religiosity, evencontrolling for other conventional predictors. Conclusions. The analysis illustrates acentral, and previously unaddressed, link between religious institutions and indi-vidual religiosity. The results have consequences for churches that might considerreprioritizing their activities in response to faith-based initiatives because social-service types of church activities influence religious commitment to a lesser degreethan activities that emphasize spiritual growth.

Americans are a religious people, and churches in the United States havelong been seen as important social institutions (Ahlstrom, 1972). Socialscience has gained significant ground in assessing the religious habits ofAmericans, and religion’s impact on other sociopolitical concepts, and this isappropriate, for studying and accurately modeling the determinants of re-ligious commitment and the effects of religious socialization are undertak-ings of no little import. Commitment to religious organizations andbehaviors is of intrinsic interest as a measure of the human resolve to engagethe transcendent on a systematic basis. It is also a measure of the value that

nDirect correspondence to Peter W. Wielhouwer, Regent University, Robertson Schoolof Government, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach, VA [email protected]. The data used in the article was provided by the Interuni-versity Consortium for Political and Social Research; the author will share all data and codinginformation with those wishing to replicate the study. Neither the original collectors norICPSR are responsible for the interpretations or conclusions drawn by the author. Parts ofthis article were originally developed in a paper presented at the 2002 Annual Meeting of theMidwest Political Science Association. I would like to thank Olivia M. McDonald, LauraOlson, and Randall Panell for their insights and comments on earlier drafts. This manuscriptis Regent University’s Center for Grassroots Politics Working Paper #104a.

SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Volume 85, Number 3, September 2004r2004 by the Southwestern Social Science Association

individuals place on the spiritual dimension of their lives, as there are op-portunity costs associated with committing to taking part in its components.Attending worship services on Sunday morning instead of playing golfreflects a value judgment; so does reading C. S. Lewis instead of ToniMorrison, and leading youth on Wednesday nights instead of watching‘‘West Wing.’’

Moreover, in analysis of the African-American sociopolitical experience,religious commitment and socialization have been linked to other criticalconcepts. Religious socialization is related to racial identity and collectiveand individual political action (Brown and Wolford, 1994). Religiouscommitment has been linked to race consciousness (Allen, Dawson, andBrown, 1989; Demo and Hughes, 1990; Reese and Brown, 1995), percep-tions of African Americans (Ellison, 1993), and political attitudes and be-havior (Dawson, Brown, and Allen, 1990; Harris, 1999). The black church,which has long been the central social organization for the African-Americancommunity, must be taken into account in any meaningful assessment of thegroup’s religious attitudes and behaviors.

This article discusses the development of three kinds of commitment toreligious institutions among African Americans: commitment to churchorganizational activities, commitment to other private devotional behaviors(such as praying and reading religious materials), and the general salience ofreligion and the church. The key relationship of interest is a model ofAfrican-American religious commitment as a function of experiences with areligious congregation. In the context of religious socialization, the generalrole of religion in society is discussed, leading to description of normativeChristian expectations of the church (using this faith tradition is reasonablebecause most blacks identify themselves as Christians; see Taylor and Chat-ters, 1991); application is then made to black congregations in light of thosenorms. The 1979–1980 National Survey of Black Americans is analyzed toassess the validity of the article’s theoretical arguments. The results show thatpeople in churches that are fulfilling the normative roles of discipleship andministry exhibit substantially higher levels of religious commitment, evenafter controlling for conventional predictors of religiosity. This links whatchurches as institutions do with the religiosity of the individuals in theirspheres of influence. Childhood socialization is important, but agents ofadult socialization have modest influence on religious commitment. Thefindings have implications for political mobilization in the black church, andfor church leaders considering reprioritizing congregational activities in re-sponse to governmental faith-based initiatives.

The Religious Socialization of African Americans

The key agents of socialization are well known, and include family,school, peer groups, news sources, political leadership, and critical social

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events. Following the formative influence of the family, subsequent agentsinfluence attitude acquisition, but have variable effects on attitude evolution.Relatively modest analytical progress was made in the study of African-American socialization prior to the 1980s, however. Reviewing the existingknowledge through the mid-1980s, Walton (1987) noted that blacks tendedto prefer black social institutions over white institutions as socializing agents,and since then evidence has accumulated on the influence of the blackchurch in that regard. The church has provided an organizational basis forindividual and group identity, as well as promoting, alternatively, a drivetoward assimilation into the dominant white culture and a theological andorganizational basis for countercultural social action (Harris, 1999). Oftenviewed as a distinctively black phenomenon, the black church’s role none-theless fits into our general understanding of religion as a societal institution.A careful examination of the determinants of black religious commitment iswarranted because it is well worth knowing if and how church activitiesinfluence religious behaviors and attitudes.

The Role of Religion

Religion is a set of beliefs, behaviors, and practices revolving around whatis considered sacred; is primarily concerned with group beliefs and practices,instead of those of individuals; and aids in the search for existential meaning.As a societal institution, its functions include giving individuals and groups‘‘new security and firmer identity : : : through a [transcendent] referencepoint beyond the present; : : : [giving societal] norms and values : : : notonly a legal sanction but also a divine one; [performing] a prophetic func-tion [establishing] standards or values against which existing norms can becritically examined and called into question; [and facilitating] growth andmaturation : : : as individuals pass through the various age categories’’(O’Dea and Aviada, 1983, cited in Chalfant, Beckley, and Palmer,1994:43–44). Central to these functions is the transmission of behavioralexpectations and one’s identity in transcendent and earthly contexts. Effectsof these functions are buttressed by evidence that when children’s familiesare involved in churches, that involvement generally lasts throughout child-hood, and the religious socialization encountered has enduring effects (e.g.,Green and Guth, 1993).

More generally, religious doctrines matter for developing individual re-ligious identity (e.g., understanding oneself as a child of a loving God, or asa sinner in the hands of an angry God, or as a god) and group religious iden-tity (e.g., as a Roman Catholic, or as a Muslim in a predominantly Christiancountry). Cornel West, for example, argued that identity construction relatesto ‘‘what the theologians used to call the problem of evil : : : identity cutsat that deep existential level where religion resides’’ (1993:163–64). Becauseidentity development is a process of individuals transacting with their social

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and cultural contexts (Hoover, 1997), religion directly influences identityformation. As theologian Paul Tillich argues, whatever one’s ultimate con-cern is becomes one’s religion, and religion tells people what they shouldultimately be concerned about. Moreover, a person’s various identitiescompete in a manner similar to cross-cutting cleavages: I am a Baptist; I ama Mormon; I am a wife; I am a union member; and so on. But peoples’various identities get sorted in terms of fixed characteristics (‘‘I am awoman’’), volitional priorities (‘‘I am a father’’ trumps ‘‘I am a professor’’),and priorities imposed by others (‘‘If you want to work here, you will be aunion member’’).

The most prominent American example of one group imposing identityon another is the use of skin color as a criterion for social, economic, andpolitical participation, indeed, even citizenship. The institutions of slavery,the ideology of white supremacy, and the legal codes of Jim Crow all servedto impose a racial identity, isolating blacks from most other possible af-filiations in society. Over time, de jure barriers have fallen, and many mod-ern black intellectual leaders now focus on the less tangible manifestations ofinstitutional racism (e.g., Bell, 2000; Steele, 1998). Meanwhile, African-American sociopolitical isolation led to the formation of a social hierarchy,centered in and around the black church, where social control and economicdevelopment were facilitated by those at the top (Frazier, [1963] 1974). Theblack church thus became the key social institution for African-Americansocial mobility and political mobilization (Harris, 1999; Lincoln and Ma-miya, 1990), and is central to our understanding of black sociopoliticalbehavior.

The Role of the Church

Churches and other places of worship are the organizational embodimentsof the abstract institution of religion in Western society,1 and in addition tothe family are the primary venues for religious socialization. Christianity, forexample, deriving doctrinal content from the Bible, assigns to its church avariety of roles. This article’s strategy in developing a conceptual frameworkfor church roles is to refer to writings from Christians first, and then to placethose writings in the context of academic research on the black church. Inthis way, the faith tradition itself is allowed to set the agenda for the con-cepts derived and utilized later in the article.

Two passages are often cited as foundational for the church’s role in theworld, and while not uncontroversial, are prominently featured in majorChristian traditions. The first passage is commonly known as the ‘‘GreatCommission’’ of the church, spoken by Jesus to his disciples at the end of his

1Generally, when this article uses the term ‘‘church,’’ this is the meaning, and it encom-passes other non-Christian houses of worship.


ministry on earth (Matthew 28:19–20).2 The centrality of this passage to theChristian church (broadly conceived) is discussed by Colson and Vaughn(1992:282): ‘‘‘making disciples’ involves more than evangelism : : : Evan-gelism must be fully integrated with discipleship in order for the church totruly be obedient to Scripture.’’ In developing these themes, the authorsdiscuss training and equipping church members to ‘‘know and defend theirfaith and to apply it in the world : : : to lead exemplary lives in the mar-ketplace : : : to build strong marriages and families : : : to reach out to thosein particular types of physical and spiritual need’’ (1992:287–94). Two keyroles for the church, therefore, are evangelism (spreading the word about thefaith) and discipleship (training and equipping believers to integrate thefaith’s teachings into their lives).

The second passage, quoted by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry (heasserted that it referred to him), are words of the Israelite prophet Isaiah(Isaiah 61:1–2).3 A favorite passage of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was thebasis of his sermon ‘‘Guidelines for a Constructive Church’’ (King, 1966).King argued, ‘‘Sunday after Sunday, week after week, people come to God’schurch with broken hearts. They need a word of hope. And the church hasan answer—if it doesn’t, it isn’t a church : : : [God] doesn’t say that you’regoing to escape trials and tribulations. But what religion does say is this: thatif you have faith in God, that God has the power to give you a kind of innerequilibrium through your pain.’’ His point is that a key role for the church isattempting to heal people when they are hurting, whatever the source of thepain. This ministry is related to evangelism and discipleship: Colson andVaughn argued that the church should be equipping its members to takecare of people, and King argued that the church should be ministering to,that is, actually taking care of people (e.g., Harris, 2001).

Building further on Isaiah, King argued, ‘‘when the church is true to itsguidelines, it sets out to preach deliverance to them that are captive. This isthe role of the church: to free people.’’ He described white churches inwhich preachers did not free their members from racial prejudice and fear,and black churches in which pastors were afraid to talk about the civil rightsmovement or who were criticized for talking ‘‘too much’’ about civil rights.He then emphatically encouraged those pastors to tell the truth that Godhad anointed them to preach: ‘‘I got my guidelines and my anointment fromGod Almighty. And anything I want to say, I’m going to say it from this

2‘‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of theFather and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you’’(Matthew 28:19–20, New American Standard Version (NAS)).

3The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,Because the LORD has anointed meTo bring good news to the afflicted;He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,To proclaim liberty to captivesAnd freedom to prisoners;To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD. (Isaiah 61:1–2, NAS)


pulpit. : : : when God speaks, who can but prophesy? The word of God isupon me like fire shut up in my bones, and when God’s word gets upon me,I’ve got to say it, I’ve got to tell it all over everywhere.’’

This is a classic exposition of the anointing to prophesy, that is, to preachGod’s truth to the members of the church individually, and to society atlarge. This prophetic imperative on the part of the church complements theother roles discussed. The pastor’s prophetic preaching and teaching is thecornerstone of the congregation’s evangelistic outreach and discipleship, andfor equipping church members to minister to other members and to thecommunity.

For the purposes of this article, the church roles are summarized using thefollowing terms, with the goal of establishing a conceptual framework foranalyzing church activities.4 Evangelism is the process by which essentialsalvific doctrines of the faith are communicated to nonmembers, with theintent of recruiting new members to the church. Discipleship is the process ofdeveloping in the congregation’s members spiritual maturity through furtherand more complex doctrinal teaching, including the application of thefaith’s principles to personal issues (such as emotional well-being); this areaalso includes the process of socializing members into formal and informalbehavioral expectations. Ministry is when the church attempts to meet thephysical needs of members and of nonmembers, with an especial emphasison society’s needy. Prophecy is when the church projects the faith’s view oftruth into the community, whether communicating social messages to in-dividuals and social groups (on topics such as personal morality), or politicalmessages to politicians and the government. Finally, while the Christianchurch, according to its own teaching, is mandated to shape peoples’ un-derstanding of their relationship to God, and the behavioral expectations ofthe faith, this is a general attribute of religion and need not be applied solelyto Christian congregations.

A cursory observation of churches will show that the priority placed oneach of the four roles varies across and within church traditions and de-nominations. Some congregations may emphasize externally-oriented evan-gelism or inwardly-focused discipleship, while others may set a higherpriority on meeting the physical needs of the poverty stricken, or pursuingsocial justice through political activities (for an interesting analysis of theselast two, see Wood, 2002). Two useful sociological analyses of congrega-tional orientations and behavior categorized what churches actually do inrelation to their respective communities and constituencies.

4In developing these conceptual categories, I consulted with faculty from the RegentUniversity School of Divinity, who confirmed the roles as traditionally associated withevangelical and Pentecostal theology. It is clear, however, that there is some overlap in theterminology selected for summarizing the concepts. For example, a teaching ministry to thecongregation might be termed prophecy, discipleship, or ministry by three different pastors.Conceptually, the essential concepts here are distinct, though semantic differences between apopular understanding of them might be fuzzy without defining one’s terms carefully.


In analyzing urban churches, Roozen, McKinney, and Carroll (1984)categorized congregations into four ‘‘mission orientations’’ based on thechurches’ positions on two dimensions: this-worldly versus other-worldlyorientations, and whether a congregation is pro-active regarding public ex-pressions of its mission or is resistant to public action on the part of thechurch. They classified churches into four types (1984:32–36), activist (this-worldly and pro-active), civic (this-worldly and not pro-active), evangelistic(other-worldly and pro-active), and sanctuary (other-worldly and not pro-active). Following this typology, activist churches would place greater em-phasis on political prophecy and ministry to the needy in the community;civic churches would also emphasize prophecy, but perhaps with a lessaggressive political message; evangelistic churches would place a high pri-ority on evangelism and discipleship; while sanctuary churches wouldemphasize discipleship, to the detriment of its evangelistic, ministry, andprophetic roles.

African-American churches present all the roles to varying degrees. Lin-coln and Mamiya’s (1990) model of the black church often alludes tothem. For example, regarding the dialectic between the church’s priestlyand prophetic functions, they argue: ‘‘Every black church is involved withboth functions. Priestly functions involve only those activities concernedwith worship and maintaining the spiritual life of members : : : Propheticfunctions refer to involvement in political concerns and activities in thewider community; classically, prophetic activity has meant pronouncing aradical word of God’s judgment’’ (1990:12). In this comparison, disci-pleship is balanced against prophecy. As another example, in the dialecticbetween this-worldly and other-worldly approaches, members are taughtabout how to orient themselves toward the world: ‘‘‘Other-worldly’ meansbeing concerned only with heaven and eternal life or the world beyond : : :‘This-worldly’ refers to involvement in the affairs of this world, especiallypolitics and social life, in the here and now’’ (1990:12). Discipleship isbalanced against meeting immediate needs (ministry) and prophecy to thecommunity.

The relative emphasis a congregation places on the normative churchroles found in Christian doctrine provides a context for the socialization ofits members. If church leaders are primarily interested in generating re-ligiosity among members, and if people behave according to their religioussocialization, then there should be a connection between what people getfrom the church (such as spiritual instruction and interpersonal fellowship)and their own behavior (such as level of church attendance and activities,and devotional or pietistic behavior) and attitudes. To address this hy-pothesis, this article proposes a statistical model that draws on the nor-mative church roles vis-a-vis its members and others in its sphere ofinfluence. In particular, this model explicitly incorporates African Amer-icans’ reports of their own religious behaviors and attitudes, as well as whatthey report as the most important things done for them by their church or


religion, or members of their congregation. Finally, the analysis assesses thedegree to which religious commitment is a function of what the churchdoes, beliefs about how the church has affected blacks as a group, and othersocialization processes.

Hypotheses and Data

This research uses data collected in 1979–1980 as the first wave of theNational Survey of Black Americans ( Jackson and Gurin, 1996). A total of2,107 African Americans were interviewed, obtained from a national mul-tistage probability sample. This data set contains rich series of questions onreligious attitudes, behaviors, and affiliations, and on a variety of socializat-ion experiences and agents. It provides an important advantage for the studyof African-American attitudes, in that a wide range of hypotheses can betested without running the risk of attempting to draw inferences from asmall number of respondents, a problem encountered with data sets such asthe National Election Studies or the General Social Surveys. Based on theliterature on socialization in the black community, on established determi-nants of religious commitment, and on the normative roles of religion,testable hypotheses relate to (1) the church’s role, (2) childhood socializat-ion, and (3) racial socialization; socioeconomic and demographic controlsare also added.5

‘‘Religious commitment,’’ or ‘‘religiosity,’’ is the object of the analysis; inparticular, this article focuses on commitment to religious institutions.6

The categories are borrowed from Kellstedt (1993; see also Guth andGreen, 1993), who suggested five dimensions to religious commitment:church involvement, private devotionalism, salience, belief, and affiliation.Church involvement is associated with public attendance at religious activ-ities. Private devotionalism relates to the private behavioral norms associatedwith the pursuit of personal spiritual disciplines; the purposes of theseactivities are to increase doctrinal understanding and to gain guidance inmaking personal decisions regarding prescribed and proscribed behaviors.Finally, the general salience of religious beliefs refers to ‘‘the importancethat religion has in a person’s life’’ (Guth and Green, 1993:158). (Religiousbeliefs are not addressed in the data set, and the measure of affiliation isdiscussed below.)

5Measures of racial identity are excluded because the consensus of the extant literature isthat religiosity is causally prior to black group identity (e.g., Allen, Dawson, and Brown,1989; Dawson, Brown, and Allen, 1990; Reese and Brown, 1995). When added to religiouscommitment models, racial identity was only modestly related to religious commitment, andadded little (1–3 percent) to the equations’ R2.

6The term ‘‘institution’’ is used in a dual sense, meaning the organizations associated withreligious groups (such as a church or place of worship) and the behavioral expectations ornorms of a faith community, in line with neoinstitutional political theory (e.g., Riker, 1980).


Each type of commitment is measured as an additive index of NSBArespondents’ reports of the frequency of the religious behavior.7 Churchinvolvement includes frequency of attendance at religious services, frequencyof taking part in other activities at the place of worship, the number ofchurch clubs or organizations the respondent belongs to or participates in(up to four), and whether the respondent holds any positions or offices inthe church. Private devotionalism includes the respondent’s reported fre-quency of reading religious books or materials, watching or listening toreligious programs on TV or radio, and frequency of prayer. Salience in-cludes beliefs about the importance of going to church, and how religiousrespondents say they are. The measure of religious affiliation used herediffers from Kellstedt’s formulation based on denominational divisions.8

Affiliation is based on the question: ‘‘What is your religion now?’’ Respon-dents who replied ‘‘none’’ or ‘‘no preference’’ are classified as unaffiliated.All others are considered affiliated.

Figure 1 shows the distribution of affiliated and unaffiliated AfricanAmericans on the three measures of religious commitment. The patternsclearly show that people who claim a faith tradition are very different fromreligiously unaffiliated people (all differences between means are statisticallysignificant at p � 0.001). In church involvement (Section A), unaffiliatedpeople have little to no interaction with these religious institutions, whereasaffiliated persons are much more involved. Section B shows that even peoplewho do not claim a religious affiliation participate in devotional activities—they pray, watch or listen to religious programming, read religious books,and so on, but at a lower rate than affiliated people. Finally, the salience ofchurch and faith is very different for the two groups, in predictable direc-tions, as indicated in Section C.

Of central concern in this analysis is the direction of causality betweenchurch activities and religious commitment. The religious commitmentvariables discussed below measure the individual’s self-reported behaviorsand attitudes, and these are theorized to be a function of a range of stimuliand background factors. The church’s activities are part of the social contextwithin which individuals live; what the church does—the activities the in-stitution takes, largely out of the control of the respondents—influences thepeople in and around the church. After all, the whole point of the church is

7Cronbach’s alpha (standardized) for each index is as follows:All

RespondentsAffiliated

RespondentsUnaffiliatedRespondents

Church involvement 0.84 0.85 0.65Private devotionalism 0.66 0.63 0.61Salience 0.59 0.52 0.35

8Future iterations of this research agenda will distinguish between the major denomina-tions in the African-American community; for cogent histories, see Lincoln and Mamiya(1990).


to have exactly this kind of impact. Therefore, this approach supports thecontention that church activities are causally prior to religiosity.

A different theoretical approach might posit that people become recipientsof church activities when they demonstrate greater church involvement;what they get from the church would vary in relation to the degree of

Church Involvement Index(Affiliated Mean = 5.7; Not Affiliated Mean = 1.3)

Private devotionalism index(Affiliated Mean = 10.8; Not Affiliated Mean = 7.7)

Religion's salience index(Affiliated Mean = 4.6; Not Affiliated Mean = 2.2)

00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

10

20

30

40

Per

cent

0

5

10

15

20

Per

cent

0

10

20

30

40

Per

cent

Affiliated Not affiliated

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

A

B

C

FIGURE1

Religious Commitment Indices, by Church Affiliation.

SOURCE: 1979–1980 NSBA (Jackson and Gurin, 1996).


religiosity they display. Although plausible for church involvement, it seemsunlikely that one’s private devotional habits, or attitudes regarding religioussalience, would be causally prior to, and therefore influence, the activitiesundertaken by the church. Moreover, there is little reason to believe that thechurch would know about these behaviors and attitudes in order to ‘‘re-ward’’ the faithful for their private and psychological piety. Alternatively, itis possible that people who desire certain services from a church will church‘‘shop’’ until they find a congregation that offers the kinds of activities theyseek. These alternative causal possibilities cannot, unfortunately, be testedwith the cross-sectional design of this data set’s first wave; the religiouscommitment questions were not asked in the second wave of the NSBA,which hinders the ability to more completely assess causal direction.

Operationalizing the Church’s Role

Religious commitment is positively affected by the discipleship and ministryroles of the church toward the individual. The key innovation proposed is themanner in which the church’s role toward individuals is operationalized. Ifthe role of religion and the church is to deepen members’ expression andinternalization of religious attitudes through discipleship, then there shouldbe measurable effects when the church fulfills that role. The operationaldefinition of church roles toward individuals is based on Christian doctrine,as discussed above. This seemed reasonable for two primary reasons. First,87.5 percent of NSBA respondents affiliated with a Christian congregation(the remaining respondents were nontraditional Christian and other non-Christian groups (3.9 percent), had no religious preference, or were atheistsor agnostics (10.4 percent)).

Second, it appears that such a conceptual framework has heretofore notbeen used to account for the influence of churches as institutions. Ellisonand Sherkat (1995) utilized the same measures and data set, but conceived ofthe measures as types of perceived benefits of church participation: emo-tional well-being, moral guidance, and instrumental gains. Although sig-nificantly related to church participation, that use seems to reflect a limited,and nonreligious, conception of the ‘‘benefits’’ of church involvement. Asdeveloped below, the wording of the survey items lend themselves to a muchmore theoretically interesting application and allows an assessment, on itsown terms, of the activities of the church.

The church role measures are based on three sets of open-ended questions.As part of a series of items regarding involvement in church activities, thesurvey asked: ‘‘What is the most important thing [your church or place ofworship] does for you?’’ and ‘‘What is the most important thing religiongives you or does for you?’’ As a followup to a question about how oftenpeople in their church or place of worship help them out, respondents wereasked: ‘‘How are they most helpful to you?’’ Respondents were allowed


multiple responses to each question.9 The item responses coincided withvarious aspects of the previously discussed church roles in the Christiantradition. (Very few responses could be classified as evangelism and proph-ecy, as defined above, which are directed at those outside the church, andthese items clearly focus on what the respondents themselves receive.) Spe-cifically, responses fell into eight distinct, nonorderable categories, and eachcategory was used to create variables measuring the number of mentions by arespondent of each type of statement (the coding matrix is available from theauthor’s website).

There were four kinds of discipleship statements. Vertical discipleshipstatements relate directly or indirectly to one’s relationship with God, to theexpression of spiritual feelings, and having the opportunity to worship orexpress gratitude to God. Replies include statements like ‘‘Makes you feelthe Spirit’’ and ‘‘I can thank God for what he has done’’ (15.6 percent ofrespondents had at least one statement in this category). Horizontal disci-pleship statements relate to social interaction, socializing, or fellowship (20.4percent), such as ‘‘I like to be with other people’’ or people help by giving‘‘encouragement,’’ ‘‘moral support,’’ or ‘‘comfort.’’ Equipping discipleshipstatements relate to gaining religious understanding and faith, understand-ing about God, moral guidance, and helping to solve problems (53.3 per-cent), such as ‘‘Gives me security knowing that God is there’’ and helps meto ‘‘live better’’ or ‘‘live in a righteous way.’’ Emotional discipleship repliesreflect emotional well-being statements, including good feelings, help in lowtimes, sustaining and strengthening, or spiritual healing (66.1 percent); thesestatements include ‘‘Helps me get by from day to day,’’ ‘‘Something to lookforward to,’’ and people ‘‘pray for me.’’ General spiritual help statementsreflect generalized reports of blessings, such as protection by God (12.9percent).

Three kinds of ministry were mentioned in the replies. Goods ministrydescribes provision of food, clothes, furniture, gifts, and so on (1.7 percent).Services ministry refers to physical assistance, such as help around the house,doing favors, special care when sick, transportation, and so forth (13.2percent). Financial ministry refers to paying bills, paying rent, providinghousing, helping to get out of jail, and so forth (7.1 percent).

Significant differences appear in reports of receiving discipleship or ministryfrom affiliated and unaffiliated respondents (respondents who fell into theunaffiliated category were still asked the battery of questions used to measurechurch roles). People currently affiliated with a church were more than twiceas likely to make discipleship-related statements, with the greatest relative

9Though the questions might be read as tapping into what respondents value in theirchurch or religion, the responses actually appear to reflect a ranking by respondents of whatthey actually get from the church and its members, and not what they would value were itoffered. Contrast, for example, the previous questions with these: ‘‘Would [the people in yourchurch or house of worship] help you if you needed help?’’ ‘‘In what way would they be mosthelpful?’’ (emphasis added).


difference emerging in horizontal discipleship responses, that is, in the fel-lowship and companionship statements. Obviously, if one has no place ofworship to go to, one has a more difficult time sharing collective religiousexperiences. Relative differences between the two groups are even greaterwhen looking at ministry statements. In terms of physical assistance and care,almost 15 percent of church-affiliated respondents reported receiving suchhelp from the people in their church, but only 1.4 percent of nonaffiliatedpersons received it. And while nearly 8 percent of affiliated persons receivesome kind of fiscal assistance from their faith communities, only 1.4 percentof people without a faith community do. Overall, being ‘‘plugged into’’ acommunity of faith or church gives a person access to a support system whentimes get hard. People who do not have this support network are left havingto go it alone or to seek assistance from some other source.Perception of the impact of the church on the black community will influence

religious commitment. If a person believes that the church has helped AfricanAmericans, then that person should have a higher level of commitment toblack institutions. On the other hand, belief that the church has had anegative impact on blacks should reduce that commitment. The NSBAasked: ‘‘In general, do you think the church has helped the condition ofblack people in America, hurt or made no difference?’’ Here, two categoricalvariables reflect ‘‘helped’’ or ‘‘hurt’’ responses (83 percent and 5.7 percent ofrespondents, respectively), with ‘‘made no difference’’ the excluded category.

Childhood Socialization

Adults who grew up in homes where religion was important will have lowerlevels of religious commitment than adults who did not grow up in that en-vironment. People for whom religious faith is a relatively new experiencemay be more intense in their feelings toward it than those who have knownit all their lives. For those who grew up in the church, religion may have aperceived diminishing utility, as aging provide challenges to childhood as-sumptions and beliefs; or perhaps homes in which religious expectationswere imposed with a heavy, oppressive hand generated resentment of re-ligion as children moved into adulthood. As one author wrote, reflecting onhis heavily regulated Bible college: ‘‘Having spent four years on a campusgoverned by a sixty-six-page rule book, : : : I learned to rebel by hearing allthe stern admonitions against rebellion : : : To this day, some of my friendswho rebelled along with me remain alienated from God because of theirdeep distrust of the church. Amid all the distractions of the [legalistic]subculture, somehow they had missed the ultimate goal: knowing God’’(Yancey, 1997:206–09).Adults who grew up in the Deep South will express higher levels of religious

commitment than those who did not grow up in that region. This data wascollected in 1979–1980, so even the youngest respondents will have some


memory of the civil rights movement, organized and run under the auspicesof the black church. The centrality of the church as the major social in-stitution for blacks there, and knowing that the social expectations of theregion included religious attendance and behaviors, respondents raised inthe South should be more committed to religious institutions than re-spondents who grew up in other regions of the country.

Racial Socialization

Exposure to racially diverse contexts will influence religious commitment.Building on Lau’s (1989) social density hypothesis, racially homogeneousenvironments are theorized as reinforcing the kinds of experiential infor-mation that is the basis for racial attitudes; racially heterogeneous contextsexpose people to a more diverse set of assumptions about society, mitigatingidentification with one’s own group and affiliated institutions. NSBA re-spondents were asked about the racial composition of a number of envi-ronments, and in the responses higher values reflect higher proportions ofwhites in the given contexts. Early interracial context refers to respondents’grammar or elementary school and the neighborhood where they grew up;adult interracial context refers to respondents’ present neighborhood, cur-rent church or house of worship, and workplace.Parental socialization about race will influence religious commitment. What

African-American mothers and fathers teach their children about what itmeans to be black in America, how to relate to the dominant culture, andabout their own racial identity are critical elements in self-concept devel-opment, and should have a lasting impact on commitment to social insti-tutions. NSBA respondents were asked a series of open-ended questionsabout what their parents taught them about being black and about whitepeople. Following Demo and Hughes (1990), responses were coded intofour categorical variables (respondents who did not report being taughtabout being black or about whites by their parents are excluded; 44 percentand 51 percent, respectively). The other three categories are: individualistic/universalistic, in which respondents were taught with a nonracial orientation,including equality of all persons, principles related to economic and moralindividualism, and good citizenship (21 percent of respondents were taughtabout being black in this way; 14.3 percent were taught about whites in thisway); integrative/assertive, taught with a racial orientation, but with a positiveassertion of black culture in terms of the respondent and society, includingthe importance of racial understanding, and making efforts to get along withpeople (17.1 percent were taught about being black in this way; 9.5 percentwere taught about whites this way); and cautious/defensive, taught with racialawareness, emphasizing white prejudice or societal discrimination, includingtreating whites with deference and caution (17.8 percent were taught aboutbeing black in this way; 25 percent were taught about whites in this way).


Personal experiences with racism will affect religious commitment. The lit-erature on the development of racial identity makes clear that blacks whoexperience racial discrimination can become generally alienated from com-munity institutions. Alternatively, they may turn to the church as a source ofsupport and comfort, as a place where even a janitor can be a deacon onSunday morning. The item used here measures whether the respondent or afamily member had a race-related problem in the previous month (11.2percent of the sample had).10

Regular exposure to black literature and news sources will produce differentlevels of religious commitment. Black media sources focus more directly on theinternal life of the black community than does white media, and tend topromote values related to group unity and behavior, affecting intra-racialattitudes and behaviors (e.g., Allen, Dawson, and Brown, 1989; Dawson,Brown, and Allen, 1990), and it seems likely that this would include per-ceptions of religious institutions. Additionally, if people are exposed toAfrocentric literature and writings, attitudes are likely to be affected by thosewritings. It is unclear, however, in what direction religious commitmentwould be affected by this exposure. Media exposure is based on whether theNSBA interviewer observed black literature—like books, magazines, ornewspapers—in the respondent’s home.11 If the media sources were ob-served, it seems likely that they were obtained by subscription, reflecting reg-ular exposure and a general credibility given to those sources of information.

Results

To recap, three forms of religious commitment are hypothesized to beinfluenced by three basic types of factors: the church’s role vis-a-vis theindividual and the group, childhood religious socialization, and racial so-cialization. A fourth set of socioeconomic and demographic controls are alsointroduced. The SES and demographic variables represent a backgroundmodel (Model 1), religious and racial socialization measures are added toModel 1 (yielding Model 2), and the church-role variables are finally added,yielding Model 3 (adding these new measures of the church roles last sub-jected these variables to the most conservative statistical test). Summarystatistics in the tables compare the increases in explanatory power associatedwith the progressive addition of variables; in each instance, the increase ineach model’s R2 is indicated along with a test of statistical significance forthe change in successive models’ explained variance.

10An index of employment discrimination had no independent effect on religious com-mitment.

11Ideally, respondent self-reports of media exposure would be used, but such an indicatoris not available.


The results of the ordinary least squares regression estimates of the in-fluence of the independent variables on the measures of religious commit-ment are presented in Tables 1 and 2. The tables separate affiliated andunaffiliated respondents, as discussed above; they include unstandardized co-efficients (B), standardized coefficients (b), t-statistics, and a comparison ofthe three different models’ explained variance for each dependent variable.12

Affiliated Respondents

Table 1 presents, for African Americans affiliated with a faith tradition,the regressions of the three measures of religious commitment. All the var-iables that measure discipleship activities by respondents’ churches, religion,or other church members are statistically significant in each equation. Forthe church-involvement index, each mention of one of these kinds of dis-cipleship increases a person’s score on the index by between 1 and 1.42points; on the private-devotion index, each mention increases a respondent’sscore by between 0.40 and 0.96 points; and each report of discipleshipincreases religion’s salience by between 0.40 and 0.78 points on the index.General statements about getting help from one’s church or other churchmembers increase church involvement by 1.18 points, private devotionalismby 0.56 points, and religious salience by 0.64 points. Moreover, the stand-ardized coefficients show that the discipleship measures are substantivelyimportant, compared with other variables. Only respondent age and genderare comparable in strength for the church involvement equation. Privatedevotionalism is most profoundly affected by equipping and emotionaldiscipleship, with age and gender also relatively important, while for salienceonly age is comparable.

The ministry variables have less consistent relationships to commitment,however. The only kind of ministry that increases church involvement en-tails service to the individual, such as helping out around the house, whereasreceiving goods or financial help has no statistical effect on church involve-ment. None of the ministry variables have an independent influence onpersonal devotionalism. Religion’s salience, however, is increased both byservices and by receiving material goods from one’s church or church family.Moreover, people who have a positive evaluation of the church and its effecton African Americans have higher scores on all three forms of religiouscommitment, compared with people who believe the church has had noeffect, while belief that the church has hurt blacks has no effect on religiouscommitment.

12Each equation was tested for multicollinearity by examining the tolerances and varianceinflation factors for each variable in each equation, and in no case does collinearity pose aproblem.


TABLE1

ReligiousCommitmentAmongAfricanAmericansWhoAre

AffiliatedwithChurchesorHousesofWorship

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ate

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tionalis

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from

Church

Vert

icald

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lesh

ip1.2

6nn

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57.6

80.5

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0.0

83.9

20.6

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911.8

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ld

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lesh

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09.9

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73.1

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48.7

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gd

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7nn

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214.7

30.9

6nn

0.2

711.7

20.7

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0.4

626.3

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motio

nald

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712.4

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94.2

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40.0

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60.6

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nG

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continued


TABLE1—Continued

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TABLE2

ReligiousCommitmentAmongAfricanAmericansNotAffiliatedwithChurchesorHousesofWorship

Churc

hIn

volv

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ent

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ate

Devo

tionalis

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elig

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nce

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bt

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from

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Vert

icald

iscip

lesh

ip1.0

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continued


TABLE2—Continued

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Looking at respondents’ socialization, growing up in the Deep Southincreases one’s commitment to the institutional church and yields a personwith more devotional behaviors, but did not increase one’s perception of theimportance of religion. Neither did growing up in a home in which religionwas important. Early systematic exposure to nonblacks had no effect onreligious commitment, but adults who currently live and work in contextswith greater racial heterogeneity are more active in their churches and findreligion and church to be more salient than people whose social contexts aremore homogeneous.

Among these affiliated respondents, those whose parents socialized themwith a nonracial orientation (individual/universal) exhibit more extensivedevotional habits than respondents whose parents did not explicitly socializethem regarding race. Parents who emphasized positive racial character andan integrative approach to society (integrative/assertive) produced adultswho were both more involved in their churches and more devotionallycommitted. Parents who socialized their children with a racially negativeperspective (defensive/cautious) did not influence their offspring’s later re-ligious commitment with those teachings. A recent race-related problem isassociated with higher devotional activity, whereas exposure to black mediaand/or literature does not appear to influence religious commitment.

Finally, turning to socioeconomic status and demographics, educationand income increase church involvement, but not the other forms of re-ligiosity. This suggests that there is not a class division in either religion’ssalience to churchgoers, or in levels of personal religious behaviors. Whereclass divisions do exist, they are among the people who are the most active intheir churches. Southerners are not more religious than non-Southerners.Rural and urban residents tend to be more religiously committed thansuburbanites; perhaps they find greater support for their life situations there,whereas wealthier suburban blacks seek solace and support elsewhere.Women are more committed to religious institutions than are men, and allthree forms of religiosity increase with age.

Since most models of religiosity emphasize SES and demographic pre-dictors, it is useful in this context to assess the relative ability of this modelto explain variation in religious commitment, compared with models that donot take into account normative church roles. Table 1 contains a compar-ison of the adjusted R2 for the three successive models of religious com-mitment. For church involvement, SES and demographics alone explain11.3 percent of variation, and socialization explains an additional 3 percent;adding variables measuring what people are currently getting from theirchurch and their perception of the church’s roles regarding the status ofblacks adds 21.1 percent to the explained variation, for a total adjusted R2 of0.354, a significant and substantively important contribution. Demograph-ics are more important in explaining private devotionalism (13.5 percent),compared with an additional 9.3 percent added by the church-role var-iables. Salience of religion is most substantially affected by the addition of


the church-role measures, adding 36 percent of explained variance to thesimpler models, which together only explain 21 percent of variation in theindex.

Unaffiliated Respondents

Table 2 presents the religious commitment models for NSBA respondentswithout a current religious affiliation. What little church involvement thereis is greatly affected by the religious groups and people around them. Eachmention of a discipleship type increases church involvement by between0.37 and 1.05 points; vertical and emotional discipleship increase privatedevotionalism, and four of the five types of discipleship increase religion’ssalience by between 0.80 and 1.23 points. The ministry outreaches ofreligious communities have less consistent relationship to the religiosity ofunaffiliated African Americans. Provision of goods such as food and clothing(perhaps through church-based food pantries and clothes closets) increaseschurch involvement by more than three points, a remarkable rate. None ofthe ministry types affect private devotionalism, but service ministry (e.g.,helping out around the house) increases religion’s salience by 1.37 points.Based on the standardized coefficients, the discipleship and ministry meas-ures are the most important predictors in the church involvement and sa-lience equations.

Belief that the church has helped blacks increases church involvement, butthere is no other effect of the church’s perceived sociohistorical role in theequations. The other socialization and demographic variables are inconsist-ently related to the commitment indexes. Growing up in a home in whichreligion was important has a significant negative effect on devotional be-haviors; Southern and older blacks are more devotional than non-Southernand younger respondents; and women are more likely to view religion andthe church as more important than are men.

Turning to the ability of the model to explain variation in these indexes,we see how very important the church’s roles are to religiously unaffiliatedAfrican Americans. Socioeconomic status and demographics explain onlymodest amounts of variation (between 4.5 and 8.5 percent), while social-ization only marginally increases the explanatory power of the equations (bybetween 0.2 and 5.6 percent). What the church does, however, is quiteimportant: discipleship and ministry increase the explanatory power of thechurch involvement equation by 39 percent, of private devotionalism by 16percent, and of religion’s salience by more than 57 percent.

Summarizing the results, what African Americans get from the church isprofoundly important for explaining their religious commitment. Disciple-ship activities tend to be more effective than ministry activities for increasingreligious commitment among affiliated blacks. For the unaffiliated, assist-ance in the form of the provisions of materials such as food and furniture


also increases church involvement, while providing practical help increasesperceptions that religion and church matter. Moreover, the greater impact ofchurch activities, compared with background factors such as socialization,socioeconomic status, and demographics, coincides with the church’s desireto enable people to overcome their pasts, and change their behavior in thepresent and the future. The normative conceptual framework of churchpresence in the community provides substantial gain in explanatory powerover more conventional models that do not take this approach,13 and con-firms the utility of modeling the church’s a priori expectations as theoreticaland empirical determinants of religious commitment.

Conclusions

Religious commitment is a concept rich in social and political implica-tions. On its own, it is of intrinsic interest as a measure of the human resolveto engage the transcendent, and to prioritize the spiritual dimension of ourlives by incurring the opportunity costs associated with a faith’s activities.Moreover, commitment to religious institutions merits our attention be-cause it has been linked with many other social scientific concepts withimportant sociopolitical ramifications. This article’s empirical tests haveshed light on the relationship between the church as an institutional contextthat influences peoples’ attitudes and behavior. The results reveal an im-portant link between these institutions and the religious commitment thathas been associated so strongly with political attitudes, orientations, andaction.

The most significant finding is that churches’ activities increase commit-ment to the activities and norms associated with religion. What peoplereport that church, people in church, and religion in general do for them,coded based on traditional Christian understanding of the roles of thechurch, consistently and dramatically improve the predictive capacity ofreligiosity models. In other words, when churches fulfill their normativeexpectations for internal and external activities, levels of commitment tochurch institutions are positively and profoundly influenced. Interestingly,the results held true both for African Americans who were currently affiliatedwith a church, and for those who were not. The results show that, on thewhole, discipleship activities yield higher returns than ministry activities.Congregations seeking more efficient ways to influence religious behaviorand attitudes should focus their energies on emphasizing the nature of aperson’s relationship to God and developing an atmosphere of meaningfulrelationships and fellowship. These, combined with some level of practical,needs-based ministry, increase religious commitment, while simply giving

13In analyses of other models of religious commitment, R2s tend to average around 0.36(e.g., Ellison and Sherkat, 1995; Hunt and Hunt, 1999; Myers, 1996).


financial assistance has no impact at all. The findings are robust, eventhough these cross-sectional data constrain the ability to thoroughly assesscausal direction.

How the church is perceived to have affected the black community as awhole has some modest relevance to religiosity. Church-centered actionsduring the civil rights movement appear to have earned the institutioncredibility among African Americans. The critical socializing agent of thefamily also has an impact on adult attitudes—the context in which onegrows up, the religious environment of one’s childhood home, and positiveparental messages about racial identity and pride all increased the commit-ment of black people to religious organizations and norms. The measures ofadult socialization were less important than expected, however.

In the context of the recent reemphasis on faith-based social-service de-livery collaboration between churches and the government, the results of thisanalysis highlight the possibility that religious institutions will be divertedaway from spiritual and prophetic activities toward social-service ministryactivities (e.g., Chaves, 2001; Loconte, 2001). Moreover, because the role ofa church will have shifted, its impact on members and others in its sphere ofinfluence will likely be altered. Such a church may become a communityresource meeting physical needs, but may simultaneously risk its position asa safe haven in people’s search for ultimate meaning.14

These concerns must be balanced, however, with the knowledge that theblack church’s exercise of its prophetic role during the civil rights movementhad a significant positive impact on the African-American sociopoliticalexperience. Since black religiosity is related to racial identity and politicalbehavior, the findings help inform our understanding of the black church’sability to mobilize its members. The prophetic political messages of thepreacher, social interaction with politically-like-minded church members,and the elaboration of worldview can all influence the behaviors and at-titudes of the congregation (Guth et al., 1997; Harris, 1999:100–14; Jelen,1993; Olson, 2000). The impact of churches that prioritize social action willdiffer from churches that prioritize inwardly-focused discipleship. That thechurch influences affiliated and unaffiliated African Americans tells us thatits impact is communitywide, not merely on the members of a particularcongregation. This is a potential source of power and political energy that,when activated, can greatly affect the American political and social land-scapes.

How churches envision their presence in the community, and how theyconsequently prioritize their activities, have important implications for thespiritual development of members and nonmembers alike. For congrega-tions committed to cultivating in their members deeper religious engage-ment and behavioral commitment, this analysis suggests that they shouldcontinue to develop programmatic approaches from spiritual, rather than

14I am grateful to my colleague Olivia McDonald for her insight into these concerns.


material, perspectives. For religious groups with social ministry as a priority,they should know that their activities will address one dimension of theirnormative obligations, but will result in a less committed membership thanwill focusing on discipleship.

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