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The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism
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Chapters 9-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Organizing the Religious Right at the End of the Twentieth Century”
From the late 1960s to the 1980s, Republican politicians developed a rhetoric of “color-blind conservatism” (153). They would promote policies that harmed specific racial and ethnic groups but claimed “racial innocence” by avoiding racial language. Conservative Christians embraced this political force. Tisby notes that while Democrats also failed to address racial issues, Black people felt particularly degraded by conservatives.
Evangelicals and Politics in the Late Twentieth Century
Evangelism rose during the 1970s and the 1980s, reinforcing a new generation of Christians that became more political. The mobilization of evangelist voters in the 1970s became known as the “rise of the Religious Right” (154). According to Tisby, during the period, Christian complicity in racism took a more subtle form. While Democrats also had racist issues, conservative Christians supported the Republican party. A coalition consisting of fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Catholics, and Protestant evangelicals formed the Christian Right and became a voting target for Republican politicians.
The Rise of Law-and-Order Politics
Tisby states that the idea of Black power in the 1970s, combined with rising protests and riots, challenged American society overall. Politicians like Richard Nixon developed a law-and-order rhetoric to promote the idea of social stability, exploiting racial backlash. Tisby notes that the law-and-order politics eventually reinforced an “aggressive criminal justice establishment” (157). This conservative approach played on white resentment to gain votes, undermining the issues Black communities faced. Tisby adds that many Republican voters in the north identified as evangelists.
Tisby stresses that racism adapted after the civil rights era. The absence of racist rhetoric by politicians did not eliminate racism. The ideology of colorblindness that Christian voters espoused preserved racial inequalities despite its subtlety.
Racial Integration and the True Origins of the Religious Right
Tisby explains that while the Religious Right has been connected with opposition to abortion, the taxation of segregated Protestant Schools originally sparked the movement. Desegregation laws financially threatened non-integrated Christian schools. Tisby focuses on Bob Jones University and its founder, Bob Jones, who defended its segregated status and developed policies that prohibited interracial contact. Christians conservatives like Jones considered racial segregation a “right” and a “religious belief.” Tisby notes that the university changed its policies in recent years but reinforced racist ideas about interracial relationships to generations of students.
The Moral Majority’s Support of Ronald Reagan
The Christian political organization Moral Majority demonstrated that the ideology of the new Christian Right sought to reverse the political gains of the civil rights movement. The organization was popular with religious conservatives and supported Ronald Reagan for the presidency. Reagan’s rhetoric was not one of “Christian conservatism” but still catered to these sentiments. He aligned himself with racists and anti-Black policies to gain white voters. While Tisby recognizes positive aspects of Reagan’s politics, he notes that his advocacy for Black civil rights was not substantial.
The Religious Right compromised with racism through policies that curtailed Black people’s civil rights. Adopting a color-blind approach, white Christians still supported politicians and practices that harmed African Americans. Black people’s disenfranchisement continued in subtle ways as white Christians supported the established political system. Tisby emphasizes that the Christian connection of conservative evangelism and conservative politics manifested in support for the Republican party contributes to racial inequalities.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Reconsidering Racial Reconciliation in the Age of Black Lives Matter”
By the end of the 20th century, race relations and the American church experienced fundamental changes. Denominations apologized for their racist foundations, reconciliation movements emerged, and multiethnic churches were founded. He observes that contemporary ideas within the church demonstrate a desire for more integration. Tisby notes, however, that despite progress, divisions remain and racism persists, just in different forms. Despite the absence of racial terminology, discrimination is covertly embedded in American institutions. Because of this invisibility, Christians unconsciously accept racism. For Tisby, the church is in the process of reconsidering its identity and future.
The White Evangelical Cultural Toolkit and Politics
Tisby argues that white evangelicals use specific “religio-cultural tools” that ultimately perpetuate the racial problems they seek to improve. Christians from different racial groups adopt different perspectives on contemporary racial and political issues. Tisby argues that the ideology of “accountable individualism” contests that social systems and structures define individuals, undermining the ways institutions and communities influence people’s behaviors and beliefs. “Relationalism” is also a cultural “toolkit” that supports the idea that social problems derive from crises in personal relationships, hence describing social problems again as individually formed. Tisby also discusses “antistructuralism,” which argues that criticizing social systems takes the responsibility away from the individual. Tisby concludes that such ideologies argue that social and political problems in America derive from individual choices rather than the system.
Tisby notes that Black Christians support the idea that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is necessary but they also recognize that racial issues demand institutional changes. Tisby adds that the different cultural toolkits between Black and white Christians describe the contemporary conflict on racial justice.
Black Lives Matter and Christian Responses Across the Color Line
The Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2012 after the murder of Trayvon Martin, a young Black man, by a Hispanic man named George Zimmerman. The movement gained momentum in 2014 after the murder of another Black youth, Mike Brown, by a white policeman. As the perpetrators were treated with impunity, Black people around the country began protesting against a long legacy of disregard about Black lives. For Tisby, the movement functions as “a cry of lament” (179).
Christian Responses to Black Lives Matter
Many Christians, including Black conservatives, reject Black lives matter as a concept because of its organization, which also advocated for gender equality and gay, queer, and transgender rights. The movement does not identity as “faith-based” hence many evangelicals remain skeptical. Tisby argues that while evangelicals have reacted against racism, the church has not been able to form such a viable organization to defend Black lives. Through the movement, Black people can claim their full humanity. White Christians, however, do not acknowledge the subtlety of contemporary racism, and their failure to recognize ongoing systemic discrimination reinforces a conflict between Black and white Christians. Tisby argues that the church should focus on broader patterns of injustice.
The 2016 Presidential Election and the 81 Percent
Regarding the 2016 election of Donald Trump, Tisby argues that while he did not represent the values of conservative evangelicals, he promoted racial stereotypes and reinforced white supremacy. Although many evangelicals opposed Trump, many also equally endorsed him. Tisby attributes their support to a combination of policies, such as abortion, a desire for a more conservative Supreme Court, and a dislike for Hilary Clinton. While Trump did not produce division between Black and white Christians, he made visible the failing reconciliation efforts.
The Color of Compromise in the Twenty-First Century
Tisby emphasizes that Christian complicity with racism has become more covert than it was in the past. Christians maintain similar rationalizations that ignore the persistence of racism in American society. Tisby urges the church to take action for progress in race relations.
Chapters 9-10 Analysis
Tisby extends his book’s analysis to the contemporary period, examining the connection between conservative politics and “theologically conservative” Christianity of the late 20th and early 21st century. He argues that “color-blind conservatism,” a rhetoric that allows politicians to avoid “explicitly racial terms” and claim “racial innocence” while promoting politics that harm specific racial groups (153), dominated the social discourse of the late 20th century. White Christians also adopted this political ideology of colorblindness that made racism more subtle. Contrasting previous historical periods, Christians, including evangelists, fundamentalists, and Pentecostals, became politically engaged, organizing the conservative movement of the Religious or Christian Right. As the coalition became a voting target for conservative politicians, particularly from the Republican Party, the politics of “law and order” sought to capitalize on the white vote and the vote of white evangelicals. Tisby explains the law-and-order rhetoric reinforced the backlash against the achievements of the civil rights movement and a counterattack to Black Power. Expanding his analysis, he explains that the Religious Right was an initial reaction against the financial penalties to segregated religious institutions. Tisby therefore links the Religious Right to The Historical Complicity of The American Church in Racism, as Christian schools defended the “right” to segregate people based on race as a religious belief.
By emphasizing that the absence of racial terminology in political discourse did not signify the end of racism, Tisby thwarts the objection that racism and the church’s complicity with racism is a thing of the past. He explains that, while conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan did not represent an ideology of Christian conservatism, they used “racially coded language” to attract the support of white voters (167). Reagan did not hesitate to conform with racists and anti-Black stances that harmed marginalized groups while enjoying the support of white Christians. As a conservative Christian movement, the Religious Right was complicit in the perpetuation of racism, encouraging ideas and policies that undermined Black civil rights. Hence, institutional racism persisted in the post-civil rights era, though in covert ways. Tisby’s historical analysis here not only serves to reinforce his claim about the prevalence of whitewashed narratives of American history; it also serves as an indirect response to the argument that there is no modern-day racism. Tisby shows that simply because racism is not as overt as it once was does not mean that it is not still as entrenched and pervasive as it was at prior moments in American history.
Tisby also shifts his focus to the present in this section of the book, exploring the current relation between race and the church and showing concretely the relevance of his historical analysis to the modern day. The realization of a long legacy of racism fostered “new racial reconciliation movements” and multiracial churches that indicate a promising future of diversity and multiculturalism (172). Tisby notes that despite the desire for integration, divisions and racism among Christians persist, forcing the American church to reconsider its identity in order to address The Urgency of Antiracist Action and Reconciliation. Drawing explicit connections to his historical analysis earlier in the book, Tisby criticizes the persistence of individualistic values among white evangelists that ultimately exacerbate racial problems rather than battling them. Tisby bolsters this claim by providing two specific examples: He claims that the ideologies of “accountable individualism” and “antistructuralism” negate the ways in which social systems impact individuals, obscuring the issue of institutional racism.
Tisby also continues to trace the division between white and Black Christianity, thereby underscoring his claim about Black Christianity as a Source of Empowerment. He states that individualism reinforces division between Black and white Christians, as Black Christianity promotes a collective understanding of justice and structural changes against racism. For Tisby, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement acquires a political and religious meaning. As a concept it represents “a rallying cry for protests” against continual manifestations of racism while also connecting Black lives to “the image and likeness of God” by claiming the humanity of Black people (179). The Historical Complicity of the American church in Racism also becomes evident in its responses toward the movement. Because as an organization Black Lives Matter has not identified with religious values, the American church remains skeptical and distant from the struggle. Tisby finds this justification insufficient, suggesting that it betrays a preoccupation with more superficial concerns at the expense of graver issues, a claim that echoes his analysis of white Christianity’s opposition to direct-action protests during the civil rights era.
Finally, Tisby speaks directly to the contemporary political climate by evaluating the conservative evangelicals’ support for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Tisby argues that while Trump does not fit the image of a conservative Christian, his play upon racial assumptions and stereotypes partly attracted the support of white Christians. Trump also reinforced the ideology of white supremacy, inciting reactionary responses among white evangelicals who felt they were losing political influence. Tisby stresses that the election of Donald Trump revealed the covert but persistent racial divide between Black and white Christians and put the issue of reconciliation into question. To sustain hope for substantial racial progress, Tisby returns to the theme of The Urgency for Antiracist Action and Reconciliation, as past “rationalizations” and attitudes on race still plague American society.
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