Book Review

BIOGRAPHICAL ENTRY

Jones, Robert P., The End of White Christian America, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016, pp. 309.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF AUTHOR

Robert P. Jones is the founding CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and a leading scholar and commentator on religion and politics. He is the author of two previous books and numerous articles on religion and public policy. Jones writes a column for the Atlantic online on politics, culture, and religion. He also appears regularly on Interfaith Voices, the nation’s leading religion news-magazine on public radio. Jones is frequently featured in major national media such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

An Obituary for White Christian America: The author states that after two hundred and forty years White Christian America has died. The first signs of trouble begin in the 1960s when white mainline Protestants denominations begin to shrink. The cause of death was a combination of environmental and internal factors as young members begin to doubt the WCA’s relevance in a shifting cultural environment.

Chapter 1: Who Is White Christian America? White Christian America has historically been seen in its symbols of power. Three large buildings attest to it power and influence on America’s life and the Protestant view of the destiny of America in terms of America’s influence on the world. These buildings include the United Methodist Building in Washington D.C.; the Interchurch Center on New York City’s upper West Side; the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. Each of these buildings was open with prophetic tones about the indispensable place of Christianity in upholding America’s moral and political health. The life of these buildings shows a decline of White Protestant dominance amid the steady diversification of the American religious landscape.

White Christian America is related to the term “WASP” (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). White Christian America is larger than WASP and historically has been divided between north and south in terms of social and racial issues. The north is marked by modernists that view the bible as a historical document. Scientific evidence and education is valued above old theological and cultural beliefs. They accept evolution instead of biblical creation. Fundamentalists hold to divine revelation, inerrancy of Scripture, the Supernatural, and creation.

Chapter 2: Vital Signs: A Divided and Dying White Christian America: White Protestant Christianity maintained its dominance over American cultural and political life. Mainline Protestants was the most visible face of White Christian America until the middle of the twentieth century when its numbers begin to decline. The evangelicals formed an alliance with the conservative Republican Party. Evangelicals opposed other religions including Roman Catholicism, Islam, Seventh Day Adventist, and Mormonism. As the numbers of evangelical declined, they found common ground with Catholics on issues of abortion, gay rights, and religion in public schools.

Chapter 3: Politics: The End of the White Christian Strategy: The election of John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, in 1960 and Barak Obama, an African American in 2008 started a steady decline in White Christian America presidential elections. Obama’s election challenged a white central cultural assumption that White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) was the only authentic model of American citizenship. This has raised the question if American culture has gone downhill since 1950. Although Ronald Regan and George W. Bush, both Republicans won elections the number of white conservative Christian voters continue to decline over the years.

Chapter 4: Family: Gay Marriage and White Christian America: In 2014 CBS broadcast the Grammy awards. Performers sang songs that promoted same-sex marriages. The message was that God loves all His children.

The Christian Right, evangelical leaders staked their identity on their opposition to gay rights. On June 26, 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges declared that all bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional clearing the way for gay and lesbian couples to marry and to have their marriages recognized in all fifty states.

Public support for same-sex marriage has increased in every region of the country except the South. A number of studies have found that negative religious teachings about gay and lesbian people and relationship are one of the significant factors driving younger Americans to abandon traditional religious institutions.

Chapter 5: Race: Desegregating White Christian America: Police officers shot and killed unarmed Black men in 2014 and 2015. The hash tag Black Lives Matter was met with opposition from prominent white religious leaders, e.g. Franklin Graham and Rick Warren. Whites became frustrated with the media attention of social injustices in America that show that little has changed between 1968 and 2015.

Both Black and white citizens continue to live in segregated communities. Citizens view economic and social justice issues according to what they experience in their own neighborhoods; whites have little empathy for the plight of minorities in America.

The public school system continues to be largely segregated; especially in the South where private schools often sponsored by white churches drew white students away from public schools. Although there has been minor increase in Blacks attending predominantly white churches, the church is the most segregated institution in America.

White evangelicals continue to see racism as an individual sin instead of a systemic problem. The Southern Baptist Convention seeks to include Black churches in the denomination, but few SBC churches are integrated. Mainline Protestants in the North has been a public voice for racial justice, rather than a force for grassroots cultural or even ecclesial change.

The desegregation of all white churches has been difficult. White Christians seek reconciliation, but repentance and repair of past histories are needed before full fellowship can be developed among diverse racial and ethnic groups.

Chapter 6: A Eulogy for White Christian America: The effects of the decline in White Christian America can be compared to Elisabeth Kubler―Ross’s five stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying, in 1969. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Both mainline Protestants and evangelical Protestants have suffered loss that has led to anger expressed in new leader’s taking a stand against traditional denominational leadership and approaches to theological and social issues. The stage of bargaining in mainline Protestant denominations consisted of reducing financial deficits by association with outside sources. Evangelical Protestants have used politics and laws to prevent the death of their denominations. Depression and acceptance in mainline Protestant denominations is characterized by their looking forward to their churches moving from a model of influencing culture by political means to a strategy of helping churches become more spiritual and Christian in social and racial issues. White southern Christians have made strides towards racial equality, but they fail to accept past histories of racial injustices; thus they are falling short of full acceptance of the end of White Christian America.

It remains to be seen how the death of White Christian America will affect the cultural and political landscape of America. “The death of White Christian America marks the end of an era in the nation’s life. For many, it is a cause for considerable grief; for others, relief or even celebration” (p. 239).

CRITICAL EVALUATION

This book is a good source to understand how White Christians in America has taken measures to ensure that their vision for America has shaped both the cultural and political landscape in this country. Today, there seems to be a lot of political fighting between conservatives and liberal; democrats and republicans. This book helps us to understand how the battles between these opposing White Christian groups has shaped how they have used fringe groups to fortify their positions. In reading this book I became more convinced as a Black man that disagreement between white groups has triggered racial attitudes and practices. Ultimately, White Christian America seeks to maintain its superiority over other groups even though they might find it necessary to collaborate with other racial and religious groups.

Jones seems to have accepted the death of White Christian America in terms of racial diversity as well as religious and moral changes. At the same time, Jones expresses no vision of America in which white Americans fully share leadership and control.

For Jones, White Christian America has not been about personal salvation and one’s relationship to Jesus Christ. Rather, Christianity is a philosophy that White Christian Americans hold to be the guiding light that leads America to God’s destiny for America.

I highly recommend this book because I believe that it will help clarify to the descendants of White Christian America and other Americans what has happened in the past so that people can have a better understanding of what is taking place in American politics, religion, and social issues today. It is hoped that our understanding of White Christian America; its history and its vision can help lead us to a better life for all Americans in the future.