Monday, October 11, 2010

Churches Named Most Segregated Place in U.S.

October 10, 2010 on Fox & Friends
From CNN Belief Blog:
“Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of Christian America.”

That declaration, which has been attributed to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., used to startle listeners. Now it’s virtually become a cliché. For years, various academic studies and news articles have reported what many churchgoers already know: most American congregations are segregated.

In the latest issue of the academic journal Sociological Inquiry, two professors dug deeper into why Sundays remain so segregated.

The article, “Race, Diversity, and Membership Duration in Religious Congregations,’ said that nine out of ten congregations in the U.S. are segregated - a single racial groups accounts for more than 80 percent of their membership.
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  1. Watch father Jonathan Morris tapdance around the issue with absurd analogies as to why churches are racially segregated. "Walk into a science classroom and guess what? They're all scientists!"

    You heard it from him first, folks. "Scientist" is now an ethnic term.

  2. WTF? That's not even an analogy!!

  3. As much as I generally hate this douche, he does make a good point. "Just because a group is homogenous doesn't mean that it's a bad or racist group," is a good point.

  4. I love the way the supposedly impartial commentators se up the ball so that he can keep on hittng it. I have heard this guy talk many times on Fox and I find him terribly irritating. Given how young he is I guess he wants to make sure someone will be around to pay his salary.

  5. Ah, the paranoid Christian persecution complex at on display once again. No one said it was bad or racist, now did they? But somehow they feel attacked.

    This isn't a "nonstory" either, as the priest said. Churches have historically been racially segregated, along with the whole of society. That has changed over time, and continues to change. Why are churches among the slowest to change? It's an interesting question because racism is an inadequate explanation.

    They display absolutely no curiosity, instead they are defensive and afraid. These are exactly the kind of personality traits that religion exploits. It's very hard to think yourself out of the religious mindset if you aren't curious enough to notice and investigate the contradictions and if you are prone to feeling fear, guilt, and shame for betraying your deity, your faith, and your community.

  6. I LOVE how when they show the poll about how "Ways Americans see God" there's two crosses at either side at the top.  HMMMMMM.  I wonder what religion they think "Americans" think they are.  Tho with it being a Baylor poll of 1,648 kinda puts that into perspective too.  I think it would have been better to be a bit more precise as to who they were polling, say...  Baylor Students, or Residents of Waco, TX.   So odd how this is even news or how it is reported as being reality. 

  7. Think about how badly many did that religious knowledge poll... Fox News of course, knowing their audience, knows that they must remind the viewers what they believe.

  8. I bet you any money that there is a bishop cane waiting for him, in the near future.
    The church won't forget this talented servant of thee. And, he sees that bishop nomination in his dreams. Actually, he deserves it, solemnly.

  9. Father Jon is gay as a mexican table cloth.