Twenty years ago, a sociologist at Rice University directed a study of efforts by white evangelical Christians to address racial inequality. Michael Emerson's provocative conclusion, summarized in his book Divided By Faith and co-authored with Christian Smith, was that evangelicals "likely do more to perpetuate the racial divide than to tear it down," largely because they tended to worship in racially segregated congregations and viewed racial prejudice as an individual, not a societal, problem.
The book, published in 2000, captured wide attention in evangelical circles and was featured on the cover of the magazine Christianity Today.
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