Racism in the Hands of an Angry God: How Image of God Impacts Cultural Racism in Relation to Police Treatment of African Americans

Abstract Previous research suggests an angry God image is a narrative schema predicting support for more punitive forms of criminal justice. However, this research has not explored the possibility that racialization may impact one's God image. We perform logistic regression on Wave V of the Bay...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal for the scientific study of religion Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 605 - 623
Main Authors Lauve‐Moon, Tim A., Park, Jerry Z.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2023
Subjects
African Americans
Anger
Black people
Black white relations
Criminal justice
God
Intersectionality
Police
Police community relations
Protestants
Racialization
Racism
Religion
Religious identity
Religious traditions
Resistance
White people
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Summary:Abstract Previous research suggests an angry God image is a narrative schema predicting support for more punitive forms of criminal justice. However, this research has not explored the possibility that racialization may impact one's God image. We perform logistic regression on Wave V of the Baylor Religion Survey to examine the correlation between an angry God image and the belief that police shoot Blacks more often because Blacks are more violent than Whites (a context‐specific form of cultural racism). Engaging critical insights from intersectionality theory, we also interact angry God image with both racialized identity and racialized religious tradition. Results suggest that the angry God schema is associated with this form of cultural racism for White people generally as well as White Evangelicals, yet for Black Protestants, belief in an angry God is associated with resistance against this type of cultural racism.
ISSN:0021-8294
1468-5906
DOI:10.1111/jssr.12863