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Overcoming status distinctions? Religious involvement, social class, race, and ethnicity in friendship patterns

Sociology of Religion - December 22, 2003

This article addresses a very simple, straightforward question: Does being actively involved in a religious congregation increase the likelihood that one will be friends with lower-status or otherwise marginalized people, even though one may be more privileged or less marginalized? This is clearly a question that has normative origins. For Christians, it connects with teachings about Jesus befriending social outcasts. The normative spin, then, is: Are contemporary Christians following these teachings?

But we need to move from the normative aspects of the question to the sociological literature to situate the question in terms of what we know about religious involvement, what we do not know, and why it is interesting to consider this question. The sociological literature has not, to my knowledge, included research precisely on the relationship between religious involvement and the kinds of friendships that may transcend status distinctions. The literature has, however, given us ample reason to be interested in the question, as well as some reasons to think that religious involvement might--or might not--be associated with befriending people of lower social status.

RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT AND STATUS DISTINCTIONS

Sociological interest in the relationships between religion and status can be traced to Marx and Engels' (1947) discussion of the manner in which religious ideology is shaped by capitalism and to Weber's (1978:468-517) treatment of status groups as carriers of distinctive religious orientations. Applying these arguments to the United States, H. Richard Niebuhr wrote that the "divisions of the church have been occasioned more frequently by the direct and indirect operation of economic factors than by the influence of any other major interest of man" (1929:26). These direct and indirect influences, in his view, included status distinctions rooted in racial discrimination, differences of ethnic and national origin, and location within the class system itself. These status distinctions influenced the formation of American religion, Niebuhr observed, because people apparently preferred or found it easier to associate with people like themselves.

While Niebuhr's emphasis on the relationship between status distinctions and religion did not generate studies of friendship patterns, it has continued to prompt investigations that serve as the larger context in which to think about religion and friendship. These studies have focused on differences in the socioeconomic levels of members of the various denominations and other religious traditions represented in the United States. For instance, Roof and McKinney (1987:106-47; see also, Roof 1979) compared members of Protestant denominations, Catholics, and Jews in terms of educational levels, incomes, occupational prestige, and perceived social class. Others have examined whether socioeconomic differences among Protestant denominations and between Protestants and Catholics might be eroding (Greeley 1976; Wuthnow 1988), and whether evangelical Protestants may be converging with mainline Protestants in socioeconomic status (Schmalzbauer 1993; Smith 1998). Some attention has also been paid to socioeconomic differences between those who participate actively in their congregations and those who do not (Goode 1980). In considering whether religious involvement is associated with befriending people of lower-status, therefore, we will want to keep in mind the possible differences in social status among members of different denominational traditions.

But Niebuhr's interest in status distinctions was as much normative as empirical. "The gospel's condemnation of divisiveness," he wrote, "is one of its most characteristic and appealing elements. The spirit of Jesus [challenged] class distinctions between the righteous few and the unhallowed many. He spoke to the outcast poor of the promise of the kingdom; he saw the typical child of God in a Samaritan who knew the meaning of human solidarity ..." (1929:6-7). In short, Niebuhr wondered if religious teachings about concern for the poor had any influence on actual behavior. This, too, has been a question that research studies have sought to address. For instance, Hart (1996) has examined popular beliefs that discourage the religiously involved from engaging in political action concerned with reducing socioeconomic inequality and Lamont (1992, 2000) has shown the extent to which status barriers continue to be rooted in notions of religious respectability, while Clydesdale (1999) has examined religious variations in support of policies oriented toward helping the poor, and Park and Smith (2000) and Becker and Dhingra (2001) have shown how religious involvement is associated with volunteering to help the poor.

Of such research, the most relevant to our concern here is the considerable evidence that most congregations do attempt to convey messages about caring for the poor, needy, or marginalized. They do this through sermons, classes, and social ministries. For instance, Guth, Green, Smidt, Kellstedt, and Poloma (1997) found that hunger and poverty were among the issues Protestant clergy said they most frequently addressed in their sermons (in all eight of the denominations they studied), and in my Civic Involvement Survey, 58 percent of church members nationally claimed to have heard a sermon about caring for the poor during the past year, and this figure rose to 73 percent among church members who attended services every week (Wuthnow 1997). In another national study, I found similar results, even when members of evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, historically black Protestant, and Catholic churches were compared. More than 80 percent in each of these traditions said they would like religious groups to be more active in raising awareness about racial discrimination, almost the same proportion favored religious groups doing more to give poor people a voice in public affairs, and more than 90 percent thought religious groups should be more active in encouraging people to do volunteer work (Wuthnow 2000). Research on social ministries sponsored by congregations to help the poor suggest that at least half of congregations, and perhaps considerably more, have or help to sponsor some ministry of this kind (Chaves 2003). These studies do not show if church members do anything to befriend the poor, but they suggest that congregations are often places in which norms about caring for the poor are present and that the vast majority of church members believe in norms about overcoming racial differences and helping the poor. We might wonder, then, whether the presence of these norms means that people who attend more frequently, and who are thereby presumably more exposed to these norms, would be more likely to demonstrate caring by actually making friends with people of lower social status or of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

We might indeed wonder about how well teachings are put into practice because much of the recent research points toward positive ways in which religious involvement encourages middle-class people to engage in charitable work oriented toward the socioeconomically disadvantaged, but critical studies suggest that such activities are often performed at arms-length and in institutional contexts that inhibit closer and more extensive personal interaction (Wuthnow 1991; Allahyari 2000). Critical investigations also point out that churches for the most part remain racially segregated and that overcoming status distinctions may require new models of working with, rather than doing for, and renewed efforts to promote togetherness and interpersonal relationships that transcend class, race, and ethnicity. (Emerson and Smith 2000; Warren 2001; Verter 2002).

From the broader literature on religion and social status, therefore, we can envision two competing hypotheses emerging about the relationship between religious involvement and befriending people of lower social status. On the one hand, there are norms in religious teachings about caring for the disadvantaged, and these norms may be articulated often enough in congregations that faithful members would be influenced by them and, in fact, have friends that were less privileged than themselves. On the other hand, we might suppose that congregations attract people from relatively homogeneous social strata, and even though they try to care for the poor, do not do so in a way that involves them in personal relationships.

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