White, self-identified Christians in the United States have become less motivated to address racial injustice and are less likely to believe that the country has a race problem compared to last year, according to a new report by the Barna Group.
In findings made public on Tuesday, Barna reported that 33% of white self-identified Christians believe that the United States “definitely” has a race problem, down from 40% last year.
By contrast, 81% of black self-identified Christians agreed that the nation “definitely” has a race problem, up from 75% in 2019. Hispanic self-identified Christians stayed about the same, with 54% responding “definitely” in 2019 and 55% responding the same in 2020.
Barna also found that from 2019-2020, the number of white self-identified Christians who felt “very motivated” to address racial injustice dropped from 14% to 10%.
White self-identified Christians who were “motivated” to address racial injustice also declined from 18% in 2019 to 15% in 2020, with those “not at all motivated” rising from 11% in 2019 to 22% in 2020.
In contrast, from 2019-2020, the number of black self-identified Christians who were “very motivated” to address racial injustice rose from 33% in 2019 to 46% in 2020.
Despite the decrease in motivation to address racial injustice and a drop in the belief that the nation has a race problem, Barna did find an increase in belief among white self-identified Christians that the United States has historically been oppressive to minorities.
White self-identified Christians who agreed with that sentiment increased from 43% in 2019 to 48% in 2020, while those who disagreed dropped from 30% last year to 23% this year.
For the report, Barna surveyed 1,525 U.S. adults online from June 18-July 6, over-sampling African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics. The data has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8%.
Barna also found a decline in the belief that the U.S. has a race problem among the entire U.S. adults sample, with 46% agreeing in 2020, versus 49% in 2019.
Further, the number of U.S. adults in general who responded that they were “not at all motivated” to address racial injustice grew from 9% last year to 16% this year.
The research was conducted not long after Barna President David Kinnaman penned a blog entry calling for action regarding the divergent views on race between white and black evangelicals.
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Source: Christian Post
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