For many who grew up in predominantly Black church congregations, the importance of public involvement was intertwined with historical and theological teachings.
“Part of the importance to me about civic engagement was absolutely passed down as a young person,” said Valerie Cooper, associate professor of Black church studies at Duke Divinity School. “As a person growing up in a Black church, it was impossible to miss.”
According to research published Oct. 7 by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, Black churches are more likely than all other Christian churches to participate in election-related activities, but some experts are concerned the church’s efforts won’t have as much influence as previous years, citing a decline in church attendance.
A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that young Black adults are less likely to attend predominantly Black congregations, and 46 percent of Black adults in Generation Z say they “seldom or never” attend church.
“Increasingly our young people have no experience with church and don’t have those same sorts of cultural ties,” Cooper told McClatchy News.
She remembers hearing adults in her congregation discussing candidates during the coffee hour or after service, she said, adding that through her church community she understood the sacrifice Black people made to be able to vote.
Black theology emphasizes God as liberator, Cooper said. Historically, enslaved African Americans believed God would deliver them from slavery in the same way God delivered the Israelites in the book of Exodus, she said.
“It was part of our not only theology, but part of our communal salvation story: that God delivered us from slavery and the gift of that deliverance is the right to participate in the civic life of the nation,” Cooper said.
Jennifer Leath, associate professor of Black religions at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, told McClatchy News a politically engaged faith tradition is familiar to her through involvement in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
She said Matthew 25 — a parable about looking after strangers in need — is one that her community remembers and refers to when thinking about community engagement.
It all goes back to a theology of liberation and the belief that followers should fight for freedom and justice for all people, Leath said.
“For Black churches — and I think Black people and communities — our faith is not in politics. Our hope, our trust is in God, and specifically, the God who makes us free,” Leath said. “As simple as that is, it’s also complex because we don’t all perceive freedom in the same way, nor do we fight for it the same way.”
How have Black churches voted in the past?
Traditionally, experts have viewed Black churches as a reliable voting bloc for Democratic candidates.
Jason Shelton, professor of sociology and director of the Center for African American Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, noted in an article published by the Brookings Institution, “nearly 70 percent of African Americans across most religious classifications align themselves with the Democratic party.”
In 2008, when former President Barack Obama ran for president, many Black pastors and congregations united to support him, the Chicago Tribune reported. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center report, 66.6 percent of eligible Black voters turned out to the polls for Obama’s reelection — one percentage point higher than white voter turnout that year and the highest percentage of Black voter turnout ever.
However, African American political alignments have changed as their religious affiliations have changed, Shelton said.
“Recent GSS data shows that there has been a double-digit decline — by as much as 43 percent — in the percentage of self-described political ‘liberals’ among Baptists, Holiness/Pentecostals, nondenoms, and religious nonaffiliates,” he said.
How other churches participate in election-related activity
The election-related activity with the highest participation across all Christian churches is sermons about what the Bible teaches on specific issues, with 61 percent of Christians who attend church regularly saying their church did this, the Arizona Christian University study found.
Encouraging people to vote — without endorsing a specific candidate — was second-highest, with 56 percent of respondents saying their church did this.
Inviting candidates to speak at church, registering new voters, endorsing specific candidates and providing voter’s guides were among the less common election activities churches engage in, with a majority of respondents saying their churches did not do any of these, according to the survey.
The survey, conducted Aug. 26 through Sept. 6, interviewed 2,000 self-identified Christian adults who regularly attend a Christian church.
