A Quiet Exodus: Why Black Worshipers Are Leaving White Evangelical Churches
Is God racist or is it my church? While a certain segment of the left would respond, there is no god, others will remember how religion and faith could also be a force for justice. Unfortunately, too often, the left yields the field to the right on faith, as well as patriotism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/us/blacks-evangelical-churches.html
In the last couple of decades, there had been signs, however modest, that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning might cease to be the most segregated hour in America. “Racial reconciliation” was the talk of conferences and the subject of formal resolutions. Large Christian ministries were dedicated to the aim of integration, and many black Christians decided to join white-majority congregations. Some went as missionaries, called by God to integrate. Others were simply drawn to a different worship style — short, conveniently timed services that emphasized a personal connection to God.
The fruits could be seen if you looked in the right places, particularly within the kind of nondenominational megachurches that gleam from the roadsides here in the sprawl of Dallas-Fort Worth. In 2012, according to a report from the National Congregation Study, more than two-thirds of those attending white-majority churches were worshiping alongside at least some black congregants, a notable increase since a similar survey in 1998. This was more likely to be the case in evangelical churches than in mainline Protestant churches, and more likely in larger ones than in smaller ones.
Then came the 2016 election. Black congregants — as recounted by people in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Fort Worth and elsewhere — had already grown uneasy in recent years as they watched their white pastors fail to address police shootings of African-Americans. They heard prayers for Paris, for Brussels, for law enforcement; they heard that one should keep one’s eyes on the kingdom, that the church was colorblind, and that talk of racial injustice was divisive, not a matter of the gospel. There was still some hope that this stemmed from an obliviousness rather than some deeper disconnect.
Then white evangelicals voted for Mr. Trump by a larger margin than they had voted for any presidential candidate. They cheered the outcome, reassuring uneasy fellow worshipers with talk of abortion and religious liberty, about how politics is the art of compromise rather than the ideal. Christians of color, even those who shared these policy preferences, looked at Mr. Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants, his open hostility to N.F.L. players protesting police brutality and his earlier “birther” crusade against President Obama, claiming falsely he was not a United States citizen. In this political deal, many concluded, they were the compromised.
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To White people leaving? (Or Hispanics, etc.) I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers might be surprising (huh? 
).
I'm atheist, but I'd like to believe that churches generally have good people in them - even evangelical super-churches. And while a lot of the congregation might be, these others aren't that political, might not be too deep of thinkers, and like the easily digestible sermons you get from such places.
But when the church seemingly does a 180 and starts propping up Donald Trump, and these nice people see how not nice he is, they're not going to enjoy going to church anymore. Some might start going to other churches; some may decide to sleep in, etc.
In any event, it's Trump and his supporters being assholes who are to blame.
TlalocW
