Panel on “White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America”

The American political scene today is poisonously divided, and the vast majority of white evangelicals play a strikingly unified, powerful role in the disunion. These evangelicals raise a starkly consequential question for electoral politics: Why do they claim morality while supporting politicians who act immorally by most Christian measures? In her newest book White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America, Anthea Butler answers that racism is at the core of conservative evangelical activism and power.

On April 6, the Lab hosted a discussion inspired by this hard-hitting chronicle of American religion and politics. The featured panelists included Anthea Butler, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia faculty—Larycia Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Politics and Religious Studies, and Charles Mathewes, Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies—with guest moderator Corey D. B. Walker, the Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities at Wake Forest University.