Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6323-8396

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2025

Document Type

Dissertation (Campus Access)

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Sociology and Anthropology

Committee Chair

Katie E. Corcoran

Committee Co-Chair

Christopher P. Scheitle

Committee Member

Christopher P. Scheitle

Committee Member

Daniel E. Renfrew

Committee Member

Nichole R. Phillips

Abstract

Images of a White/European Jesus are prominent in US society and particularly, prominent in Black Church culture. Yet, there is an extensive and complicated history which demonstrates that this white religious iconography was intended to disenfranchise racially minoritized communities. As such, the presence of the white religious iconography in Black Church culture is the subject of this dissertation. The dissertation explores how Black American religio-racial socialization contributes to their perceptions and interpretation of the racialized iconography and by association, the Black Church’s embrace or resistance to the imagery. This study explores the racial identity development in 330 participants, 19 interviewees and 311 survey respondents. Utilizing Nigrescence Theory, this study also implements logistic regression to determine association between the participant’s odds of identifying Jesus as white and their level of racial identity development. This mixed methodological study found marginal statistical significance (p-value< .10), indicating that for each point increase in a participant’s racial identity development, the odds were 5% lower that the participant would identify Jesus as white. The study also found the odds of women perceiving Jesus as white were 4% higher than their male counterparts but the finding was not statistically significant. Lastly, the study demonstrates that regardless of their racial identity development, there are innumerable elements or layers of oppression that Black people cope with daily. The coping mechanisms may sometimes be counter-productive, such as embracing a white God who symbolizes the effects of your oppression. The significance of this study is broad as it is one of the first of its kind to consider Blackness and Black socialization as a real and consequential element of sociology of religion research. It is also one of the first mixed methodological studies which addresses the relationship between racial identity development, racialized religious iconography, and ideological whiteness as key to cultural trauma for Black people. This study has broad sociological implications and implications across other disciplines, including African American studies, history, theology, religious studies, and gender studies.

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