Rutgers scholar opposes integrated churches because black people may vote Republican– www.thecollegefix.com

Says it’s a bad thing when black people start to vote Republican

Black people should mainly attend churches with just other black people so that they keep voting Democrat, according to a Rutgers University professor.

Professor Ryon Cobb argues “while 84% of Black adults identify as Democrat or lean Democratic, that number hides what congregational diversity costs Black politics.”

“Among Black nondenominational Protestants, that figure drops to nearly 60%, with one in three calling themselves independents,” Cobb wrote in an essay for the Brookings Institution.

Cobb, an “inclusive excellence in research” scholar considers it a “loss” when black people vote Republican.

He wrote:

Where Black Americans worship shapes their politics, and the data show the cost. The losses run in two directions: White congregations convert Black members to Republicanism, while multiracial congregations pull them out of partisan politics altogether. The mechanism is not diversity itself—it is who holds power inside those congregations.

He adds in the requisite warning about “white Christian nationalism” and also points out that some black people are less likely to identify with either political party when they attend multiracial congregations.

Professor Cobb does not provide any data to show these people are less likely to vote, follow the news, or attend local city council meetings, but simply asserts they are less politically engaged.

The data show a slight increase in Republican identification when black people attend a multiracial church, and a larger increase when they attend a church considered “white.”

A multiracial church, according to Cobb’s research paper, refers to a church “where no single racial group constituted a majority in leadership or membership.”