Religious Organizations as Racialized Organizations: Loose Coupling and Symbolic Allyship Between Denominational Racial Justice Statements and Congregational Practice

Abstract

In the post-Civil Rights era, many predominantly white religious denominations issued statements denouncing racism and challenging their congregations to take organizational action to undo racism, but do these statements translate into actions? New institutionalism theorizes that loose coupling between statements and actions is normative for organizations as they balance signaling support to their external environment while simultaneously maintaining the good faith of internal membership, but Ray contends that because organizations are racialized, this disconnect maintains racial inequality. Building on new institutionalism, I develop the concept of symbolic allyship: symbolic actions that mark the organization as an ally, but these symbolic actions vary in the degree to which they pose organizational risk in maintaining member confidence. Using a nationally representative sample of American congregations within predominantly white denominations that have implored their congregations to act to address racism, I employ latent class analysis to test the prevalence and shape of congregational loose coupling between symbolic statements and symbolic actions. Results suggest that loose coupling between statements and actions is the norm. Further, results provide some evidence that congregations trend toward engaging in symbolic actions that have lower potential costs to the good faith of members. Because these forms of symbolic allyship signal support to the outside world, they may also mask lower levels of organizational change and reinforce racial inequality. Finally, regression analysis illustrates that the ideological mismatch between more progressive denominational statements and more conservative local political and theological cultures helps in understanding this pervasive loose coupling.