Religious and Racialized Emotions: How Race, Congregations, and Leadership Shape Racial Pessimism

Racialized and religious emotions can challenge or perpetuate the racial structure. Racial pessimism can play a significant role in how people perceive, respond to, and engage with racial inequality. We examine how religion shapes racial pessimism among Christians with a focus on congregational and leadership racial composition. Across racial groups, the perceived importance of faith is inversely associated with racial pessimism. While attending a more racially diverse congregation is negatively associated with racial pessimism, attending a congregation with more racially diverse leadership is positively associated with racial pessimism. Intra‐racial group models provide nuance to the strength and direction of these patterns. Both evangelical orthodoxy and Christian nationalism are positively associated with racial pessimism. Our findings have implications for understanding how religion may facilitate racialized emotions through varying contexts, and how these contexts may have differing influences across and within racial groups.