Table Of ContentThe Religion of White Rage
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To Dr. Charles H. Long (1926–2020)
Dr. Charles H. Long infl uenced how we think of and study religion more
than any scholar other than those who trained us. His intellectual reach
cannot be measured nor overestimated, and his imprint on this
book can be clearly seen throughout its pages. We dedicate this
book to his memory.
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The Religion of White Rage
White Workers, Religious Fervor, and the
Myth of Black Racial Progress
Edited by
STEPHEN C. FINLEY
BIKO MANDELA GRAY
LORI LATRICE MARTIN
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Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish
academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social
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© editorial matter and organization Stephen C. Finley, Biko Mandela Gray, and Lori Latrice
Martin, 2020
© the chapters their several authors, 2020
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
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Typeset in 10/13 Giovanni by
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printed and bound in Great Britain.
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ISBN 978 1 4744 7370 5 (hardback)
ISBN 978 1 4744 7372 9 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 1 4744 7373 6 (epub)
The right of Stephen C. Finley, Biko Mandela Gray, and Lori Latrice Martin to be identifi ed
as the editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
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CONTENTS
Notes on the Editors and Contributors / vii
Acknowledgments / xi
INTRODUCTION / “The Souls of White Folk”: Race, Affect, and
Religion in the Religion of White Rage / 1
Biko Mandela Gray, Stephen C. Finley, and Lori Latrice Martin
PART ONE / White Religious Fervor, Civil Religion, and
Contemporary American Politics
ONE / “Make America Great Again”: Racial Pathology, White
Consolidation, and Melancholia in Trump’s America / 29
Stephen C. Finley
TWO / You Will Not Replace Us! An Exploration of Religio-Racial
Identity in White Nationalism / 43
Darrius Hills
THREE / “I AM that I AM”: The Religion of White Rage, Great Migration
Detroit, and the Ford Motor Company / 58
Terri Laws and Kimberly R. Enard
FOUR / American (Un)Civil Religion, the Defense of the White Worker,
and Responses to NFL Protests / 73
Lori Latrice Martin
FIVE / The Color of Belief: Black Social Christianity, White Evangelicalism,
and Redbaiting the Religious Culture of the CIO in the
Postwar South / 85
Elizabeth Fones-Wolf and Ken Fones-Wolf
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vi / The Religion of White Rage
SIX / Constitutional Whiteness: Class, Narcissism, and the
Source of White Rage / 108
Jason O. Jeffries
PART TWO / White Religious Fervor, Religious Ideology, and White Identity
SEVEN / KKK Christology: A Brief on White Class Insecurity / 125
Paul Easterling
EIGHT / Black People and White Mormon Rage: Examining Race,
Religion, and Politics in Zion / 135
Darron T. Smith, Brenda G. Harris, and Melissa Flores
NINE / Anatomizing White Rage: “Race is My Religion!” and
“White Genocide” / 149
Kate E. Temoney
TEN / Exorcising Blackness: Calling the Cops as an Affective
Performance of Gender / 166
Biko Mandela Gray
ELEVEN / White Power Barbie and Other Figures of
the Angry White Woman / 179
Danae M. Faulk
TWELVE / Weaponizing Religion: A Document Analysis of the Religious
Indoctrination of Slaves in Service of White Labor Elites / 192
E. Anthony Muhammad
THIRTEEN / The Religions of Black Resistance and White Rage:
Interpenetrative Religious Practice in the 1963 Civil Rights Struggle in
Danville, Virginia / 213
Tobin Miller Shearer
CONCLUSION / Race, Religion, and Labor Studies: The Way Forward / 227
Lori L. Martin, Stephen C. Finley, and Biko Mandela Gray
Notes / 241
Bibliography / 286
Index / 314
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NOTES ON THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Editors
Stephen C. Finley, PhD is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and
African & African American Studies and Director of the African & African
American Studies Program at Louisiana State University. His primary areas
of scholarship are African American religious cultures, theory and method
in the study of religion, and the history of religions as informed by social
theory, philosophy of race, and psychoanalysis. He is coeditor of Esotericism
in African American Religious Experience: “There Is a Mystery”. . . (Brill) and
author of the monograph In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterres-
trial Bodies in the Nation of Islam (Duke University Press). His articles appear
in Black Theology: An International Journal, the Journal of the American Acad-
emy of Religion, the Western Journal of Black Studies, the Journal of Africana
Religions, the International Journal of Africana Studies, the Journal of Academic
Freedom, and other scholarly journals and venues.
Biko Mandela Gray, PhD is Assistant Professor of Religion at Syracuse Uni-
versity. Working at the intersection between philosophy of religion and
African American religion, his research interests are around the relationship
between subjectivity, race, and religion—especially as it relates to how this
relationship plays itself out in social justice movements and larger political
arenas. He is working on his fi rst monograph, tentatively called Black Life
Matter, wherein he turns to those lost to state-sanctioned violence in order
to theorize blackness and religion as critical sites for subject formation.
Lori Latrice Martin, PhD is Professor in the Department of Sociology and
African and African American Studies at Louisiana State University (LSU).
Dr. Martin is also LSU Faculty Athletics Representative. Her research areas are
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viii / The Religion of White Rage
race and ethnicity, racial wealth inequality and black asset poverty, and race
and sports. Dr. Martin is the author of numerous scholarly works. Her publica-
tions include South Baton Rouge (Arcadia Publishing), Black Asset Poverty and
the Enduring Racial Divide (First Forum Press), Color Struck (Senses/Brill), Big
Box Schools: Race, Education, and the Danger of the Wal-Martization of American
Public Schools (Lexington Books), and Introduction to Africana Studies: Lessons
from W.E.B. Du Bois, E. Franklin Frazier, and the Atlanta School of Sociology (Brill).
Contributors
Paul Easterling, PhD is a graduate of the Religious Studies Department
of Rice University. He has been an Adjunct Professor of African American
Studies at the University of Houston and is currently an Adjunct Profes-
sor of History and Government at Bowie State University. Currently, Dr.
Easterling works as an independent scholar contributing to academic think-
tanks and research databases centered on African American religious life
and culture. Dr. Easterling’s research interests include African American reli-
gious culture, the history of African American religion, twentieth-century
African American Islam, and African American religion and popular culture.
Kimberly R. Enard, PhD, MBA, MSHA, FACHE is an Assistant Professor of
Health Management and Policy in the College for Public Health and Social
Justice at Saint Louis University. Her professional background encom-
passes more than fi fteen years of management and consulting experience
with large integrated health systems in areas involving business develop-
ment, service line management, program planning and evaluation, quality
improvement, and community engagement. In partnership with health sys-
tems and communities, her work is dedicated to addressing health inequi-
ties by designing, implementing, and evaluating strategies to improve care
coordination and quality of care for safety-net populations. Dr. Enard has
authored several manuscripts about safety-net populations and presented
her work at local, regional, and national meetings.
Danae Faulk is a doctoral student in the Department of Religion at Syracuse
University. Faulk is studying religion and the body.
Melissa Flores is a doctoral candidate at University of Utah in the Depart-
ment of Education, Culture, and Society. Her research interests include
racial battle fatigue and critical race theory.
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Notes on the Editors and Contributors / ix
Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, PhD is Professor of History at West Virginia Uni-
versity, where she has been the recipient of numerous awards. Her books
include Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism,
1945–60 and Waves of Opposition: Labor and the Struggle for Democratic
Radio.
Ken Fones-Wolf, PhD holds the Stuart and Joyce Robbins Chair in History
at West Virginia University. He has authored or edited seven books on labor
and Appalachian history. Together in 2015, he and Elizabeth Fones-Wolf
published Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South: White Evangelical Protes-
tants and Operation Dixie.
Brenda Harris, PhD is an independent scholar. Dr. Harris examines tran-
sracial adoptions and religion, among other research areas. She explores
the approaches, strategies, and tactics white adoptive parents use to racially
socialize their adopted black children.
Darrius Hills, PhD is Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Religious
Studies at Morgan State University. His research addresses various articula-
tions of African American religious thought, theology, womanist religious
thought, philosophy of religion, American religious culture(s), and mascu-
linity studies. Specifi cally, Dr. Hills draws upon womanist religious thought
and literary sources as a guiding frame of reference to unpack and reconsider
notions of human relationality, community, and black male identity. Most
recently, Dr. Hills coauthored, with Tommy Curry, an article published in
the Black Lives Matter? issue of the Journal of Africana Religions, titled “Cries
of the Unheard: State Violence, Black Bodies, and Martin Luther King’s
Black Power.”
Jason O. Jeffries, PhD is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the
University of Denver. His research interests include how religion and iden-
tity formation, embodiment and African American religion, the body as a
source of religious experience, and African American religion and popular
culture.
Terri Laws, PhD (Religion) is Assistant Professor of African and African
American Studies and Health and Human Services at the University of
Michigan-Dearborn, where she teaches courses in African American reli-
gious experience and medical ethics. Her publications have appeared in the
Journal of Religion and Health and Pastoral Psychology.
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