You find the most in not any particular denomination specifically. It's the style of worship. So if we have what we call a charismatic worship style, that means upbeat music and a more lively style of preaching usually, people are allowed to clap, say "Amen," whether they're mainline Protestant, conservative Protestant, and Catholics, whatever, they're much more likely to be integrated.
Michael EmersonWhat happens is sometimes these congregations will still have the white style of worship, even though they're mixed, because folks are willing to give up whatever they may have come with. So it's still quite a stretch for African Americans, yeah.
Michael EmersonIf we go into white congregations, non-whites will sometimes say it felt like worship never started. It was sort of dead and didn't feel that warmly received. But so - and there are different realities either way, and it makes it difficult for all groups to try and cross boundaries.
Michael EmersonI think people respond to villains because people in general are more villainous than heroic.
Michael EmersonI think it's easier, I really do, because of not having that similar history, so that's why I think two-thirds of these mixed congregations are either white with Asian and Hispanic, or black with Asian and Hispanic.
Michael EmersonIt happens a little bit more in the West, where there's more fluid - where everybody's originally from somewhere else. So they have a little bit more permission to do it. It happens the least, at the individual level at least, in the South, because the South has very strong, you know, set up black churches and white churches and a long history of that, and so it's a bigger social cost.
Michael EmersonOnce in a while you get people that maybe because of economic reasons, or have a social network, they get attracted. But it's a very tiny percent so that when we look at, you know, who are pastors and who are the head clergy of these congregations, they're overwhelmingly white, just a few African Americans, and those folks are usually called to what were formerly white congregations, or they started interracial church from the get-go.
Michael Emerson