Damon Mayrl

Religion and Race

Mayrl, Damon. Forthcoming. “The White Church.” In The Oxford Handbook of W.E.B. Du Bois, edited by Aldon Morris et al. New York: Oxford University Press. Draft available upon request.

Abstract: This chapter examines Du Bois’s analysis of the White church—i.e., that set of Christian denominations founded and controlled by Whites. Du Bois conceived of the White church as an institutional collective that had been indelibly marked by its encounter with racism and White supremacy, and thus the bearer of a warped and colonized version of Christianity that hypocritically denied its most basic tenets. I review six ways that Du Bois viewed the White church as contributing to the reproduction of White supremacy, as well as two antiracist mechanisms whereby the White church could challenge White supremacy—with particular emphasis on how Du Bois analyzed those mechanisms as being compromised or entangled with more prominent mechanisms supporting White supremacy. I conclude by considering how Du Bois’s analysis of the White church can act as a heuristic that can help us synthesize a variety of recent findings in the sociology of religion and race, and improve our understanding of contemporary racial politics.


Mayrl, Damon. 2023. “The Funk of White Souls: Toward a Du Boisian Theory of the White Church.” Sociology of Religion 84(1): 16-41.
  • 2024 Distinguished Article Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association

  • 2024 Distinguished Article Award, Association for the Sociology of Religion

Abstract: This article revisits the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois on the white church. Drawing on a synthetic reading of his scholarship on white Christianity, I argue that Du Bois conceives of the white church as a racialized organization that has been indelibly shaped by white supremacy. I then elaborate six mechanisms identified by Du Bois through which white churches further perpetuate white supremacy: legitimation, revisionism, inaction, segregation, missionary work, and charitable giving. Building on this analysis, I sketch a Du Boisian agenda for research on the white church and show how it can enrich scholarship in the sociology of religion, critical scholarship on race, and the Du Boisian renaissance more broadly.


Mayrl, Damon, and Aliya Saperstein. 2013. “When White People Report Racial Discrimination: The Role of Region, Religion, and Politics.” Social Science Research 42(3): 742-754.

Abstract: Scholarly interest in the correlates and consequences of perceived discrimination has grown exponentially in recent years, yet, despite increased legal and media attention to claims of “anti-white bias,” empirical studies predicting reports of racial discrimination by white Americans remain limited. Using data from the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, we find that evangelical Protestantism increases the odds that whites will report experiencing racial discrimination, even after controlling for racial context and an array of social and psychological characteristics. However, this effect is limited to the South. Outside the South, political affiliation trumps religion, yielding distinct regional profiles of discrimination reporters. These findings suggest that institutions may function as regional “carriers” for whites inclined to report racial discrimination.

Religion and Gender

Fernández, Juan J., Antonio Jaime-Castillo, Damon Mayrl, and Celia Valiente. 2021. “Societal Religiosity and the Gender Gap in Political Interest, 1981-2014.” British Journal of Sociology 72: 252-69.

Abstract: This manuscript examines the structural causes of the gender gap in political interest. In many countries, men are more interested in politics than women. Yet, in others, men and women prove equally interested. We explain this cross-national variation by focusing on the effects of societal religiosity. Since religion sustains the traditional gender order, contexts where societal religiosity is low undermine the taken-for-grantedness of this order, subjecting it to debate. Men then become especially interested in politics to try to reassert their traditional gender dominance, or to compensate for their increasingly uncertain social status. A secular environment thus increases political interest more among men than among women, expanding this gender gap. Using the World and European Values Survey, we estimate three-level regression models and test our religiosity-based approach in 96 countries. The results are consistent with our hypothesis.


Jaime-Castillo, Antonio M., Juan J. Fernández, Celia Valiente, and Damon Mayrl. 2016. “Collective Religiosity and the Gender Gap in Attitudes towards Economic Redistribution in 74 Countries, 1990-2008.” Social Science Research 57: 17-30.

Abstract: What is the relationship between gender and the demand for redistribution? Because, on average, women face more economic deprivation than men, in many countries women favor redistribution more than men. However, this is not the case in a number of other countries, where women do not support redistribution more than men. To explain this cross-national paradox, we stress the role of collective religiosity. In many religions, theological principles both militate against public policies designed to redistribute income, and also promote traditionally gendered patterns of work and family involvement. Hence, we hypothesize that, in those countries where religion remains influential either through closer church-state ties or an intensely religious population, men and women should differ less in their attitudes towards redistribution. Drawing upon the World Values Survey, we estimate three-level regression models that test our religiosity-based approach and two alternative explanations in 86 countries and 175 country-years. The results are consistent with our hypothesis. Moreover, in further support of our theoretical approach, societal religiosity undermines pro-redistribution preferences more among women than men. Our findings suggest that collective religiosity matters more to the gender gap in redistributive attitudes than traditional political and labor force factors.


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