“Take It to the Lord”: Religion and Responses to Racial Discrimination in the Workplace

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interview data from the nationally representative Faith at Work: An Empirical Study, this article contributes to understanding the role of religion in shaping interpretations of and responses to racial discrimination in the workplace. Specifically, it shows how Christians of different racial groups understand the relevance of their faith in coping with perceived racial discrimination in the workplace, and it illuminates the religious frames that respondents employ to “make sense” of perceived racial discrimination at work. We find that Christians of color and White Christians primarily draw on religious frames such as forgiveness and divine sovereignty in response to perceived discrimination but that these frames serve different functions. Some Christians of color also link their faith to a moral conviction to stand up for themselves and others in the workplace. While most studies on the connection between religion and racial discrimination focus on faith as an individual-level coping mechanism and buffering effect, this article also analyzes the implications of religion on racial hierarchies and racial equity efforts in the workplace—including a focus on how religion serves to produce epistemologies of ignorance and support feelings of White victimhood. Our study contributes to the scholarship on racial discrimination and religion by offering new insights into how Christians of different racial groups use faith to cope with perceived racial discrimination at work.

Introduction

Racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate have centered on the impact of systemic racism, drawing attention to macro and microaggressions and highlighting resources that individuals draw on to navigate and cope with racial discrimination in their daily lives (Domínguez and Embrick 2020; Morris 2016; Phelps, Robertson, and Powell 2021). Religion is one resource individuals use to cope with racial discrimination, providing social support and spiritual guidance to mitigate the adverse effects of discrimination on mental health outcomes (Bierman 2006; Ellison, DeAngelis, and Güven 2017). Religion also helps with self-perception, serving as a protective factor against the negative psychological effects of stereotyping and stigmatization based on racial identity (Butler-Barnes, Martin, Hope et al. 2018). In these ways, religion can have buffering effects for individuals experiencing racial discrimination, and individuals can exert agency via religion in response to discrimination (Bacchus 2008; Hall, Hamilton-Mason, and Everett 2012; Lee et al. 2021).

The workplace is a social domain where individuals may draw on religion to navigate perceived racial discrimination. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, corporate focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives increased as companies felt pressure to publicly respond to national calls for racial justice. More recently, however, DEI efforts have produced a significant backlash, with conservative legal activists arguing that DEI programs constitute racial discrimination against White people and those hired to implement DEI initiatives facing interpersonal hostility and job loss (Hsu 2023).

On a structural level, existing research provides consistent evidence that racial discrimination negatively affects access to employment and shapes labor market disparities for people of color. African Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as Whites, while Black and Hispanic wages continue to lag behind White wages (Cunningham and Lopez 2021; Pager and Shepherd 2008; Rosenfeld and Kleykamp 2012). Previous studies also find strong evidence of racial discrimination playing a role in hiring disparities (Hirsh and Kornrich 2008; Quillian and Midtbøen 2021; Rivera 2012). Yet far less is known about how workers experience racial discrimination within the workplace and the role of religion in this process.

This gap is important for several reasons. First, workplaces are racialized organizations in which individuals negotiate their sense of self and place in society amid racial hierarchies—a process with both material and social consequences (Ray 2019). Given that religion is a key source of meaning-making for many people in the United States, religion may provide particular cultural toolkits through which individuals make sense of and cope with perceived racial discrimination at work (Swidler 1986). Because many workers are religious—and workplaces are sites where individuals are likely to interact across racial lines and also likely to perceive racial discrimination—it is valuable to understand the extent to which employees of color and White employees draw on religious frames to interpret and respond to perceived discrimination. Second, workplaces are organizational domains where individuals have some degree of agency in relation to institutional structures; thus, religion may also be a resource for challenging racial injustice. At the same time, even as religion may aid individual coping and buffer the adverse impact of discrimination on the self, religious frames may work to reinforce White supremacy and leave racial structures unchallenged (Emerson and Bracey, 2024; Perry and Whitehead 2019). Insights into how religion shapes perceptions of and responses to racial discrimination may shed light on the cultural mechanisms that can encourage or constrain structural change.

Drawing on interview data from the Faith at Work: An Empirical Study, this article addresses the role of religion in perceptions of and responses to racial discrimination in the workplace by examining how Black, Asian, (non-White) Hispanic, and White Christians utilize religion to cope with perceived racial discrimination at work. We also interrogate the role of religion in confronting or reifying systemic racism. Prior studies of religion as a coping resource in response to racial discrimination focus primarily on Black adults in U.S. society broadly, or on specific groups like students and faculty at faith-based universities. We seek to highlight the specific ways that faith intersects with perceived racial discrimination among diverse workers.

By analyzing White Christian narratives alongside the narratives of Christians of color, we are not claiming that White perceptions of discrimination are equivalent to experiences of racial discrimination of people of color. Rather, we are interested in how religion is used by different racialized groups. Studying White perceptions of discrimination alongside Black, Asian, and (non-White) Hispanic perceptions can help us better understand how racism is reproduced in the workplace by its social actors.

Given backlash to DEI initiatives, it is especially important to consider the ways religion might amplify or heighten White perceptions of racial discrimination. Research shows that under certain conditions, White Christians are more likely than other White people to perceive racial discrimination while rejecting claims of racial discrimination by others (Mayrl and Saperstein 2012; Perry et al. 2022); that White people use religious frames to interpret race in the workplace and other social domains (Mehta, Schneider, and Ecklund 2022); and that religion, specifically Christianity, shapes how White people perceive their place in U.S. society vis-à-vis other racial groups (Baker, Perry, and Whitehead 2020). Analyzing narratives of Christians of color alongside White Christians allows us to not only compare across different racial groups responses to perceived racial discrimination but also to examine how religious frames may serve different functions for Christians of color and White Christians because of their social locations. Narratives of “anti-White racial oppression” and White victimhood often go hand in hand with the positioning of the (White) self as “morally and intellectually superior to racialized Others,” thereby reinforcing racial hierarchies and potentially fueling subtle and blatant racism in the workplace (Schrock et al. 2022:115).

Literature Review

Religion as Coping Resource Amid Racial Discrimination

Social science research shows that religion is a resource for people of color coping with racial discrimination, especially for African Americans (Bacchus 2008; Hall et al. 2012; Lee et al. 2021). Existing sociology and psychology scholarship draws on quantitative studies to frame religion as a positive coping mechanism that mitigates and moderates adverse effects of racial discrimination on individual mental health outcomes. In so far as experiences of discrimination are negatively related to mental health, religion can buffer the effects of discrimination (Bierman 2006). Indicators of religious involvement, such as church attendance, prayer, and religious support, mitigate the noxious effects of major discrimination experiences on the mental health outcomes of African Americans (Butler-Barnes, Martin, Copeland-Linder et al. 2018; Ellison et al. 2017; Hall et al. 2012; Odom and Vernon-Feagans 2010), particularly among those who attend religious services most often (Ellison, Musick, and Henderson 2008). Church-based support networks may permit individual victims of discrimination to divulge their feelings freely and to exchange ideas and experiences about how to respond to discrimination (Ellison et al. 2017), and religious practices such as prayer or singing may induce euphoric feelings or allow for negative emotions to be discharged (Ellison et al. 2008).

Religion also functions to help with self-perception among those who experience racial discrimination or stigmatization (Butler-Barnes, Martin, Hope et al. 2018). The perception that one is held in loving or high regard by others whose judgments one values, for example other church members or leaders, has been shown to elevate self-esteem, which may be especially important in the aftermath of racial discrimination (Ellison et al. 2017; Krause 2003). In this way, religion may help cultivate positive self-perception so that negative experiences with racial discrimination are less likely to be interpreted as fundamental assaults on the self (Culver 2021; Ellison et al. 2008).

Individuals may also use religious frames to make sense of race and racism in ways that aid individual coping. Religious frames are “pathways for interpreting information composed of rhetoric, symbols, and beliefs anchored in and legitimated by religious authorities (e.g., leaders, communities, texts, transcendent referents)” (Mehta et al. 2022:629). For example, religious frames of forgiveness and forbearance may allow victims of racial discrimination to release negative emotions such as anger and grief (Bierman 2006; Ellison et al. 2017). Particularly in Black churches, racial injustice may be addressed in liturgy and sermons through frames of forgiveness and divine retribution, encouraging individuals to let go of anger or despair while trusting in God’s ultimate justice (Odom and Vernon-Feagans 2010). Moreover, Black churches often have specialized resources to help individuals cope with the effects of racial discrimination because of their historic involvement in racial justice struggles, which may not be available in other religious communities (Bierman 2006; Lincoln and Mamiya 1990; Shelton and Emerson 2012).

While much of the research on racial discrimination and religious coping focuses on African Americans, a small but growing body of research addresses religious coping and racial discrimination among other racial groups. While a 2020 survey of Asian Americans in the United States found that religion provided no protection against racism-related mental health problems (Nie 2022), several psychology studies of Asian American faculty and students at faith-based universities highlight how beliefs in a benevolent God; Christian values of justice, forgiveness, and forbearance; as well as on social support through ethnic church communities help individuals navigate subtle and blatant racism (Hyun et al. 2022; C. L. Kim et al. 2011; P. Y. Kim 2017, 2023).

Epistemologies of Ignorance

Overall, existing social science research makes a strong case that under certain conditions, religion serves as a positive coping mechanism for individuals experiencing racial discrimination in the United States, particularly for African Americans. The ways individuals use religious frames to cope with perceived racial discrimination are agentic, and religious frames represent “proactive, culturally specific ways of managing stress” that require creative adaption (Bacchus 2008; Hall et al. 2012:220).

While religious frames can help racially marginalized groups cope with living in a White-dominant society, adoption of religious frames as a coping mechanism and interpretive frame may also produce epistemologies of racial ignorance that reinforce racial structures within the workplace and broader society. Sociologist Jennifer Mueller (2020) argues that an epistemology of ignorance is “a way of knowing oriented toward evading, mystifying, and obscuring the reality of racism to produce (mis)understandings useful for domination” (p. 147). Racial ignorance, then, is an active state of “non-knowing” about the realities and impact of systemic racism that ultimately supports the maintenance of White power and privilege (Mills 2007:21).

Theories of racial ignorance are most often discussed in relation to White people and their role in the perpetuation of White supremacy. In The Racial Contract, Charles Mills (1997) specifically theorizes what he calls “white ignorance,” which he defines as “white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion and self-deception on matters related to race,” protecting Whites and the unjust systems from which they benefit (p. 19). White people may produce racial ignorance to minimize the achievements of people of color and/or to minimize their suffering; to reinforce ideas of White superiority, entitlement, and meritocracy; to deny structural inequalities and evade responsibility for the impact of racism; and to justify material advantages/disadvantages and maintain White supremacy (Maghbouleh 2022; Mueller 2022). ¹

But racial ignorance may also be cultivated by oppressed groups—whether due to internalized racism, as a strategy of survival, or both. In analyzing Black narratives of apartheid, Melissa Steyn (2012) explains how racial ignorance “may have the function of defending the oppressed from painful consciousness,” especially in contexts of extreme disempowerment (p. 18). Steyn (2012) calls this “survival ignorance”—ways of knowing about racism that are “developed and circulated from positions of diminished choice and necessitated by the overarching power structures,” which entail “inculcating in oneself or one’s loved ones elements of invulnerability to the impact of the privileged upon the oppressed” (p. 21). Survival ignorance, then, is a way of minimizing consciousness of racism to maintain civil relations with those one has to work with (or depend on), as well as to “avoid the emotional distress of having to acknowledge the full weight of one’s oppression” (Alcoff 2007:44). Though racially oppressed groups may have greater critical awareness of unequal social structures than Whites, they may also rely on racial ignorance for their “overall mental health and functional social relations” (Alcoff 2007:44). In this way, people of color can have strong, rational motivations for not developing critical consciousness of racism and the harmful impacts of discrimination.

Mapping the Paradox of Race and Religion

The role of religion in confronting or reifying social problems like racism is highly contested. Classical social theorists argued that religion legitimates subordination and/or distracts people from the root causes of their suffering. Marx ([1848] 1977) argued that religion can serve as the “opiate” of the masses, constraining revolution by suppressing political engagement and legitimating inequality, and sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois wrote extensively about the ways religion reproduced racial inequality and White supremacy in U.S. society rather than challenge these systems (Du Bois 1903; cf. Emerson, Korver-Glenn, and Douds 2015). However, both Marx and Du Bois noted that religion appeals to those experiencing systemic oppression by helping them through their suffering. Du Bois’ work informed decades of literature on the Black church tradition and its supportive role. Some scholars of the Black Church argue that religion can be employed to encourage political and social activism and address social problems (Barnes 2004; Cavendish 2001; Day 2001). Other religion scholars assert that religion mostly provides survival skills to withstand rather than address oppressive societal conditions like racism, and that religion functions to placate groups that should otherwise confront and revolt against inequities (Morris 1984; Wilmore 1994). More recent research finds that religion operates as a compensatory coping resource and a schema to suppress progressive political views, especially among those lacking social and economic status (Schnabel 2021). Moreover, as Glenn Bracey II (2022) argues, the act of racially marginalized groups insisting on their dignity and humanity—and communicating faith in a higher reality—itself can be seen as a spiritual act of resistance in the face of ongoing systemic racism.

Given the complex ways religion may offer individuals coping resources and contribute to epistemologies of ignorance that reinforce racial structures—and the robust debates that surround religion and race—there is a need for further study on how religious racial scripts operate in institutions like the workplace. The workplace provides a unique opportunity to examine how religious laypeople, as social actors, appropriate religious rituals, practices, and language for their own purposes in their own workplace contexts. The workplace is also an important site to consider how racially diverse Christians perceive racial discrimination, how faith shapes responses to perceived discrimination, and the implications of religion on macro-level racial hierarchies vis-à-vis the production of racial ignorance.

In this study, we draw on in-depth interviews to examine how religion shapes interpretations of and responses to perceived racial discrimination among White Christians and Christians of color in the workplace. Our research questions include: (1) What role does faith play in shaping how respondents understand racial discrimination at work? (2) What religious frames do respondents employ to “make sense” of racial discrimination? How do religious people understand the relevance of their faith in coping with and interpreting racism in the workplace? In answering these research questions, we are interested in analyzing the relationship between religion, individual coping mechanisms, and macro-level discriminatory contexts. Complicating theorists’ view of religion as highly deterministic (Bourdieu 1977; Cerulo 2002), we see workers as social actors who construct and contest racial ideologies and use religion for their own purposes. We are especially interested in how religious responses to racial discrimination among respondents of color may serve as a protective coping mechanism that protects their individual dignity and potentially leaves racist structures in the workplace intact. We further consider how religious responses to racial discrimination may contribute to epistemologies of ignorance among both respondents of color and White respondents. While faith may help individuals in coping with perceived racial discrimination at work, religious coping mechanisms may also serve to reinforce or challenge broader racial hierarchies in complex ways. As such, individual-level perception and explanations of racial discrimination, as well as responses to discrimination in the workplace, can offer important insights into macro-level power structures.

Data and Methods

To answer these questions, we draw on qualitative interview data from a larger, mixed methods study Faith at Work: An Empirical Study that includes an original, nationally representative survey (N = 13,270) of U.S. adults (including all religious groups) and 194 in-depth interviews across religious traditions. The broader study examined topics related to experiences of faith in the workplace, perceptions of discrimination in the workplace, and how work and religious lives intersect. The general population survey was administered by Gallup, Inc.; 13,270 U.S. adults completed the survey by internet. Survey respondents indicated whether they were willing to be contacted for a follow-up interview.

Individuals were sampled by demographic characteristics (age and race/ethnicity), employment characteristics (employment status), and religious characteristics (type of religious congregation). Our interview sample included those who attended religious services at least once per month and were employed full-time, part-time, or not employed but looking for work. A total of 1,862 survey takers were eligible to participate in interviews based on these criteria, and 182 hour-long interviews were completed with respondents who met these criteria, including interviews with 159 Christians, 10 Muslims, and 13 Jewish respondents. This population of workers was highly educated, with 70% of respondents having attained at least some college. We conducted an additional 12 interviews with those who identified as non-religious for comparison. Interviews were conducted between 2018 and 2020 by a larger team of researchers, including all authors, who contributed to data collection and analysis in various capacities. Interviews were semi-structured; most were conducted over the phone, while a small portion were in-person.

For this particular paper, we focused on Black (n = 24), Asian (n = 10), non-White Hispanic (n = 21), and White respondents (n = 93) who self-identify as Christian to examine the differences and commonalities in how individuals describe the role of faith in relation racial to discrimination. To examine the ways religion is utilized by Christians of color (Black, Asian, Hispanic) and White Christians in response to perceived discrimination, we developed an initial coding scheme used by a larger team to descriptively record a “yes” or “no” categorization to determine whether respondents reported any experiences of being treated unfairly or differently because of their race at work. In the initial descriptive coding, we paid particular attention to responses to the following interview questions: “Some people say that they are treated unfairly or differently at work because of their race or ethnicity. For you personally, is this the case?” and “If you have been treated unfairly at work, to what extent has your faith helped you to deal with that situation?” All interviews were coded by two team members and coding discrepancies were reconciled by a third member. Following this initial descriptive analysis, we used a partially inductive interpretive coding method to identify themes that emerged in the descriptive coding among respondents who reported being treated unfairly or differently because of their race at work and said faith helped them deal with the situation. We then used these themes to analyze the variation between respondents of color and White respondents.

Findings

We find that Christians from different racial groups use their faith to interpret and respond to perceived racial discrimination at work. Respondents employ religious frames and spiritual practices as a cultural resource to cope with distinct workplace challenges. Among respondents of color and White respondents whose faith helped them cope with perceived racial discrimination at work, we find two primary ways in which faith functions as a coping resource: (1) encouraging non-reactivity and deescalation and (2) promoting acceptance through recourse to or reliance on an all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent God. Christians of color and White Christians frequently cited religious frames of forbearance and forgiveness as well as frames of divine sovereignty and purpose in relation to perceived racial discrimination. A few respondents also reported that their faith empowered them to challenge racism and advocate on behalf of themselves and others.

Forbearance and Forgiveness

Christian respondents frequently credited faith as a resource that helped them accept unfair situations and “trust God.” This included controlling their emotional reactions or seeking to “turn the other cheek.” Christians of color often reported relying on religious frames such as forbearance and forgiveness to deescalate discriminatory incidents or buffer the impact of racism on the self, which functioned to protect them from negative repercussions of expressing anger or complaints openly in the workplace. One African American mainline Protestant ² working in the non-profit sector recalled facing unfair treatment by state regulators and described how her faith helped her sublimate anger so she “didn’t end up cursing nobody out.” An Asian evangelical immigrant of Chinese descent ³ working in the trucking industry described hearing disrespectful comments about racial minorities at work, including about immigrants like himself. For this respondent, faith helped him remain “calm,” check his “negative” emotions and “see a different perspective or different way to see it,” in order to avoid escalation. Likewise, a Hispanic Catholic ⁴ working in aviation manufacturing credited his faith in shaping his response to workplace racism: “it helps me to keep a calm demeanor always.” He noted many instances where he was denied opportunities, including an incident when a hiring director would not hire him because “they don’t want any Hispanics in their circle.” The respondent coped with racism by accepting its reality and moderating the emotional impact it had on him. Though he recognized that “there’s nothing right” about racism, he also understands “that it occurs and sometimes it’s easier not to make waves. . .you’ve got to pick and choose your fights.”

Respondents also focused on prayer as a tool to cultivate forbearance or non-reactivity to racial discrimination. An African American evangelical ⁵ working as a technology consultant described how White peers resent his intellect and expertise: “some people don’t get past that [as] the only African American, that I’d be able to do all kinds of things that they didn’t know how to do yet.” In these instances, he had to “just kind of push on through it,” and he credited prayer with helping him persevere through hardship: “some people can’t accept the fact that someone know[s] more. Then you’d have to take it to the Lord.” He added that if one is patient, “things tend to kind of work their way out” and “unfold in the way you really want.”

For Christians of color, drawing inner strength from one’s faith functioned as a coping strategy in work contexts where they are structurally disadvantaged. They credit faith with helping them manage their emotions amid demeaning situations and to persevere without reacting. In so doing, faith practices and principles help individuals process and release emotions that might have significant material, social, and personal repercussions if expressed openly in the workplace as well as negative mental health impacts if internalized. In this way, the linking of faith to deescalation or non-reactivity may provide individuals with a response to racism that is ultimately protective.

While accepting unfair situations does not necessarily equate denying racism as harmful, some respondents did downplay or minimize incidents, perhaps as another coping strategy.

An Asian American evangelical ⁶ working as a senior research fellow in epidemiology relied on his faith to buffer unfair treatment. Faced with microaggressions in the workplace, he found solace in a conviction that God, not work, is the most important aspect of his life, which allowed him to continue working without compounded distress:

I guess I just go back to that work is not the most important thing for me, and so. . . if I’m passed over for a promotion or don’t get some sort of recognition at work, it’s not a huge deal for me.

Here, faith helps to relativize the power and impact of experiences of marginalization, so that unfair treatment is “not the end of the world.” Notably, this same respondent downplayed patterns of racism, stating initially that racial discrimination has not been a “huge issue for me,” using qualifiers “here and there,” “that’s maybe happened,” and “I guess it’s discrimination in a way” when relating examples of microaggressions like speaking up at work and not being “taken quite as seriously as if an older White male would say it,” or “someone else said the same thing as I did, and it was a great idea.” By contrast, he found comfort through participating in a religious community that affirms the value of his contributions. Throughout the interview, the respondent discussed how meaningful it was to be a part-time worship pastor at his church, illustrating the social support and affirmation of dignity that religious communities provide.

This respondent was not unique. Many respondents seemed to deemphasize workplace experiences as “not a huge deal” or were hesitant to define them as racial discrimination. While this could be reflective of power differentials between interviewer and respondent, it also suggests hegemonic cultural mechanisms that work to minimize the experience of racism. Respondents also often ascribed negative attributes to emotions like anger, which they cited faith as controlling. Controlling one’s anger may be useful for survival (as expressions of anger are often punished), but the policing of anger also serves dominant groups by reinforcing the status quo and reducing the possibility for open contestation. In this way, while faith may provide Christians of color a tool to process emotional distress and help buffer the internalized impacts of racism, reliance on faith may also encourage production of ignorance about the seriousness of microaggressions and structural barriers.

A few White Christian respondents also referenced faith as helping them remain non-reactive in instances of perceived unfairness due to their race. A White evangelical paramedic supervisor ⁷ expressed the importance of forgiving others and not reacting with anger when faced with stereotypical assumptions about being White, male, Christian, and privileged. When “verbally abused” by others, he refuses to “sink to their level” and “verbally abuse them back,” because “what kind of lasting impression is that gonna be on me?” Not wanting to discredit Christianity through his conduct, the paramedic sought to deescalate situations or “turn the other cheek” when tempted to react in anger. In this way, “they can be goin’, or saying things to me all day, callin’ me, you know, whatever they want, and if I’m not biting on it, it kind of takes away their fuel.” While desiring to act in accordance with his faith helps him moderate his reactions, it also facilitates disengagement and deflects from the question of whether there is merit to assumptions about his privilege.

When asked if ever treated unfairly at work due to race, a White mainline Protestant ⁸ working in maintenance immediately said “yes.” He described a situation at a past job where he saw it as acceptable to tell “racial jokes” with an African American colleague because “color was not an issue between him and I.” When the respondent was overheard saying “Hey, Black boy, can you go move your truck?,” he was suspended without pay. The respondent claimed that the term “boy” did not bother his colleague, and that he was called “cracker” or “honkey” in return. Though the respondent saw his suspension as unfair, the respondent ultimately credited his aith for getting “the nerve up to go back and apologize” to his colleague:

I went back and apologized to the gentleman, and he had no clue what I was talking about, so I explained to him, and he was dumbfounded that that happened, said he had nothing to do with it. [. . .] I feel that my faith is what made me go back and apologize to him, because again, I didn’t have to. . .if I wasn’t a firm believer in God I would not have, like I said, I would not apologize. I would have said it is what it is, it happened, and you learn and go on.

Here, the respondent focuses on how his faith led him to apologize to his African American colleague even when he did not “have to.” However, in emphasizing how his faith helped him rise above perceived ill-treatment and take the high road by seeking forgiveness, the respondent casts himself as a victim rather than a perpetrator of racism. The narrative thus works to produce ignorance about the racist history of White people using diminutive terms like “boy” to dehumanize adult African American men. In this way, faith amplifies White feelings of superiority and victimhood in the workplace while evading moral responsibility for racial harm.

Divine Sovereignty and Purpose

In addition to relying on faith to “rise above” perceived discrimination, the Christians we interviewed also drew on religious frames of divine sovereignty and purpose in response to perceived racial discrimination, especially in circumstances involving supervisors and managers. They shared beliefs that God does “everything for a reason” or that God will ultimately work things out for good despite current difficulties.

Emphasis on divine power and purpose was especially prominent among Christians of color. An Asian American evangelical ⁹ working as an investment analyst described being racially stereotyped and denied equal opportunity: “I’m viewed as kind of. . . quantitatively driven, smart, math—really good at math but not as presentable in front of clients. [. . .] I see fairly similar colleagues maybe put in roles that I don’t get the opportunity for.” However, he shared how his faith helps him cope and reframe these situations:

I believe that God is sovereign, and He’s placed me where He’s placed me. It’s made me who I am, and I guess if I grumble or complain, which I do, I am complaining against God, not necessarily against my situation or against a supervisor who potentially treats me a little bit unfairly or whatever. So, in that sense, because I view it that way, I –the ideal thing for me is to be content with what the situation is.

In response to unfair treatment, this respondent is comforted by a belief in a sovereign God.

His faith motivates him to strive for contentment in his work situation despite diminished opportunities because he believes God has placed him there purposefully and “made me who I am.” He also frames “complaining” about unfair treatment as unproductive because it is seen as ultimately going against God’s will. In this way, the religious frame of divine sovereignty blunts critical engagement with power structures and racial hierarchies in the workplace. It also displaces responsibility for rectifying unfair treatment in the workplace from those with power, instead attributing one’s place within a racial structure to “God’s purpose.” Likewise, an African American evangelical operations manager ¹⁰ described how he generally “tries to stay away from race” at work. In instances where he suspects racial discrimination, he opts not to “find out” and instead focuses on “[dealing] with the person, one on one, if we have a disagreement.” At the same time, he copes by reminding himself that “no one can do nothin’ to me that God don’t allow them to do to me. I don’t care who it is” and “[W]e are all one. So, I put my mind at ease.” Here, religious frames reinforce an individual and interpersonal response, and the respondent employs religious rhetoric that emphasizes common humanity and God’s protection to ease anxiety. The respondent also admits to consciously ignoring signs of systemic racism, and he was noticeably reticent to directly name workplace racism because he didn’t have any definitive “proof.”

Amid racism, we see respondents of color relying on the benevolent care and protection of a higher power to cope. The African American mainline Protestant ¹¹ non-profit executive director who relied on her faith to prevent her from “cursing” people out, reported that her faith sustained her despite ill treatment because of a “firm belief that if you do the right thing for the right reasons, it’s gonna be alright and things are gonna be taken care of.” She believes in a “fair God” who works things out the way “they should work out.”

Belief that circumstances will ultimately “work out” does not mean that individuals do not feel distressed amid perceived racism. Respondents often described feelings of isolation, hurt, anger, and frustration. For example, an African American evangelical ¹² working as a reimbursement analyst shared,

I was just invisible a lot of times by management. When we had meetings, everybody would have input but for some reason she never saw me and everybody would invite each other to lunch through email, and I’d turn around and it was about 15 of us in the same office, and I’d turn around and I’m the only one sitting there.

In response to social exclusion at work, the respondent’s “heart was broken [. . .] there were times where I just wanted to get up and go home. I just didn’t want to stay there because it would be so hurtful.” Nevertheless, she relied on a sense of God’s power and protection—a sense of God’s care for her and desire for her success—to survive and persevere in her career:

I just say, you know, “help me, Lord, just help me deal with what I have to deal with” because the pay was good, the benefits was excellent and God kept me there for 24 years, and when I left there, you know, I left there in a good position so, you know, all I went through, God rewarded me in the end. And I knew God always had my back [. . .] I remember so many times, I felt like I just wished the ground would open up and I’d disappear because of the way I was treated in that office. But, you know, you get through it and you just learn to pray yourself up more [. . . .] when I worked there, I would have to get up and pray, at least give myself thirty-five minutes to pray before I went to work so I could deal with whatever was going to come my way at that company.

This response highlights how beliefs in a benevolent sovereign God, as well as religious rituals like daily prayer, help individuals cope with the everyday pain of racial discrimination at work.

For these Christians of color, faith in God’s ultimate power and divine purpose sustained them amid a myriad of microaggressions. Belief in God’s special plan for their lives provided a feeling of protection and hope that things would eventually work out for their good. Faith also bolstered positive self-perception, providing a sense of feeling seen, beloved, valued, and protected by a higher power with ultimate authority over human power. In this way, faith supports individual value and dignity in the face of dehumanizing treatment. Because many Christians, especially evangelicals, believe their ultimate identity is in Christ, this religious identity supersedes all other identities, providing a protective measure against de-humanization by affirming a higher order in which human equality is normative (Bracey 2022). But while frames of divine sovereignty and purpose are used to shield Christians of color from the full impact of racism in the workplace, they simultaneously blunt critical consciousness about the racial structures that condition discrimination in the first place.

A few White Christian respondents also emphasized divine purpose in relation to instances of perceived discrimination. Similar to respondents of color, they described faith aiding acceptance of their situation and the comfort of believing that God is in control and has a plan for their lives. A White evangelical ¹³ working as a corrections officer reported that several people of color were promoted to positions that “I was supposed to be promoted to.” In his view, he was “probably racially discriminated against in order to bring these people in.” He describes how his faith helped him cope with perceived unfair treatment:

In some ways it bummed me out a little bit, but in other ways I just figured I’d just keep on going on and doing the best that I can. And if the Lord wants me to be a lieutenant, He’ll make me a lieutenant, and if He wants me to be a sergeant, I’ll be a sergeant when I retire. If He wants me to be fired, I’ll be fired and I’ll go do something else. You know, I’m just good with it.

Here, the respondent accepts that his place in the organization is part of God’s divine plan, as he emphasizes contentment over anger.

Similarly, a White Hispanic evangelical ¹⁴ ROTC instructor shared an instance in the Marines where he was denied a promotion by an African American supervisor because of a “minor screw-up” he made in the drill. He compared this to an African American Marine who had failed the drill and was promoted three months earlier. The respondent explained that his supervisor was rumored to favor African American Marines and engage in “reverse racism.” The respondent claimed, “if I would’ve been Black, and I’d have failed drill, and I’d have known him, I’d have been in.” While this happened early in his career, the respondent commented that even though he doesn’t know why this happened, he now looks back on it through the lens of faith: “I am a believer that God does everything for a reason, and God has a plan that is ultimately going to be beneficial.”

These White respondents describe being denied promotions that they believe they were entitled to, which were instead granted to people of color. They then use religious frames of divine sovereignty to cast themselves as righteous, aggrieved, yet faithful Christians who must press on and rise above injustice by trusting that God has a purposeful plan for them. In such narratives, people of color are portrayed as undeserving of positions of authority and/or as occupying leadership roles solely because of their race rather than their merit. Not only do these respondents produce ignorance about the barriers and hostility that leaders of color may face in the workplace, they also demonstrate a lack of respect for the qualifications, expertise, judgment, and leadership of coworkers of color. Thus, even while faith is credited with facilitating acceptance, faith as a coping mechanism works to protect notions of White superiority. By attributing one’s circumstances to God’s will, one does not have to consider other explanations, such as a person of color being more qualified or better suited for opportunities; one’s own personal limitations, failings, or mediocrity; or the legitimate need for racial equity programs. Instead, advancement of people of color and respondents’ lack of advancement as White men in the workplace are attributed to the mysterious workings of a sovereign God.

Framing themselves as victims of anti-White bias and as (unjust) sacrificial offerings to make room for racial diversity in the workplace, these White respondents actively construct a narrative of an aggrieved but superior White self (Schrock et al. 2022). Such narratives illustrate a “refusal to recognize the long history of structural discrimination that has left Whites with the differential resources they have today and all of its consequent advantages in negotiating opportunity structures” (Mills 2007:28). Even so, reliance on God’s divine power to cope and “make things right” could also reflect a passive acceptance of shifting power dynamics in the workplace.

Challenging Discrimination

While respondents most frequently cited faith as a coping mechanism on an individual level, a few Christians of color drew on their faith to challenge racial injustice on the organizational level. For these respondents, faith affirms that racism is morally wrong and motivates them to “speak up” for themselves and others. For example, when we asked about racial discrimination at work, an evangelical African American nurse ¹⁵ immediately replied, “Well, I don’t know if you have time for that!,” going on to detail numerous ways her expertise had been disregarded by colleagues or she had faced hostility by patients, one even calling her a racial epithet. The nurse credited faith with giving her the courage to advocate for herself and others facing workplace racism, including confronting people directly and requesting intervention from management:

I think it’s huge, because I think if I weren’t a person of faith, I’d be –it’d be bad. [laughs]. . . But because I believe that we’re basically in a position where we are constantly asked to make a choice of whom will we serve. And if you say that you are a follower of Jesus Christ and a believer in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit . . . then you’ve gotta make some choices based on that, which means that you have to be willing and able to stand up for yourself and sometimes shake the dust of that town off your feet . . . My faith does not make me a wimp or a –a carpet. In fact, it makes believe that there are some things worth standing up for that you have to stand up for, for yourself and for others.

For this respondent, faith played a role in responding to workplace racism, encouraging her not to be a “wimp” or a “carpet,” but to demand organizational changes and defend her dignity.

Likewise, a Hispanic respondent ¹⁶ working in finance shared how her faith compelled her to confront racism in the workplace. She noted that, as a White-passing person, she, along with White colleagues, often received different treatment compared to darker-skinned colleagues, in “almost every workplace I’ve been to, that’s just the way it is.” She went on to describe a specific instance when a “darker-skinned” colleague’s expertise and value were disregarded by management, while a less competent White colleague was given opportunities. While the “darker-skinned” colleague minimized the dynamic, saying “you know, it is what it is,” the respondent felt differently:

I said, no. Don’t take it as, it is what it is. You need to speak up and do somethin’ about it. I felt like, it’s wrong, you know? I personally feel that God doesn’t want us to be like that. We should all be united as one, you know? As a result, when I can, if I feel it’s necessary, in that situation, like I did, I will say something [. . .] you know, you just get that feeling where, you know, I need to say somethin.’ And that’s when I feel like when God’s tellin’ me to say it, do it. You know? Bring it out in the open.

Here, the respondent’s belief that everyone is equal in God’s sight motivates her confront racial discrimination in the workplace. Rather than producing ignorance about systemic racism, these respondents employ religious frames to reflect on and address racial power dynamics at work.

Discussion and Conclusion

Recently, there has been increased corporate focus on DEI initiatives as well as vocal backlash. However, there has been less focus on individual experiences of and responses to racial discrimination in the workplace and the role of religion in this process. Drawing on in-depth interview data from the nationally representative Faith at Work: An Empirical Study, our findings contribute to understanding the role of religion in shaping interpretations of and responses to racial discrimination at work. Specifically, our study shows how racially diverse Christians understand the relevance of their faith in coping with perceived racial discrimination in the workplace and illuminates the religious frames and mechanisms that respondents employ to make sense of perceived racial discrimination. Prior studies on religion as a coping mechanism for racial discrimination focus primarily on African Americans and to a lesser extent Asian Americans. This study expands the view to consider how African American, Asian, Hispanic, and White Christians understand the role of faith in helping them cope with perceived unfair treatment due to race in the workplace. We include analysis of White Christians because past research shows that religion, specifically Christianity, shapes how white people perceive themselves vis-à-vis other racial groups (Baker et al. 2020). Considering recent backlash to DEI initiatives as institutionalizing anti-White bias, it is crucial to understand how White people perceive racial discrimination because of the potential negative impacts their perceptions may have on advancing racial equity in the workplace and on people of color (Dover, Major, and Kaiser 2016).

We find that both Christians of color and White Christians draw on faith to cope with perceived racial discrimination at work. However, narratives of discrimination and use of religious frames reveal substantive differences. For Christians of color, appeals to a higher power and religious frames of forgiveness and divine purpose enabled individuals to persevere in difficult work circumstances, even if this survival and agentic coping comes through a conscious decision to overlook or minimize systemic racial injustice. Over and over, respondents narrate how faith gives them strength to persevere and continue working despite facing discrimination. These experiences included feeling stereotyped, publicly denigrated because of their group identity, socially excluded, being held to a double standard, and having their experience and ideas actively disregarded by White colleagues and supervisors. Yet they also share how principles of faith helped them forgive, release anger and stress, and refrain from reacting to racial discrimination at work in ways that might have negative repercussions. In this way, faith can buffer the negative effects of internalized racism on the self by providing individuals with a measure of contentment in situations they may feel powerless to change. Faith offers practices and principles that allow Christians of color to survive (without necessarily confronting) structural racism—offering comfort and hope; sublimating hurt, anger, and frustration; and providing frames such as divine purpose or protection that enable survival and sustainability within racialized systems. However, coping strategies can be interpreted as reinforcing respectability politics, encouraging individuals to self-censor and provide a “neutral” image at work (Pitcan, Marwick, and boyd 2018). At the same time, respectability can be a strategy for survival in work contexts where expressions of anger are often punishable.

For White Christians, faith in divine sovereignty and “forgiveness” is credited with helping them accept instances where they feel they are victims of stereotypes, unjust censure, and denial of opportunities. In these narratives, questions about privilege and their own behavior are overlooked; the accomplishments and capabilities of supervisors and colleagues of color—as well as the structural barriers they face—are also erased. As a result, faith aids the production of ignorance about the experiences of people of color and the persistence of White (male) dominance in the workplace, even while reinforcing a narrative of a White aggrieved self (Schrock et al. 2022). Religious frames are used to protect assumptions of superiority and entitlement, allowing White Christians to perceive themselves as righteous in their grievances and morally exemplary, deflecting attention away from structural advantages.

Aligned with previous research, our study affirms religion as a coping mechanism, confirming religion as a source of comfort and agency for individuals experiencing perceived workplace racial discrimination. However, we also find that religion tends to support schemas that encourage forbearance, rather than resistance to racial discrimination. Thus, religion operates as a compensatory, coping resource and a schema to legitimize racial hierarchy and White dominance. Complicating how we understand religion and social action, religion, then, paradoxically operates both as the “opiate” of the masses, at times legitimizing racial discrimination, and as an agentic outlet for people to cope with and challenge discrimination. In the context of the workplace, this study reveals how religion has real value among workers as social actors who appropriate religious discourse and use religion for their own purposes. For workers of color, faith can motivate individual agency and aid coping, especially in hostile work contexts. Religion may also encourage organizational change and bolster individual dignity in response to racial injustice. However, religious frames can also work to reify their inferior structural position by motivating them to continue working despite racial discrimination and by dampening critical consciousness of systemic racial inequities. In this way, individual use of religion in response to racial discrimination can end up both reifying and challenging racial injustice in the workplace.

In the rare cases where participants are motivated by religion to challenge workplace discrimination, we find these cases limited by the realities of the workplace, where organized action in resistance to authority are likely to be discouraged or penalized. Thus, even if respondents were motivated by religion to challenge racial discrimination, this response maynot induce significant structural, institutional, or ideological changes in their workplaces.

Responding to calls for “deeper and more creative theorization on the race-religion-interplay” (Emerson et al. 2015:355), this study contributes to the scholarship on religious coping and racial discrimination as well as theories of racial ignorance by carefully considering how Christians of different racial groups use faith to cope with perceived racial discrimination in the workplace in ways that support epistemologies of ignorance. Ultimately, this study reveals how religion offers supportive frames for both White Christians and Christians of color that also often preclude resistance and more critical engagement with instances of perceived racial discrimination, producing epistemologies of ignorance (Mills 1997; Mueller 2020). Thus, it opens up new pathways for theorizing how religion is implicated in epistemologies of ignorance for both people of color and White people by showing how racial ignorance can serve different material ends (facilitating social survival for people of color vs. preserving assumptions of superiority for White people) in ways that also support macro-level racial hierarchies.

Given increased backlash to DEI initiatives, it is increasingly urgent to examine how individuals perceive, experience, and cope with racial discrimination in institutions like the workplace, including the ways in which religion may amplify feelings of White victimhood and resistance to racial equity efforts. This study illuminates the ways everyday workers perceive and cope with racial discrimination at work and the complex role of religion in this process. This study further reveals how religious frames can reinforce racial hierarchies at work by keeping individuals from fully reckoning with the systemic dimensions of the behaviors they describe (e.g., stereotyping, invisibility, social exclusion, lack of opportunity, and related microaggressions) or discouraging them from speaking out. Given the different ways in which religion can be used to respond to perceived racial discrimination, future research should consider more deeply the ways in which religion is utilized in support of or resistance to racialized institutions like the workplace (Ray 2019). It should also investigate further how religious frames can be used to reinforce White privilege and deny or minimize racial injustice in the workplace (Mehta et al. 2022), even as such frames help individuals deal with perceived unfair treatment due to race. Future research should examine how African American, Hispanic, and Asian groups compare with each other in their experiences of and religious responses to racial discrimination, considering how these different groups are racialized and treated distinctly differently from each other in the workplace. Future research should also explore the extent to which individuals from non-Christian faiths use religion to cope with racial discrimination, as well as the overlap of religious and racial discrimination. Finally, more research is needed on how White people perceive racial discrimination at work, whether and how religion amplifies feelings of victimhood, and the potential impacts their perceptions may have on achieving racial equity in the workplace.