Ethnicity Conflict within Religion PSY/450
February 27, 2014
Stephen Hoyer

Ethnicity Conflict within Religion
Group conflicts refer to tension and hostility between different groups. The groups can vary from sport teams, gangs, religion, ethnic groups, and even nations. Religion is a major factor in the order of society and social organizations. Conflicts are recognized as problematic issues within ethnicity and religion.
Religion is a source and product of social conflict. Several societal conflicts can be retraced to bitterness and grudges among churches. My personal experience from visiting predominately Caucasian churches versus, predominately African American churches is simply the culture and the leader of the church. These two ethnic groups vary in differences in culture, environments, but one big difference is religion. From slavery till now “modern day”, several denominations and racial separations have formed due to the barriers and gaps amongst both ethnic groups. Protestant and catholic churches were the common original churches, however with several ethnicities such as black and white communities cultures varied, therefore so did religion. Black and white churches grew and began to spread in the 1960s. Blacks formed several churches surrounding the ideas and beliefs of black theology and culture. White churches refused to support finances for reparations during racial segregation.
Conformity
During slavery, several masters feared of spreading Christianity amongst slaves and sharing the gospel because by knowing the gospel slaves could become economically productive, become aware of their own self sufficient strength and retaliate, and the English tradition “once a slave became a Christian they could no longer be captive as a slave”. Many whites were also in disbelief that blacks were even permitted in heaven. Several whites felt blacks were less than human and begged to differ. However, missionary and evangelism occurred in the 1700s and a vast amount of slaves became Christians. The form of Christianity spread at the time was made to defend and justify slavery. Slaves were taught the burden of slavery was a curse given to the sons of Ham (Gen. 9:20-27) who were supposedly black therefore slavery was created to gather unsaved rebels to a Christian environment where the gospel could be taught and slaves saved. Several blacks accepted without questioning the slave form of Christianity, Therefore white missionaries convinced the slaves that living life did not matter because slaves that listened and obeyed would be rewarded in heaven after death. Several blacks came to realization that they were being mistreated in white churches such as rules on seating, communion and segregation.
Many blacks began to desire their own churches based on black understanding of the bible. Towards the mid-1700s several blacks started private congregations in which they held their own church services. In black churches God was considered a loving god whom would save them from slavery as Israel was saved from Egypt bondage in the bible. Slaves began to gain confidence and sing songs of liberation badly in front of their masters. Soon slaves were motivated and desired freedom which increased black activism.
Social Perception & Social Cognition
Social perception is the way people view and understand other people in their social world in their social world. It is the understanding of body language, facial impressions, and actions of others within a society. Social cognition differs however it is the memory bank of experiences and processing of information in one’s mind. Social cognition is the way us as humans process, store and make use of information about others. The way people think about others actually has an effect on our influences, behavior, emotions and social interactions.
Several black leaders began to lead slaves to freedom. Nat turner was one of the leaders. Turner