Dividing the Faithful: How a Little Book on Race Fractured a Movement Founded on Grace

by David Schrock

In 2000, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith published their book, Divided by Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. The book is based upon their historical retelling of black and white relations in America, a statistical reporting of a nationwide survey of white evangelicals and their views on racism, and the author’s sociological interpretation of that history. and survey. Emerson and Smith reject personal attempts to resolve the problem of racism, deeming them insufficient to resolve the problem, and they assert that the white evangelical approach has exacerbated the problem of racial injustice because white evangelicals have learned how to hide their prejudices, all the while maintaining ideas and practices reinforced by “racialization.” The authors conclude “that despite the best intentions of evangelical leaders and some positive trends, real racial reconciliation remains far over the horizon.”

In Dividing the Faithful, David Schrock offers a chapter by chapter analysis and response to Divided By Faith. Because this book has been championed among evangelicals so often and without the necessary caveats, it has become the first book in the “woke” canon and a gateway drug to the harder forms of CRT. To see its far-reaching effect, one needs only to scan the footnotes of recent works on race and ethnicity. Without critique, Divided by Faith has become a standard work for evangelicals who want to think about race. Over the last decade, this book has been handed out, recommended, and preached from various platforms across the Reformed Evangelical landscape. And even as CRT, as a system, has been rejected by many, Divided by Faith, which is laced with CRT ideology, has found a place.

Schrock shows how this book is a poison pill that has infected many churches in America. Claiming to offer valuable insights for the church, it has overshadowed the light of Scripture with the false lights of secular scholar-ship. And because the pure gospel of Jesus Christ has suffered as a result, Dividing the Faithful aims to overturn every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God in Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). The goal is that everyone who reads this book might see the errors of Divided by Faith, so that they will not be led away from a pure devotion to Christ (2 Cor. 11:3).

This is the twofold reason for this book—to expose error and to solidify faith in the true gospel. Divided by Faith has done significant harm to the church, and out of love for the church and the message of the gospel, Schrock hopes to persuade you to put down Divided by Faith and to find better help in Scripture and from pastor-scholars who treat the Bible as God’s Word.

What others are

“The neo-Reformed movement of the last 20 years shaped so many, me included. But unbeknownst to us, Satan had a counter-attack planned. One key aspect of that a woke pseudo-gospel that would, in the name of supposed Christian unity, divide the church along the lines of skin color. Tragically, Divided by Faith played a massive role in that shift. Though a very thin book with a thesis based on phone interviews, it somehow became the ur-text of evangelical social justice. Thankfully, a response to this destructive sociological text has come at last. David Schrock’s work here is exemplary, blending close reading, biblical theology, and razor-sharp worldview thinking. In great love for straying believers and churches, I pray this book is used to overcome wokeness in the church. We need no replacement gospel, after all; we have the true one, and it saves and unites sinners like us.” —Owen Strachan, Provost, Grace Bible Theological Seminary; author, Christianity and Wokeness and The War on Men

225 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 20, 2023

Reviews

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did we really need yet another badly written, poorly argued, shoddily footnoted book from the Anti-Woke crusaders? Apparently so.

Look, I have over 5,000 words of notes that I took while reading this book, but I've decided that it's not worth the effort to write a lengthly review (not now, at least).

In a nutshell, this book was frustratingly bad to read. It's preaching to the choir, it's not objective, and it's not trying to be. It's filled with all kinds of unscholarly, uncharitable "jabs"; unsubstantiated charges against fellow Christians (seriously -- undocumented, footnotes that lead ... literally nowhere). An army of bogeymen are trotted out ("progressives," "CRT," "marxism," "the social gospel," and even "post-modernism"). While Christians like Michael Emerson are apparently "poisonous" and "dangerous," atheists like Thomas Sowell and James Lindsay, and neo-confederates like Jon Harris are totally fine, and are great sources on the topic of race.

A number of Schrock's critiques of Divided By Faith are answered directly in the "sequel" United By Faith, but Schrock doesn't consider this at all. It's such poor engagement with an author, it's hard to take seriously.

For example, Schrock complains that in Divided by Faith, Emerson and Smith "fail to consider any counterexamples of multi-ethnic churches unified by the gospel" (93) -- Right, because they wrote an *entire book* doing just that.

I said I wasn't writing the lengthy review.

Do yourself a favor -- go read Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America for yourself -- and now's a great time to re-read it if you already have.

Then, pick up the "sequel" (of sorts): United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation As an Answer to the Problem of Race

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a chapter by chapter refutation of Emerson and Smith's book, Divided by Faith. Their book is supposed to be "their historical retelling of black and white relations in America, a statistical reporting of a nationwide survey of white evangelicals and their views on racism, and the author's sociological interpretation of that history and survey." Unfortunately, it's bad sociology, slanted history, and an ignorance of Scripture. For someone interested in sociology, read this book, then read Poythress's Redeeming Sociology. For someone interested in much better and more accurate view of American culture and history, read the books by black authors like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Jason Riley, and/or John McWhorter, all of whom Schrock quotes extensively. For better theology, read this book and Voddie Baucham's Fault Lines, or Owen Strachan's Christianity and Wokeness. Unfortunately, most of the books by these authors have not been read by evangelicals, and have been ignored or silently censured by the academy and mainstream media. Too many evangelicals don't read at all or waste far too much time reading their social media feeds, and the academy and mainstream media ignore these books because they don't fit the prevailing cultural narrative they want to push on us.

One minor ding against the book is that the fontsize used in the footnotes at the bottom of the pages (where footnotes should go, BTW) is incredibly small and very hard to read (and I wear glasses). If there is another printing, the footnotes must be enlarged to be easily readable. I realize that it may mean reformatting the entire book, but the few extra pages would be worth it.

I recommend Schrock's book, and it's an easy read, except for the footnotes which are too important to gloss over or ignore. It also has a helpful bibliography at the end for further reading, and it's in a normal fontsize!

[Justin Dillehay · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who read Emerson and Smith's Divided by Faith several years ago after hearing it commended by men I respected (and still do), I must confess I never understood what all the praise was about. For me, the book seemed filled with assertions of things I didn't believe based on assumptions I didn't hold (partly because I had read Thomas Sowell 15 years before Schrock did). In this book, David Schrock lays his finger on the reasons why I found the book lacking. At times I wish he had laid more stress on how the sociological ideas in Smith and Emerson's book are incompatible with the content of Scripture rather than the sufficiency of Scripture (see Neil Shenvi's friendly review of Baucham's Fault Lines), but this is only a matter of emphasis, and therefore a small quibble. Schrock's book is a chapter by chapter response to Emerson and Smith. And as the subtitle implies, his thesis is that the promotion of this book (by good men like David Platt, Mark Dever, and John Piper) has played a large role in the fissures that have occurred in the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement (as symbolized by the ending of T4G in 2022). The gracious way in which he makes his case suggests that he is not trying to destroy friendships with these men nor further the current divide, but rather to understand it and help us to mend it as best we can. I pray that he succeeds.

[Skylar · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book, written in response to Divided by Faith. I read the two in tandem and have some critiques for both, but this one was much better! Overall, I would say my only critique of this book was the use of the summaries. They summarized the content but did not articulate exactly where Divided by Faith was coming from.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Divided by faith is like bleeding the life out of me slowly, so this is great for the opposite reason.