“They just go on with they life”: cross-racial religious alliance, conflict and collective moral identity work as hope against absurdity

Purpose I examine Black Christian creatives’ collective moral identity work amid moral conflict with White coreligionists who are also their principal customers. Design/methodology/approach Thematic narrative analysis illuminates data generated through ethnographic participant observation, intensive interviews and internet-based ethnography within the Christian hip-hop (CHH) industry. Findings CHH was founded with the moral mission to improve lives through evangelism, particularly in Black communities. It developed rapidly when Black artists found a customer base among White Evangelicals. This alliance fractured when high-profile killings of Black people sparked moral conflict between Black artists and their White fans, leading to an identity crisis in CHH. The gap between Black artists’ expectations for this cross-racial alliance and the reality of White backlash generates a kind of absurdity. To remain a Black CHH artist is to hope that genuine cross-racial Christian unity can be established. Research limitations/implications A narrative conception of collective moral identity that accounts for individuals’ multiple social identities is important when theorizing moral conflict in racialized organizations. Originality/value The case of moral conflict raises challenges the dominant conception of moral identity which is focused at the individual level and emphasizes people’s desire to feel authentic to their moral self-conception. A turn to collective moral identity can shed light on this phenomenon. Specifically, this study of the intersection of race and religion suggests that the desire to respond to the narratives that one is located within can motivate collective moral identity work.