Fellowship in the Fiery Furnace: A Research Note on How Christian Persecution Beliefs Transcend Racial Divides

ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the relationship between Christian persecution beliefs (CPBs) and race. Existing CPB research has asserted that CPBs constitute a socially appropriate tool to signal White advocacy, but much of this research has centered on White respondents. Utilizing an original dataset with oversamples of Black and Latino Christians, we demonstrate that Black Christians are most likely to adopt CPBs (not White Christians); that the relationship between common measures of racial social identity and CPBs does not vary by the racial group; that the same underlying religion variables predict CPBs in similar ways across the racial group; that CPBs predict support for religious exemptions for all racial groups, even when those exemptions protect racial discrimination; and that CPBs are linked to greater perception of discrimination faced by racial others. We conclude that the relationship between CPBs and racial hierarchies is more complicated than previously understood.