Rating: 
Summary: challenging and beneficial read
Review: As an evangelical ethnic minority (American born Chinese) raised in the San Francisco bay area, I found this book to be very interesting and fairly accurate. It was recommended to me by a fellow ABC in college actually taking the class of one of the authors, Dr. Michael Emerson. The other reviewers have basically nailed it on the head. It's been a while since I last read the book, but I do want to say in my recent reading, Ronald Sider's works (esp. Good News and Good Works)seem to complement Drs. Emerson and Smith's observations and analyses. For those evangelicals, of any color, who are serious about building up a single Body of Christ, this is a must read. There is no excuse for those claiming to live as Christ commanded to continue to ignore this issue. After reading this, it became impossible to remain passive with regard to this issue.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best I've Read
Review: Divided by Faith is the best book I've ever read that explains the problem of why White Evangelical Christians have such a difficult time understanding the concerns of African-Americans. As an African-American growing up in the 60's and now a pastor of an inner city church I have spent the past thirty years attempting to understand and communicate the problem of race in America and what the evangelical church should be doing to address this problem. This book has become a tremendous resource for me. Highly recommeded to anyone truly serious about racial reconciliation.
Rating:
Summary: A great read -- with effective and interesting arguments
Review: Emerson and Smith succeed where few sociologists have, in providing a readable and dynamic account of how well-meaning people unwittingly reinforce racial segregation and inequality. The book is compelling, and quickly and consistently helps the reader understand a basic sociological truth - that individual behaviors can have unintended, even ironic, consequences. In their focus on white evangelical Christians, they suggest that something is "lost in translation" when their leaders prescribe (as they have lately, to their credit) racial reconciliation. That "something" is the idea that there is more to repairing race relations than simply forging individual friendships with African-Americans. It is the individualized "cultural tools" of evangelicals, they argue, that cause them to be very suspicious of solutions to social problems that fail to emphasize the one-on-one relationship and individual "change of heart" that accompany how they think about their beliefs and faith in Christ. Changing people's attitudes one at a time is what will work, evangelicals appear to argue. But above and beyond such cultural trappings, the authors argue effectively that the free market of American religion itself not only breeds religious vitality (as compared to Europe), but also suffers the unintended consequence of further segregating the races. This is a very enlightening point - that the religious market in America leads congregations to become focused on marketing themselves to specific "homogenous" niches in order to survive as organizations in a competitive environment where people simply don't attend the church in their neighborhood anymore. But in so doing, people associate more and more with others who look and act like them, and thus black and whites become further segregated. This is a worthwhile book, and there is more to its credit than I have mentioned here. One would hope that many of the people whom Emerson and Smith write about would read this and reflect critically on their "cultural tools," but I remain pessimistic that cultural tools, of evangelicals, and of any other social group for that matter, can be suspended long enough (and by enough people) to recognize the value of important, alternative ways of thinking about social problems.
Rating:
Summary: Solid scholarship, profound implications
Review: From the opening story, this book draws you in to the world of race and religion like no other. Want to learn about race relations in the U.S. in a new way? Read this book. Want to learn in a even handed way the role of religion in shaping black-white relations? Read this book. Want to learn more about the U.S. itself? Read this book. This is heady stuff, but the engaging writing style of the authors made it all understandable and fascinating. The research is wonderfully and carefully done. The conclusions are stunning. Perhaps this is why there is such variation in the reviews below. I suggest you read the book and decide for yourself. It will be time well spent.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book
Review: From the opening story, this book draws you in to the world of race and religion like no other. Want to learn about race relations in the U.S. in a new way? Read this book. Want to learn in a even handed way the role of religion in shaping black-white relations? Read this book. Want to learn more about the U.S. itself? Read this book. This is heady stuff, but the engaging writing style of the authors made it all understandable and fascinating. The research is wonderfully and carefully done. The conclusions are stunning. Perhaps this is why there is such variation in the reviews below. I suggest you read the book and decide for yourself. It will be time well spent.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely riveting.
Review: I have to say that being an African-American male with an evangelical upbringing and background, I've found this book to be INCREDIBLY eye-opening. With an almost cold-blooded meticulousness and a vivid eye for detail, Emerson and Smith examine many of the underlying philosophical and theological foundations that shape the attitudes of evangelical White people about race in America. One of the essential tenets of this book is their concept of "racialization" and how it differs in scope and functionality from what we would typically call "racism." If for no other reason, this book should be read just for that section alone. It would help many many people on both sides of the racial divide understand our collective experiences. The risk of gross oversimplification prevents me from going much deeper into their arguments, because part of what makes the book so compelling is the methodical manner in which contemporary ideas are broken down. Absent from this book is any of the sentimentalist grandstanding that some social activists resort to when their work cannot speak for itself. All in all, this book is dope. I'm feelin' it big time.
Rating:
Summary: Touchy, yet important subject...
Review: I really didn't like Divided by Faith the first time I read it: I saw it as a case for hopelessness in racial reconciliation. But then I started attending an African-American church (I'm caucasian), and very much to my suprise, Emerson and Smith are quite correct in trying to get us to realize that there is a major divide alone racial lines. It's important to understand that the authorial intent of this book is to show that racism is still a problem in the church; it's not something that can simply be ignored. Far too often it's easy for caucasians, being the most powerful 'race' in the USA, to not see just how pervasive racism is. Yet it is a fundamental fact that before fixing a problem one must realize that there is a problem, and it is this that is the goal of the book: racism is still a major problem in the church, and that needs to be recognized before we can do anything to help the situation. Emerson and Smith don't pretend that the book is about something it's not: they're quite clear that this book is not about giving a solution to the problem, it's about recognizing first that there is a problem.
Rating:
Summary: Touchy, yet important subject...
Review: I really didn't like Divided by Faith the first time I read it: I saw it as a case for hopelessness in racial reconciliation. But then I started attending an African-American church (I'm caucasian), and very much to my suprise, Emerson and Smith are quite correct in trying to get us to realize that there is a major divide alone racial lines. It's important to understand that the authorial intent of this book is to show that racism is still a problem in the church; it's not something that can simply be ignored. Far too often it's easy for caucasians, being the most powerful 'race' in the USA, to not see just how pervasive racism is. Yet it is a fundamental fact that before fixing a problem one must realize that there is a problem, and it is this that is the goal of the book: racism is still a major problem in the church, and that needs to be recognized before we can do anything to help the situation. Emerson and Smith don't pretend that the book is about something it's not: they're quite clear that this book is not about giving a solution to the problem, it's about recognizing first that there is a problem.
Rating: 
Summary: Propaganda unrelieved by even momentary intellectual honesty
Review: Like most really bad pieces of scholarship this book starts with politically-correct assumptions whose validity is never examined. The most egregious of these in this book is the assumption that the social philosophy of the entire 1,000 history of White Christianity among Northern Europeans is invalid, and that the multi-cultural ideology of the authors that has been imposed on Europeans for all of 75 years now is so unassailably morally superior that there's no need to examine its premises. The book ends up being propaganda rather than research and proper argument as a result. I agree with the social philosophy of 99.9% of the ancestors of all White folks going back into pre-history, which is that preserving one's own race is a paramount value. It's pointless to cite examples of great minds in the White race's history before 1930 who held this view, since it's almost accurate to simply say: all of them. The most pathetic aspect of this book is that the authors have the arrogance to berate evangelicals for not being racially self-destructive enough, even though these poor deluded individuals are already traipsing all over the Third World, spending their own savings to import non-White converts into their ancestors' European homelands as fast as they can drain their bank accounts and bust their States' welfare and social services budgets! The main reason that this book is a snore is its fundamental dishonesty in assuming its own arguments to be true and never even presenting any arguments of their oppoisition. The definition of propaganda.
Rating:
Summary: Propaganda unrelieved by even momentary intellectual honesty
Review: Like most really bad pieces of scholarship this book starts with politically-correct assumptions whose validity is never examined. The most egregious of these in this book is the assumption that the social philosophy of the entire 1,000 history of White Christianity among Northern Europeans is invalid, and that the multi-cultural ideology of the authors that has been imposed on Europeans for all of 75 years now is so unassailably morally superior that there's no need to examine its premises. The book ends up being propaganda rather than research and proper argument as a result. I agree with the social philosophy of 99.9% of the ancestors of all White folks going back into pre-history, which is that preserving one's own race is a paramount value. It's pointless to cite examples of great minds in the White race's history before 1930 who held this view, since it's almost accurate to simply say: all of them. The most pathetic aspect of this book is that the authors have the arrogance to berate evangelicals for not being racially self-destructive enough, even though these poor deluded individuals are already traipsing all over the Third World, spending their own savings to import non-White converts into their ancestors' European homelands as fast as they can drain their bank accounts and bust their States' welfare and social services budgets! The main reason that this book is a snore is its fundamental dishonesty in assuming its own arguments to be true and never even presenting any arguments of their oppoisition. The definition of propaganda.
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