Black praise in white pews: When your church doesn't love you back

By J.C. Howard,

Gene Demby, Schuyler Swenson, Courtney Stein, Christina Cala, Dalia Mortada, Leah Donnella, B.A. Parker, Lori Lizarraga, Xavier Lopez, Jess Kung

Published August 21, 2024 at 9:27 AM EDT

How do you participate in a faith practice that hasn't had the best track record with racism? That's what our NPR play-cousin J.C. Howard gets into in this week's episode of Code Switch. He's been reporting on Black Christians who, like him for a time, found their spiritual homes in white evangelical churches.

"Being a Christian has always been one of the primary ways that I identify, but finding my place in Christianity has been a journey," J.C. says. And he wasn't alone in making the shift to white evangelical spaces; in the past few decades, large Christian ministries have been reaching out to Black Christians to join their white-majority churches.

J.C. grew up Pentecostal, but going from a Black Pentecostal church to a white evangelical one isn't just a shift in worship style. He says that being a young Black man surrounded by white evangelicals made him "realize that this place might invite me in, but it wasn't built for me."

As J.C. was thinking through his own spiritual journey, he read the story of another Black Christian, Dante Stewart, who started and ended in a very similar place. On this episode, J.C. talks to Dante as a way to explore his own story.

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J.C. Howard

J.C. Howard is a producer for TED Radio Hour and How I Built This with Guy Raz. He started with NPR as an intern for How I Built This in May 2018 and began producing in his current capacity in January 2019.

Gene Demby

Gene Demby is the co-host and correspondent for NPR's Code Switch team.

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Schuyler Swenson

Schuyler Swenson is an audio producer, editor and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Prior to NPR Schuyler worked at Vox Media, making podcasts for New York Magazine's The Cut, Vox.com, and Recode. She got her start in radio at WNYC for Studio 360 and later made podcasts for The New York Public Library. Swenson's taught audio journalism at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, and the Transom Story Workshop. Prior to working in audio, she taught histories of immigration at the Tenement Museum. She enjoys horn sections, profanity and regional accents. [Copyright 2024 NPR]

Courtney Stein

Courtney Stein comes to NPR from the New York Times, where she helped to create the weekly podcast First Person. Prior to that, she spent over a decade at WNYC's Peabody Award-winning Radio Rookies, teaching young people to report radio documentaries about issues important to them. While at WNYC, Courtney also helped to pilot the podcast Nancy and was on the team that created the dupont-Columbia award-winning podcast Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice, which began as a radio workshop she started in a juvenile detention center in Queens.

Christina Cala

Christina Cala is a producer for Code Switch. Before that, she was at the TED Radio Hour where she piloted two new episode formats — the curator chat and the long interview. She's also reported on a movement to preserve African American cultural sites in Birmingham and followed youth climate activists in New York City.

See stories by Christina Cala

Dalia Mortada

See stories by Dalia Mortada

Leah Donnella

Leah Donnella is an editor on NPR's Code Switch team, where she helps produce and edit for the Code Switch podcast, blog, and newsletter. She created the "Ask Code Switch" series, where members of the team respond to listener questions about how race, identity, and culture come up in everyday life.

See stories by Leah Donnella

B.A. Parker

Lori Lizarraga

Award-winning journalist Lori Lizarraga is a co-host of NPR's Code Switch, the preeminent podcast about race and identity in America. Before joining NPR, she reported across the country in Texas, California, Colorado and internationally in Ecuador. She has a reputation for breaking news and a passion and energy for covering under-reported communities, civil rights and issues surrounding immigration and Latinos in the U.S.

Xavier Lopez

Xavier Lopez is a producer for Code Switch. He came to NPR from CNN Audio, where he helped produce shows such as Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the inaugural season of Tug of War. Prior to that, Lopez worked at NPR member station WHYY in Philadelphia, where he worked on shows such as The Pulse, Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane and the daily news podcast, The Why.

Jess Kung

Jess Kung (they/them) is a production assistant on Code Switch. Previously, they interned with Code Switch and the podcast The Document from KCRW in Santa Monica. They are a graduate of Long Beach State University.