9
" Describing the views of many Christians, Emerson and Smith write, "People are comfortable with different worship styles, want to be with familiar people, and have different expectations about congregations. For these reasons, if congregations end up being . . . homogeneous, it is acceptable, if not preferable."
Many of the evangelicals that Emerson and Smith interviewed believed that their desire to remain in a homogenous church had nothing to do with bigotry or intolerance. However, research on group processes shows that group separation and prejudice have a bidirectional relationship—that is, prejudice tends to result in division between groups and division between groups tends to result in prejudice. What begins as seemingly harmless homogeneity often snowballs into distrust, inaccurate perceptions of other groups, prejudice and hostility. "
― Christena Cleveland , Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces That Keep Us Apart
10
" Examples of black sheep are a pro-choice Republican and a pro-death-penalty Democrat. For the most part, the individual buys into the majority ideology, but fails to toe the party line when it comes to one issue. Yeah, we hate those people.
As ingroup members who disagree on one or two issues, black sheep blur the cultural lines that separate the ingroup and the outgroup. For this great offense, ingroup members hate black sheep and reserve their worst judgment for them. In fact, studies show that ingroup members treat black sheep worse than they treat outgroup members.
Outgroup members are supposed to disagree with us. As such, we are not as threatened by their disagreement. If anything, their disagreement with us further solidifies ingroup/outgroup boundaries by showing us that we are different from them. Ingroup members, on the other hand, are supposed to agree with us, so we are shocked and appalled if they express disagreement. Further, the fact that they disagree with us blurs the ideological lines between the groups. If one of our group members agrees with them on this important issue, then maybe we are not so different from them after all. The mere thought of this makes us feel angry and threatened. "
― Christena Cleveland , Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces That Keep Us Apart