As religions grow and evolve, they adapt to their current circumstances, with new ideologies often deviating dramatically from their roots. The variety of religious institutions in modern society necessitates a focus on diversity and inclusiveness in the interactions between organizations of different religions, cultures, and viewpoints. Gender and Diversity Issues in Religious-Based Institutions and Organizations elucidates the impact of gender identity and race within religious-based institutions and organizations. Policymakers, academicians, researchers, government officials, and religious leaders will find this text useful in furthering their research related to inclusiveness and diversity in their respective roles. This essential reference source builds on the available literature on gender and diversity issues in religious-based settings and contexts with chapters relating to race relations in the Churches of Christ, the role of women in religious movements in Latin America, gay-straight alliances at religious-based colleges and universities, and lessons and insights for religious institutions and faculty.

Religion and Racism provides an extensive examination of the paradox that arises from the intersection of being a Christian and a racist. A racist believes that one racial group is superior to another. Yet, since the nation's revolutionary birth, the United States claims a pious, devout mantle of Christianity that served as the nation's moral compass, while engaging in horrendous acts of racial violence. How can a white Christian male, sit in a church, engage in Christian prayers, and then in cold-blooded fashion murder nine African American Christians in their own church? Christians traditionally have always designated "churches" as places of refuge and sanctuary. The binary of whiteness and Christianity emerged and came to dominate much of the world. In the United States and other parts of the world, whiteness and Christianity have served to subjugate people of color even as such people themselves also came to embrace Christ's teachings, often at the cost of the loss of their traditional forms of religion and culture. Armed with the Bible and deep-seated belief in racial superiority, European colonizers came to shape most of the world as we know it today. The result has been an unequal control of the world's resources and vastly disparate living standards for people of color and whites, both internationally and within specific nations. People of color have been treated as highly valued commodities, while simultaneously being stripped of their humanity-with the sanction of the Christian faith.