ABSTRACT
This analysis of the results of a survey conducted in the Methodist Church on the eve of the civil rights era illuminates a number of issues: the extent to which southern white believers differed from co-religionists in other regions about racial segregation in the Church; the tension between segregationist practices in the Church and the idea of spiritual equality; the nature of rationalization for opposing or limiting change. It should, of course, be remembered that many African-Americans worshipped in separate denominations which they had formed of their own volition, as well as belonging to all-black congregations in the Methodist Church through the operation of Jim Crow policies.
