Racial Gap in Replying to Church Visitors - PCUSA MORE Likely to Respond to Black Visitors

An interesting study by my friend Brad Wright at the University of Connecticut sent emails to various churches posing as potential visitors to the congregation, using racially distinct names.

Overall, there was a small racial gap: whites were a little more likely to get a response than blacks,  Hispanics, or Asians.

Catholic and Evangelical churches responded to all races equally.  Mainline churches, on the whole, responded more to white inquirers.  Here are just the white and black response rates for the mainline Protestant churches:

ELCA (Lutherans)        75% to 52% [White to black]
United Methodist          66    to 46
Episcopal                      82    to 71
PCUSA (Presbyterian)  48   to 58

The report said there were not enough Presbyterians to do a separate analysis with statistical confidence, so we should take this anomaly with a grain of salt.

Still, the Presbyterians seem not to show a pro-white bias, and, if anything, have a pro-black bias.