Objective: Despite compounding systems of structural oppression contributing to a lower quality of mental health among African Americans, research indicates this population is experiencing limited benefits from mental health services. Culturally competent treatment stands to benefit from going beyond “skin-deep” conceptualizations of African American patients by exploring how positive and negative religious coping styles impact clinical symptomatology given that religion/spirituality is a historical part of the African American cultural identity. Methods: This topic was explored in the present study through a sample of African Americans ( n = 289) gathered through Prolific. Results: The main hypothesis was confirmed as positive religious coping predicted decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress while negative religious coping was tied to increased severity of these symptoms. Further t-tests found that positive religious coping was higher among females and married individuals. Age also predicted higher levels of positive religious coping and less use of negative religious coping. Conclusion: These findings emphasize how African Americans are not a one-dimensional population and have nuanced identities with different coping styles that are tied to distinct mental health symptoms. Cultural competence is a professional standard among clinical psychologists and the conceptualization of diverse populations stands to benefit from a more contextual understanding of African American identities to help improve treatment effectiveness.