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Christian privilege is a perceived social advantage that is bestowed upon
Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...
in any historically Christian society. This arises out of the presumption that Christian belief is a social norm, that leads to the
marginalization Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...
of the
nonreligious Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and ...
and members of other religions through institutional
religious discrimination Religious discrimination is treating a person or group differently because of the particular beliefs which they hold about a religion. This includes instances when adherents of different religions, denominations or non-religions are treated u ...
or religious persecution. Christian privilege can also lead to the neglect of outsiders' cultural heritage and religious practices.


Overview

Christian privilege is a type of dominant group privilege where the unconscious or conscious attitudes and beliefs of Christians are advantageous to Christians over non-Christians. Examples include opinions that non-Christian beliefs are inferior or dangerous, or that those who adhere to non-Christian beliefs are amoral,
immoral Immorality is the violation of moral laws, norms or standards. It refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong. Immorality is normally applied to people or actions, or in a broader sense, it can be applied to g ...
, or
sinful In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
. Such prejudices pervade established social institutions, are reinforced by the broader society, and have evolved as part of its history. Lewis Z. Schlosser observes that the exposure of Christian privilege breaks a "sacred taboo", and that "both subtle and obvious pressures exist to ensure that these privileges continue to be in the sole domain of Christians. This process is comparable to the way in which whites and males, according to many, continue to (consciously and unconsciously) ensure the privilege of their racial and gender groups". In the United States, White mainstream
Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
denominations have greater degrees of privilege than minority Christian denominations. Such groups include African American churches, Christian Hispanics and Latinos, Amish people,
Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radi ...
,
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
,
Seventh-day Adventists The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and i ...
, Jehovah's Witnesses, adherents of the
Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops vi ...
,
Christian scientists Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...
, Mormons, and in some instances, Catholics. When dominating groups within societies place Christian cultural norms and perspectives on individuals holding differing viewpoints, those people are sometimes deemed, in social justice terms, to be oppressed. These norms can be imposed "on institutions by individuals and on individuals by institutions". These social and cultural norms define issues related to good and evil, health and sickness, normality and deviance, and a person's normative ethic.


History

Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his wor ...
the French political scientist and diplomat, traveled across the United States for nine months between 1831–1832, conducting research for his book ''
Democracy in America (; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title literally translates to ''On Democracy in America'', but official English translations are usually simply entitl ...
''. He noted a paradox of religion in the U.S. On the one hand, the United States promoted itself around the world as a country that valued both the "separation of church and state", and religious freedom and tolerance. On the other hand, "There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America". He explained this paradox by proposing that with no officially sanctioned governmental religion, Christian denominations were compelled to compete with one another and promote themselves in order to attract and keep parishioners, thereby making religion even stronger. While the government did not support Christian churches as such, Tocqueville argued that religion should be considered the first political institution because of the enormous influence that churches had on the political process. Although de Tocqueville favored U.S. style democracy, he found its major limitation to be in its limiting of independent thought and independent beliefs. In a country that promoted the notion that the majority rules, this effectively silenced minorities by what Tocqueville termed the "
tyranny of the majority The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions. This results in oppres ...
". Without specific guarantees of minority rights—in this case minority religious rights—there is a danger of religious domination over religious minorities and non-believers. The religious majority in the U.S. has historically been adherents of mainline Protestant Christian denominations who often assume that their values and standard apply equally to others. Another traveler to the United States, social theorist
Gunnar Myrdal Karl Gunnar Myrdal ( ; ; 6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987) was a Swedish economist and sociologist. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money a ...
examined U.S. society following World War II, and he noted a contradiction, which he termed "an American dilemma". He found an overriding commitment to democracy, liberty, freedom, human dignity, and egalitarian values, coexisting alongside deep-seated patterns of racial discrimination, privileging of white people, and the subordination of peoples of color. This contradiction has been reframed for contemporary consideration by the religious scholar, Diana Eck:


Christian hegemony

The concept of
hegemony Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over oth ...
describes the ways in which a dominant group, in this case mainly Christians, disseminate their ''dominant'' social constructions as common sense,
normative Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
, or even universal, even though most of the world's inhabitants are not Christian. Christian hegemony also accepts Christianity as part of the natural order, even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it. Thus, Christian hegemony helps to maintain the marginality of other religions and beliefs. According to Beaman, "the binary opposition of sameness/difference is reflected in Protestant/minority religion in which mainstream Protestantism is representative of the 'normal'". The French philosopher, Michel Foucault, described how a dominant-group's hegemony is advanced through "discourses". Discourses include the ideas, written expressions, theoretical foundations, and language of the dominant culture. According to Foucault, dominant-group discourses pervade networks of social and political control, which he called "regimes of truth", and which function to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as true or as ''the'' truth.


Pervasiveness

Christian privilege at the individual level occurs in proselytizing to convert or reconvert non-Christians to Christianity. While many Christians view proselytizing as offering the gift of Jesus to the non-Christians, some non-believers and people of other faiths may view this as an imposition, manipulation, or oppression. Social institutions—including but not limited to educational, governmental, and religious bodies—often maintain and perpetuate policies that explicitly or implicitly privilege and rendering invisible other groups based on social identity and social status. Overt forms of oppression, when a dominant group tyrannizes a subordinate group, for example, apartheid, slavery and ethnic cleansing, are obvious. However, dominant group privilege is not as obvious, especially to members of dominant groups. Oppression in its fullest sense refers to structural or systemic constraints imposed on groups, even within constitutional democracies, and its "causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following those rules". Christian dominance is facilitated by its relative invisibility, and because of this invisibility, it is not analyzed, scrutinized, or confronted. Dominance is perceived as unremarkable or "normal". For example, some symbolism and rituals associated with religious holidays may appear to be free of religion. However, this very secularization can fortify Christian privilege and perpetuate Christian hegemony by making it harder to recognize and thus circumvent the constitutional requirements for the separation of religion and government. Christian privilege and religious oppression exist in a symbiotic relationship. Oppression toward non-Christians gives rise to Christian privilege, and Christian privilege maintains oppression toward non-Christian individuals and faith communities.


Criticism

According to Schlosser, many Christians reject the notion that they have any privilege by claiming that all religions are essentially the same. Thus, they have no more and no fewer benefits accorded to them than members of other faith communities. Blumenfeld notes the objections that some of his university students raise when discussing Christian privilege as connected with the celebration of Christian holidays. The students, he notes, state that many of the celebrations and decorations have nothing to do with religion as such, and do not represent Christianity, but are rather part of American culture—however, this could be considered a further example of privilege. Scholars and jurists debate the exact scope of religious liberty protected by the
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
. It is unclear whether the amendment requires religious minorities to be exempted from neutral laws and whether the Free Exercise Clause requires Congress to exempt religious pacifists from conscription into the military. At a minimum, it prohibits Congress from, in the words of James Madison, compelling "men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience".Dreisbach and Hall, Sacred Rights, p. 427.


See also

* Angry white male *
Antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
* Critical theory *
Discrimination against atheists Discrimination against atheists, both at present and historically, includes persecution of and discrimination against people who are identified as atheists. Discrimination against atheists may also comprise negative attitudes, prejudice, hostil ...
*
Glass ceiling A glass ceiling is a metaphor usually applied to women, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.Federal Glass Ceiling Commission''Solid Investments: Making Full ...
* Heteronormativity * Homophobia *
Institutional racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...
*
Islamophobia Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism. The scope and precise definition of the term ''Islamophobia'' ...
*
Male privilege Male privilege is the system of advantages or rights that are available to men solely on the basis of their sex. A man's access to these benefits may vary depending on how closely they match their society's ideal masculine norm. Academic stud ...
* Muslim privilege *
Persecution of Christians The persecution of Christians can be historically traced from the first century of the Christian era to the present day. Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of ...
* Religious discrimination against Neopagans *
Reverse discrimination Reverse discrimination is a term for discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group. Groups may be defined in terms of ethnicity, gender identity, nationality ...
*
Transphobia Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger to ...
*
White privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With root ...


References


External links


Christian Privilege and the Promotion of “Secular” and Not-So “Secular” Mainline Christianity in Public Schooling and in the Larger Society
archived fro


Understanding Christian Privilege: Managing the Tensions of Spiritual Plurality
archived fro


Christian Privilege with Dr. Warren Blumenfeld
podcast episode from Reginald Vaughn Finley, Sr., ''The Infidel Guy Show'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Christian Privilege Christianity and society Rule by a subset of population Critical theory Social privilege Religious discrimination