Reflection and Action – Praxis – in Fighting Christian Hegemony

Since the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, I have met with progressive family and one non-family member ever Sunday for weekly Zoom calls.

Since its inception, we have called our meetings “BLM and Climate Crisis,” to engage in a dialogic process, which Brazilian social theorist, philosopher, and educator, Paulo Freire, has termed “praxis” whereby we reflect and educate ourselves so we may be able to take better informed actions working for solutions to social problems.

Since our weekly Zoom calls have since expanded generally to issues of social justice and, in particular, many of the intersecting forms of oppression, one family member proposed we change the name of the group either to the Hebrew term “Tikkun olam” (תיקון עולם — a Jewish concept of “repairing” the world) or “Tzadik” (צדק – “justice” or “rightouness”).

Our non-family member who was raised in the Catholic tradition, proposed, instead, a Latin term “pax” (peace) or “iustitia” (justice).

At that moment, I was struck again by the reality of Christian territorial and cultural imperialism, which gives rise to the promotion of Christian hegemony and the furtherance of unearned and pervasive Christian privilege to Christians within primarily western contexts.

While my first choice for our name change is “Tikkun olam,” I stated that I am totally opposed to labeling our group with a Latin name for many reasons.

Firstly, on these Zoom calls, for all of us who live in the United States, as Jews within a predominantly Christian country, I want to emphasize and embrace our religious and cultural background and heritage.

Secondly, Latin has been and continues to be the domain of the Catholic Church, which has perpetrated some of the greatest atrocities (evils) on humankind since its inception against Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other polytheists, non-believers, girls and women, LGBTQ people, and people of color all across the globe through war, colonization, forced conversions, and genocide.

I have literally written books and several articles on the topic of Christian privilege and Christian hegemony, topics which, unfortunately, we rarely discuss on our weekly chats unless I raise the issues.

And in our discussions of Middle Eastern conflicts, we must as well investigate the role that Christian Zionists have in the continuing conflict between Jews and Palestinians, and in particular, the leadership both in Israel and Gaza.

Christian Zionists are animated and impassioned by their belief that by Jews taking complete control of the biblical land of Israel, this will bring Jesus’ second coming and, therefore, the end of the world. When this occurs, Christian will gain salvation and all non-Christian — including Muslims and Jews — will be annihilated (exterminated).

Hegemony

The concept of “hegemony” coined by social theorist Antonio Gramsci relates to the ways in which the dominant group, in this case Christians in general and predominantly Protestants and Catholics, successfully disseminate dominant social realities and social visions in a manner accepted as common sense, as “normal,” as universal—even though only an estimated 30% of the world’s inhabitants are Christian—and as representing part of the natural order.

In the service of hegemony is what is termed “discourse,” which includes the ideas, written expressions, theoretical foundations, and language of the dominant culture. These are implanted within networks of social and political control, described by philosopher and historian Michel Foucault as “regimes of truth,” 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.

The concept of oppression, then, constitutes more than the cruel and repressive actions of individuals upon others. It often involves an overarching system of differentials of social power and privilege by dominant groups over subordinated groups based on ascribed social identities or social group status.

And this is not merely the case in societies ruled by coercive or tyrannical leaders, but also occurs even within the day-to-day practices of contemporary democratic societies.

This dominant group controls the production and promotion of societal norms, the “knowledge” and ways of viewing “reality,” which in term maintains the marginality of other groups. This denies people options in understanding multiple perspectives from which to construct meaning.

Privilege

Based on Peggy McIntosh’s (1988) pioneering investigations of white and male privilege, we can, by analogy, understand Christian privilege as constituting a seemingly invisible, unearned, and largely unacknowledged array of benefits accorded to Christians, with which they often unconsciously walk through life as if effortlessly carrying a knapsack tossed over their shoulders.

This system of benefits confers dominance on Christians while subordinating members of other faith communities as well as non-believers. These systemic inequities are pervasive throughout society.

They are encoded into the individual’s consciousness and woven into the very fabric of our social institutions, resulting in a stratified social order privileging dominant (“agent”) groups while restricting and disempowering subordinate (“target”) groups.

In keeping with McIntosh’s inventory outlining the manifestations of white privilege, authors have developed parallel lists summarizing overarching examples of Christian privilege As Clark et al (2002) assert:

[T]he fact remains that all Christians benefit from Christian privilege regardless of the way they express themselves as Christians in the same way that all White people benefit from White privilege (p. 12 of manuscript version).

As there is a spectrum of Christian denominations and traditions, so too is there a hierarchy or continuum of Christian privilege based on 1) historical factors, 2) numbers of practitioners, and 3) degrees of social power.

In this regard, in a United States context, though the gap in privilege between Christian denominations is apparently shrinking, white, mainline Protestant denominations may still have some greater degrees of Christian privilege, relative to some minority Christian denominations, for example, African American, Latinx, Asian American, Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Eastern and Greek Orthodox, adherents to Christian Science and to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and still in some quarters, to Catholics.

By “unpacking” the knapsack of privilege (whether Christian, white, male, heterosexual, cisgender, owning class, temporarily able bodied, native born English as first-language speakers, adult, and others) is to become aware and to develop critical consciousness of its existence and how it impacts the daily lives of both those with and those without this privilege.

Not A Conclusion

The non-family member on our weekly Zoom chats I see as a genuinely good and well-meaning person who, like us all, have joined to come to a greater understanding of the social issues of our times, and to take concrete actions to make our country and our world a better place.

But here is where I believe we need to separate “intent” on one hand and “impact” on the other. While a person’s words or actions may be well intentioned, their impact may be taken on a continuum from insensitive to oppressive.

For me not to have raised issues of Christian hegemony and privilege would have been patronizing at best, and a loss of a potentially educational moment. By not calling it out, I would have sacrificed a piece of personal integrity as well.

Yes, engaging in political dialogues can bring up feelings of discomfort, anger, hurt, and yes, difficult dialogues can certainly be messy at best. But when we set the parameters or guidelines for the dialogic experiment, we can create a certain safety among the messiness.

I employ the six “building blocks” of intergroup dialogues (formulated by such notables as Cytron-Walker, Hurtado, Mark, Nagda, Schoem, and Zúñiga). These are:

1. Voicing (participants are encouraged to contribute their voices during the process)
2. Deep Listening (“Empathetic Listening” & “Dialogue not Debate”)
3. Suspend Judgment (open your mind and heart to new ideas)
4. Identify Assumptions (your own and those of others)
5. Reflection (reflect where you stand on issues)
6. Inquiry (be willing to stretch your learning edge into places you have not gone previously)

Intergroup dialogues, especially with trained facilitators, have proven very successful in developing understanding especially when crossing identities.

References

Clark, C., Vargas, M. B., Schlosser, L. Z., & Alimo, C. (2002). Diversity initiatives in higher Education: It’s not just “Secret Santa” in December: Addressing educational and workplace climate issues linked to Christian Privilege. [Electronic version]. Multicultural Education, 10(2), 52-57.

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women.

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This post is republished on Medium.

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