- When "Christian Privilege" was suggested as a Crosstalk topic, I laughed:
- "The idea of Christian privilege seemed ludicrous to the extreme. "You're making that up," was my initial response.
- Raised as an "evangelical" back when "born again" was a religious ex pression of belief rather than a rallying cry for any sort of "moral majority;" the idea of gaining an unfair cultural advantage as a Christian - aside from the comfort provided by the faith itself - was be yond belief.
- I was a little surprised, looking up "Christian privilege" on Wikipedia, to find an actual entry on the topic. According to the article, "Christian privi lege is any of several ad vantages bestowed upon Christians in societies. This arises out of the presumption that Christian belief is a social norm, that leads to the marginalization of the nonreligious and members of other religions through institutional discrimination and/or religious persecution. Christian privi lege can also lead to the neglect of outsiders' cultural heritage and religious practices."
- Fortunately; before I began to mourn the loss of a perfectly good and often accurate encyclopedic reference, I noticed that the article was introduced with the Wikipedia note, "The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met."
- Thank goodness. I suspect that warning mes sage will remain for some time, given the contradictions and illogical statements that follow.
- Of course, suggestions that the whole idea is bogus are expected by the
- author(s), who, defining the term in the first para graph, warn the reader in the second paragraph that "exposure of Christian privilege breaks a 'sacred taboo.' and that 'both subtle and obvious pressures exist to ensure that these privileges continue to be the sale domain of Chris tians. This process is quite similar to the way in which whites and males continue to (consciously and unconsciously) en sure the privilege of their racial and gender
- Or to put it another way; Christians are dis criminating and persecut ing all others because "they know not what they do," and the author is heroically setting the record straight by speak ing out.
- I'll leave the sociological arguments to the Wikipedia talk page.
- In my own experience, having been both a Christian in a secular school and secularist in a Christian school, I can report first-hand that neither those of faith nor those not of faith has the advantage over the other in terms of acceptance of cross-dressed viewpoints:
- Both groups look at you rather oddly or take great pains to show you where you have gone wrong when you walk counter to the prevailing norm.
- Both are prone to "dis criminate and persecute" on one level or another, at least in the realm of ideas.
- Take the long-standing conflict between the evolutionary scientist and the biblical creationist. Neither are accepting of the other's viewpoint: In the world of higher education, the creationist will likely be the loser; in the church, the evolutionist will be the underdog.
- For myself, I argue that both rely on a "big bang" of unexplained origin
- and that an omnipotent creator would certainly be capable of using the prin ciples of evolution to re fine his or her creation, and who am I to protest? Right or wrong, it's impossible to prove one way or another.
- That's human nature.
- We disagree, and some times those disagreements are at the very core of our humanity: Validating or vilifying one side over an other is wrong.
- Which is where the the ory of "Christian privi lege" stands. It lacks evi dence, and is wrong in suggesting Christianity is somehow unique in its al leged abuse.
- Being a member of any religion, minority or majority; is an advantage or a disadvantage depending upon the community you associate with and the so ciety in which you live.
- Fortunately, in the U.S., laws are on the books to prevent discrimination "based on race, sex, sexu al orientation, religion, national origin, physical disability and age."
- For myself, I am perfectly happy to "coexist" within my community, re gardless of individual religious beliefs, and have found every religion to contain elements of truth and men and women worthy of my respect.
Mark Gibson, The Dalles Chronicle
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