More Christian Privilege

 

"American Progress," 1872. Note that it is a neo-pagan Classical goddess, "Colombia," and not Jesus, leading the settlers westward in the popular imagination.

An American professor of (of course) education, Khyati Joshi, has published a book against “white Christian privilege.” Joshi, a Hindu, is fairly obviously jockeying for position in the caste system called intersectionality. She maintains that even non-white Christians, black or Hispanic, have unearned privilege over her as a Hindu. She claims that there is “systemic religious oppression over the history of” the United States.

This is odd, since the US, unlike many countries, has no established religion or church, and guarantees freedom of religion and conscience in its constitution. One would think “Christian privilege” is far less an issue in the US than, say, Muslim privilege in Pakistan, Buddhist privilege in Thailand, or Hindu privilege in India. My friend Xerxes, in fact, in his most recent column wrote about the persecution of Christians in modern India.

Joshi claims this constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion is an “illusion,” and cites court cases that ruled against the religious demands of members of minority religions. She ignores court cases that ruled against the religious demands of Christians. Nor does she examine the legal arguments.

Among the ills Joshi blames on Christian privilege are the idea of “manifest destiny,” and slavery, which she claims has “Biblical justification.”

Neither of these have anything in particular to do with Christianity. Manifest destiny was not a religious concept, and did not emerge from theologians or pastors. It was a political slogan, first proposed by a newspaperman, and embraced by some politicians. These as a matter of course appealed to “Providence” to justify their claim to a right to expand the US westward. But they were not religious authorities. Anyone is going to appeal to Providence to justify any political idea, especially one that might be challenged on moral grounds. The signers of the Declaration of Independence similarly called on Providence to justify their concept of a new state based on freedom and equality; so if one is going to credit manifest destiny to Christianity, one must credit freedom and human equality, including freedom of religion, to it as well. Except that the latter idea, unlike the former, indeed originated with and was endorsed by religious authorities.

Manifest Destiny was a minority political opinion, not itself hegemonic. Canada similarly expanded westward without any such doctrine. So did Australia or Argentina; while Russia expanded East. Greece and Phoenicia expanded West across the Mediterranean long before Christianity was thought of. Untilled land next door tends to get settled.

Similarly, slavery was no Christian institution. It was endemic across the world, and least common in Christian countries. Of course defenders of slavery tried to justify themselves as well as they could from the Bible. But it was Christian nations, most notably Britain, that determined to end it everywhere. And this was an explicitly Christian enterprise, led by Quakers and evangelicals. Far earlier, the Pope in Rome had declared slavery illicit.

Nor does Joshi note that there is clear warrant for slavery in the Hindu Vedas.

What manifestly needs to be ended is not Christian privilege, but education schools.