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

Using the conceptual organizers of CitationYoung's (1990) “faces of oppression,” and CitationHardiman and Jackson's (1997) “levels of oppression,” this essay investigates the concept of domination and subordination, Christian privilege, and the subtle and not-so subtle promotion of Christianity in public schooling and in the larger United States society. The author explores a number of areas related to Christian privilege and religious oppression, and provides a historical foundation to illustrate the roots and legacies of Christian hegemony and privilege within a United States context. Notes 1. I discuss the term “Common Era” in the forthcoming section of this essay under “Cultural Imperialism.” 2. I use the phrase “separation of religion and state” or “separation of religion and government” rather than the more common “separation of church and state” since the later is a prime example of Christian hegemony and Christian privilege in that many religions' houses of worship are not referred to as “churches,” which are primarily Christian structures. 3. The terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” can themselves be considered as Christian terms in that many Jews, for example, refer to these texts as “The Hebrew Bible” or “The Jewish Bible” and “The Christian Testaments” or “The Christian Gospels.” For many Jews, there is nothing “old” about their Bible. 4. This later incident was discovered through personal correspondence with the party involved. The individual requested anonymity in the reporting of this case. 5. While the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and a number of subsequent court decisions have make it clear that the promotion or celebration of religion is not appropriate in public schools, they have likewise asserted that the teaching of religions as an academic topic is within legal guidelines.