That’s the reason I began my statement saying that the Ten Commandments is a principle-centered basis that guides our moral lives. I don’t view it strictly as a spiritual document that you have to adhere to, to be accepted in this country. That’s the distinction I make.”2
The Ten Commandments are literally the beginning verses of the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus, regarded as holy Scripture by Christians and Jews. Yet Purdue described them as “transcend[ing] … mere religious or historical significance,” and denied that the Ten Commandments are a religion-specific scripture rather than “a principle-centered basis that guides our [American] moral lives.” In so doing, he illustrated the powerful effect of Christian normativity. Christianity’s normative power in US culture reflects the assumption by Christians that their own belief system is universal, or ought to be rendered universal without question or critique. By situating his own religion as a reference point for all, Purdue rationalized government support for the promulgation of Christian teachings as non-discriminatory.
Christian privilege allows Americans to take for granted the elevation of their religion over other faiths. Yet the privilege that American Christians enjoy, notwithstanding popular but unfulfilled ideals like “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state,” results in the oppression of members of religious minorities and atheists. Christianity’s normative power is as strong as ever. Moreover, the Christian norm often functions in tandem with the racial normativity of Whiteness to generate structures and ideas of White Christian supremacy, such that Whiteness and Christianity are read as American, while everything else appears foreign.
Norms do not usually “hit you over the head.” Their effects are subtle, influencing unexpressed distinctions between usual and unusual, local and foreign, “us” and “them.” A norm can be expressed in violence or expressions of prejudice, but more often it exists simply as one group’s ideas or characteristics coming to be understood as universal, true, and ordinary. That is what we saw in Governor Purdue’s belief that a text from the Bible could be understood not as a religious document but rather as a secular, “principle-centered basis that guides our moral lives.”
Christian privilege runs so deep that a Christian does not have to do anything to benefit from its advantages. Christian privilege is possessed by Christians, whether or not they are aware of it. No conscious thought or effort is required. Like Purdue, they can simply know that their faith and their worldview are correct. “Business as usual” maintains the privileged status of their beliefs and understandings. Indeed, Christian privilege benefits not only people who identify with Christianity or consider themselves “religious,” but even people raised as Christians who might not even label themselves that way today. They enjoy the benefits of Christian privilege, whether they want it or not and whether they know it or not.
Nothing “Civil” About It
Christian privilege is aided and abetted by those who promote the notions of “civil religion” and “secularism.” The term civil religion was made popular in the 1960s and refers to “a system of established rituals, symbols, values, norms, and allegiances,” which gives participants in society “an overarching sense of spiritual unity.”3 Civil religion involves prophets (Washington, Jefferson), rituals (Christian prayer, characterized as non-denominational prayer, at presidential inaugurations, opening sessions of Congress, and even a “National Day of Prayer”), and sacred places (the White House, the Lincoln Memorial), with the goal of understanding the American experience through a universal reality. The construction of civil religion in the United States has been credited with piecing together a diverse nation, and it yet disregards other truths, such as the genocide of Native nations, slavery, Jim Crow, immigration restrictions, and other White Christian supremacist policies. Part of the rationale for civil religion is the idea that, as an industrialized Western nation the US will experience secularization—a movement away from participation in religious organizations and a corresponding reduction in those organizations’ influence on government and society.
The secularization thesis has been disproven over and over in recent decades, particularly in the United States. Yet the idea of secularization continues to obscure how powerfully Christian hegemony shapes our laws, customs, and habits of thought. Christian values and ideas are manifest, for example, in civil religion’s framing of the patriotism all are expected to embrace. The phrase “Judeo-Christian,” which purports to bring Judaism into the mainstream religious fold, is likewise nothing but another fig leaf for Christian normativity. In the United States, civil religion, the false notion of secularization, and the popularity of nominally inclusive religious terminology all operate together to hide Christian norms in plain sight.
Some would argue, for example, that contemporary seasonal celebrations and decorations have nothing to do with religion per se. The rationale for this position relies on the premise that images and activities not arising directly from Christian scripture or doctrine—such as the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Christmas trees, garlands, wreaths, the colors red and green, Easter egg hunts, and songs like “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” or “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”—are therefore, somehow, no longer Christian in origin or meaning. Rather, it is argued, these images and activities are merely “seasonal” and, as such, are part of “American culture.” On the contrary, such images and activities have clearly religious meanings, symbolisms, and antecedents that are self-evident to non-Christians.4 Far from being “secular,” these images and ideas reinforce an underlying Christian normativity that privileges Christianity above other faiths and traditions.5
The danger of the civil religion of American patriotism is not only that it masks Christian normativity, but that it can result in nationalism and ethnocentrism. Indeed, Christianity often becomes an even more visible element of US patriotism during wartime or national crisis, as during the two world wars, when to be a religious pacifist was considered a betrayal of patriotism; during the Cold War of the 1950s, when to be an atheist was to be considered un-American and to be a Jew was suspect; and today, when anyone thought to be Muslim, up to and including the forty-fourth president of the United States, lives under a cloud of suspicion. Treating markers of Christian hegemony as “civil religion” downplays the privileging of Christianity and avoids acknowledging how its social power marginalizes religious minorities and atheists.
Christian normativity also limits our understanding of religiosity. Survey data show an increase in the number of Americans identifying as unaffiliated, a group researchers have begun calling the “nones” because they respond “none” when asked for their religious affiliation in studies and polls. According to the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS), Americans claiming no religion represent about 23.1 percent of the population, up from 21.6 percent in 2016.6 But as Russell Jeung and his colleagues point out in their writing on Chinese Americans, a rise in “nones” is not the same as an increase in nonbelief or nonbelonging. Jeung warns that “non-religiousness cannot be conflated with … secularism,” particularly in those faiths where religion is not carried out through prayer and congregational practice. Chinese Americans, for example, “do not believe in religion as much as they do religion.”7
In other words, the very theory of “nones” is itself influenced by Christian normativity. It assumes a norm of religiosity defined by congregational activity and worship. Yet an increase in “nones” does not indicate a net decrease in religiosity, as Jeung points out. Nor does it indicate that “religion” is giving way to “secularism” in any sense that changes the foundational role of Christianity in US law, society, and culture. Christianity remains embedded in US legal and social structures. The world is as modern as it has ever been; still, both in the US and abroad, religious and tribal identities are as strong and divisive as they have been in a century or more. Focusing on the decrease in the proportion of Americans who identify with a Christian faith also ignores the continuing increase in the number of adherents of other faiths, largely due to immigration. Moreover, “nones” of Christian origin continue to benefit from Christian privilege, and “nones” of other faiths do not.8
An Optical Illusion
As we have discussed, Christian