Hi, my name is Andrew Aspinwall and I am a freshman at the College of Coastal Georgia. In my podcast I will be talking about privileges people have by being Christian in the United States. I am a Christian myself and I did not know that we had privileges until I started doing research on the topic. Most of these privileges are unknown by many and can be easily overlooked if you’re not thinking about them.
The United States is undoubtedly a Chrisitian nation. In Steven Greens article “Justice David Josiah Brewer and the ‘Christian Nation’ maxim,” he talks about the court case Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States that happened in 1892. In the case the Supreme court declared the U.S. as a Chrisitian nation. Even though the case was over 100 years ago, it still holds true to this day. This isn’t surprising as Christianity has been the dominant religion since the creation of America in 1776 and will be for the next 100 or 200 years. There is nothing wrong with this as many other countries have a dominant religion too. What makes America different though is that Freedom of Religion is part of our amendments but yet other religions are not nearly represented as much as Chrisitianity is in the U.S. whether it be in the media, the government, cities, and school. Out of those four I’m going to start off talking about schools first. In most public schools, students who are Christians can guarantee that their teachers will be Christian too so they don’t have to worry about their teachers having different religious views than them. In the public schools where I grew up, teachers weren’t allowed to pray with their students during school hours but there were Christian based activities before and after school. For example, every morning before school youth pastors from different churches in my town would come and talk to students in our auditorium. I can’t assume that this happens everywhere else so this is just personal experience with Chrisitian privileges that I have had in schools without knowing that they were privileges. Next I’m going to talk about the government and media. The majority of government officials are Christian from congress members, to the Supreme Court, to the people in the White House, including the President and his cabinet. Chrisitianity has a big influence in an election. If it's down to 2 people in an election and the main difference between them is religion then the person who is Chrisitian is most likely going to win. In the media, if you see topics in the news about religion, it's most likely going to be about Christianity or have some sort of connection to it. Lastly, I'm going to talk about Christian privilege in everyday life. There are many privileges that we have in a normal day. In Lewis Z. Schlosser’s article “Christian Privilege: Breaking a Sacred Taboo,” he list 28 different privileges. Some of those privileges from his article are “I can be sure to hear music on the radio and watch specials on television that celebrate the holidays of my religion”(48), and “I can assume I will not have to work or go to school on my significant religious holidays”(48). When I first read these, I immediately realized that all the shows I used to watch as a kid always had a Christmas special and sometimes an Easter special. I also realized that most workplaces are only close on Christmas day during the holidays even though there are other religious holidays that happen around that time too. Another privilege that Schlosser states that deals with holidays is that “I can be sure that people are knowledgeable about the holidays in my religion and will greet me with the appropriate holiday greeting (e.g., Merry Christmas).”(49). During Christmas time, it can be easy to greet someone with the wrong greeting if you’re not aware of their religion. Later on in Schlosser’s article he states that “It is no longer a safe assumption that everyone is Christian.”(50). This is a great statement in today’s world as America is becoming more and more diverse in not only religion but other things like gender and sexual orientation and ethnicity.