Christian Privilege

One of the speakers at the National Youth Gathering gave a lecture about modern religious pluralism. And given the challenges we Christians face in an increasingly diverse society, this can be a great topic for young people. How do we evangelize Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Atheists? In the description of the lecture, he used the term “Christian privilege.”

I do think it is a mistake to use such a term for a couple reasons.

First of all, the idea of “privilege” as a sociological concept finds its origin in the Critical Theory of the Marxist Frankfurt School. This was, and is, a radical ideology that is an enemy of the cross. Rather than seeing all people “baptized into Christ” as having salvation regardless of sex, ethnicity, and class (Gal 3:27-28), Critical Theory assigns people into the cultural Marxist pigeonholes of “oppressor” and “oppressed” classes, setting them at odds against one another - and even positioning them them into a matrix (intersection) of various categories of “oppression” on the one hand, and “privilege” on the other. And this is really just a set-up to justify economic Marxism: the redistribution of wealth from the “privileged” to the “oppressed.”

In fact, the most common category of “privilege” in this cultural Marxist worldview is “white privilege.” According to the leading advocates of this supposedly “antiracist” philosophy, “whiteness” is a pathology, and it must be destroyed. White people are spoken of in subhuman terms. It is as close to an advocacy of genocide as one can get without openly calling for the camps to be built. Such doctrines are indeed the doctrines of demons.

There is a real danger of adopting the enemy’s language, as any reader of Orwell should have thought this through. For adopting the enemy’s language is to fight on the enemy’s ground - which is always a terrible strategic mistake.

If the topic has to do with the demographic idea of a Christian numerical majority in America in years past being replaced by an increase of religious diversity, then rather than saying “Christian privilege” - which has the whiff of the Bride of Christ being an “oppressor” - we should speak of numerical majorities or changing demographics or something like that. We could instead speak of homogeneity and cultural cohesion giving way to heterogeneity and cultural confusion - if not chaos.

We ought not adopt Marxist terminology as a given. We Christians need to push back. We should insist on using Biblical categories and taxonomies.

But there is one sense in which “Christian privilege” is true.

It is a privilege to be a Christian, and it is a privilege in the original sense of the word. For “privilege” is a grant given by a sovereign. It is an unearned grace. For example, the British East India Company came into being by a royal charter on December 31, 1600 under Charles I. This company enjoyed a monopoly - not because it earned market share, not because it bought resources that its competitors forsook - but rather because the king simply granted it.

That is exactly what it is to be a Christian: a privilege. It is granted by the grace of the King.

And we do enjoy privilege as Christians, privilege that is denied by God Himself to everyone else: we can pray to God our Father, we have the transformative mark of Holy Baptism, we have forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Christ! The other religions that are on the rise in our American society do not enjoy this privilege. Unless the members of these other faiths convert and become Christians with us, they will all go to hell. So in a real sense, our Christian privilege is the most important privilege of all. This is why, if we love those from outside of the Church, we will pray for them and seek some way to be instruments by which our Lord will grant them the privilege of conversion to Christianity.

Indeed, the usual bromide that “diversity is our strength” is cruel and evil when applied to the plethora of religious faiths in our country. The loss of Christian heterogeneity is a tragedy, not only temporally, but eternally. It is certainly not something to celebrate.

All that said, we should not speak of “Christian privilege” to our non-Christian friends, as again, it is a Marxist weasel-word, and, even if understood according to the classical sense, it will probably be quite a turnoff to those whom we are evangelizing.

Perhaps we should instead stick with biblical terminology, and speak positively of the Good News of the grace of God in Christ for all the nations: without regard for the intersectional characteristics of male or female, Jew or Greek, free or slave.