Living in the Shadow of the Cross: Understanding and Resisting the Power and Privilege of Christian Hegemony

By Paul Kivel

How our dominant Christian worldview shapes everything from personal behavior to public policy (and what to do about it)

Over the centuries, Christianity has accomplished much which is deserving of praise. Its institutions have fed the hungry, sheltered the homeless, and advocated for the poor. Christian faith has sustained people through crisis and inspired many to work for social justice.

Yet although the word "Christian" connotes the epitome of goodness, the actual story is much more complex. Over the last two millennia, ruling elites have used Christian institutions and values to control those less privileged throughout the world. The doctrine of Christianity has been interpreted to justify the killing of millions, and its leaders have used their faith to sanction participation in colonialism, slavery, and genocide. In the Western world, Christian influence has inspired legislators to continue to limit women's reproductive rights and has kept lesbians and gays on the margins of society.

As our triple crises of war, financial meltdown, and environmental destruction intensify, it is imperative that we dig beneath the surface of Christianity's benign reputation to examine its contribution to our social problems. Living in the Shadow of the Cross reveals the ongoing, everyday impact of Christian power and privilege on our beliefs, behaviors, and public policy, and emphasizes the potential for people to come together to resist domination and build and sustain communities of justice and peace.

Paul Kivel is the award-winning author of Uprooting Racism and the director of the Christian Hegemony Project. He is a social justice activist and educator who has focused on the issues of violence prevention, oppression, and social justice for over forty-five years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781550925418

Paul Kivel

Paul Kivel: has been a social justice activist, a nationally and internationally recognized anti-racism educator and an innovative leader in violence prevention for over 40 years. He is an award-winning author and an accomplished trainer and speaker, and has conducted thousands of talks, trainings, and workshops on diversity, men's issues, the challenges of youth, and the impact of class and power on daily life.  

Book preview

Praise for Living in the Shadow of the Cross

Living in the Shadow of the Cross is a powerful, compassionate, yet challenging piece of work. This is a must read for anyone who is committed to social justice and ameliorating oppression. As a Pastor in the Christian church, I initially wanted to explain away or make excuses, but Paul offers a perspective that feels very familiar to me as one who has felt the impact of White Supremacy and patriarchy.

—Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington, Assistant Pastor, Unity Fellowship Church of Baltimore, and Founding Faculty, Social Justice Training Institute

Living in the Shadow of the Cross serves as a reminder of why the United States is not a Christian Nation and never was. Kivel illustrates why no religion should attempt to cram the First Amendment into an exclusionary theological straightjacket. Disturbing yet necessary truth-telling for those of us who are Christian or who follow any religious belief system.

—Chip Berlet, investigative reporter, scholar and co-author, Right-Wing Populism in America

As a white Christian woman who has spent her life attempting to understand white privilege and white supremacy and to make change, Paul Kivel has upped my ante of personal work and understanding. Christian hegemony is an essential piece in the puzzle of systemic domination. What a gift!

—Frances E. Kendall, author Understanding White Privilege

We need this book. Living in the Shadow of the Cross helps us understand the many ways that ruling classes historically and today use Christianity to justify, implement and even celebrate, colonization, exploitation and oppression. Working for liberation requires us to decolonize our minds from the logic of the oppressor so that we can generate logics of liberation from which to create, live, love, and act from. Decolonize your heart, mind and soul, and study this book.

—Chris Crass, author, Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-racist organizing, feminist praxis and movement-building strategy

You may not realize it, but this is the book you have been waiting for! In the growing field of Privilege Studies, religious privilege has been under-examined. In his characteristically accessible style, Kivel provides us with a nuanced yet comprehensive volume that fills this gap. This will be an indispensable resource and teaching tool for anyone seeking to understand privilege, and the ways that religion intersects with race, class and gender studies.

—Abby L. Ferber, Director of The Matrix Center for the Advancement of Social Equity and Inclusion, and Professor of Sociology and Women’s & Ethnic Studies at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

After more than 200 years, a book has finally emerged that validates Thomas Paine’s concerns about Christian hegemony. Living in the Shadow of the Cross shows readers of all faiths how the ruling elite turned a doctrine of love into a doctrine of discovery that has ultimately kept us from embracing the spiritual wisdom of Indigenous cultures that Paine and other founding fathers of the U.S. saw as incompatible with Christian orthodoxy. This book is a must-read if we are to break through the illusions that continue to keep our collective heads in the hegemonic sands that are contained by Christian seas. Our very survival may require such an awakening as Kivel offers here.

—Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D.), author, Teaching Truly, Primal Awareness and Unlearning the Language of Conquest.

With Living in the Shadow of the Cross, Paul Kivel once again sets a high standard for investigating and making visible dominant group privilege, power, control, and domination, which are pervasive and deeply entrenched. By coming into the topic from multiple perspectives – historical, theological and philosophical, economic and political – Kivel exposes how the Christian cross has not merely cast a shadow across the globe, but more importantly, how it has operated like a coercive hammer (a weapon) in several spheres resulting in colonization, forced conversions, confiscations of property and resources, territorial expulsions, and, ultimately, to genocide. Living in the Shadow of the Cross puts to rest lingering false impressions and long-standing justifications for a supposed naturalness and normalcy of Christian hegemony.

—Warren J. Blumenfeld, co-editor, Investigating Christian Privilege and Religious Oppression in the United States, and Associate Professor, School of Education, Iowa State University

Paul Kivel courageously confronts Christian hegemony by addressing historical and present-day realities that few are willing and able to openly challenge. With careful detail, Kivel clearly delineates distinctions between systems of oppression and Christians who resist dominance due to their deep commitments to social justice and liberation. Moreover, he gives voice to those of us who are outside of the Christian religion and consistently subject to Christian hegemony by highlighting how we are forced to navigate realities that dramatically shape and impact our daily lives.

—Amer F. Ahmed, educator, social justice activist, poet

Paul Kivel’s deep and detailed analyses of Christian assumptions are both appalling and empowering. They name the historical and ideological problems that most students of oppression in the last 150 years have simply avoided. For me, Paul Kivel opens up whole new territories of pain, but shows that those of us who were raised in Christian traditions can lessen institutional Christian oppressiveness without disowning the soul itself and all the spiritual impulses that go into what Paul Tillich called the ground of our being.

—Peggy McIntosh, Associate Director, Wellesley Centers for Women and Founding Director, National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum.

Paul Kivel has done it again; awakened us to a system of dominance that has been invisible for centuries. I found myself defending Christianity and arguing its goodness; seeing its dominance revealed by Kivel but still denying its hegemonic impact on the world. The success of this book will not be measured by one’s agreement or disagreement but rather the degree to which it helps change the discourse about Christian power and dominance. Can we be open-minded enough to engage in deep discourse and ultimately change the dominant paradigm and structures that lead to power and privilege?

—Hugh Vasquez, social justice educator and Senior Associate at the National Equity Project

LIVING IN

THE SHADOW

OF THE CROSS

UNDERSTANDING AND RESISTING

THE POWER AND PRIVILEGE OF

CHRISTIAN HEGEMONY

Paul Kivel

Copyright © 2013 by Paul Kivel.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh. Map image © iStock (sankai)

First printing September 2013.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-86571-742-8 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-55092-541-8

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Living in the Shadow of the Cross should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)

1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada [phone]

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Kivel, Paul, author

Living in the shadow of the cross : understanding and resisting the power and privilege of Christian hegemony / Paul Kivel.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-86571-742-8 (pbk.)

1. Church history. 2. Hegemony—Religious aspects—Christianity.

3. Social problems. 4. Christian sociology. I. Title.

HN31.K59 2013261.8’3C2013-903330-0

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To our ancestors,

those who survived and those who did not,

may their lives be for a blessing.

To those who are building communities of

love, healing, justice and peace.

To our children and their children,

continuing the fragile but indomitable human thread

on the web of life.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1.What Is Christian Hegemony?

2.Manifestations of Christian Hegemony

Language

Names

Symbols

Original Christians

The Other

Credibility

Exotic and Erotic

Privilege

Christian Holiday Cycle

New Year’s Eve

Washington’s Birthday/Presidents’ Day

St. Valentine’s Day

Good Friday/Easter

Mother’s Day

Independence Day/The Fourth of July

Columbus Day

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Christmas

3.Key Christian Concepts

Dualism

Qualities

The Cosmic Battle: Good and Evil

Love Within Hierarchy

Sinners Need Salvation

One Truth, One Way to God

Temporal Focus

Dominion Over Nature

Challenging Dominant Concepts

4.The Way We Think

Our Bodies and Feelings Are Sinful

Judgment

Salvation

Purity

Christian Narratives

Conversion Narrative

The Jeremiad

Captivity Narrative

We Need a Savior

Charity

History

Apocalypse

Fear and Hope

Science and Technology

The Economy

The Criminal Legal System

Education

The Body, Desire and Disability

Doctrine of Discovery

How Do These Christian Ideas Manifest in Our Lives?

5.Origins and History

The Papal Reformation

The Crusades

The Inquisitions

Witch Hunts

The Protestant Reformation

Colonization: Crusades in the New World

Missionaries Spreading the Word

Manifest Destiny

Slavery and Its Legacy

The Jewish Holocaust

6.Public Policy

US Foreign Policy

Us and Them

Manifest Destiny and War

International Influence

Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and Faith-based Funding

Christian Zionism

US Domestic Policy

Political Involvement

Worker’s Rights

Religious Immunity from Prosecution

Tax Breaks

Faith-based Initiatives

Proselytizing

Islamophobia as Public Policy

Health Care

Abstinence vs Harm Reduction

The War Against Women

Marriage

Domestic Violence

Parenting

Education

Environmental Issues

Seeing Through and Beyond Christian Frameworks

7.Resistance

Christian Resistance

Resistance Outside of Christianity

Talking About Christian Hegemony

Allies, Collaborators and Agents

For the Long Haul

Appendix: Guidelines for Christian Allies

Glossary

Endnotes

Bibliography

Resources on Christian Hegemony and Resistance

Index

About the Author

There is no country in the world

where the Christian religion retains a greater influence

over the souls of men than in America.

— ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE (1831) —

Preface

For over 45 years, I have been doing violence prevention and social justice education, activism and writing. Still, it took me years to begin to sort out the role Christian dominance plays in our society.

Like most people, I was vaguely aware of the Crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts and the colonization of the Americas. Historically, my family was affected by Christian anti-Semitism that produced Russian pogroms, the Nazi Holocaust and hate crimes in the US. On a more personal level, I regularly had to explain why I took Jewish holidays off at school and work and put up with missionaries at my front door. The fourth-grade public school teacher of our oldest son gave out pocket Bibles to reward her students, whether they were Christian or not. It should not have been so hard to see the bigger picture. Yet it was.

The picture became clearer only when I began to understand that foundational to economic, racial, gender and other forms of oppression was a worldview that makes a fundamental distinction between Christians and a wide assortment of peoples labeled Other. Christianity did not create these distinctions, but it gave them a theological place in a cosmic battle depicted as being between good and evil—a battle in which only Christians were deemed capable of being on the good side. All Others were in league with the devil. As an experiment, one day I put Christian dominance in the center of a piece of poster paper and drew lines out to other systems of oppression and begin to tease out the connections, some of which are elaborated in this book.

However, I didn’t really put it all together until I was writing a book about racism for white people.¹ Researching the history of racism led me to understand that before Europeans understood themselves to be white they thought of themselves as Christian. Jews, Pagans and Muslims were the long-standing Others. When encountered, Native Americans and Africans became new heathens in the same good/evil equation. It was only when some Jews and Muslims, and subsequently Native Americans and enslaved Africans, began to convert to Christianity that white Christians felt the need to draw an uncrossable line. Even if members of these groups became Christian, they would still be ineligible for participation in society because they were not white. Being a white Christian (and, it was assumed, male) became the criterion for being fully human.²

Once I developed a Christian dominance lens, I began to see more clearly the interrelationship between social concepts, personal beliefs, interpersonal behavior and large-scale institutional and public policy. In the Shadow of the Cross is my attempt to describe those relationships and the way the systems of Christian hegemony contribute to the concentration of wealth and power among a few, and the exploitation of the many.

To begin my journey, I had to situate myself in relationship to dominant Christianity. I encourage you to do the same.

•What are your current connections with Christianity?

•What was the relationship of your foreparents to Christianity in whatever parts of the world they lived?

•What has been the relationship of whatever identities you claim (female, black, Native American, queer) to Christian dominance?

Notice the thoughts and feelings that come up as you join me in examining a dominating worldview that often obscures reality, hindering us from collectively addressing our global problems of war, economic inequality and climate change.

As I researched Christian hegemony, I also began to notice stories of resistance. To my own Jewish stories, I added stories of Native American, African-American, women’s and other peoples’ efforts to survive and thrive under oppression. I learned about Christians who worked for social change and communities that developed alternative Christianities, standing against injustice of all kinds. The last part of this book looks at some of these stories.

This book and the Christian Hegemony project (christianhegemony.org) are part of my own resistance effort. My work contains an invitation to you to raise your voice and join the long line of people who challenge dominance and engage in building healthy and sustainable communities of justice and peace.

— Paul Kivel, Oakland, CA, 2013

Acknowledgments

At times writing this book has felt daunting, even overwhelming. The voices of all those who have survived, resisted and created alternatives to Christian Hegemony have kept me going.

I have also been privileged to draw on an extended community of family, friends, colleagues and fellow-travelers who have supported me in myriad ways over the last few years as the Christian Hegemony Project emerged and grew. The bibliography contains the work of many in this struggle. More personally I’d like to thank all those who I have learned from directly including Amer Ahmed, Bill Aal, Warren Blumenfeld, Allan Creighton, Jonah Aline Daniel, Andrea del Moral, Francie Kendall, Sara Kershner, Toby Kramer, SAM Luckey, Victor Lewis, Peggy McIntosh, Sallie McNichol, Nell Myhand, Sam Ofer, Dara Silverman and Jamie Washington.

Some of these people were occasional or regular members of the Christian Hegemony discussion gatherings that provided a place to explore many issues in more depth. Other valued participants included Jen Collins, MarySue Foster, Noa Grayevsky, Ramesh Kathnadhi, Kate Lammers, Sue Magidson, Eyal Mazor, Liora O’Donnell Goldersher, Cathy Rion, Davey Shlasko and Rani Tserotas.

Allan Creighton, Cheryl Distaso, Joan Lester, Nell Myhand and Betsy Nuse each read all or most of the manuscript and provided invaluable comments and editing. Special thanks to Allan and Nell for decades of partnership in activism and writing. I also appreciate administrative support for the project from Jen Angel, Regan Brashear, Manjula Martin and Sarah Lombardo.

The staff at New Society has been enthusiastic and effective in bringing the book to completion. Special thanks to Ingrid, Heather, E.J., Sara, Sue, Julie, Jean, Greg, Paul, Ailene, and Judith and Chris.

My appreciation and love to my family members Micki, Ariel, SAM, Amanda, Ryan, Leticia, Kesa and Dana for their patience, support and companionship through this process. Also thanks to Jim, Nell, Shirley, Hugh and many other friends for walking the road towards justice with me. My grandkids, Niko and Mateo, have been my inspiration. My life partner, Micki, has been there at every stage of the process while working on her own book project. She continues to make it all worthwhile.

Introduction

Though Christianity portrays itself as a force for good in the world, the actual story is much more complex. For the last seventeen centuries, ruling elites have used Christian institutions and values to control, exploit and violate people in most regions throughout the world.

Today, in the 21st century, Christianity is still a dominant force in our society. Yet why is it so hard to pinpoint? What words can we use to describe it? Buried even deeper than policies and actions of institutions, there seems to be a dominant Christian worldview that has shaped and skewed Western culture so profoundly that it is difficult to delineate fully. We have words for sexism, racism and economic inequality, but what would we even call the underlying, often hidden power of Christianity: Christianism? Christian dominance? Christian supremacy?

This is no mere matter for the philosophy classroom. We face the possible or probable extinction of life on our planet. If we can, we must grasp the bias and limitation of the West’s worldview, powered by a hegemony that makes us oblivious to the wisdom of the people of America’s First Nations.¹

As philosophy professor Bruce Wilshire suggests in the quote above, our understanding of the West’s foundational beliefs matters greatly.

Within a Christian framework, we have witnessed a thousand years of Crusades against evil non-Christians, those branded as primitives, savages or terrorists, with results most currently manifesting in the US’s Middle Eastern wars. Within this framework, all those labeled Other have been marginalized and are vulnerable to violence.

When I began to write on this subject, I often wondered why it was so hard for people to understand both the history and the contemporary reality of Christianity’s impact on our lives. It seemed that we were completely surrounded by its influence but couldn’t see it. I finally realized there was one word that helped to describe this impact and its invisibility: hegemony.

Hegemony is defined as the predominant and pervasive influence of one state, religion, region, class or group. For example, the Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought defines hegemony as not only the political and economic control exercised by a dominant class but its success in projecting its own way of seeing the world, human and social relationships, so that this is accepted as ‘common sense’ and part of the natural order by those who are, in fact, subordinated to it.²

A hegemonic society functions not just to establish a homogeneous way of thinking, but also to try to make any alternative disappear. It tries to maintain the illusion that within its sphere there is only one unified and true way of understanding the world or leading one’s life.

This predominant influence can take different forms of control. But despite usually intense resistance, over time the worldview of the conquerors is internalized. It becomes accepted as natural and inevitable even by those dominated, although it is not in their best interests. One might say hegemony is the language of conquest. ³

CHAPTER 1

What Is Christian Hegemony?

I define Christian hegemony as the everyday, systematic set of Christian values, individuals and institutions that dominate all aspects of US society. Nothing is unaffected.¹

Christian dominance is a complex and shifting system that benefits all Christians, those raised Christian and those passing as Christian. However, the concentration of power and wealth accumulates to a predominantly Christian power elite.² All others experience exploitation and constant vulnerability to violence.

This dominance operates on several levels. First is the subtle internalization of Christian beliefs by individuals. The behavior and voting patterns of millions of people in the United States are influenced by concepts such as original sin, Manifest Destiny, the existence of the one truth contained within Christianity and the notion that humans were given dominion over the Earth.

The social, political and economic (as opposed to spiritual) power that individual clergy exert on people’s lives is another level of impact. Many clergy condone US expansionism, missionary activity towards non-Christians and exclusion of groups deemed sinful or dangerous.

Some denominations wield very significant power in the US. For example, the Mormon, Catholic and other churches, along with many individual religious leaders, raised millions of dollars and mobilized constituents to vote for Proposition 8 on the California ballot—a 2008 measure that made same-sex marriage illegal.³

There is also a vast network of parachurch organizations—general tax-supported non-profits such as hospitals, broadcasting networks, publishing houses, lobbying groups and organizations like Focus on the Family, Prison Fellowship, The Family, World Vision, International Association of Character Cities⁴—and thousands of others that wield influence in particular spheres of the US and internationally. As just one example, the Child Evangelism Fellowship runs Good News Clubs in public schools across the US, teaching hundreds of thousands of children to find Jesus and proselytize other children.⁵

Another level of Christian dominance comes from the power elite, those who control the largest and most powerful institutions in the US. The Koch brothers (combined net worth $43 billion), Rupert Murdock (over $8 billion), the Walton Family (combined net worth over $90 billion)⁶ and the Council for National Policy ⁷ exert this kind of power.

And finally there is the level that provides the foundation for all the others: the deep legacy of ideas, values and practices produced within dominant Western Christianity over the centuries. That legacy continues to shape our culture and frame public policies.

All these levels of Christian dominance have significant impacts. The personal shows up in the way many Christians internalize feelings of superiority, entitlement and judgment—as well as guilt—while those who are not Christian may primarily internalize low self-worth.

Interpersonal effects include specific acts of aggression directed at those who are not Christian or Christian of the wrong sort, e.g., people who are LGBTTQ.⁸

The institutional effects show up in the ways the health care, educational and criminal legal systems favor Christians and Christian values and treat others as outside society’s circle of caring. For example, most institutional policies privilege Christian holidays and cultural norms, treating other religions’ practices as unusual and therefore easily dismissed. The levels of this institutionalized system of dominance are interconnected, so the cumulative impact creates a structure that is all-encompassing.

Christian dominance has become so invisible that its manifestations even appear to be secular. In this context, the oxymoronic phrase secular Christian dominance might be most appropriate. Of course, there are many forms of Christian fundamentalism that are anything but secular. But the more mainstream, everyday way these seemingly subtle values influence our lives is less evident, although no less significant. This less visible Christian hegemony is the focus of In the Shadow of the Cross.

One measure of hegemony might be how much its values and beliefs are internalized by those who oppose it. As Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont has written, the strength of an ideological system lies in the extent to which its presuppositions are shared by the people who think of themselves as its most radical critics.⁹ Later in this book, I’ll look at this question in more depth.

This book is not about Christianity. It is about dominance. Christians and Christian institutions have done many beneficial things over the centuries, such as feeding the hungry, setting up housing programs, providing medical care and fighting for social justice. There have been many varieties of Christianity, and there has always been resistance to the version that ruling elites have used to justify their actions. Many of the hurtful, dominant values I explore here were slow to develop over the centuries. Other versions of Christianity were attacked, their leaders silenced and their stories erased from history so that today what we accept as primary Christian values are usually those enforced by ruling elites.

For example, for centuries Christianity was committed to nonviolence, to the value of Jesus’s life, not his death, exalting his resurrection rather than his crucifixion. He was not imagined or portrayed dead on the cross as a martyr, but alive as a healer and teacher. Creating paradise on Earth, in the here and now, was the primary goal of Christians, not waiting for salvation in some future time or place.¹⁰ Women had leadership positions in the early church, homosexuality was accepted,¹¹ and war was condemned. In fact, Roman soldiers were not allowed by the early church to be baptized and become Christians.¹²

Various movements continued to reestablish Christian rituals and practices based upon different values and interpretations than those dominant today. But during the fourth through the ninth centuries, Christian leaders gained increasing control over major aspects of European life. Their dominance was consolidated in subsequent centuries as ruling elites in Western societies used Christianity to justify and expand their power and wealth. During these many centuries, a set of concepts and beliefs became the implicit framework of civil society for many people, affecting every aspect of daily life.

Certain words, symbols and practices resonate with that history. Ruling elites draw on words such as crusade, inquisition or even Christian, symbols like the cross, concepts like evil or hell and practices like public prayer. This is especially true in times of crisis, such as after 9/11 when such tools were used to marshal public opinion to invade two Islamic countries and pass the USA Patriot Act.

As former executive director of the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center Michael Steele has written:

Christianity has, for more than seventeen centuries, constituted the primary culture, or has been a major determinant of Western culture, by which hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of believing Christians have had their most deeply held beliefs formulated. Scripture, scripture commentary, homilies, papal bulls, decretals, the arts, formal and domestic forms of education, government decrees, law, and countless sermons, pamphlets, disputations, tracts, and books constitute the discourse within which those believing millions have lived. This discourse field provides the culture and the people within it with ‘taken-for-granted elements’ of their ‘practical knowledge,’ thus creating a common sense that