Talk:Christian privilege

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2021 and 30 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Masonleighlaw.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Bias

This reads as a political argument, not as a encyclopedia entry.

It clarifies at the start of the article that this is an idea, based on the work related to the idea of "white privilege".

But these are not accepted facts - they are political arguments.

Is there agreement/disagreement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.122.225.165 (talk) 02:14, 27 November 2010 (UTC) the article needs more detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.205.168.86 (talk) 00:16, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The existence of such privilege is certainly very controversial. Mangoe (talk) 21:18, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I do not agree with the unsigned user. "Christian privilege" is not only political argument.--Soroboro (talk) 19:40, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the above that this article is effectively an opinion piece. If you look at the history, most of the development has been done by a single user whose wikipedia contributions are almost entirely this article or promoting this article by adding links to it from other pages. That, in and of itself, is not wrong per se, but it does help one see even more starkly the bias. Marsman57 (talk) 12:21, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Liberalism

This article is little more than liberal opinion peace. It never even defines what "privilege" is, other than "dominance."

"Examples include views that non-Christian faiths are inferior or dangerous, or that adherents of those faiths and non-believers are immoral, sinful, or misguided."

That's what a religion is. A religion defines itself by saying it is right and everything else is wrong. "The one true path" idea. The Muslims and the Jews have similar ideas.

The history section is irrelevant, Tocqueville had no idea of "Christian privilege," he was making a point about a nineteenth century political system, not a 21st century political correctness.

"Christian privilege at the individual level occurs in proselytizing to convert or reconvert non-Christians to Christianity.[3] While many Christians view proselytizing as offering the gift of Jesus to the non-Christians, many individuals of other faiths and many non-believers consider this as an imposition, manipulation, and oppression.[4]"

Because Muslims never try to propagate their faith? Atheists never try to propagate their lack of faith? Is there some law against them doing this? This is a typical liberal attempt to try to silence opponents with political correctness. You know what offends me? Liberalism.

Why is there no discussion about Jewish privilege? Jews control the institutions of the country far out of their share of the population. This article is just nothing but unjustified liberal double standards.John Kaine (talk) 04:37, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

If you feel the article is POV, feel free to tag it with POV-check and have someone take a look at it. Even better, if you can find reliable sources that will improve the article, then by all means do so. Even better than that, work with other editors to help resolve any perceived issues that you find. All of these things are more constructive approaches. 76.121.244.252 (talk) 18:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Part of a Series on: Why is there an article

"Christian privilege is the alleged system" You don't actually need to read any farther than this. If you want a good laugh, go down to the "see also" section. You might as well make the Flat Earth Theory article a serious reflection on the merits of the Flat Earth Theory. You'd be able to find better citations for that, too. Ones from a not-discredited, actually-academic field. Nobody in their right mind takes the "Social Justice" field as anything but pseudo-liberal wank. This article, and it's citations; contain not a single objective sentence, not a single empirically provable or falsifiable concept, and not a single line worthy of anything but a speedy deletion. The entire article exists to whine.

Oh, this isn't to even go deeper into the article. Once you get past the first sentence you might as well link over to RationalWiki, or better yet, The Onion. Within the firs two sections you get an honest-to-allah privilege pissing contest, citations from an instructional book on teaching a toilet paper diploma, and off-topic white / male hate that no Social Justice article would be complete without. This article is garbage and most, if not all articles in the Privilege category should be deleted.

God bless, 96.54.86.78 (talk) 20:15, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

You can work to improve the article, put it up for deletion or continue to whine. - SummerPhD (talk) 02:32, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

RFC Bias again

This page reads as opinion rather than fact, also showing Bias as statmented below - should this be edited or removed Amortias (T)(C) 00:14, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

As stated in December, The options are: improve the article, put it up for deletion or whine. So far, whining is the most popular option. It doesn't seem to accomplish anything, but it's popular nonetheless. - SummerPhD (talk) 01:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Am fairly new to this so some advice on how to put it up for deletion would be appreciated Amortias (T)(C) 08:40, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

First, read through WP:BEFORE to determine if your plan makes sense (i.e., shoud the article be improved or deleted?). Then read through WP:AFD. - SummerPhD (talk) 11:55, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I am removing the RFC as there is no specific question asked or issue raised. This sort of conversation belongs strictly on the talk page, which is what this is. Amortias please use this opportunity to raise specific issues and problems you see with the article. EvergreenFir (talk) 23:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, Christian privilege is an axis of privilege in some schools of sociology and other social sciences. The article seems decently well sourced but could probably use a tune up. Before calling it "opinion" or "liberalism" (as another commenter did), please make sure you understand the basis of theories of privilege, intersectionality, etc. EvergreenFir (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I think there is such a thing as Christian Privilege in the same way that there is a bias towards right-handedness. If you're right-handed you may not notice how many things - e.g., scissors, are designed to suit you. However, any left-hander can tell you how much the world is made for right-handed people. It's the same with Christian Privilege in the United States and other Western countries. From the day of rest (Sunday) to the celebration of Christmas the churches are advantaged because these are public holidays. There are also social consequences for not being a Christian or even being the non-preferred kind. Thus, there has been no open atheist President and only one Catholic, President Kennedy. Over time, of course, the Christian privilege has morphed towards a general privilege for religion in general, and with the increasingly secular society, this privilege has been wound back to some extent. Michael Glass (talk) 05:05, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I am sensing that a high proportion of the content of the article and the comments from editors above fails to recognise that there is a big world outside the USA. For most countries in the rest of the world the notion of "Christian privilege" is a rather silly one.--Mevagiss (talk) 13:29, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Really?

It is abundantly clear that in some societies and countries, especially certain theocracies in the Middle East, that being Christian is not an advantage at all. Think of all the calls to violence toward "people of the cross" and "people of the book"? Not in a single Christian-majority nation on Earth is apostasy of Christianity punishable by death. Yeah, some people in the West don't like us atheists, but when was the last major anti-atheist riot by Christians? As a very blunt and open atheist living in one of the largest Christian-majority nations on Earth I can confirm that I have never experienced discrimination for not adopting Christianity. Frankly this article writes in the wrong tense: Christan privilege certainly existed in the Spanish Inquisition and other incidents of large-scale Christian violence that took place in the past. An article on Islamic privilege would make far more sense given practices such as the Jizya tax, unequal rules on religious conversion and proselytizing (ex, in Qatar it is allowed to encourage a Christian to convert to Islam but illegal to encourage a Muslim to become a Christian or any other beleif.) And everything stated in the article (such as the idea that other people's beliefs are immoral or inferior) is quantifiably more prevalent in Islamic countries. (just read over hashtags like actual quote "HangAyazNizami" and "IamMumtazQadri") This article's definition of privilege devalues the real meaning of the word. For comparison:

• White privilege - Not being racially profiled, less likely to endure undue use of force by police, etc
  
• Hearing privilege - Being able to use the dominant language in society unhindered (ex, not having to ask for everything to be written down); not being mistreated by police for not hearing verbal commands; not having to justify the use of sign language to idiots; no presumption that you are intellectually inferior based on your speech; not having to put a "driver is deaf" sticker on all three sides of your car for police.
  
• Heterosexual privilege - Not getting thrown off of buildings for consensual relations.
  
• Russian privilege - Your grandparents got to loot and grab the land leftover after entire nations were sent out to concentration camps in the middle of the desert in 1944. (See Deportation of the Crimean Tatars and Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush) And then after the right of return, you can happily pretend you have always been there and protest anyone coming home to the city where they were born.
  
• Islamic privilege - Being the only religious group able to hold public office in many countries, not having to pay the jizya, etc
  

and then there's modern Christian privilege

• Christian privilege - The Pledge of Allegiance mentions "god", some church people think your beliefs are more moral, and coins say "in god we trust".

I hope this clarifies how the term "Christian privilege" devalues existing systematic privilege. This post is not meant to offend, it is meant to show how using it in this context weakens the meaning of the word. Perhaps a page rename could be in order.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 14:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

You do have some valid points, but as you claim, CP existed during middle ages. Once notable, always notable, per WP:NTEMP. (Even though existence is not a notability criterion, but your argument is based on the existence or the truthfulness of the phenomenon nowadays). Cinadon36 (talk) 10:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Was CP really a factor in the Middle Ages? Your average peasant would not had any privilege of any description, ekeing out an existence under harsh conditions. If there was privilege I suspect it was that associated with landowners, upper nobility and wealthy merchant classes. If everyone was a Christian, as they pretty well were, there was no CP. Sounds like a modern invention. Bermicourt (talk) 10:47, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Analogous concept -- "Muslim privilege" -- posting sources here that discuss this, some of which explicilty compare the two -- could be useful

Muslim privilege discussed in the context of modern Malaysian society, vis a vis atheists and other faiths: [[1]] -- also discusses tangentially about Malaysia [[2]] [[3]]

Muslim privilege discussed in the context of the Ottoman Empire: [[4]] [[5]] [[6]], in Syria-Palestine specifically [[7]] , and vis-a-vis the Armenian Apostolic minority [[8]]

Muslim privilege in modern Turkey: [[9]] (2018 paper) -- I had another paper that talks about the interaction (and harmonization) of Turkish-Sunni-White privilege in Turkey vis-a-vis other groups so defined, but I can't find it at the moment

Accusations of Muslim privilege by Hindu nationalists [[10]] and in eastern CHina [[11]]

This one might be more obscure, discussing a time when Protestant Southern American slavers had a more positive view on avg regarding Islam, stratifying the "Moor" over the "negro" [[12]]

Discusses it in South Asia [[13]] --Calthinus (talk) 19:13, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@Calthinus: What exactly are you proposing? We could change the name of this article to enable interested editors add relevant content on religions other than Christianity, or alternatively, we could create a new article named "Muslim privilege". Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:11, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

For now a paragraph under a section related topics. If someone has the time and motivation, separate page. In the coming years. Just posting them here for future use. To be clear, it's ultimately a separate topic and deserves its own page, but I am unsure if there is enough literature specifically on the topic (rather than its tandential mention in a lot of other topics, mostly history and some country studies i.e. Malaysia and Turkey mostly).--Calthinus (talk) 18:14, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Calthinus: @Ktrimi991: I made such an article here Muslim privilege MaitreyaVaruna (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

New Edits

Hello! My name is Kate and I am a freshman at Rice University looking to possibly edit this article. I am planning to either narrow the article’s focus to the United States, or create a page named “Christian privilege in the United States.” I hope to include a more neutral approach to the topic, taking more factors into consideration and updating the layout moving forward. If you all have any feedback or ideas let me know! Kef1170 (talk) 02:33, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it would be correct to narrow the scope to only the United States. That would be rather US-centric, a known problem with wikipedia, for a topic that is quite well-documented elsewhere, especially in Europe historically. Cheers. --Calthinus (talk) 04:01, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

It would be correct if the article title was changed as suggested. Bermicourt (talk) 10:41, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Is “theoretical” backed by the article text or sources?

Just wondering. I haven’t read much of the article. It’s a bad word anyway. Doug Weller talk 18:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)