Christian privilege

It's Good Friday out there in the real world and the first one to pass us by since leaving Christianity.  Actually I'm feeling pretty good about that and not even nostalgic for the ceremony and liturgy that goes on this time of year.  I surprise myself sometimes.

But it got me thinking about Christian privilege again and how the U.S. seems to revolve around Christianity in various ways.  My husband was telling me today about an employee who whined for years because Good Friday was such an important religious holiday and how the company should let Christians off to celebrate it.  When Tom told him to take a vacation day for that, the guy whined again that he shouldn't have to waste his vacation days on holidays that he should get off anyway.  Tom told him it must not be that important if he wasn't willing to give up a vacation day for it.

So many businesses are closed right now so their employees can attend Good Friday services.  Even though most churches don't have them in the afternoon.  But this being Catholic/Lutheran country here, I guess enough do that they feel they have to accommodate them.  It's not that I really care if businesses do that; it's the arrogance that some Christians feel they're owed that day off because they're Christians and their holidays take precedence over anyone else's.

I know because that's how I felt as a Christian.  Or rather how I felt as a fundie.  It's in the water we drank, the air we breathed, implied in every sermon, every Bible study, every "fellowship" gathering.  Entitlement because of Christian privilege.

I was arrogant enough to believe that "God" would reward me for not accepting a job that made me work on Sundays because that day was sacred to him.  Oddly employers don't see it that way.  There is money to be made on religious holidays, too, you know.  And "God" most certainly didn't reward me.  In fact, we suffered because I could have been working all along on the weekends with Tom to take care of Zach when he was little.  But I trusted that I was being told the TRUTH.  And TRUTH was always in capital letters in my mind because it was "God's" TRUTH.  And whatever people in spiritual authority told me was TRUTH.

Except it wasn't.  I remember a "testimony" given in church one day on tithing by a single mother who was struggling and going to college with minimal support from her ex.  She talked about all the miracles in her life where money mysteriously appeared when she needed it most.  All because she tithed.  Except I overheard her in the bathroom a few months later telling someone else she had been skipping church lately because she couldn't afford to tithe and pay her bills.  So because she had given such a moving testimonial about how God rewarded her for tithing, she couldn't be there and not tithe.

Ah, the way they manipulate you.

And that's what they do when they have these temper tantrums about people not being allowed to pray in school.  Of course they can pray.  They just can't take over the intercom and make everyone listen to their prayers to their god.  If they want to pray over their food, they're allowed in spite of all the hyperbole I get from my aging aunt who insists "God" isn't allowed in public schools.  What they really mean is they're not allowed to promote Christianity in public schools.

And then there are the hysterics at Christmas about keeping Christ in Christmas.  How they're not allowed to say "Merry Christmas" anymore.  More hyperbole.  Of course they can in their personal life.  They just can't use their employment to force their version of the holidays on other people.  Because, of course, there are other people who don't celebrate Christmas, contrary to what they might believe.  And that is what Christian privilege is all about.  Thinking that the world rises and sets on their beliefs, that their beliefs take precedence over anyone else's.  Or even that anyone else's religion even has any validity because, you know, anyone who doesn't worship Christ worships Satan  (I wanted to write Satin because for some reason some of the more fundie-types out there seem to have literacy problems and you see it written that way many, many times.)

So on Good Friday employers all over the country give their employees the afternoon off to go to church and mourn the death of their savior.  But they end up at Walmart.  Because I swear that place was as crowded as Christmas today. But you can't give just Christians the day off because that would be discrimination (although I have heard some bitching about non-Christians getting the day off, too, because what do they need it off for?Same bitching I hear about non-Christians celebrating Christmas, as if we've stolen something from them.)  So apparently Walmart was busier than the churches because I was at the old StuffMart at the time when most of the services were going on.

But yeah, I don't have a problem with them taking the day off because it's sacred to them.  I'm okay with employers shutting down (although the credit union shutting down at noon on a Friday used to be pretty darned inconvenient until we got direct-deposit) if they can afford it and are fair to the other employees.

But don't demand that the U.S. adopt your religious holidays as public holidays.  We've already got Christmas and Thanksgiving, even though both have been largely secularized.  We don't give equal time to other religions in that same way, like making Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days of the year for Jews, a national holiday.  Those poor guys have to actually take vacation time for their holy days in some places.  I'm not even asking for equal treatment for other religions, although it would be nice.  I just want them to realize that other religions exist out there and their adherents are entitled to some privilege as well.

So kwitcherbitchin and stop acting like the kid in grade school who boasts that their father is more important than anyone else's, demanding speshul snowflake privileges.  It no longer impresses anyone and just makes them look like brats.  Which they are.

I kind of think the world is changing for the better in spite of the tantrums out there.  Maybe if we just ignore the foot-stomping and breath-holding and screaming, they'll get the idea.

Or not.