Christian hegemony alive and well

Christianity is still going strong. Freedom of religion is not war. Christian hegemony is alive and well.

Having grown up in a secular household, it is hard not to audibly scoff whenever someone bemoans America’s so-called “War on Religion,” especially when they really mean “War on Christianity.”

These religion-defenders seem confused about the difference between waging war and respecting the separation of church and state outlined in the Constitution.

The theory of evolution is not an affront to Christianity. Asking employers to cover employees’ health insurance is not the anti-Christ. Disallowing prayer in schools will not bring about the apocalypse.

They also seem fairly blind to the fact that American society, or at least Indiana, is ardently Christian.

I knew I was damned by the time I was 3. I have my homeschooled Christian neighbors to thank for that. Hearing me use words like “dang,” or my parents’ rock music, they would scamper away from my devil-house shrieking, “you’re going to hell!”

In elementary school, asking what church someone belonged to was a standard getting-to-know-you question. At age 7 or 8, I was happy to answer differently from everyone else. I never sang in a church choir. I was never baptized. These things made me interesting, but they were also somewhat alienating.

The insistence of others that I was missing out prompted me to give church a try in middle school. The religiosity of my role models and peers made me feel guilty that I found religious services uncomfortable, that I was mistrustful of reverends and pastors, that the doctrine they were espousing just never clicked with me.

Biblical allusions evaded me in high school English class. Having never read the Bible, I was always a beat behind my church-going peers, only recognizing the most obvious of references. It hurt my understanding of Western cannon and my International Baccalaureate oral exam grade.

Still, because I grew up in a hegemonic Christian culture, even though I have never read the Bible, I generally know what it says. I know the important stories, the important lessons, the important people.

Christianity, a religion I do not practice and do not believe, has permeated every phase of my life so far, defining my relationships with others and the world. If anything, recent “anti-Christian” legislation only puts Christianity in danger of being less hegemonic, of being less invasive in the lives of non-believers.

Of course, this is purely anecdotal, so let’s look at some facts.

78.4 percent of adults in the U.S. are Christian-affiliated. Our president is sworn in on a Bible. Our money clearly states “in God we trust.” The Supreme Court just dismissed a case objecting to one of the many government-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments. Since the 1950s we have pledged allegiance to a country we insist is “under God.”

We live in a Christian country. Any war against that would be fruitless.

If anything, there is a war against Christians deluded enough to believe theirs is the only way of thinking.

­— casefarr@indiana.edu