I was raised Christian and come from a pretty religious family. My father’s side is very religious, his mother would always tell me bible stories and each Christmas she would give me a new bible. So religion was sort of always affiliated within my lifestyle, I always went to church and I later attended a Catholic High School. I can’t really say I have ever experienced any type of religious oppression, but never really considered the privileged aspects of it, either. After reading through just the beginning list in Lewis Schlosser’s "Christian Privilege", I realized why I never worried about religious oppression as I am of 'Christian Privilege' myself. We undoubtedly exist in a society where Christianity is the dominant religious affiliation. Before reading more about religious oppression, I never realized exactly how the many ways it disregards the many other different beliefs people value. However, I can’t say I haven’t thought about religious oppression before.
I’m not sure what religious oppression is like. Among the privileged aspects, I have never really considered myself 'privileged', in exception to the benefits of having Holidays off from school or work. I never really considered being of 'christian privilege'. However, I can’t say that I don’t think religion can be oppressive in general. I have always been told to believe in His word, but I always knew that doesn’t mean everybody has to believe in the same thing as me. I feel like religious beliefs can become very overpowering, causing people to lose sight of its real underlying, core values and instead, take it too seriously. By only looking into the menial details of bible versus or abiding by the 10 commandments, people seem to get so caught up in their own religious beliefs, that they can’t understand why others don’t agree with them, or could possibly believe in something else. I think it is unfortunate that people cannot accept that as we are all different, we have different beliefs and values. It’s too bad that we cannot affiliate other aspects of culture into our arguably dominant Christian Privileged society. Regardless, the world is changing and become more multicultural today, eventually, it’s reality we have to face.
I agree with you. I never really realized that being Christian puts you in the "christian privilege." As i have never really that about religious oppression either. I think it is strange to think that religion could be oppressed though because everyone is always talking about how your religion can help you and to live a better life and all that, so why would people want to oppress those in other religions?
ReplyDeleteI'm Christian as well and growing up I never ran into religious oppression. I definitely knew it existed but I personally never ran into it. I think it's silly that people oppress others religion. Why can't every just respect others religious decisions and simply mind their own business. Clearly it doesn't work that way since everyone thinks that what ever religion they practice is the best religion so they need to speak out and prove it.
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