Christian Privilege, Christian Fragility, and Religious Freedom
By Susan M. Shaw

Recent legislation in North Carolina and Mississippi suggests that the expectation of non-discrimination against LGBTQ people is an infringement on religious liberty. These bills have favored particular religious beliefs about sexuality, marriage, and gender, providing protections for people who would deny services to LGBTQ people and defining who can use what bathroom.

This legislation and the widespread support for it among many conservative Christians reflects forms of Christian privilege and Christian fragility that are actually in direct opposition to true religious liberty.

Because Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States, unacknowledged benefits accrue to its practitioners. For example, the work calendar is generally built around Christian holidays, such as Christmas and Easter. Christians can easily find foods in public facilities that meet religious dietary requirements. In fact, Christians can, without much difficulty, navigate most American institutions without their religious identities, commitments, or loyalties called into question, and they can assume that most people around them share their identity and many of their values.

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Most perplexing, however, is the extent to which Christian fragility leads some Christians to violate larger principles of Christian faith in order to regain the equilibrium of Christian privilege. Christian notions of hospitality to strangers, love for enemies, and sacrifice of one’s own freedom for the sake of others are abandoned in the need to reinforce identities shaped by narrowly defined beliefs rooted more in history and prejudice than in Christian love, the Bible, or Christian theology