Dismantling Christian Hegemony with Paul Kivel

In our second full length episode, we connect with friend and mentor of White Noise Collective, Paul Kivel. He shares about his journey in feminist and anti-racist organizing, grounded in decades-long movement building and educational work. We discuss the his recent focus on transforming patterns of Christian hegemony. You are welcome to this conversation whether you have never heard of this concept, or if it is something you know well. We hope this episode resonates with you.

Check out more info in the show notes and episode transcript featured on our website, conspireforchange.org. 

To learn more about Paul and his work, check out https://paulkivel.com/.

Transcript

Welcome to Episode Two of the white noise collective podcast. I'm Jay Tzvia Helfand and I'm Zara Zimbardo. White Noise collective is a volunteer anti racist feminist collective. Since 2010. We've offered spaces for deep reflection, dialogue and political education to amplify racial justice action in our movements and our lives. Our work focuses on the patterns of interaction between white racial privilege, and gender marginalization. Our core collective is made up of white trans non binary folks and cis women dedicated to growing movements for collective liberation. We are located in and recording this podcast on Chochenyo Ohlone land in Oakland, California, you can go to conspireforchange.org to learn more. In this time of transformation, this podcast shares the voices of longtime movement builders for racial justice, with a focus on the roles and possibilities of white people in solidarity. We welcome you to join us in this experiment as we practice growing our width to hold complexity, deepening our strategy and honoring legacies of resistance. Thank you for joining us.

Paul Kivel has been a social justice educator, activist writer, and innovative leader in violence prevention for over 45 years. He's a trainer and speaker on men's issues, racism and diversity, challenges of youth and family violence, raising boys to manhood, Christian hegemony and the impact of class and power on daily life. He's the author of numerous books, including uprooting racism, how white people can work for social justice, and living in the shadow of the cross, understanding and resisting the power and privilege of Christian hegemony. Paul's work gives people the understanding to become involved in social justice work, and the tools to become more effective allies in community struggles, to end oppression and injustice, and to transform organizations and institutions. Today, we are talking with Paul, about Christian hegemony, what it is, and why it is vitally important to become aware of its pervasive impacts from public policy to internalize worldviews, behavior and collective action.

Hello, Paul, so good to have you with us on this new podcast.

It's good to be with you all and be part of the conversation.

We have really valued being in conversation with you over the years as an advisor and a mentor, and are just such fans of your different bodies of work, and just thrilled that today, we get to dive into particularly your work around Christian hegemony. And so we're wondering if you could if we could start with you sharing just a bit about your backgrounds around different justice work, which we can come back to throughout the conversation.

I grew up in the 50s and early 60s and white suburban area of Los Angeles and Jewish kind of assimilated post Jewish Holocaust kind of environment, and very traditional kind of wide standard father works. You know, with a professional job, my mother stayed home as a housewife and raised us did all the childcare and cooking and everything like that. So and it was a fairly conservative politically. It was really only when I went away to school that I actually really saw the world in a different way and realized how much how close that in my environment had been and how limited my knowledge of what was going on in the world was because of the school and television and my parents and friends. So that in the late 60s, I was in a small liberal arts college and a group of black students were admitted as part of a kind of an affirmative action program to the college and very quickly realized that their needs weren't getting met, and that they were very alienated from the entire culture. of the campus, and they're the educational process. So they demanded a Black Studies program that was controlled by black people and shut down the administration building. And the school was in an uproar. And for things were really divided, white students, faculty and administration were, first of all, had no clue what was going on and why. And the black students needed support. So there was a group of us who reached out to support the black students. And there was two things that they said they needed, they needed kind of direct support, what today I would call solidarity, they needed food brought in messages carried out, you know, just kinds of lots of logistical, practical kinds of support. And then they said, The other thing we need is we need you to talk to the white folks on this campus because they don't have a clue what's going on. And the first part of that was pretty easy to do. You know, we set up systems to get food lined up and into them and everything. But I realized I didn't have a clue how to talk to the white students. I didn't know I didn't know enough about racism. I didn't have any tools for talking to white people. And it just it, it was a formative period for me in terms of understanding what the work of being an ally is, in terms of direct solidarity, and working with our own people, and educating and mobilizing our people to show up in solidarity. So fast forward 10 years, and the women's movement was strong and powerful. And some of the women we knew I was in the Bay Area at that time. And some of the women came to us and they were angry and outraged at the levels of male violence they were experiencing. And my first response was to throw up my hands and say, Well, I'm not sexist, and I treat women respectfully, and I do the childcare and housework. And they said, Well, that's fine. But there's two or 3 million many year who batter their partners in this country, do you stand with us in the struggle against male violence. And so again, just as had happened, 10 years previously, in college, I was forced to confront not just what I stood for rhetorically, but how I was actually showing up, you know, who did I stand with in the struggle.

And at that point, we started a group of us who were men started the Oakland men's project in response to that, and started doing work not just around gender issues and violence, but around kind of the intersectionality of race, class, gender, homophobia and other systems of oppression. So I can fast forward to Well, about 20 years ago, after doing work around these issues for a long time, both with young people and adults, and writing books and curricula, and doing all kinds of things, I was beginning to understand that that one thing that tied these systems together that was foundational to understanding how the all of this work was the the dominance of Christianity, Christian power and institutions and worldview in our lives, that was so formative for how we thought and how we behave in our domestic policy and our foreign policy. And that without understanding that and the interconnections between that and patriarchy, and that and white supremacy, and that and, and ableism. And, you know, on and on, that our political organizing was strategically flawed so much of the time, because we didn't understand what was holding it in place. And so I began to do some talks. We had a study group here in the Bay Area for a while, began to do a B and D do some writing and really began to grapple with the long standing pervasive deep seated system of Christian power and dominant Christian worldview that shapes our lives. So I'll stop there because that's, that's brief, but full of meaty stuff, I think.

Thank you, Paul, also for taking on the task of sharing what is so much at your back so much that's brought you here, and that has really created such a rich soil for our movements here to work across these many layers. And we are especially invigorated and excited to dive into more conversation about Christian hegemony and the dominance of Christianity, the ways that is interwoven with other systems of violence and opportunities to transform our movements, away from some of those oppressive patterns. So to begin, it'd be wonderful just to hear a little bit from you just kind of working definition of Christian hegemony, for those that maybe aren't familiar with those terms, or words,

that's a good place to start. And I'll start with the word hegemony, because that is not a commonly used word. hegemony basically means dominance. But it means dominance. It's so deep seated and long standing that it's no longer actually seen as dominance, it's just seen as the way things are. In fact, in other words, it's been internalized so deeply, that it's not seen as a system, even, of course, those of us who are outside of it, who are indigenous or women, or queer, or Jewish, or Muslim, or whatever, we see it much more clearly, because we're constantly confronting it, right. But for mainstream Christians, it's just this is how could it be otherwise. So I describe Christian hegemony as the everyday pervasive and systematic set of Christian values and beliefs, individuals and institutions that dominate all aspects of our society through the social, political, economic and cultural power that they wield. And I think what's important is to understand that it operates on multiple levels. If we talk about white supremacy, or sexism or whatever, we understand that there's institutional and cultural and individual levels that it operates on. Krishna Krishna Gemini operates on one level of the internalization of Cree key Christian concepts, Christian worldview, you might say, and we can come back to what that looks like in a minute. It also operates on the level of the significant political and economic power that particular churches, Christian denominations, and Christian denominations wield in our society. So we can talk about the Catholic Church, the Mormons, the Southern Baptists, and we can talk about mega churches, and then individual Christian leaders who wield tremendous amount of power. another level it operates on is a vast network of parachurch organizations, which are general tax supported nonprofits, such as hospitals, broadcasting networks, lobbying groups and other organizations, that and there's literally 10s of 1000s of these operating in our society. And they're, they're broadly Christian, but they're not tied to a particular denomination. And then there's the power elite, the network of us 10 to 12,000, predominantly white Christian men who control so the major institutions in our society, the corporations, political parties, think tanks, foundations, universities, and then there's the deep seated cultural icons, in our, and in our literature in our media that contain Christian meanings and connotations. The one that comes to mind I'm most obviously is the cross which has multiple meanings, but when it's burned on the front of African American families home, it has, it has it triggers, long standing historical trauma, and also long standing historical affirmations within Christian communities. And so there's a lot of different kinds of icons and meanings and words that are deeply rooted and are part of the way we internalize the system.

Thank you for giving us that overview of this terrain. And I'm thinking of, you know, as you're talking about these different levels and dimensions of how hegemony operates, I'm thinking of this teaching tool graphic that has circulated a lot called the pyramid of white supremacy. Right where at the very top of the pyramid has different types of far right overt white supremacy. And then the vast majority of the pyramid is what would be called covert or socially acceptable white supremacy and this is the majority right of all of the systems that uphold white supremacy To see, which is helpful, because sometimes right when we use that term people think we're talking just about the top about the clan, right or about really like horrific over bigotry. And that when we're talking about this, we're talking about this whole system, and some thinking of a similar pyramid as you're talking. I'm not sure if this is helpful or not that right that at the top when, if we're talking about fundamentalist christian fundamentalists, or white Christian nationalists, or people who and institutions who you know, want a theocratic state, pushing really regressive policies. And yet the base of the pyramid is really under examined under thought about acting like you said, in that way of being seen as like just how things are or the water in which we swim. And I'm really struck by how often in difference, anti oppression, you know, learning and organizing spaces, right, we're we're doing so much work around intersectionality primarily, race, class and gender, right, that Christian dominance is left out often or like nothing, and just not names, as well as us, like nation. Right, and imperial privilege left out. And so I want to ask, you know, in terms of social justice organizing, what are some of the costs of not attending to Christian hegemony? And what might be made more possible if this lens was continually brought into understanding what we're up against and thinking about different forms of resistance?

Okay. Okay, I'm going to take that in two parts. The first part really, I think, the work is is kind of threefold. One is you're right that, you know, often when we start talking about dominant Christianity, we talk about an image jellicle and fundamentalists and things like that. But often, when we're talking about those groups, we don't actually name them as Christian, we named them as white nationalists, rather than white Christian nationalists. So one part of the struggle is to actually name the Christianity that we're that that's fundamental to these groups. And that this far right, or not so far, right, you know, this big chunk of the Christian community, then there is, like you said, the attention on the mainstream Christian community because not only that, evangelicalism support Trump, but even in this last election in 2020 52%, of mainline Christians voted for white mainline Christians voted for Trump. So we're talking about, we have to actually be talking about the entire Christian community. But then we also have to be talking about the power and wealth of the institutions of dominant Christianity, and the influence that they have. And so on all three levels, we have to be able to describe and name what's going on as forms of Christian dominance. And if we don't do that, then there's a lot of consequences. And I'll just talk about a couple. Well, yeah, I just start out anyway. First of all, we don't understand what holds things in place in our society. When bush declared, you know, war on Iraq, at that point, most Americans people in the US were opposed to foreign intervention. But when he started to describe it as a crusade and to name the ruler as evil, and part of the axis of evil, this is deeply Christian language. And immediately popular pit opinions swung into support around the war. Because it evoked images of a cosmic battle between good and evil, and the dualism and worldview of dominant Christianity and way that triggered people at a really deep level, to be on the side of good and, and the fight against the devil and the evil in the world. And, and, you know, images of salvation and crusades, and all all kinds of things come up. So if we don't understand that in doing anti war work, then we're not able to actually address the deeper ways that people are tied into a worldview that fuels war, and can be manipulated by our political leaders very easily. Another example As we talk about issues like reproductive rights or reproductive justice, and the attacks on abortion and other issues around that, we talk about it tax on the LGBTQ community. And we don't often name that as a dominant Christian agenda. And so, again, we don't recognize that the sources of money and power behind that agenda is all part of Christian dominance and as part of a longer, bigger Christian agenda of dominating all aspects of our society by implementing these kinds of policies and controls, and and, and, and surveillance and policing systems. So and then the third thing, just to mention is that a lot of our, you know, a lot of capitalism is based upon the dominant Christian concept that humans were given dominion over the earth. And that, therefore, we could do anything we wanted with it without repercussions. And in fact, if the earth itself is we're just passing through, it's doesn't really matter that what matters is the afterlife and heaven and salvation.

And there's been an attempt to reclaim that kind of concept by saying, well, we're not, we shouldn't dominate nature, we should be stewards of nature. But stewards is still a human centered concept. And it's not nearly the kind of interdependency and mutuality that we need to be working with and in our understanding of our relationships to both indigenous people and to the land. And so if we don't understand that the ways that people are limited and being able to envision a different kind of relationship to the natural world, because of dominant Christian concepts that stand in the way, our environmental justice, where it doesn't go very far, it tends to reproduce dominant Western paradigms,

just appreciating all of these really clear, specific examples and different movement contexts. And as I hear that, it's just further revealing, at least for me, how deeply embedded Christian hegemony really has been in terms of the these patterns being so pervasive and normalized. And it is very potent and revealing. And so crucial. And I I'm curious, if you have a sense in your own movement organizing, why you think Christian hegemony often does get sidelined or less centered, and what that might reveal to us about what's needed.

I think that there's two reasons. One is because it is so long standing and deep rooted, and that it was forced upon people over the centuries through wars and inquisitions and witch burnings, and genocides. And so there's incredible amount of trauma, both within Christians but also within the rest of us who have been trying to survive within that and resisting that. So it's, it's a very emotionally fraught space to move into. And, and therefore we have to be gentle on ourselves and each other. But we also realize that the stakes can feel really high around this. The other reason it's so hard, I think, for people is that it there is constantly being churned out from the dominant Christian ruling class, propaganda and stories and narratives that reinforce the normality of it. I mean, you can see how the struggles over textbooks in our classrooms and the control of white ring institutions over school boards, as been, you know, really crucial to their strategies. There. Now. There's now a national move by Christians to infiltrate library boards so they can control what gets bought and shared in libraries in our local communities. That there's this this is very strategic well funded and well thought out, both at the legislative level and at the local political level. So we have to realize that we're also up against, you know, a very systematic. And of course, it's not just Christian, it's male, it's wide. You know, it's straight and cis. It's a confluence of these different systems. But they each amplify each other. In that sense, I think it's important to say that, I'm not saying that Christianity, or dominant Christianity is the root of all evil in the world. That would be a very Christian kind of thing to just say, right. But I'm also not talking about individual Christians who have a lot of different relationships to dominant Christianity and a wide range of values and beliefs. Many Christians get a lot of emotional support from Christianity, affirmation community, and a lot of other things. And I'm also not talking about Christianity, per se, because there's a lot of different forms of Christianity, and a lot of them have been in juxtaposition or opposition to dominant Christianity. We're really talking about its system of institutionalized power and control and violence, and the ways that everything gets shaped around that. But we're not talking about individuals or individual, you know, Christianity's

Yeah, you name so much. And there's so much coming up for me, that we're about to get into with you and ask you about, um, one is just in relation to what you were just saying. And I'm asking this as someone who was raised in secular Christian culture, right, and growing up just was, you know, I'd be like, Oh, I'm nothing. It's nothing, right? And that's part of how hegemony works and that seeing like these very specific cultural and religious Yes, symbols understandings worldview, as you said, etc. How do we understand no or wonder when we're talking about this pervasiveness that can make it so hard to see the depth to which we've internalized certain world sense making? views? How do we understand that in terms of secular Christian dominance,

I think a good place to start is by looking at progressive culture. And the ways that we internalize some of the dominant Christian values, I mean, some of the when I say dominant Christian concepts, I'm talking about the concept of the dualism, that everything is divided into two, man, and that they're juxtapose. And you know, we obviously we think about gender, we think about race, we think about a lot of issues in dualistic simplicity without being able to actually deal with the complexities of different systems. And part of that, of course, within dominant Christianity is that there's a battle between those dualism sides of the dualism, that there's a good side, and an evil side. And you have to be on the side of the good one, on the good side. But the the belief in dominant Christianity, there's one truth, and that truth is held within Christianity, and all other systems of thought, are inferior or dangerous, that the role of Christians is to go out and save the world, to proselytize to convert. And that's also the role of our country to save the world and to go out and proselytize and convert. And you can see this with the the attitude we have among many of us in progressive circles, about, we have the truth, everybody else is inferior and uninformed. And it's our job to go out and preach the gospel, to save people to spread, you know, to proselytize to be missionaries for the vision, whatever we have of that. And therefore, we often set up a kind of conversion process for folks. We run them through a training or a workshop, or we feel like even one conversation should lead to a conversion experience for the people we're talking with. So we're not able to actually listen to them, and be in human relationship and actually have, you know, conversations. But we come in with an agenda that is very much shaped around a Christian vision of what missionary work is. And of course, just like with dominant Christians, that leads us to be self righteous, arrogant, condescending, and to carry into our relationships, a whole bunch of attitudes that undermine our ability to be respectful and intimate with other people.

So much appreciation for your naming all of this And this is something that we're in a process of inquiry with a lot of long term white anti racist organizers of looking at some of the ways that what we could call white anti racist culture. You know, some of the aspects in which it can become rigid or really calcified, alienating insular how certain terms or understandings that could be liberatory can also then kind of shrink down and be weaponized and just counterproductive, counter revolutionary, not actually meeting people, as you said, like intimacy and bringing them in. And one theme that we've been exploring is in relation to what you were just saying of ways that this can play out in social justice, organizing, and in white, anti racist organizing dynamics, in addition to what you've just named of confession, and repentance. Yeah, and like that kind of awakening to, you know, racism and white supremacy is original sin. And just noting, among folks who are often not people of faith, and acting or performing this kind of ritual. And, yeah, it just brings up a lot of questions of just some of these very deep default patterns, which are harder to challenge if we can't name them as a first step,

right. It's really important that we understand how that works. And, you know, add it add an even bigger level, it reinforces that individualism of dominant Christianity in which our personal attitudes and behaviors become the focus, rather than the institutional power and control that is being manifested in around our lives. And so there is personal work to do, we do have to decolonize our minds and our behavior, but that that can easily become in our society, an individualistic process, and then when we're working on that we can't do anything else, because we're not ready, we might make a mistake. You know, there's a lot of other kinds of things to get in our way. It's also I think, important to recognize that a lot of the white supremacy culture is really white Christian supremacy, white Christian culture. And, and that's important for a couple of reasons. One is that it, it means it's deeper, in some ways, because attached to it is fundamental concern about being a good person, a person who is saved and is going to heaven. And so the triggering around if you're not doing this, right, you're, you're bad, which goes back, of course, to the individualism and the sinfulness. But it also means that the stakes are very personally high for folks, when they feel like their personal moral worth, is at stake or being challenged.

Absolutely. And then it's interesting when that is the shared understanding or norm, then, you know, the work gets located, like you said, like in the individual, like the, the means and the ends in this place of whether that's purification, salvation, becoming right, good, etc, which can de mobilize so much energy from organizing around against systemic harm, structural change,

well, and I also just want to reinforce what you said about and it becomes another set of truth that people have to conform to, right. And it is often dualistic. And I'm complex. It eliminates complexity by giving us a new set of rules or a new set of expectations to live up to, in ways that are dehumanizing in the way that we tend that we end up using them against each other, like you mentioned,

yes. I think to about the patterns of martyrdom that can exist, that is super individualistic, and movement spaces and just notice my own participation in that at times and just tracking is that motivated by a sense of wrongness or not enough-ness, that is then very directly connected to this oppressive legacy of Christianity. And that being tied to capitalism and white supremacy and I also just want to name like my own immediate experience in this conversation of just feeling my heart beating a little quicker feeling my energy moving forward towards the screen, of both of you and also I noticed Paul as you were sharing, this fear started to rise in me of what you're naming. And I think specifically, as a fellow Ashkenazi Jew, there's something really deep that has gotten kicked up for me, and just you're very clear articulation of what for me feels very true. And also very dangerous at times historically, in particular, for me, and I would say, for us in a lot of ways, and I'm curious, just how you've experienced naming these patterns in this current moment, and what the impact has been if you've been facing backlash?

That's a good question. And it's kind of complicated, I guess. You know, in order to do this work, I've had to dive deeply into the history of dominant Christianity, the last 1700 years, basically, of Christian dominance in our society and, and the levels, the systems of violence that have come out of that, and at times that it's been really overwhelming personally, and really hard to, to face or accept or to know what to do with. And then also as a Jewish person with, you know, that that also 1700 year legacy of being inside of a culture, which is wish for nothing more than eliminating us. And so constant cycles of violence over the centuries. It does bring up fear, it does, it does make me feel even uneasy at times. And especially when I'm in Christian groups, talking about this. And, you know, at this point, I'm kind of I know the kinds of defensiveness and resistance to expect, but it's still hard to, to marshal the focus and determination to, to stay in the conversation and not give up and not be aggressive. And, you know, to really hold space for other people to have that. I have had some backlash, I get hate mail, phone calls. There's been some articles, and right wing media about the work. Not Not a whole lot. But you know, it's scary, because you never know what's behind it. Yeah, I think that that's something that at multiple levels, we need to build support for each other doing this work, whether we're Christian and trying to do it from within Christianity, or whether we're not Christian and doing it from outside, in either case, is not a well supported or necessarily safe place to be doing it. Because we have constant examples of the violence that Christians perpetuate, under the rubric of some form of Christian dominance. And so, you know, just this year, we have seen that in operation, and we see it constantly in the hate crimes that are committed in our communities around the country. So the violence is real, it doesn't make us safer, not dealing with it, but it doesn't make us feel safe, or be safe, confronting it as well.

Again, you know, kind of thinking of like this spectrum, right? Are that pyramid anywhere from what you were saying of scary, you know, hate mail, to perhaps forms of defensiveness or distancing or dismissal that might be on the left, or in progressive communities, when this is brought up? wondering if you could share, you know, if there's a story or just patterns that you've seen of the kind of transformation that can happen, when groups who are working for social justice have really bring in this lens of understanding of how Christian hegemony operates. Like, if that changes the kind of questions that we're asking if it helps to mobilize different energies or to re humanize or to shift the way that organizing can happen. 

Oh, that's a good question. I think there's a lot of examples, but they're kind of diffuse. I just think something that came up just a minute ago. Jay, when you said about the feelings that came up around Well, I immediately went to the place of you were talking about feelings of productivity and effectiveness. Are we doing ain't enough, are we working hard enough? You know, there's some deep Protestant training around work and productivity and PR, you know, things like that. And I think that part of what we're finding in many of our communities is that when we can actually acknowledge that, and see the destructive of this, of that, and how it feeds capitalism, and it feeds white Christian dominance, that that we become less driven, and no less committed, and no less effective, but less driven, and more able to take care of ourselves and each other. Because we can recognize that the apocalypse is not coming next week, which is another Christian concept that's been internalized by so many of us that we have to do everything right now, immediately, because the revolution is coming next week. But that questioning and acknowledging and then thinking about alternatives to that kind of ethic around productivity and work, and lack of self care, martyrdom, self sacrifice, you know, all these related kinds of feelings that come up, has been really powerful for a lot of people that I know. And for me, as well, in terms of being healthier, be more able to be in community with people to work together. And to let go of the need to be endlessly busy with doing things that feel like they're, quote, productive, but they're actually not very effective. So that's one, one whole area we could explore around that. I think there's, you know, another area I mentioned, because I think it's important, and I think it also has been very helpful is around the struggle for Palestinian Liberation, and the end of the archaea, Israeli occupation of Palestine. And for a long time, people were talking predominantly about the Jewish Lobby, the forces within the Jewish community that were pushing US foreign policy in the Middle East. And that was anti semitic in the sense that they were naming the Jews as the problem when it's the US, that's funding Israel. And it's the military, corporate, you know, industry that is perpetuating that. But it also because Christian Zionism has been an absolutely fundamental source of the conflict from for the last 150 years, and Jew and Christian power, and Christian wealth and Christian political leaders have been central to fueling and creating the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. And so more recently, there's been a recognition that we have to really understand and focus on Christian Zionism and the millions of Christians in this country who believe at a deep level that Israel was given that land by God 3000 years ago, and that there's a compulsion to support Jews, because of that, as a dominant factor in pushing US foreign policy, along with the military industrial complex. So that's, that's a specific political area, that again, understanding the role of dominant Christianity here is crucial to being able to effectively work for Palestinian Liberation. So those are that's, you know, one on the interpersonal or behavioral level, and one on the the more large scale political level.