Privilege is an unfair, often unearned advantage or preferential treatment that is exclusively available to a select few. It creates, sustains, and exacerbates inequalities.

00:00 Definition of privilege

00:31 Examples of privilege

07:54 Is privilege a sin?

10:13 How Christians should think about privilege

12:03 Privilege in the Bible

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Having privilege is not a sin, though sin has perverted our systems and structures in ways that engender sinful disparities. Privilege creates and expands anti-gospel inequities that infringe on the collective liberation and shalom that God desires for all of God’s children. It endows educational, socio-economic, political, vocational, and other advantages to a few, while disenfranchising the many. The truth is that we will never learn to leverage privilege to further the kingdom and sacrificially love our neighbors if we continue to deny the existence of privilege. Acknowledging privilege is not about condemnation, shaming, or guilting one another into coerced actions.

Christians are called to acknowledge privilege because it is real, and because doing so liberates us from its power. Confronting and addressing privilege liberates us to fully and freely live into our created purpose. Acknowledging privilege should not be contentious. Privilege exists because of our unwillingness to deal with structural sin and the legacy of inequity it has bred. Privilege is the byproduct of our ancestor’s sins and the rotten fruit of the church’s indifference to systematic oppression and complicity with evil. Privilege is rarely neutral or benign. It almost always comes at the expense of our neighbors. When we can confess the sins that breed privilege and renounce the inequities is engenders, then—and only then—can we understand privilege and the unique access it grants as a subversive tool that can be leveraged to further the kingdom and sacrificially love our neighbors. Building from this foundation, privilege becomes a unique opportunity to bear witness to who and whose we are. When we leverage privilege, instead of exploiting it for selfish gain, we function as leaven in the loaf—the moral compass and accountability in places and spaces of distinction.

Scripture repeatedly acknowledges privilege, and this helps provides insight into how privilege insidiously functions today. Learning to unmask privilege is painful work, but the cure for the pain is in the pain. By candidly addressing privilege, we create a unique opportunity for the body of Christ to turn away from sin, and reorient ourselves towards God and neighbor. The spiritual disciplines of remembrance, confession, lament , and repentance allow us to discern what John the Baptist means when he calls the body of Christ to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Denying that privilege exists only exacerbates the evil it produces, and prohibits us from actively participating as co-laborers with Christ in reconciling the world to God. One of the ways we have missed the interpretation of this passage is that we have thought the call is to reconcile only broken people to God. But the world entails broken systems and structures and this is, too, part of the commission to be ambassadors of reconciliation.

While we often do not commit the sins that induce privilege, we are responsible for mending the wounds these transgressions continue to cause. We cannot passively benefit from sin and faithfully follow Jesus Christ. Scripture highlights a multitude of faithful women and men who bore a subversive witness. They model how we can leverage what we have been entrusted with to advance the kingdom and sacrificially love our neighbors. God knows how challenging it is to not exploit privilege for our own selfish gain. And because of this, God has given us an Advocate to help us discern and live into what it means to be a subversive witness in our day and time.