Is it valid to be annoyed when, as your plane pulls up to the gate at your destination, a flight attendant tells you and your fellow passengers, just before deplaning, to “have a blessed day”?
Perhaps this question wasn’t on your American controversies 2024 bingo card; it certainly wasn’t on mine. But when Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery described this situation as “creeping Christian nationalism” in a now-deleted tweet this past weekend she got pummeled, with responses ranging from mildly critical to disturbingly trollish. Some saw in her tweet, with some justification, the kind of smug progressivism that many working class people find off-putting. But was she substantively wrong?
I’ll put my cards on the table. I’m here mostly to defend Jeffery’s take—though not unequivocally. A flight attendant wishing passengers “a blessed day” may not qualify as “creeping Christian nationalism,” but neither is it innocuous, as so many of her critics have insisted. In context, it certainly is a Christian phrase, and uttering it assumes Christian normativity. A Christian not having to think about or even recognize that assumption, and the subtle social dominance it conveys, is Christian privilege.
Putting aside the fact that all feelings are valid (which is of course a different question from whether and in what context one should express those feelings publicly), there are many good reasons to find “have a blessed day” and similar Christian phrases irksome in a country steeped in hegemonic Christianity. And here I must disagree with my fellow atheist and secular advocate Hemant Mehta (aka The Friendly Atheist), who argues that the flight attendant bore no ill intent (which is most likely true) and that Jeffery cannot claim to be offended when she herself has tweeted about San Francisco being “blessed with” good weather.
Mehta’s argument fails to address crucial context. Describing yourself, or your city, as “blessed” (often, presumably, metaphorically) isn’t as clearly a Christian linguistic flourish as “have a blessed day” is. To reach that conclusion, all you have to do is look at who uses these distinct phrases, in which contexts, and why. They are simply not the same, and, again contra Mehta, “have a blessed day” is certainly not the same kind of knee-jerk phrasing that “bless you” is in response to a sneeze. For what it’s worth, I’m no fan of “bless you” or references to being “blessed” because of the weather, but the context is different. Wishing someone a “blessed day,” even if a personal habit, is a choice that conveys Christian normativity in a way the other two uses of “bless” do not (even though, yes, they are Christian in origin).
And then there’s the issue of intent versus impact. I have no reason to doubt the good intentions of the flight attendant in question. At the same time, I would go so far as to describe her use of “have a blessed day” with a term that will have everyone to the Right of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vigorously denouncing me as “woke”—but it must be done. When it comes to Christians wishing their “blessings” upon people whose beliefs they do not know, or especially upon those who they know don’t share their Christian faith, we’re dealing with microaggressions. Microaggressions borne of Christian privilege.
The sociologists who brought the term Christian nationalism into American political discourse, Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, were quick to “dunk on” Jeffery for misusing the term, continuing a pattern of defensiveness about their own Christian faith. For his part, Perry denounced “lefty media people misapplying the label to normal innocuous Christian stuff,” while Whitehead passive-aggressively subtweeted “I hope you have a blessed day!” to his 18k followers. Their snide dismissal of Jeffery’s concerns illustrates yet again why Christian nationalism is too narrow a frame to truly capture the harm caused by Christian hegemony and privilege.
And then there’s Never-Trump evangelical author Tim Alberta, who, piling on, quote-tweeted Jeffery:
Not here for the pile-on. Just want to highlight the danger @profsamperry @ndrewwhitehead and others have spoken about—when we deploy “Christian nationalism” with such cartoonish imprecision that Americans become desensitized to a real threat. Fwiw in my experience the Venn diagram between people who wish you a blessed day and people who advocate a theocratic takeover of our governing institutions is, ehhh, nonexistent.
The last part of Alberta’s statement is utter nonsense, and I can only conclude that he’s being disingenuous or else he’s utterly clueless about the people he and I both come from, which seems unlikely. Christian nationalists absolutely use phrases like “have a blessed day.” Some Christians may use the phrase because they’re blissfully ignorant about the privilege they enjoy, but others undoubtedly do so because they’re among those Christians who enjoy throwing their Christianity in everyone else’s face. I’ve also heard evangelicals respond to “Happy holidays” with “Merry Christmas,” through gritted teeth and in a tone that is anything but merry.
In fact, every American who’s lived among evangelicals or spent any amount of time in the South should understand that phrases like “Merry Christmas,” “bless your heart,” and, yes, “have a blessed day” can be uttered with vicious passive-aggression, or pronounced with perfectly good intentions. But context matters, and Christian dominance is an inescapable part of our general social context. Many of the seemingly reasonable responses to Jeffery fail to address that context, which simply demonstrates why Christian nationalism is too narrow a framing to deal with the issue of Christian hegemony in American culture.
If this situation leads to people applying the Christian nationalist label with “cartoonish imprecision,” that’s because our national discourse has yet to incorporate language that more directly challenges Christianity’s privileged place in our de facto social hierarchy. That needs to change if we’re ever going to arrive at a functional, democratic pluralist coexistence.
Influential Christians like Perry, Whitehead, and Alberta could help generate a better discussion of Christian power and hegemony in the American public sphere, thereby advancing the cause of authentic pluralism, but it seems that their interest is limited only to the more open and obvious expressions of Christian supremacy. They prefer the narrower categories that leave Christianity’s social status untouched, and will defend the borders of those categories (and the “honor” of their faith) rather than empathize with a non-Christian woman who understands what they refuse to see—that, in context, being wished a blessed day is an expression of Christian dominance, however minor.
Were they to respond to my argument, I imagine they would claim that I am the one undermining pluralism by taking issue with the phrase “have a blessed day” by making a big deal out of a small thing that isn’t malicious in intent. And there’s the rub. The problem with American discussions of pluralism is that most of the people interested in having the discussion are really looking for ways to leave their Christian privilege unchallenged and unscathed, as opposed to looking for ways to accommodate everyone equally.
My preference would be for us to consider it a faux pas for someone to address a crowd of people with diverse beliefs with the language of a particular religion. But in fairness, if we all accepted everyone’s religious greetings, I suppose that would be one way, if a confusing and messy one, to accommodate all people equally in the public square. But how realistic is that in America today?
If a flight attendant had dismissed passengers with “salaam aleikum” rather than “have a blessed day,” we’d be having a very different discussion now—one most likely involving threats of Islamophobic violence and perhaps violence itself, as well as severe backlash against the airline. Christians, in other words, retain a highly privileged place in the American social hierarchy, and it seems to be that our best option for achieving a functional democratic future is to call out and work to dismantle Christian privilege.
