The papers in this session offer case studies of the mediation of class difference though (Christian) religious thought and practice. The first paper examines contemporary Christian theological discourses of prosperity and critiques how they diminish possibilities of solidarity among the working-class people to whom they are offered. The second paper considers a woman of color in 18th-century New Orleans who was given funeral rites usually reserved for wealthy White people, an episode that yields insights into religious ritual as a marker of class and racial difference.
Have modern churches in the U.S. lost sight of the struggle for freedom, especially when it comes to socio-economic struggle? Themes from the prosperity gospel have found their way into the beliefs of many U.S. Christians, even self-identified progressives. Personal acquisition and growth take the spotlight on Sunday, while workers and laborers across the country continue to struggle for equitable pay, safe working conditions, and social dignity. In a society that takes a derisive view of retail workers, restaurant staff, bus drivers, and and so many "ordinary" laborers, the testimony of working-class people offers a clear condemnation of emphasizing prosperity over collective freedom. This paper will cover recent prosperity/similar theological claims in popular religion, examples of socio-economic struggle, and an examination of Biblical claims central to the Christian understanding of freedom and the gospel as irrevocably in support of the "daily worker."
In 1843, Thérèse Delveaux, a free woman of color in New Orleans, received a première classe enterrement—the most sonically elaborate Catholic funeral available. She was the only non-white individual that year to receive this highest-tier funeral. This paper examines classe enterrement as a sonic hierarchy of death, in which ritual sound—chants, bells, preaching, and liturgical singing—functioned as both a marker of social status and a form of religious capital. Engaging Victor Turner’s conception of liminality alongside sound studies, I argue that ritual sound functioned as a mechanism of posthumous transition, complicating Turner’s view that liminality is characterized by dispossession. Drawing on contemporary critiques of Turner's work, I propose that Delveaux’s case aligns more closely with what one scholar calls "abundant betweenness," where liminality is not a fixed threshold but a continuous process of negotiation. This study reveals how Catholic funerary practice mediated racial and economic distinctions in death.