What Kaʻahumanu Taught Me: Kawaiahaʻo Church, Material Establishment, and the Limits of American Display

Sally M. Promey (Professor of Religion and Visual Culture, Yale University)

The public display of religion has been fundamental to the shape of the American state. Two case studies, Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu and the so-called Peace Cross just outside Washington, D.C., show how “material establishment” has situated White Christianity as its default, a technology of nation formation that certifies the legibility of some cultural forms and disqualifies others. While display prevails in national aesthetic practices, it has distinct limitations: it does not know how to behave when sacred spaces require privacy, when “vacant” space is nonetheless already filled, when something “concealed” is not awaiting discovery but already at home.

Sally M. Promey is Caroline Washburn Professor of Religion and Visual Culture at Yale University, with appointments in American Studies, Religious Studies, and Divinity (Institute of Sacred Music) and a faculty affiliation in History of Art. She is founding Director of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion (MAVCOR).