Evangelicals Repudiating America?

A small but growing evangelical denomination has endorsed “The Doctrine of Discovery” pseudo-historical conspiracy theory tracing all European misdeeds against American natives to 15th century papal bulls.

The theory has been touted for years mainly by activist Mark Charles to religious groups, mostly liberal Mainline Protestants and Anabaptists who like anti-western and anti-imperialist themes. But the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), which claims several hundred thousand regular worshippers, is the first evangelical denomination to endorse.

Perhaps here is its most provocative pledge:

That the Covenant demonstrate ongoing respectful recognition that ours is a “guest status” in the land, and in order to deepen our relational connection with Indigenous peoples, the Covenant commit, at each national event, to honor the “host” peoples whose homeland we are meeting upon.

ECC boasts that it is a racially diverse denomination. Its pledge implies that all persons living in America not strictly of native ancestry have merely “guest status.” So apparently all Americans of European, African and Asian ancestry are deemed not quite rightfully residents and perhaps interlopers. The only true residents and “hosts” are persons of native ancestry.

How native must an American be to qualify as a “host” and legitimate resident? What if a great great grandparent was indigenous? Or must the ancestry be closer to 100%? The ECC’s racial distinction recalls old segregation laws that absurdly assigned a politically significant racial identity based on distant ancestry.

Are native persons from California but living in North Carolina more legitimately “hosts” than black Americans whose ancestors arrived in North Carolina 300 years ago? What about Hispanic immigrants from Central America whose ancestry is partly native and partly Spanish? Are they “hosts” or colonizing “guests?” And are they subordinate to native persons whose tribal ancestors were from what became North Carolina?

What about millions of Americans alive today because they or their ancestors fled persecution and found safety in America? Is the aging Jewish Holocaust survivor or Cambodian refugee from Pol Pot or the Christian Iraqi who fled ISIS merely and always a “guest” subordinate to “hosts” with certain bloodlines?

Is the ECC going to discourage all future immigration to America from Africa, Asia and Europe because their further “colonization” of America only compounds the injustice? What about impoverished refugees from overseas whose wealth is a fraction of native persons in America? Should they be kept away as exploiters?

According to Doctrine of Discovery mythology, all persons of native ancestry are dispossessed victims while all others are implicitly imperialists. But for thousands of years in the Western Hemisphere, before Europeans and others arrived, thousands of tribes in North and South America waged war and committed genocide against each other. They enslaved and tortured their captives. Tribes displaced tribes they exterminated or absorbed.

The conquests and imperialism of tribes in the Western Hemisphere were as intense as among tribes and peoples in Europe, Africa and Asia. The Doctrine of Discovery, which focuses more on contemporary identity and grievance politics, is not interested in this history. It prefers to demonize Western Civilization and especially the United States.

Would anyone today really prefer to return to the warring tribalisms of 1000 years ago where life was brutal and short, and where the concept of the individual was strictly subordinate to a hierarchal communal identity? The Doctrine of Discovery assumes concepts of human rights and law that would have been mostly unknown to prehistoric America.

This ideology through the prism of identity politics also glorifies and finds power in victimhood. Nobody in ancient America or in ancient times anywhere outside of ancient Israel would have wanted to identify with victimhood. Pagan civilizations everywhere glorified strength, victory and conquest. Winners rightfully exploited the weak.

In contrast, the Christian narrative exalts victimhood because its Savior is a murdered innocent victim. This idea revolutionized and continues to transform the world. The Doctrine of Discovery is a politicized Christian attempt to assert a form of retroactive justice. Sadly it offers no real justice. It’s mainly privileged white people apologizing for crimes from generations and centuries ago to exalt their own social righteousness. And it advocates a form of divisive racialism exalting some people based on perceived ancestry while downgrading others based on their perceived bloodlines.

Christianity’s main social objective is to obviate racial and ethnic distinctions in favor of a new community united by faith, not by blood. Its political vision imagines societies where all are equally citizens without regard to ancestry. Recalling history is important. But grace, mercy, wisdom and the common good require that ancient wrongs and resentments must give way to working for a better future.

Contemporary identity politics seek power through victimhood without understanding the spiritual origins and with no sense of redemption. This demand for constant victimhood is ultimately unfulfilling because it feeds on resentment, which Christian churches ideally would counter rather than amplify.

The Evangelical Covenant Church was founded in the late 19th century by Swedish immigrants. Its denunciation of The Doctrine of Discovery cites an ECC missionary 120 years ago whose purchase of Alaska land from natives for gold prospecting is deemed exploitative. The ECC is right to reflect on its own institutional history. It’s rather fantastic for the ECC to claim guilt for 500 year old pronouncements from late medieval popes as part of a grand historical theory villainizing all Western Christianity.

Perhaps the ECC is best to focus on persuading its worshippers to repent of their own sins instead of condemning dead people from centuries ago. It can advocate for a society that recalls the past but looks to the future. And its wider historical reflection can note the sad story of fallen humanity with also the glorious story of God’s ongoing redemption.