Someone recommended a podcast about "Discovery Doctrine" - Preston Sprinkle interviewing Mark Charles, who is, I think, half Native American and half Dutch. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK-D1euc3pY I should say, watch at your own risk here.
I knew NOTHING about Discovery Doctrine. You can research it online, but essentially, the doctrine was the church giving the green light to Old World conquest of anything that wasn't the Old World. Mark traces the roots of Discovery Doctrine to the beginning of Christendom - the conversion of Constantine and the use of physical force to expand the Christian church to establish a Christian empire.
The gist of Discovery Doctrine was that European Christians were GOOD and any other nationalities or religions were "savages" - deserving of destruction. Therefore, a European Christian who "discovered" a land full of savages could claim the land for their European homeland and kill or enslave the savages. Using that mechanism, the GOOD of European Christianity could spread throughout the world, which led to the massive colonization efforts in the Americas, Africa and East Asia, and likewise a strong disdain for indigenous people.
Mark covers the history, but I think it is very important to understand where we are today. The USA is a racist society. Perhaps not individually racist, but systemically racist. Other sources point this out, but our institutions are biased against any non-white or non-male. We build interstates through colored neighborhoods, we build pipelines through native land.
Even politics has not escaped. "Make America Great Again" was a Republican slogan, and in response, the Democrats said "America is Great Already". For whom? and when? Mark says, "The only people who can look back in the past with nostalgia is white male landowners." This country was founded by, and for, white male landowners. Both parties fight to maintain the status quo: Republicans by suppressing votes from poor minorities, and Democrats by suppressing any third parties.
But the point of all this is that the moral support for the destruction of native people, and systemic racism came from the church, and is perpetuated by the church.
Since I decided to write this article, I found an interesting article on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia that highlighted the church's involvement: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pope-the-patriarchs-and-the-battle-to-save-ukraine not sure if it's the specific article I read, but it expresses the same sentiment.
Kirill’s support for the invasion was no surprise. The Russian Orthodox Church is an arm of the state, and Kirill is one of Putin’s trusted advisers. The surprise was the way that he expressed it. Earlier this month, in a homily at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in Moscow, he made the bizarre and alarming claim that the invasion was about stemming the spread of “gay parades” from the West, and celebrated it as “a struggle that has not a physical but a metaphysical significance,” explaining that “we are talking about something different and much more important than politics. We are talking about human salvation.” In his telling, the invasion is not about territory, or national identity, or wounded post-Soviet pride, or religious identity in any strict sense. Rather, it is a culture war—a holy war—between religious traditionalism and liberalism.
The article also points out that the Russian Orthodox Church lost membership over past invasions and churches leaving over the militarism and, in a sense, Christian Nationalism inherent in Russia's national philosophy.
Another point Mark made was that the front lines of this racist war experience trauma. He noticed that white Evangelical military officers or policemen were the most likely to object to his claims. At first he thought it was racist or fragile, but he realized that it was a trauma response. When these men come face to face with the conflict between their enforcement against minorities, and what they thought was the truth of American Exceptionalism, they have to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
Another subtle point he brings out is that Eusebius, whom he credits with the seed of Christian Nationalism, had to replace the voice of Christ, through martyrs that died for Jesus, with the voice of Constantine, a leader who was going to bring about Christendom through conquest. I've found this, both in the lack of teaching of who Jesus the person was in Evangelical churches, and the focus on Old Testament physical conquest and destruction as a root of Christian Nationalism (aka Theonomy). The more I've sought to hear Jesus's voice, one who actively refused an earthly throne and spoke against any use of authority or force to oppress or achieve greatness, the more I've been disenchanted with the constant quest for political power. We need to figure out how to lift the voices of the oppressed, not just in the US, but beyond. First in the US, though, through coming to terms with our past and working to break down systemic oppression of minorities.
