Undoing Manifest Destiny with L. Daniel Hawk: How Faith Was Used to Justify Colonization

In this episode of Faithful Politics, Pastor Josh Burtram sits down with Old Testament scholar and author L. Daniel Hawk to unpack the theological roots and lasting impact of Manifest Destiny. What many Americans were taught as a story of courage and expansion is reexamined through a harder lens—one that reveals how Christian language and scripture were used to justify colonization, displacement, and violence against Indigenous peoples.

Hawk explains how ideas like the Doctrine of Discovery and interpretations of Genesis were used to frame land expansion as part of God’s will. He walks through how these beliefs became embedded in American identity, shaping both policy and culture, and why those narratives still matter today. The conversation also explores how violence was often initiated by settlers, how historical memory has been shaped to obscure that reality, and how Christian institutions were complicit in reinforcing these systems.

The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on what it means to confront this history honestly. Hawk offers practical steps for listeners—learning local history, engaging Indigenous voices, and rethinking how faith can be expressed without repeating colonial patterns. This is a grounded, historically informed conversation about faith, responsibility, and what it takes to build a more honest public witness.

Buy Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonism, and the Pursuit of Justice:  https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9781514008645

Guest Bio

L. Daniel Hawk is a professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary and an ordained United Methodist minister. His work focuses on biblical narrative, especially conquest texts like Joshua, and how scripture has been interpreted in ways that shape moral imagination and public life.

He is the author of Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonism, and the Pursuit of Justice, where he examines how theological ideas were used to justify colonization and how those narratives continue to influence American culture and Christianity today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:16

And it's really hard to generalize, but I'll put it this way: the the MO from the colonial period onward is preemptive strike. During the winter, interesting. So that we can destroy their food sources, so any survivors uh will starve to death or will be forced to come to us for food. And that goes all the way through Western expansion.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Well, hey there, Faithful Politics listeners and viewers. If you're joining us on YouTube, I'm your faithful host, Josh Bertram. Our political host couldn't be here. But welcome to another episode of the Faithful Politics Podcast, where we talk to all sorts of experts and interesting people about the things that are happening, intersection of faith and politics, and just different ideas out there that intersect with that. And so today I'm super excited, actually, to have L. Daniel Hawk. He is a professor of Old Testament in Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary and an ordained United Methodist minister. He's written widely on biblical narrative, conquest texts like Joshua and the way scripture has been used to shape moral imagination in public life. His newest book is Undoing Manifest Destiny, Settler America, Christian Colonist, and the Pursuit of Justice. And that's what we're talking, I'm talking to him about today. So thank you and welcome to the show, Dan. It's such a pleasure to have you on.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Oh, thank you so much, Josh. And thank you for your interest in the book.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Absolutely. And you know, Manifest Destiny, I always heard that growing up, and I actually heard it as a good thing, right? It almost like, hey, it's Manifest Destiny. We felt like we were here, you know, it was this mission that maybe if it wasn't divine, because I grew up in Fairfax County, so they they're pretty liberal. They're not going to talk about divine, Fairfax County, Virginia, which is right outside of DC. And so it, but there was this sense of American excellence, and this is our destiny, and we're moving. And for those who haven't heard or thought about that term since ninth cent, you know, ninth grade, um, ninth century, come on, ninth grade history class. What is Manifest Destiny? What's the policy? What's the ideology and theology, even? And why should we care about it?

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Oh, well, okay. Great place to start. We're just jumping right in, Dan. Yeah, great. Yeah, so Manifest Destiny technically originally was associated with a kind of a conversation that was going on as the United States was contemplating expanding into Texas and so on and so forth. And a journalist by the name of John O'Sullivan kind of coined the phrase, and everybody seemed to really go with it. So, but it's taken on, I think, it's it's taken on a way of encapsulizing uh the basic threat of American national mythology, which is this idea that whether by divine intention or whether by the inexorable course of human progress, the United States is has a particular destiny to overspread and develop a nation and develop a civilization that will be for the good of all humanity by virtue of developing liberty and democracy and prosperity and all of these things. And and that destiny is manifest by the fact that the United States was just able to expand inexorably across the continent. Just keep going. They weren't stopped. Yeah, and a matter of fact, once they got all the way to the West Coast, they didn't stop there. I mean, we just kept going and and Hawaii, Alaska was one, Philippines was another, and yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Anyway, yeah, we kept going. So so the that idea that it is in the Americans' destiny to to essentially keep going. And and of course, at the time there was the divine impetus behind it. Can you can you talk about, or like what was interpreted as divine impetus, right? Which is a big part of what your book is about undoing manifest destiny, right? So clearly the idea is this was ill-fated, not well, definitely not matching with the ethics of scripture that we understand them. And yet God was brought into this from the beginning. So can you kind of explain how that happened? Why God was brought into this and why that's problematic?

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Yeah, well, in in a quick, yeah, you know, in a quick soundbite, I mean Yeah, we'll dig in more to all of it. Yeah. So Manifest Destiny, that concept really begins with the first pilgrim and Puritan colonists who arrive on these shores with a sense that God has brought us here. God has brought us here to establish Christian colonies, Christian commonwealths. And so there's already this sense that European colonial English colonialism in particular is something that God is using and using people essentially to tame the wilderness. So when the Puritans came and they looked at the land around them, what they saw was wilderness, wild place, and they saw people who lived under the domain of Satan. And so the idea is they just developed this idea, and it's connected to Genesis 1.28, where God gives a mandate to all humanity to be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth. And there are two planks to this. One is called the doctrine of discovery, which is a body of international law that develops out of some papal bulls that basically said any Christian power, Christian leader, potentate, by virtue of being Christian, has the right and perhaps even the mandate to subdue non-Christian peoples and nations to expand Christendom. You've got that, and then you've got this idea, this interpretation of Genesis 1.28 that the English Puritans had as they came to these shores, and which basically said God has given a mandate to all humanity to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth. And they understand subduing the earth as, in a sense, getting rid of the wilderness, which was wild and under the domain of Satan, and imposing or replenishing a kind of an edenic ordered land. So transform the land from this wilderness under the domain of Satan to a restoration of Eden, in which you put fences up, you order, you turn it into property so that it could be a source of wealth and generate and so on and so forth. So those two, those two planks serve as basically theological cover for just a really atrocious program of colonization, justified violence, because indigenous peoples, if with respect to the creation mandate, they they're resisting. They're not obeying what God told all humankind to do. Let's just look at the land, or they're resisting. And the idea that they were resisting the progress of this destiny, particularly in into the 1800s, becomes really strong argument for removing them, assimilating them, erasing their cultures, erasing their identity, because they're really resisting the command of God. And if you think of, and if you think of it in secular terms, they're resisting the onset of progress, what this this kind of social evolution in which the United States is evolving into the highest culture and civilization world so that we can help everybody else attain the kind of prosperity and freedom and liberties and values that we hold.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah, I I really appreciate that explanation. And I would really love to dig into how did they, what was their logic from scripture? I mean, you you were talking about it and alluding to it, but I'd love to go into more detail on how did they justify, like, for instance, in these papal bulls and the in the doctrine of discovery? Again, to to the degree that you're able, like I don't want to assume that you have like read all of those or reviewed everything that's come from there. I just to the degree that you're able, like, what was their justification for like the doctrine of discovery? How how did they how what what method did they use or or like logic from theologically to get to that place that they felt like they could do that?

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Well, it actually started with some papal bulls, in which two popes basically on the basis of their position as the vicar of Christ, so God's God's representative on earth, they had the full authority to issue these bulls. So a papal bull is is like a decree. And and they started with actually bulls to the Portuguese and then later to the Spanish, but basically where popes said to them, we give you the authority by virtue in order to advance Christianity, we give you the authority to subdue, to conquer any non-Christian people or land. The third bull added the the idea of discovery. So any any people or land that is is discovered, we will you have full authority. And that that kind of morphs into the idea that any Christian power, any Christian potentate, by virtue of being Christian, just because they're Christian, has the authority. So a Christian king has the authority to again just to go in and take lands that are not Christian. And that's that particular element finds its way into federal into federal law with some Supreme Court decisions in the early 1820s. So that's the justification there, because it starts off with the Pope saying, I have full authority, and then and that's that's in the mid-1400s. But then, of course, a funny thing happens on on the way to discovery. You have the Protestant Reformation, and so you have you have royal Christian powers who don't care what the Pope said. He restricted, he restricted these these bulls to particular peoples. And really, so you've got this free-for-all, and everybody's just assumed, and it's just assumed with within a very short span of time, it's just assumed that that Christian rulers have the that authority.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

And that this is right, that this is like and and like so bib Biblically where they so they got this papal bull, but then you have like again, like you said, the Reformation happened, and yet the slave trade still, the Reformation didn't stop the slave trade. Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

I guess it accelerated. I don't know. I know history's complicated, but yeah, so so accelerated. So so we have which this is that's disturbing as a Protestant, like you know, to think about that and to think about my heritage there. So it's like what like how how did they how did they get it so wrong in the Bible? I guess was it just because like it was just built on really bad theology from previous times? And it it's just because you have to have a logic to it to make sense of it. And so it's basically like, hey, ends justify the means, we're making them Christian, fulfilling the great commandment, therefore it's okay. Was that basically is that too simplistic or is that the basic idea?

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Yeah, as as as we move along, uh beginning with the uh colonization of New England, I mean, there I mean, there's a racialized component to this as well. I mean, so we Anglo-Saxons, uh so there's this idea of Anglo-Saxon destiny that emerges in the 1800s. So when you're thinking of what you're doing in those terms, I mean, basically what's going on, and one of the things I argue in the book is that this was done intentionally and willfully. I mean, what what what the colonists were looking for, and this is what in a sense makes it such an offense, what the colonists were looking for was some way of justifying and and holding civilized Englishmen innocent, any of the violence. So it it gave them an easy justification. Well, we we we're gonna take this land, they're resisting, we're we're going to develop it, they leave it undeveloped, and my sense is they're not thinking through really deeply. They're just, and that's that's the big piece.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

They're gone enough to get an answer they wanted.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

They, yep. They that I like nobody does that today, right? But but yeah, this is the idea. I mean, it and and so there's this whole warped system of denial that basically over the course of time weaves this narrative that the United States is is not really culpable. We, you know, we paid for the land, we acquired the land nobly, there were a few violent blips on the screen. But what that and and it's it's it's just a justifying narrative that legitimates the system that the colonial system that they're putting in place. And it really is thin. It's it's not theologically packed because they're not really interested so much in uh that and and once that gets started, by the 1800s, people are it they've internalized those interpretations, uh and and they're unquestioned. They're just unquestioned. So you you you get to the point where European civilization, the English culture and ways becomes the highest expression of Christianity in their own eyes, and once again join that kind of racialized perspective with really greed for land. And that's what drives it, and that's what warps the whole enterprise is is greed for land to enrich a an Anglo-Saxon white settler elite. Man. Yeah, it's just so nasty. Yeah, it's nasty.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah, it really is nasty. And so so, you know, like when I grew up, there was this almost idealized vision of the settlers, right? They're going out there facing unbelievable hardship, right? You would take the Oregon Trail game and you would die of di, you know, what is it, typhoid fever or d dys dysentery or whatever. Right? So all these different things. And so, and it was a game that you would play in school, and so it was like this almost idealized sense of, hey, here's the myth of innocence, right? That's one of the things you talk about, or a settler narrative. Help us figure out what's going on there. How much of that is truth, how much of that is falsehood? Like, I know history gets complicated, but what what is that settler narrative and and why how do the facts of history not match it?

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Yeah. Well, so how long are we going today?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Well, 60 minutes, but as long as you what do you need? Tell me the time you need.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah, I think uh one of the ways I look at it is I grew up in the 60s, and TV westerns, movie westerns were all the thing, and there was a pretty standard script. And you so you had kind of a righteous gunslinger or a righteous frontiersman, a righteous souvenir and pioneer, and and you had some, usually some woman who was in distress, and you had a nasty villain, and and you had marauding Indians and so on and so forth. So one of the things, I mean, that's part of the myth right there. That tells the story, and it also, in its own way, justifies violence. It it it it it taught people of my generation American violence is righteous violence. Violence is necessary to bring order. So there's a whole complex of threads that weave together that form this this this narrative. And one of the one of the pieces of the narrative, so as an example, you talk about the Oregon Trail. So the the picture that we get from the TV westerns was uh or even the novels or wherever they came from, because they were they were just so prominent for so long, was the fact that you know the the the Indians were just merciless and bloodthirsty and aggressive, and you know, the the pioneers had to, you know, brave the hardships and they did that, and and they had they had to endure Indian savagery and all of that. Well a study was done probably, I think about 20, 30 years ago, there were fewer deaths, total deaths of pioneers along the Oregon Trail due to violence, than there were less total pioneer deaths on the Oregon Trail than in some of the larger massacres of indigenous people. Most of the frontier violence that happened was on the white settler side. And and and and and that's that's the truth. And and government officials and missionaries and people who who were on the frontier corroborated that. So there was a Moravian missionary by the name of John Heckevelder who had this interesting description because he was trying to he's trying to create a place of peace for the growth of his his indigenous converts. But what happened would be that he would say that settlers would move in and they would encroach on Indian territory. And then they would tell him, well, when we get enough of us here, we're going to start an Indian war so that the government comes in and then we'll get this land. And he has this description of the colonial, that I should say, the the frontier mindset. So there's that's one of the places where our myth where our mythology really does replace history. Because, and and this was this is also acknowledged in government reports that basically say, you know, the bulk of violence on the frontier is caused by settlers. And and there are a lot of reasons why that's true and it's corroborated, but that's this idea of the the noble pioneer, the gunslinger who brings order and and sets everything right through through violence is is it's it's still a big part of the myth. I mean, we've look look look at all of the ways today in our movies that we glorify violence, that we sacrilize violence, that we talk about or tell stories about how violence is necessary to bring order. That is that is the warped fruit of a toxic seed in in our own national character that just glorifies violence and it goes all the way back. All the way back. So yeah, please share, share examples. Two years at two yeah, the pilgrims, two years after Plymouth, they they get into a squabble with the Massachusetts, so they uh and so they invite Massachusetts leaders to a parley, and when they get them there, they kill them, and they're about four or five tribal leaders, and then they take their heads, put them up on spikes around Plymouth. Now that's a story you're not gonna probably read in history books. But that's that's the pilgrims. The pilgrims.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

The peace loving two years.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So that that is that is that is crazy. And so with the what it was were all the pilgrims like that, was it because I I just actually started listening to this lecture on the Great Courses from someone called um America before 1776. And it was all about like this, and and and interestingly enough, like the only reason I know when you said the Massachusetts that there it's an Indian tribe, you know, I I would have had no idea except I just watched this like thing, like literally like a week ago. I'm like, it's crazy that I'm like hearing this now. And it's like, so you look at them and you're like, man, the pilgrims, like in one sense, like they what was it? Is it John, the guy who basically started, was it Winthrop who was a big thing? And he was a lawyer, was he a lawyer? And then he started, and but he was a but he was a separatist and a Puritan, right? In the sense that he was a Puritan, right? Yeah. So so he had to leave and he left and he started this, and he wanted to make sure, like, even the way he was describing it, like the city on the hill, like that he wasn't saying that as if, like, oh, everyone's looking, and they're this is the shining example. That got used later, actually, in context, what the professor was saying is that the city on the hill language was that everyone's looking at us to fail. Like, we're like a city on a hill. Like, and he does make this kind of like biblical, but he wasn't a pastor, he wasn't a trained theologian, he was a lawyer. And essentially he was talking about the city of Hill as a like everyone's looking at us, they want us to fail, and like they're staring at us and just waiting for us to fail. But then, like watching like what they did with Merrimack, right? What what they went and they Marymount, that's what it's working about, where they took a what, like a military force and kicked these guys out because they were profligate and whatever it is, the language that they would use. And so you see pilgrims and you imagine peaceful, but they but they weren't peaceful, but were they what were they all bad, or was it like I guess like good and bad? I mean, I guess it's always a mix, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 24:38

Right. Well, you have pilgrims and you have Puritans, and they're they're different. Gotcha. Right. I guess it's true, right? Yeah. So the Puritans are are actually still Church of England folk. But here's the piece with Boston. So since you you bring up the the city on the hill, that that particular speech, it it didn't really, it just didn't really catch on with the Puritans. So he he uh he wrote that sermon as as they're waiting to this flotilla of 11 ships is is is sitting in the harbor getting ready to to answer. But anyway, so it there wasn't that much kind of impact. The greater impact was a sermon on them, was a sermon that they heard as they prepared to embark from Southampton in 1630. And that was preached by one of the leaders of the Puritans by the name of John Cotton, and he wanted them to have a biblical idea of a biblical image to know how to move forward, how to see God's hand at work. And and so he just went through and said, here's how you know where to go, here's how you know that God is with you and doing what is right. You know, so there the scripture tells us that when God gets ready to do a new work and plant a new people in a new place, God first of all discovers and he uses the discovery language. And then God discovers a place, and then God provides a way to carry them to that place, and then finally, God guides them to some vacant land where they can settle. And vacant land in the Puritan mind was land that was not owned. So, yeah, if if nobody owns it, then it's available for anybody to take. And of course, the indigenous peoples of the area didn't have any concept of owning the land. Right. You know, they they were caring for the land, they were they were taking care, they were they were using, they were stewarding the land. They and so and and and so to answer your question directly, in terms of did everybody think this? It's hard to say. And and and there, sure, there there are dissenters, there are people who are really not going with the program. So, for example, in 1637, the Puritan colonies are are really concerned that that the Pequots, another area tribe, is going to attack them. So they decide that they're going to launch a preemptive strike on a fortified village of about four to seven hundred people. And and so they they've got that military force. And there's a really interesting note from one of the journals of one of the people that went there, and and they talk about how Puritan preachers were preaching sermons to these soldiers as they surrounded the city. They were preparing to attack it at the first light of dawn. But you had preachers coming around and letting them know that what they were doing was biblical and in God's will. Which if they if they had to send preachers around to you know to make that point, then obviously there are a significant number of people who are having qualms about what eventually happened, which is slaughtering 400 to 500 men, women, and children. Man.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

And so you just it's just so hard because you see like it's so hard to look at this and see that Chris that that they took Christian concepts and they they brought it into this end.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

You know, and it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

And I guess like w were there were there was there provocation from the like w I guess what part what part did the indigenous people play in this?

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

The the you know, the the natives, what what did they what part did they play? You know, again, I am not trying to say in any way that what happened, like justify it or say it's really trying to understand it, really. Like even thinking about like they like just the that thing you said about they thought about buying the land versus the the the natives had no concept that you owned land, just that very idea right there, that lack of communication, that lack of understanding, that lack of like basic shared understanding of uh value or s or or how the world works created, I'm sure, unbelievable amounts of conflict and misunderstanding. And I guess what I'm trying to like I just trying to hold understand the whole thing and how did the indigenous people respond in this? And another thing, a question well, I I'll stop there because I have a question about disease and wondering what you think about that that played in it. But go ahead. Uh yeah, that that's yeah, that that's a good to kind of again.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

No there there's this well, I'll just put it simply, greed is the driver. And yeah, that makes sense. As as as the the Boston colonies expand, they just need more land. And so they initially they're they're buying it fairly, but later on they're using all kinds of of I would say ungodly ways of relating to get that land. It's really hard to generalize, but put it this way the the MO from the colonial period onward is preemptive strike during the winter. Interesting, so that we can destroy their food sources, so any survivors will starve to death or will be forced to come to us for food. And that goes all the way through Western expansion. And so, yes, there are also cases where indigenous peoples rise up themselves. There's there's a huge uprising. Uprising's a bad name, but there's a huge war that that is precipitated in Virginia. It kills one out of five Virginia settlers before the the indigenous forces are subdued. But really, there there are there are those instances, but they the number and scope is far less pale in comparison with the the level of violence meted out by people who bore the name of Christ. And that's just awful thing that we've got to rec I think we've got to reconcile with absolutely we as white, we've because it it it it's a sin that we know how repressed sin works. It doesn't just fade away.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

And it's never been, we've never, first of all, as a church, as as a religion, as a community of faith, we've never acknowledged really the full complicity that we've had with these colonial projects, the greed that that a lot of our Christian forebearers came with and uh that propelled them. And and we just we haven't really addressed significantly enough the the the way that that's warped our own Christianity in its social expressions. I could go on, but I I it yeah. So here's a here's a quick quick footnote. Please, please. So here's here's one of the ways that we that we spin it. Generally, if if there was a mass killing by colonials who who killed or struck and usually again struck defenseless, peaceful indigenous people, it was usually called a battle. So, you know, the battle of this, the battle of that. But if if there was a situation where indigenous people killed maybe three or four settlers, that's a massacre. And so it's just this, even in the way that we name what happened, right, it just feeds into this narrative that where we deny to ourselves and others our deep implication with this colonial script and what it's produced in us. The the kinds of divisions, the infatuation with violence, the the racial antagonism. I mean, they all have roots.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah, I mean that makes I I I was kind of pausing there because it just it definitely makes sense. I mean, it's like we the story I'm hearing is that the there there was essentially built into the policy of colonialism of a willingness to take anything by force, whatever's needed, and violence, and then a and then a concomitant justification of those violent acts through some kind of you know author authoritative declarations and the use of of clergy and the use of church and religion to try to essentially sanitize what was going on or sacrilize even violence and what was happening, that they were doing this and this was the right thing, actually fulfilling God's mission by doing this. And so you have that driving, and greed is really behind us to gain more land, gain more power, get more space. And so you have these essentially that the the settlers are the aggressors, they are the ones like they're they set the pattern. Is that is that correct what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah. Yeah, they wrote the script, and and that script developed over decades and centuries, and then it's it it's just internalized. I mean, I you know, I I I I never questioned it never even occurred to me when I was when I was growing up to ask why the the the indigenous people that we learned about or that we talked about in Boy Scouts or whatever, why why they weren't here and we were.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

I mean it just it just Yeah it it it's it was invisible to me in a it was invisible and and we don't I think right most people, most Americans, certainly I think most white Americans have no clue the sophistication of the peoples and the cultures and everything and and and even the the population and the of course the millions and millions of people in North America and in Central America, not to mention things like Aztec, the Aztec and Mayan and then Incan, right? Uh massive empires, these unbelievable empires that essentially were able to be, and this is kind of like what I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on. Like essentially a major reason from what I've heard and what I've seen that that Europe could even come do this, especially in like Central America. I know you're focused on Northern America was because of disease, that it essentially I heard I heard some things like um certain diseases, like one of the voyages that John Smith was on, it wiped out 70 to 80 percent of the native population on on the coast in this area. I mean 70, 80 percent. Like that's apocalyptic, right? So it's like, and then like in the Mayan and Inc and Aztec, 90%, some estimates, 90% of the people, nine out of 10 people died from disease, not even to mention the violence, right? So it's like what what place did disease have in this? And how did they how was that understood by the settlers?

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Yeah, that's uh I I don't know that I really have a good clear answer to that. I know there's a debate. Okay. So same in New England. So probably about 90% of the Massachusetts people were were wiped out by some kind of disease, smallpox.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

There's just no way that we could have gone as fast, I guess, as in without disease. Would you would you say that's correct? Like we actually were able to do it, probably mostly because of disease.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

That was that was part of it because you have whole social structures that that are just completely gone. And so what do you do? And and then it then it starts a cycle because colonial practices just weaken and and and destabilize indigenous societies, and it makes them in turn more susceptible to European disease. And so there's a yeah, there's there's quite a debate about what role disease played, and you've got some folks on the one extreme saying, well, you know, that that's just an excuse, and you've got for you know, for for you know, taking your eye off the real issue that we have to deal with, which is is is the violence and the mendacity of treating.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

We don't want to take our eyes off that issue necessarily. Right.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

And then there are the others that say, well, yeah, look, this had to play a huge role in in the I mean it just had to, right? Yeah. How we were able to how white settlers were able to advance. Yeah, there's uh yeah, there's there there are whole books about about how that affected the Western advance.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Absolutely. And I I was just wondering did they how did did you see anything about how Christians interpreted those diseases? Did they see them as God working for them or something like that, or do we not really have a lot of uh any stuff on that?

SPEAKER_03 39:53

All I can say is I I've I've done quite a bit of reading over the course of a couple of decades, and that that really I I haven't come across that kind of anything that that you know that that would suggest that some element in the settler society is saying, well, you know, A, this is this is a good thing because we're gonna get the land easier, or B, this is God's punishment. I I really haven't it's not there. I just I just haven't encountered it.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

That's so interesting. I just feel like I just wonder because of the ma I mean it had to be just the massive impact it it it had. But you know, but but again, but the the the point that you made though is important because yet regardless of uh of all that and and how horrific that is, regardless of all that, the point that Christians literally took this and they they baptized all of this in Christian theology and language and thinking and mission.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

And never to take our eyes off the fact that these horrific things were done in the name of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Which is so hard.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Go ahead. It is. I was just saying the same. This is it's why this book was really difficult to write. Yeah, I'm I'm sure. It was it was, you know, it was just overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

So for some for someone who's sitting here and they're hearing this and they're thinking, well, I mean, whatever. I've heard things about the savagery of like, you know, some of some of the native practices, and uh, you know, they, you know, you've made the point that they didn't, like the scale was nothing like it. And again, this was their home that we were coming in and essentially invading. We can't the same people that might think that you know the settlers did the right thing wouldn't look kindly on someone coming in and trying to invade their home and take them out, and would probably respond violently to something like that or with force. And so it's like obviously we're looking at this and and it's just heartbreaking for someone though who's like, I don't know, I'm not convinced it was really all that bad. Could you give some of the examples that you have of maybe some of the more disturbing things that you saw that were done in the name of Jesus just to give maybe some people some examples like how can you have any reason to say that Jesus could be behind this?

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Yeah, I think I think the so there's a there's a a sense in which a lot of the folks who did this, we would call them nominal Christians if that. So you know, so I don't you you you do have people that are that are really pushing back out of a sense of of kind of Christian revulsion who are saying this is this is not right, this is not the way. But most of these people you know went to church and they would have called themselves Christians. So one one of the examples that that I think is I'm particularly particularly grievous and difficult and it's it's another situation in Ohio is again the the the the Moravian, so they were Moravian converts, and they established a number of villages in what is now southeast Ohio, and they're they're Christians. And so this is during the Revolutionary War. They didn't want to take a side, they actually moved into Ohio, so they didn't have to be pulled into the conflict. They just wanted to, you know, they just wanted to live in peace and and and they were very prosper. They were prosperous communities. Anyway, long story short, they they were forced from their homes and taken up near where Toledo, Ohio is now by by the tribal, uh one of the chiefs. From the the Lenape. And and they just had a hard time kind of getting enough to eat. So they were, they were, they were given permission to go back to their storehouses, their fields or villages, and just get the food that was in the storehouses. It was in the spring, bring it back. And while they were there, contingent of colonial militia from Pennsylvania arrived on the scene and they had been wanting to avenge the death of a settler family. And they they really were, they were out for blood. So they they decided that they you know they wanted to explore, uh, investigate this city, this, this settlement. And so they they came in, they disarmed everybody of what few weapons they had for hunting. They found some European style eating, cooking implements, and they said, well, you know, they wouldn't have these unless they stole them. And so they they eventually had had a had a meeting and they decided we got to kill them. So 96, they took them all into one of the common buildings, and they said, We've decided that uh we're gonna put you to death. You're you're lying, you've been colluding with the Indian forces, so on and so forth. And they said, Would you give us the night to prepare our souls? And they put the women and children in one cabin, the men in another, and they sang hymns and prayed all night. And these are Christian brothers and sisters. And in the morning, they were taken out two by two into another building, and and their skulls were smashed in with heavy mallets two by two. And the great majority of those those people were women and children.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

And the women and children were praying?

SPEAKER_03 46:22

Yeah. Yeah, they were in another building. See, they were Christians. They they were Christians. And they were they were pacifist Christians. They they were they were Christians who did not want to get involved in the violence. So they moved as far away as they could, but they do they just couldn't move far enough, evidently.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

And so this was, were they Native Americans or no?

SPEAKER_03 46:56

They these were Native Americans.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

They were Native Americans that were cr that were Christian pacifists. They just want to make sure that everyone understood, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

So these were con they were they they had become Christian through the ministry of some Moravian uh missionaries. And they were creating Christian villages of respect and and and and from from you know from all accounts. They were just they were just model Christian, uh, a model Christian community. They just happened to be Lenape, Munsi, Mohican.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

It just makes you like it it yeah. There aren't really words, huh?

SPEAKER_03 47:40

Yeah. Yeah, especially to read the accounts. It's it's yeah, it's it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

So it it it it is so heavy. And how do you separate like this idea of Christian complicity right from the claim that Christianity is inherently colonial? And I and I'm separating colonial from inherently a missionary religion in the sense that, right, we have the missionaries of the early church, although I know that the way that these communities grew after the apostolic age, right, right, between that was not with evangelism as we think about it, because it was essentially illegal within the Roman government or Roman Empire. And so, but how how do you separate that? Because I'm a Christian, you're a Christian, we love Jesus. This isn't the Jesus the Jesus we serve uh is absolutely horrified. I don't know what I didn't I mean and this kind of stuff. How how do we how do we deal with this?

SPEAKER_03 49:00

I guess maybe that's what I'm saying. Well, we we deal with it first of all by being willing to deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Yeah. Um being willing to be honest about it.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

Yeah, and and and to recognize that in the Western European colonial project, Christianity and Christian civilization are fused. They can't be separated. They are inseparable. So Yeah, it's so Christianity becomes the way that we erase indigenous identities. We we tell them that they're all, you know, under the domain of Satan and they've got to be saved. They're all sinners. And and and really, some of the most grievous effects on Native communities came through actually Christians who wanted to do the right thing. And so they got them into boarding houses and they thought they knew what was right, and took children as as as young as four four years old and took them away from their families, put them into boarding schools, and tried to make them into Christians and and and American citizens. And and you'll read the literature. I mean, and and that begins in the early 1800s. So, you know, to to answer to respond to what you're saying, I mean, one of the things we have to realize is that at least in the case of European colonialism, there is a fusion that does not respect indigenous cultures, that does not respect Indigenous people, that did not respect the customs and values and that indigenous people have, didn't appreciate the vibrancy of their cultures. And so what's happening now, in a kind of a to use a word that has a little bit of freight, but I'll just use it anyway, in a post-colonial kind of environment, is that we have Christians around the world who were who were converted by the efforts of godly missionaries. But they were basically told in order to be Christian, you also have to adopt these, you know, these cultural forms and frameworks and ways of thinking and so on and so forth. And what's happening now around the world is that people are beginning to think differently and to ask the question about how Christianity can be faithfully incarnated within the context of their own cultures, as opposed to having to, you know, abandon their culture in order to be Christian, in order, so you know, there's there's a residue here that we've got to deal with in terms of our missions and and and and not not to blame or shame. I mean, that that blame and shame doesn't does nothing good. It just turns us inside of ourselves. But just in a way of saying, let's, you know, let's try to rebuild, let's listen, let's hear, let's talk. Let us know how we can assist you. We thank you for that. And they do. I mean, around the word, they thank they're they're grateful for the missionaries who brought Christ to them, but they also recognize that the forms and the practice, some of the practices and cultural conventions didn't really fit them. And and and their own cultures were were were demeaned and demonized. And so, you know, the the question is how it seems from from the colonized is, you know, how do we how do we kind of decolonize and throw off this kind of colonial association with Christianity so that we can live together as an expression of of the body of Christ that that is within the context of our own cultural ways of thinking and norms and practices and culture, which is it seems to me that's really what we should be doing.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

Yes, it definitely is what we should be doing. How how do you recommend like the normal person who's listening to the podcast and they heard about the book? Obviously, we want them to read the book, but what what would you say for them? Like, what are some next steps for them? If they're like, yeah, I feel horrified, I can't believe that happened in the name of Jesus. Like, I I want to be, I want to make a difference, or I don't ever want anything like that to happen again, or whatever it may be. Like, what what would you say is the next step for them? How would you encourage them?

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Yeah, well, in a number of ways. One is is is simply to learn, to maybe to read, uh, to read there, there's a lot of good literature that now that's that's really lifting things up and helping us to see things more clearly. So we were you and I were talking a little bit earlier about Chris Huckletubby and and Danny Zacharias's reading the Bible on Turtle Island. I mean, it's a wonderful book. Yes. And and and just just reacquainting yourself with a different way of thinking and interpreting and believing is a good positive step. So learning, learning about how you how the the national story plays out in your own locality. Who were the people who stewarded the land before colonists came in? Where are they now? What happened? What what role did we play? What what influence does that past have on the way that we've constructed our communities here? And then there are there are so many organizations now, people that really care, who are moved by this kind of sense of urgency to let's let's put the the colonial script in the dustbin, let's acknowledge. So I mean, just just having the openness to say, I I I can enter into a different space. I want to learn, I want to listen, I want to grow, and then I want to I want to know how to stand with my indigenous brothers and sisters. What what what are the issues that are are that they're dealing with? And you know what what can I do? Finally, a final thing is just to take the time to uh experience division indigenous cultures. Go to go to some powwows, visit an Indian center when they've got a program on, and just because and that's particularly important because white settler society has put a lot of energy into maintaining the invisibility of indigenous people. And and so just taking intentional steps to to recognize and honor them as good gifts to to our church and to our country, and learning about them, listening, all of those are, I think, really important first steps.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Well, I think that's all really good. And I think a first step for everyone is to go pick up this book. If you're watching this, right, and it's a real, go with listen to the podcast, then go pick up the book, and then take that like the reading from Turtle Island, First Nations version. There's a lot of stuff out there that you can start to get involved with and take those next steps. And we're going to encourage everyone to do that. Dan, thanks so much for being on the program. How can people connect with you if you want them to? Is there a preferred vendor for the book? What projects do you have coming up?

SPEAKER_03 57:10

Well, yeah, I could be contacted at my seminary email address at dhawk.ashland.edu or dhawk at ashland.edu. I have a pretty robust Facebook page, do a lot of writing and conversing and along these lines on that page. And and there's usually a really good dialogue. So that's that's another way. Just get in and kind of if if you don't quite know what to do, enter this or or another space where people are having these conversations and thinking, you know, praying and thinking together about how we can write a new script for our church and our nation that values all voices and values all cultures and values all experience.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

I love that. Well, again, thank you so much, Dan, for spending time giving us your time and your insights.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much again for helping me get the word out.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Absolutely. And to our viewers and listeners, guys, thanks for joining us. Send this to someone who needs to hear it, someone that you know would be interested in this. Let's keep working together to get civil conversations about tough topics out there. And until next time, guys, keep your conversations not right or left, but up. Thanks.