Junípero Serra: A Sorry Saint

Even though he has little name recognition in most circles, this article is about a man of considerable importance in the history of California and of marked religious interest since he was canonized by Pope Francis five years ago on September 23, 2015. 

Who Was Junípero Serra?

Miguel José Serra was born in November 1713 on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea. When he took his vows to become a Franciscan priest in 1737, Serra took the name Junípero, which was the name of one of St. Francis’s devoted friends.

From his childhood, Serra dreamed of becoming a missionary. After teaching philosophy for several years in Spain, in 1749 he finally was able to make the 6,000-mile trip to Mexico and to begin missionary work there.

On December 15 of that year, Father Serra and another priest started walking from the coastal city of Veracruz to Mexico City, some 260 miles away. On the journey, he was bitten by a mosquito and his left foot became infected. He suffered for the rest of his life from that malady.

Serra spent 38½ years as a missionary in Mexico, Baja California, and in what was then known as Alta California. He died in what is now Monterey County, California, in August 1784 at the age of 70.

The Noble Junípero Serra

Serra’s main claim to fame is as the founder of nine “missions” along the coast of California, from San Diego de Alcalá (in 1769) in the south to San Francisco de Asís (in 1776) on the north. The current cities of San Diego and San Francisco, of course, grew out of Serra’s missions.

In 1769, it is estimated that there were around 300,000 Native Americans in what is now California. Through the indefatigable efforts of Serra and his co-workers, about one-third of those became Roman Catholics.

Because of his meritorious missionary work, Serra became the first Hispanic person to be canonized—by the first Hispanic Pope in the first canonization mass held in the United States.

Even though he was a Franciscan priest and missionary, Serra is sometimes called “the father of California” (see here, for example). Pope Francis has said that he sees Serra as “one of the founding fathers of the United States.” Many Californians through the years have agreed.

As you probably know, each state chooses statues of two of the most important persons in their states to stand in the U.S. Capitol Building. California’s statues are of Ronald Regan and the noble Junípero Serra.

The Ignoble Junípero Serra

There are many who disagree with Serra’s adulation, however. At the time of his canonization, there were serious protests in California, especially by Native Americans. Serra’s statue in a city park in Monterey was decapitated at that time. 

Interestingly, in sympathy with the protests against Confederate statues this year, Serra’s monuments again became targets of protest. On June 19 activists pulled down a Serra statue in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and the next day, a Serra statue in Los Angeles was toppled. 

A 9/29/15 New York Times article frankly states, “Historians agree that [Serra] forced Native Americans to abandon their tribal culture and convert to Christianity, and that he had them whipped and imprisoned and sometimes worked or tortured to death.”

Ten weeks before Serra’s canonization, Pope Francis publicly apologized for the “grave sins” of colonialism against Indigenous Peoples of America. But that did not keep him from following through with his making Serra a saint.

Although there is much to admire about Junípero Serra, it was probably a mistake for him to be canonized—but since he was, it is fitting to call Serra a sorry saint.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊

Dan Horan is a Franciscan priest and a theology professor whom I cited at some length in my August 25 blog post. On July 8 he had a thought-provoking article largely about Serra in the National Catholic Reporter, and I recommend the careful reading of that perceptive article titled “The preferential option for the removal of statues.”

Honoring/Dis-honoring Andrew Jackson

The Apostle Andrew was always a favorite of mine. But I have not been fond (to say the least) of the two U.S. Presidents named Andrew. This blog post is about the first of those two, Andrew Jackson, who was the seventh POTUS and in office from 1829 to 1837. 

Statue of Andrew Jackson in front of the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Mo.
The statue was sculpted by Charles Keck and placed here in 1934.

Honoring Andrew Jackson

Before becoming President, Jackson was a noted military man. His victory in 1815 against the British at the Battle of New Orleans made him a national hero. Jackson then led U.S. forces in the First Seminole War, which led to the annexation of Florida from Spain in 1819.

On December 15, 1826, almost two years before Jackson was elected POTUS, a new county in the rather new state of Missouri was established and named after General Jackson. It is now home to three of the six largest cities in Missouri: Kansas City, Independence, and Lee’s Summit.

Jackson County, Mo., is one of 24 counties (including Jackson Parish, La.) in the U.S. named after Jackson. There are also numerous cities, towns, and villages named Jacksonville or Jackson. Jacksonville, Florida, was so named in 1822 in commemoration of Jackson who was the first military governor of Florida Territory.

If you are a white American, and especially one who believes in white supremacy as DJT seemingly does, honoring Jackson probably seems good and reasonable to you.

DJT tweeted on June 30, “This [fight for preserving the statues] is a battle to save the Heritage, History, and Greatness of our Country!” And as you probably know, he has a portrait of Jackson on the wall near his desk in the Oval Office.

There is much heritage, history, and greatness linked to Jackson, no doubt—as well as to Robert E. Lee.

But how many Black Americans have you heard wanting to save the heritage, history, and greatness of the country by honoring/protecting the statues/monuments of Lee?

And how many Native Americans have you heard wanting to save the heritage, history, and greatness of the country by honoring/protecting the statues/monuments of Jackson?

Things look different when seen through eyes other than those of people who have always enjoyed the many, often unrecognized, benefits of white privilege.

Dis-honoring Andrew Jackson

Twice recently I have written in opposition to the “lynching” of statues or monuments, that is, toppling or destroying them by violent, illegal means. But I am a strong advocate of removing such statues or monuments by legislative bodies.

The word dishonor means “bring shame or disgrace on,” and that is not particularly what I am advocating. As someone said to me recently, if we were living at the same time and in the same region (as Jackson, or whomever we see as a problem in the past), we likely would have done, or supported, the same thing we find objectionable today. Quite probably so.

What I am advocating is that we dis-honor such people, that is, remove the statues or monuments of those whom we no longer wish to honor.

Clearly, having a statue or monument of someone standing in a public place, or having a city or county named after a person of the past, honors that person.

Jackson County, Mo., obviously took its name in 1826 because of the desire of the decision-makers who wished to honor Andrew Jackson as a military hero. I seriously doubt that there would have been any single person of the Seminole Nation who would have agreed with that honoring.

And after Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, I can’t imagine there were any Native Americans who thought Jackson deserved the honor bestowed on him.

There are Native Americans who live in Jackson County right now. In honor of both their citizenship and ethnicity, I urge Jackson County officials to remove Jackson’s recently defaced statue (which is now under a tarp, as you see below) from its current location and to begin the process of changing the name of the county. 

The Deplorable Doctrine of Discovery

Even though it dates back to 1452, until fairly recently I had never heard of the Doctrine of Discovery (DofD)—and perhaps most Americans are largely unaware of that deplorable doctrine. Please think with me now about what the DofD is and why it is so deplorable.  

The Basis of the DofD

In June 1452, Nicholas V, the Catholic Pope (reigned 1447~55), issued a papal bull (public decree) under the title Dum Diversas. It primarily authorized King Afonso V of Portugal to conquer and subjugate Muslims and “pagans.”

Specifically, the Pope granted the Portuguese king permission

to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens [Arab Muslims] and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, . . . and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery . . . .

As it was issued less than a year before the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the bull may have been intended to begin another crusade against the Ottoman Empire. (The crusade did not develop, however, and the capital of the Roman Empire established in 330 fell to the Turks and the Empire ended.)

The papal bull, however, was used by Portugal to begin taking slaves from Africa and then for subjugating indigenous people in the “new world.”

The DofD and Manifest Destiny

Some who have recently written about the Doctrine of Discovery say that it is so deplorable because of its use to subjugate and oppress Native Americans in what is now the USA.

The mistreatment of Natives by the Spanish in what is now Texas and the southwest part of the U.S. and the same sort of mistreatment by the French in Florida and Louisiana was, no doubt, partly because of the Doctrine of Discovery.

But those parts of the U.S. were then incorporated in various ways into the U.S. by a government almost completely controlled by WASPS who were opponents of Catholicism.

The Puritans were Christians in England who sought to purify the Church of England from Catholic practices, and after coming to “New England,” they sought to do in the “new world” what they couldn’t do in England.

The Puritan attitude toward the Native people, however, was very similar to that expressed in the Doctrine of Discovery, and from 1630 on, the spirit of triumphal conquest found in the DofD was later justified by the concept of Manifest Destiny.

It was under the overarching idea of Manifest Destiny that the Natives of North America were abused and exploited in much the same way that the indigenous peoples of Central and South America had been subjugated by conquistadors from Catholic countries based on the DofD .

The intention of both the Doctrine of Discovery and of Manifest Destiny was to subject Indigenous peoples to the rule of white European and/or Anglo-Saxon “Christians.”

What Can We Do Now?

Perhaps the first task is to learn about how terribly destructive the implementation of the Doctrine of Discovery and of Manifest Destiny was for Native Americans.

There are Christians who have in recent years been writing about the evils of the DofD. Mennonite Church USA, for example,  has since 2014 been working on resources for “dismantling” the DofD. (Check out their DofD website here.)

In 2016 the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) responded to a 68-page report on the DofD by repudiating the Doctrine, labeling it as heresy and lamenting the pain it has caused.

Mark Charles

One of the authors of the CRC report is Mark Charles, who is half Native American and half Dutch American. He and Soong-Chan Rah are the authors of a book on the subject I highly recommend: Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery (Nov. 2019). 

The authors conclude that “our only path to healing is through lament and learning how to accept some very unsettling truths” (p. 206).  

But in addition to learning and lamenting, surely there is a need for confessing, repenting, apologizing, and determining to engage with others in seeking to dismantle the deplorable Doctrine of Discovery.

What will you do?

* * * * *

Addendum

In the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2010, of all things, there is an apology to the Native Americans in the U.S.  Section 8113 of that Act, which was passed into law by Congress in Dec. 2009, states

that the United States, acting through Congress: (1) recognizes that there have been years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the federal government regarding Indian tribes; (2) apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted upon them by U.S. citizens; (3) urges the President to acknowledge such wrongs; and (4) commends state governments that have begun reconciliation efforts and encourages all state governments to work toward reconciling their relationships with Indian tribes within their boundaries.

Unfortunately, that apology received hardly any press coverage and was largely overlooked by the President. (Charles & Rah discuss this matter on pages 190~4 of Unsettling Truths.)

Confessions of a Reluctant Chiefs’ Fan

“Super Bowl Idolatry” is the title of a blog article I posted in January 2015, and I stand by what I wrote in that posting that has been viewed more than 1,650 times. But I must confess, I watched the Super Bowl this year for the first time in many, many years. Quite reluctantly, I am a Chiefs' fan. 

Cheers for the Chiefs!

There is hardly anyone of my Thinking Friends in this country, or even in Asia, I assume, who doesn’t know that the Kansas City Chiefs won an exciting come-from-behind victory in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday evening, Feb. 2. 

Since June and I have lived in the Kansas City metropolitan area for 14½ years now, I confess that we got caught up in the hype and even June, who never watches football games, watched the game with me along with our daughter Kathy and her husband Tim. We had a fun Super Bowl party of four.

I also must confess that at halftime, with the score tied and the momentum clearly on the side of the San Francisco 49ers, I predicted that the Chiefs were going to lose. June said I shouldn’t be so pessimistic--and she was right.

Who would have thought that the Chiefs would score more points in the 4th quarter than the 49ers did in the whole game! I had underrated “Mahomes’s magic.” 

One reason why it is easy to be a Chiefs fan now is because of Patrick Mahomes, the young quarterback who has had an amazing beginning to his career as an NFL quarterback.

Mahomes (b. 1995) seems like such a fine, personable young man, it’s hard not to be a fan of a team that has a quarterback like him.

Jeers for the Chiefs

While I have various negative feelings about football in general and professional football in particular, and while I have even more negative feelings about what I have called the idolatry surrounding the Super Bowl, the rest of this article is about the problematic name of the Kansas City team--as well as the name of their Super Bowl opponent.

The Chiefs’ name is a problem because there are Native Americans, and their sympathizers, who think that the name is racist. I realize that there are Native Americans that have no problem with the Chiefs’ name--or with the name of the 49ers or even the Washington Redskins. But some/many do.

Cyberspace brought to my attention several articles highlighting the problem. I read, and recommend, this 1/27 article in The Washington Post, this 1/29 article in The New York Times, and especially this 2/1 NBCnews.com article by Simon Moya-Smith, a Native American.

The two articles I was most influenced by, though, were this 2/1 Vox.com article and this article from a website I hadn’t previously heard of. The former was written by Rhonda LeValdo, an Acoma Pueblo woman who teaches at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. Her article begins, “The Kansas City Chiefs’ chant isn’t a tribute to people like me. It’s racist.”

The latter article by Zach Johnston in Uproxx.com is titled “Why Both Super Bowl Team Names Should be Replaced.” He forcefully points out the racism ensconced in both names, Chiefs and 49ers. (If you read just one of the linked-to articles, I suggest this one.)

The adult Sunday School class I am currently attending is discussing the Doctrine of Discovery. In our discussion on Super Bowl Sunday, I suggested that perhaps next year we might want to plan for some consciousness-raising about the Chiefs’ name, especially if they are in the Super Bowl again (which is a distinct possibility).

Maybe the time has come for more of us to be at least as concerned with the fair treatment of Native Americans as with watching/enjoying a football game.

What about Native Americans?

This article began as a piece on the Indian Citizenship Act, which was signed into law 95 years ago, in June 1924. But other matters are included in this article about Native Americans, who are also known as American Indians, Indigenous Peoples, or First Peoples--and the preferable term depends on whose opinion you take. 

The Indian Citizenship Act

President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act, which marked the end of a long debate and struggle, at the federal level, over full birthright citizenship for American Indians.  

President Calvin Coolidge with four Osage Indians after he signed the 1924 bill granting Indians full citizenship.

The “sinfulness” of the original aggressive treatment of Native Americans was compounded by the Indian Removal Act, signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in May 1830. As I wrote in my 10/5/18 blog article, there are those who see the mistreatment of indigenous people and slavery as two aspects of “America’s original sin,” and there is ample reason for agreeing with that assertion.

That Act, authorizing the President to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi River in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders, instigated what came to be known as the Trail of Tears.

In the following decades of the 19th century, there were various attempts to assimilate the Native Americans into mainstream society—and those attempts were successful to a degree.

Traditional ways continued to be maintained by the majority of the Native Americans, however, and one wonders if the Indian Citizenship Act was not primarily just a further attempt to promote assimilation.

Black Slaves, Indian Masters

In thinking about the American Indians’ plight in the centuries following the coming of the first British colonialists, I was surprised when I recently learned that even some Indians owned African-American slaves.

A well-researched book by Barbara Krauthamer, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was published in 2013 under the title Black Slaves, Indian Masters. It is a fascinating book about some Indians owning slaves from the late 1700s until at least 1866.  

Among social liberals, there are those who have only glowing praise for Native American culture. It is seen as promoting harmony with the natural world and with other people.

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (all are related), a phrase from the Lakota language reflects that worldview of interconnectedness and harmony held by the Lakota Indians.

And although Krauthamer’s book was not about the Lakota people, her research showed quite clearly that at least some citizens of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations were guilty of the “original sin” of the British settlers in North America.

Granted, they may have learned that “sinful” practice from the whites, but still . . . .

Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys

Richard Twiss was a Native American whose book Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys: A Native American Expression of the Jesus Way (2015) was published posthumously. 

Twiss, born in 1954 on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, died in 2013--just two years after completing his doctorate of missiology in intercultural studies from Asbury Theological Seminary.

In 1997 Twiss and his wife founded Wiconi (a Lakota word meaning life). Its mission was “to work for the well-being of our Native people by advancing cultural formation, indigenous education, spiritual awareness and social justice connected to the teachings and life of Jesus, through an indigenous worldview framework.”

As one who has long been an advocate of the contextualization of Christian theology (see my 1/22/10 blog article), I was very favorably impressed by Twiss’s book.

So with regard to the Native Americans, I want to hold on to the emphases of two Richards: the emphasis on the universal Christ by Richard Rohr and the emphasis on the native American expression of the Jesus Way by Richard Twiss.

Questioning Salvation History

Last month (here) I made reference to the second chapter of Miguel De La Torre’s disturbing book Embracing Hopelessness (2017). This article is about a theological problem I encountered in that same chapter.

Accepting Salvation History

One of the first theological German words I learned in seminary was Heilsgeschichte; I never understood why it was so often used in place of the English equivalent: salvation history. Then, the year I finished my basic seminary degree and entered graduate school (1962), Dr. Eric Rust, my major professor, published a book titled simply Salvation History.

While I mainly wanted to study Christian philosophy under Dr. Rust, I also studied Old Testament theology under him—and at that time I had no trouble accepting the basic ideas presented about salvation history—which still seem to be used in Christian colleges/seminaries, as is seen in the following diagram: 

(This diagram is copyrighted by Marion G. Bontrager (b. 1936), retired professor at Hesston College, a Mennonite school in Kansas.) 

Questioning Salvation History

I first began to question the validity of the concept of salvation history I had learned and accepted when I read books by Taiwan theologian C.S. Song, whose writings I studied and wrote essays about in the 1980s and ’90s.

In his seminal 1975 work Christian Mission in Reconstruction, Song (b. 1929) proposed the doctrine of creation rather than salvation history as the starting point for doing theology in Asia.

Japanese theologian Ken Miyamoto has a helpful section in his book God’s Mission in Asia (2007) titled “The Problem of Salvation History” (pp. 168~170). (My review of Miyamoto’s book was published in the January 2010 issue of Missiology: An International Review.)

Much more recently, as mentioned above, I read De La Torre’s rejection of salvation history. That stringent criticism is largely based on how he sees that idea linked to the notion of “manifest destiny,” which was so disastrous for American Indians.

In relating the horrific story of the Sand Creek Massacre, which occurred on November 29, 1864, De La Torre declares: “Sand Creek marked the start of a catastrophic collapse of the Plains Indians’ way of life, an unavoidable consequence of the reigning salvation history of the era known as Manifest Destiny” (p. 40).

In a way, the ideas of salvation history, American exceptionalism, and manifest destiny have been intertwined from the beginnings of the British “invasion” in the 17^th century of what is now North America —even though those connections have seldom been sufficiently recognized.

Thanksgiving Day, which most Americans have just celebrated and during which many recalled the so-called “first Thanksgiving” of 1621, is by no means a time for remembering a glorious past for those who are not white.

A few days ago I read the following hard-hitting article written by Glen Ford, the Executive Editor of the Black Agenda Report. It is titled, “American Thanksgiving: A Pure Glorification of Racist Barbarity”—and it is quite different from what we usually read about the beginnings of Thanksgiving Day in this country.

Read it here, if you dare.

Affirming Salvation History

Questioning salvation history has led me to the following conclusions:

** The concept of salvation history has sometimes led to a destructive triumphalism among some Christians, and that is unacceptable. De La Torre’s criticism must be taken seriously. But that misuse of the concept doesn’t call for rejection of the idea. Rightly understood it can still be affirmed.

** Salvation history recounts important matters regarding God’s work in the world—but not all of God’s work. C.S. Song’s criticism must also be taken seriously. Affirming salvation history does not necessitate denying God’s grace that has operated and is operating outside the confines of that framework.

The Election of 1868 (and 2018)

Since my hometown is Grant City (Mo.), I have long had an interest in, but not much knowledge of, Ulysses S. Grant. My recent reading about him, though, has convinced me that he is a man who should not be taken for granted and that his election in 1868 was one of great importance.

The Election of 1868

Even though my Oct. 30, 2016, blog article was about the presidential election of 1868 (see here), I didn’t write much about Grant, who was the winner of that election and thus became the 18^th POTUS.

For whatever reason, during most of my lifetime Grant seems not to have received the attention and the accolades he has deserved. But he and his accomplishments as President should not be taken lightly.

In one of the most important elections in U.S. history, 150 years ago on November 3, 1868, Grant won a decisive victory that was of great significance to the nation.

His election was especially significant for the American Indians and for the “freedmen,” the former enslaved persons who had a new birth of freedom because of the Civil War.

The Background of the 1868 Election

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio in 1822, the son of a tanner—and a fervent abolitionist. When he was 16, Ulysses, the name by which he was called, was nominated to West Point by the district’s U.S. Representative—but his name was mistakenly given as Ulysses S., and the name stuck.

After graduation, Grant distinguished himself as a daring and competent soldier during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. He left the army in 1854 but joined again in 1861, the beginning year of the Civil War.

Grant distinguished himself as a war hero, and after being elevated to the rank of lieutenant general in 1864, he forced and then received Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender in April 1865.

Results of the 1868 Election

Because of his great popularity across the nation—and it has been said that he was more popular in the 19^th century then Lincoln—Grant was nominated unanimously as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1868.

In spite of his political opponents calling Grant a drunk and accusing him of trying to “Africanize” the South, he won the 1868 election decisively: 214 to 80 electoral votes.

Among the premier accomplishments of Grant’s presidency are these:

** Organized (in April 1869) the Board of Indian Commissioners; this was Grant’s attempt to formulate a new humane policy towards Native American tribes. While not without problems, this “Peace Policy” was a great advancement in the way American Indians had been treated in the U.S. up to this time.

** Ratification (in February 1870) of the 15^th Amendment giving the freed slaves the right to vote.

** Passage of the “Ku Klux Klan” Act (in April 1871) that curtailed the activities of the KKK and other white supremacy organizations; this bill is also called the Civil Rights Act of 1871.  

(Actual 1868 campaign poster with an explanation added)

And What about the Election of 2018?

While not a presidential election, U.S. voters will go to the polls tomorrow (Nov. 6) to determine whether the racist, xenophobic, pro-white supremacy policies and rhetoric of the current administration are going to remain unchecked by a supportive Congress or whether there will be a better balance of power in the U.S. government.

The election of 1868 proved greatly beneficial for people of color then, and I fervently hope and pray that tomorrow’s election will similarly turn out well for people of color, immigrants, Jews, and the poor in contemporary society.

For further reading:

Two recommended books for further study of Grant (and the election of 1868):
** Grant (2002) by Jean Edward Smith, which presents Grant much more positively than most biographies up to that time.
** Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow, the latest, highly-acclaimed, 1000-page tome about Grant.

Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples' Day?

This coming Monday, October 8, is Columbus Day, a federal holiday in the United States. However, only about half of the states observe that day, and four states as well as many cities celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead.

The Issue

Columbus Day was first celebrated in the U.S. in 1792, and 100 years later President Harrison issued a proclamation encouraging Americans to celebrate the 400^th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage to the “new world.”

Then in 1937 President Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day as a national holiday, largely as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, the Roman Catholic fraternal service organization that was founded in 1882 and named in honor of Christopher Columbus.

In recent decades, though, there has been growing opposition to Columbus’s undeniable connection to the oppression of indigenous peoples and the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade.

Beginning in 1992 (in Berkeley, Calif.), an increasing number of cities—as well as the states of Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and South Dakota—now celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the place of Columbus Day. (In S.D., though, the day is called Native American Day.)

So, which holiday should be celebrated next Monday?  

The Issue Intensified

There are those who see the mistreatment of indigenous people and slavery as two aspects of “America’s original sin,” in the title words of Jim Wallis’s 2016 book.

Wallis asserts that “the near genocide and historic oppression of America’s Native American peoples and the enslavement and debasing of African peoples for profit were both sins—America’s original sin” (p. 57).

True, the activity of Columbus in the last part of the 15^th century may not be directly related to what happened in British North America beginning in the first part of the 17^th century—but the latter is definitely rooted in the ethos of Columbus with regards to both the treatment of indigenous people and the enslaving of both people of the new world as well as of Africa.

In a previous blog article (see here) I introduced Miguel De La Torre, an acquaintance for whom I have great respect, even though I sometimes disagree with him. One of the most challenging books I have read in many years is his book Embracing Hopelessness (2017).

In the Introduction, De La Torre makes this hard-hitting assertion:

Christians are behind all of this nation’s atrocities—the genocide of the indigenous people to steal their land, the enslavement of Africans to work the stolen land, and the stealing of cheap labor and natural resources of Latin Americans under the guise of “gunboat diplomacy” to develop the land (p. 4). 

Then in his second chapter De La Torre writes compellingly about his visit to the site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado. That tragic event was under the direction of U.S. Army Colonel John Chivington—while the Civil War was still being fought!

(When Chivington, 1821~94, was a young man, he was ordained to the Christian ministry and even served briefly as a missionary to the Wyandot Indians in Kansas—of particular interest to June and me since our church is in Wyandotte County.)

Responding to the Issue

Reading De La Torre’s chapter about the Sand Creek Massacre strengthened my resolve to push for the observance of Indigenous People’s Day in the U.S. on the second Monday of October from now on. 

People of goodwill need to work diligently to rid society of the highly detrimental results of America’s original sin, striving to combat the evil effects of white supremacy both with regard to the indigenous people of North America as well as to those who are the descendants of enslaved Africans.

TTT #13 Missionary Activity is Still Legitimate and Important

This article, based on the 13^th chapter of Thirty True Things... (TTT), is presented here with the hope that it will help Christian believers reflect on their own faith and practice and that it will help others come to a better understanding of Christianity.

The Modern Missionary Era

There have been missionaries to “foreign” places and ethnic groups from the time of the Apostle Paul to the present. The modern Protestant missionary movement, however, began with Englishman William Carey in 1792.

Building upon Carey’s ground-breaking ideas and actions, extensive time, effort, and resources have been expended on global missionary activities during the 225 years since Carey first went to India. 

According to the most recent statistics I could find (here), in 2010 there were approximately 400,000 serving as international Christian missionaries. Of those, 127,000 were U.S. missionaries; surprisingly, Brazil was the number two missionary-sending country.

As missionary activity by Europeans and Americans is much less prominent now than in previous generations, nearly half of the world's top missionary-sending countries are now located in the global South.

In this country, there are now many Christians who seem to think that evangelistic missionary activities ought to be curtailed altogether.

Criticism of Missionary Activity

There were, of course, opponents and critics of the modern missionary movement from the beginning and throughout the two centuries in which it flourished. From the beginning, Carey struggled to overcome strong opposition to his ideas about missions.

In recent decades, though, much of the criticism of “foreign” missionary work has been, justifiably, because of what was so often a tie between the work of the missionaries and the colonialistic and imperialistic activities of the Western countries from which most missionaries were sent.

Previously, that link was also the scourge of Catholic missions in the so-called “new world” from the time of Columbus, who saw himself as a missionary of sorts. And Hernán Cortés (1485~1547), who founded Vera Cruz [true cross], Mexico, reportedly said, “We have come here to win souls for Holy Mother Church, and to get much gold.”

More than three centuries later, the famous Scottish missionary David Livingstone (1813~73) declared in a 1857 speech given at Cambridge, “My desire is to open a path to this district [in Africa], that civilization, commerce, and Christianity might find their way there.”

To many critics, even more odious than the link between missionary activity and economic imperialism was what seemed to be cultural and/or religious imperialism promulgated by the missionaries. The latter was especially seen in much of the missionary work among the “Indians” of North America.

The Shifting Focus of Missionary Activity

Perhaps largely because of the criticism of much traditional missionary activity, which emphasized converting people to Christianity, the focus of much mission work in recent years has shifted primarily to benevolent work aimed at helping people live better in this present world.

“Mission trips,” which have become commonplace for many churches and Christian organizations, are almost completely concerned with helping people in physical need or deprivation.

To be sure, through the years since the beginning of the modern mission movement, responding in Christian love to the physical and psychological needs of suffering people has been a definite part of missionary activity.

For most forms of the faith, however, that activity was conducted in addition to, and usually secondarily to, the work of evangelism that endeavored to lead people to make a confession of faith in Jesus as Savior, to be baptized, and to become members of a local church.

While there is good reason to emphasize deeds and not just words, is there any reason not to have both?

TTT #9 Christians Must Be Careful When They Call Jesus “Lord”

Once again I am sharing content only from the first part of a chapter in my unpublished book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT). (Readers who have the time and interest are invited to click here in order to read the entire chapter.)

Confessing Jesus as Lord

“Jesus is Lord” is the first and oldest confession of faith by Christians. To present times, that has been a common declaration of faith—and one wonders how different things would be if Christian believers had stuck with that concise confession rather than crafting more complicated creeds.

Back in 1960 when I was a seminary student, June and I became the proud owners of a 1958 Hillman Minx, a British car that looked a lot better than it started in the wintertime. At some point, we pasted a Jesus is Lord sticker on the trunk (or I guess I should say the boot) of our pretty little red and grey car.

In addition to being a seminary student, I was also pastor of the Ekron Baptist Church in Meade County, south of Louisville, and I was happy to witness to Jesus as I drove around the Ekron community.

I had no idea then, and have not realized until fairly recently, that proclaiming that Jesus is Lord can be offensive to some people. But now I understand that Christians must be careful when they call Jesus Lord.

Objecting to Calling Jesus Lord

"Tink" Tinker (b. 1944)

American Indian Liberation (2008) is a challenging book by George E. (“Tink”) Tinker, a professor at Iliff School of Theology in Colorado. Dr. Tinker specifically objects to calling Jesus Lord. 

While the original meaning of that term was an indication of a believer’s commitment to Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, it came to be experienced by American Indians, as well as by aboriginal people in other countries around the world, as a term of conquest and colonization.

What was meant to be a term designating, among other things, the humble submission of believers to Christ eventually came to be a term even Christian missionaries used to lord it over other people.

Proclaiming Jesus as Lord led an imperialistic church to exude triumphalism in contact with American Indians and with many ethnic groups around the world.

That triumphalistic spirit is seen in hymns such as “Jesus Shall Reign” (1719). The first verse of that hymn by Isaac Watts says, “Jesus shall reign where'er the sun / does its successive journeys run; / his kingdom spread from shore to shore, / till moons shall wax and wane no more.”

And then the third verse of Watts’s hymn, one that is not usually found in modern hymnals, proclaims, “There Persia, glorious to behold, / There India shines in eastern gold; / And barb’rous nations at His word / Submit, and bow, and own their Lord.”

The triumphalism of the hymn becomes more problematic when one considers how Persia at that time was ruled by a Shi’a Islamic dynasty.

Confessing Jesus as Lord Today

The preaching of Paul and the early missionaries was clearly about the lordship of Christ. But as Christianity then was a small movement without power or prestige, there was no way that it could lord it over other people the way some missionaries and other Christians did later when Christianity was linked to imperialistic activities of powerful Western nations.

Because of that misuse of the concept of lordship, Christians today need to be careful how they use the words “Jesus is Lord.” That confession must be only a statement of one’s faith in and personal commitment to Christ and never as suggesting or approving domination of others.