The Conquest of the Kingdom

Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths: the Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

The era of European “discovery” didn’t begin in 1492, despite what my American History textbooks claimed. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued charters giving European kingdoms authority to “discover” lands currently occupied by non-Christians, especially those of an off-white hue, and claim that territory for Christianity. These bulls identified discovery specifically as the act of taking possession of land, even land already charted and well-documented.

Reformed (Calvinist) theologians Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah take vehement exception to the Doctrine of Discovery, an accumulation of religious precepts investing White imperial nations with moral authority to convert other peoples by choice. They don’t come by this position lightly. Mark Charles is of mixed Navajo and European heritage, and Soong-Chan Rah is a first-generation immigrant. Both authors know the destructive impulse inherent in imperial authority.

Christianity’s Doctrine of Discovery didn’t happen overnight. It represents an accumulation of principles, drawn originally from papal bulls, later from Reformation theological tracts, based on the innate goodness of earthly power. It derives from the notion of Christendom, the belief that nations with Christian populations will govern with Christian authority. And like all political authority, the Doctrine of Discovery, however well-intentioned, serves mainly to preserve itself against all challenges.

But despite its origins in 1452, our authors believe the Doctrine of Discovery originates much earlier in Christian history. They trace what they call “the heresy of Christendom” to early Christian philosophers, particularly Eusebius and Augustine, who sought relief from early Roman persecutions. Giving religious authority to secular rulers, especially the Emperor Constantine and his successors. This means yoking the church to the empire, and paying the cost for that.

Our authors trace the Doctrine of Discovery’s effects on native inhabitants of North America, which they call Turtle Island. (From the earliest pages, our authors acknowledge this is mainly Mark Charles’ book, and it includes many long autobiographical discursions.) Believing God through Christ has invested moral authority in technologically superior European powers, gives White Christians license to do immense damage to Native American peoples. Not a revelation, admittedly.

This isn’t abstract or incidental. Using both religious and secular sources, our authors find the words “doctrine of discovery” used in American government documents as recently as 2005, denying Native Americans land claims, despite even the government’s own admission that it seized the land illegally. The Doctrine of Discovery continues justifying the moral abasement of Native American bodies, to say nothing of souls, into the present day.

Mark Charles (left) and Soong-Chan Rah

Besides its negative effects on non-White populations, the Doctrine of Discovery has warping effects on White people, too. The desire to invest Christian authority in secular rulers creates the impulse toward a Messianic ruler. Our authors note that Eusebius, in his final books, describes the Church prostrating itself before the Messianic Emperor Constantine. White Americans, both religious and secular, have created our own White Messiah in Abraham Lincoln.

In later chapters, our authors surprise me by redefining the non-White relationship with the descendants of White colonists. They describe how non-White Americans, such as Mark Charles’ family on the Navajo Reservation, show signs of inherited PTSD-related trauma. But, in rejecting widespread explanations of either White supremacy or White fragility, they observe White Americans also show signs of inherited cultural trauma. Empire, they suggest, damages the imperialists, too.

Thus, our authors come full circle, from a poor Galilean Messiah who offered to restore a broken world, to a modern Christianity based on acknowledging how worldly power has broken Christendom. Our authors’ history of Western colonialism is dark and damning. But they don’t leave things by condemning the powerful; they recognize that powerful people need healing as badly as the powerless, and they can’t get that healing from the power that first injured them.

Despite what I’d expected, this isn’t a book of Indigenous Christian spirituality. If that’s what you want, consider other authors, like Steven Charleston. Rather, this book addresses how Christians need to face the powers of this world, how Jesus calls true believers to reconcile their faith with a broken and dangerous world. Because, as our authors remind us, Jesus stood before Pilate and said His Kingdom wasn’t of this world.

Yes, this book is definitely political. That may bother many Christians, especially those who see faith as personal and internal. But Jesus confronted tax collectors and centurions, challenging them to change their ways and focus on the True Kingdom. Christianity, I contend, is never partisan; but it is deeply political, because it always calls believers to allegiance to a different kind of Kingdom.