Post 1: The Basic Choice for White Evangelical Americans | Sangwon Yang and Mako Nagasawa
The Purpose of A Long Repentance Blog Series
People talk about issues of race and justice in the United States as issues of ‘justice and injustice.’ Sometimes we launch into debates about ‘the proper role of government.’ But is that the original framework from which these issues were asked and debated?
The purpose of the blog post series called A Long Repentance: Exploring Christian Mistakes About Race, Politics, and Justice in the United States is to remind our readers that these issues began as Christian heresies. They were at variance from Christian beliefs prior to colonialism. Since Christians enacted and institutionalized what we believe to be heretical ideas, they were very destructive and harmful, then as now. And we bear a unique responsibility for them. As a result, we believe we must engage in a long repentance. We must continue to resist the very heresies that we put into motion. Thus the title of this blog series, A Long Repentance. The journey is long and challenging. It may be impossible to see the end. But along the way, it is also inspiring and sometimes breathtaking.
We also encourage you to explore this booklet, A Long Repentance: A Study Guide, for further reflections and discussion questions. Here’s a YouTube video called Colonization, Globalization, and Liberating Theologies where co-author Mako Nagasawa did an introduction and summary.
What’s At Stake and How It Impacts Us
“But isn’t it enough to pray for conversions and church growth?” asked Eric. “Isn’t that the common goal all churches have? Why do we need to care about the social and racial issues you’re bringing up?” Eric was talking with Bill, his brother-in-law and fellow New England pastor, on this topic of race and faith.
“I really don’t think so, Eric,” replied Bill. “What’s at stake is the relationship between doing evangelism and discipling people. Jesus led people to tackle the biggest evils and problems of our day, just as he did back then. That includes the demons, the divisions among us, including institutions and policies, and the decay within ourselves.”
“People are more and more polarized on these issues, Bill,” pleaded Eric. “Isn’t that all the more reason to bring pastors and churches together? And across racial lines?”
“Absolutely, Eric,” said Bill, leaning in, over the table, and nodding with urgency.
Two Archetypes for Evangelicals: John Winthrop and Roger Williams
Eric said, “In Boston, we have a legacy. Christians say we are “a city on a hill.” It goes all the way back to the Puritans and John Winthrop and the founding of this country. If revival breaks out again, from secular Boston, and secular New England, just imagine…” John Winthrop was a Puritan icon, sometimes celebrated as the visionary of Protestant America, starting from New England.
Bill winced. “Eric, I mean this in all seriousness,” said Bill. “The real hero in American history is not John Winthrop or the Boston Puritans. They reflect the problem with evangelicals today. The hero is Roger Williams, and what he did in Providence, Rhode Island.”
“So settling down in Rhode Island had an effect on you after all?” Eric said, with a raised eyebrow.
Bill thought he heard some genuine curiosity behind the humor. So he pressed in. “What John Winthrop and Roger Williams believed about the role of Christian faith in a nation and in the world can’t be more different.”
“They represent very different directions. We are white American evangelicals, and we have to choose between them. You choose John Winthrop. So do the majority of white evangelicals. I think we should all choose Roger Williams instead.”
“How so?” asked Eric.
“John Winthrop wanted a white Protestant nation, and landed in Christian heresy,” said Bill. “Roger Williams did not.”
Eric rubbed his chin and asked, “How’s that? Why was John Winthrop a heretic?”
“For one,” replied Bill, “John Winthrop said:
“If we have no right to this land, yet our God has right to it, and if He be pleased to give to us (taking it from a people [i.e. the Native Americans] who had so long usurped upon him, and abused his creatures) who shall control him and his terms?”[1]
“What if I said God is giving me your house? Wouldn’t I be taking the Lord’s name in vain, manipulating the name of God to get your land?”
“Sure,” agreed Eric. “I see your point. How did Roger Williams treat Native Americans?”
“He bought land from them fairly,” said Bill. “He challenged his fellow English colonists because they did not. He accused the King of England of lying that he had the right to the land. He did it out of his Christian conviction and love. Williams treated the Natives with so much respect that the Narragansett people took him in when the Puritans exiled him.”
“But how much do we have to talk about this today?” asked Eric. “That happened in, what, the early 1600’s?”
“Eric,” replied Bill. “The Wampanoag people are still here in Eastern Massachusetts. And many of them are Christians, since the whole tribe at the time of 1690 reportedly became Christians.[2] Other Native people have become Christians, too.[3] And do we want them to just forget the past, just to come to our prayer meetings?”
“They can come to our prayer meetings,” retorted Eric, starting to feel defensive, “And put the past on hold, or forgive, or adapt to a new culture. People can adapt.”
“What if a few Wampanoag Christians show up to our prayer meetings in Boston and then, when they go back home, get criticized for it by their own people? What if the biggest obstacle to more Native people coming to Jesus is that white American Christians don’t repent?”
Eric sat back, feeling his frustration rising. “I can sympathize with that. But what can I do today? We didn’t do that. That happened a long time ago.”
Bill answered, “Look at it this way. Possession of stolen property is still a crime, even if someone else stole it. If my grandfather stole your grandfather’s house, car, and bank account, and passed it down to me, haven’t I benefited from something that probably would have been yours?”
Do Christians Have Special Privileges to Land?
Eric said, “Can I play devil’s advocate here? How do we know John Winthrop was wrong? What if God was somehow involved in colonizing?”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Bill replied. “The Bible paints a portrait of God originally gifting land to all people, to give them a home, for their good and their flourishing (Genesis 10; Deuteronomy 32:8; Amos 9:7; Acts 17:26–27), “that they would seek God” more effectively, says the apostle Paul. If receiving the beauty and goodness of the creation is a way people might know the goodness of God, being colonized would take that away.”
“Maybe it’s an issue of balancing biblical principles?” asked Eric. “Jesus also called people to give up their lands and wealth, and endure suffering.”
“Eric, we can’t inflict displacement, homelessness, and suffering on other people in the name of Jesus,” said Bill. “It’s about when we are in the biblical story. Yes, Jesus called his Jewish followers to give up their family-land inheritance because they had their own version of Manifest Destiny at the time. Jewish theological nationalism at the time of Jesus was at a high point.[4] Jesus challenged the assumption that God would permanently give the land as a whole back to Israel as a whole.[5] Which is its own specific topic, but white American Manifest Destiny sure sounds close to what Jesus rejected in his day.”
“Sure,” said Eric. “Plus, it’s not as if Jesus is against homeownership on an individual level (Acts 5:4). Jesus later said that his followers would share in houses and families and farms (Luke 18:29 – 30; Matthew 19:29). And it’s not as if Jesus tells people to just endure theft. Paul condemned stealing (1 Corinthians 6:10; Ephesians 4:28). So did Jesus (Luke 18:20; Matthew 19:18).”
“Okay,” said Bill. “But again, there’s the bigger issue of when are we in the biblical story. Can we just put ourselves into Israel’s story wherever we want, like the Puritans did? Or steal things and say, “No stealing from us”? No: We enter the story at the point of Jesus. Peter,[6] Hebrews,[7] and Paul say we as Jesus’ followers live in a “wilderness period” (1 Corinthians 10:1 - 13; 2 Corinthians 8:15).[8] In the sense that we are not in the “settling period” of settling the garden land, which is what John Winthrop taught. Christians do not have “special privileges from God” – privileges that other people don’t have – to claim land from God. When Jesus returns, he will renew the whole planet to be a new garden land. But not before. That’s the opposite of what white evangelical theological nationalism does. Claiming land in North America so that white evangelicals can be a “Christian nation” and feel perfectly, permanently at home, is wrong. In the New Testament, when we live defines how we live no matter where we live.”
“So is there a Christian approach to dealing with the theft of Native lands?” Eric asked.
“I think there is a range of good options, Eric,” replied Bill. “But it starts with taking an honest look at the history, as a Christian. It’s a long journey. And it will be a long repentance.”
[1] John Winthrop, papers 3:149; see Harvey, “A Social Economy of Whiteness,” p.188, and Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), p.79. Charles M. Segal and David C. Stineback, Puritans, Indians, and Manifest Destiny (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1977), p.42 - 43 write:
“In the society the Puritans carved out for themselves in New England, their allegiance, first and foremost, was to God. For their professed, overriding purpose was to establish in the New World a New Canaan, according to the Bible, where the “true Christians” could worship God without fear of persecution, and where they could devote every living moment to His glorification without the importunities of Satan…
“Here in New England, they would be able to participate in what they conceived to be the providential mission of creating a theocratic society patterned after that of Moses, David, and Solomon. And here, within the tenets of Puritanism, they would be able to meet their commitment “to manipulate material life for spiritual ends.”
There was an element of duplicity and self-deception in the way Puritans described the Native American relation to the land. Was the land claimed or unclaimed by Natives? Segal and Stineback, p.46 - 48 write:
“Of course, on the basis of the concept of vacuum domicilium, all the land in New England not being farmed or lived on by the Indians was considered vacant and awaiting occupation by the Puritans. Nevertheless, as earnestly as the Puritans sought to justify their invasion of the territory that rightfully belonged to the Indian, they found it difficult to ignore the realities of the situation. It would have been ridiculous for John Winthrop and his fellow immigrants to proclaim to the world that they had settled in a vacant land inhabited by Indians. Thus the Indians were a fact the Puritans had to face, although three years passed before Winthrop and his settlers purchased any native lands.
“Once begun, purchasing land from the Indians became a complex process that meant one thing to the Puritans and another to the Indians. The head sachem [chief] of each New England tribe in the seventeenth century had jurisdiction over his nation’s territory. Hunting grounds and fishing areas were controlled by subordinate sachems. While croplands at one time were held in common, with a sachem assigning sections to be cultivated by each family each year, by then the assigned lands remained in the possession of the families who had traditionally cultivated them. Still, no individual Indian could sell any portion of his land without the full sanction of his sachem, acting on behalf of the tribal government…
“New England colonists used a number of methods for acquiring Indian lands without coming into conflict with the natives. By far the most popular device was to allow one’s cattle to trample an Indian’s crops until he became completely unnerved and fled the premises. If he put up a fence to protect his crops, it would mysteriously be torn down. And if he dared harm any of the marauding animals, he would be haled into court to face hostile magistrates. Other techniques, used occasionally, were filling the Indian up with “strong water” and making him sign a deed he could not read; getting a corrupt Indian to lay claim to a piece of land, then recognizing his claim and “buying” it from him; and simply threatening the Indian with violence. A somewhat popular device was to have an Indian charged with a variety of offenses — some of them probably true at times — ranging from riding an Englishman’s horse without permission to conspiring against the English. Fines would be imposed that the accused could not pay. At this point, the friendly Englishman would appear and offer to pay the fine in return for a short-term mortgage on the Indian’s land. Later, the Englishman would foreclose.”
The conflicting accounts of the Puritans of Massachusetts were evident in 1689 when they claimed they had, in fact, legitimately purchased the land fairly from Native Americans. In 1689, they resisted the King of England’s attempt to make Massachusetts Bay into a dependent royal province. They could not depend on the supposed messianic mission of the Puritan covenant. Curiously, they did not rely on the original patent the colony received from an earlier King of England in 1629. John Higginson argued that the Massachusetts colony reposed on (1) a biblically creational framework which applied to all people; and on (2) legitimate economic purchase of the land from the Native Americans. Segal and Stineback, p.76 quote Edward Rawson, “The Revolution in New England Justified…” (1691), The Andros Tracts (Boston, 1868), 1: 88 - 89:
“[Massachusetts] had the possession and use of [its lands] by a twofold right warranted by the Word of God. 1) By a right of just occupation from the Grand Charter in Genesis 1st and 9th Chapters, whereby God gave the earth to the sons of Adam and Noah, to be subdued and replenished. 2) By a right of purchase from the Indians, who were native inhabitants, and had possession of the land before the English came hither, and that having lived here sixty years , I did certainly know that from the beginning of these plantations our fathers entered upon the land, partly as a wilderness and vacuum domicilium, and partly by the consent of the Indians, and therefore care was taken to treat with them, and to gain their consent, giving them such a valuable consideration as was to their satisfaction.”
Needless to say, the Native Americans did not agree.
Alfred A. Cave, The Pequot War (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996), p.35 - 36 points out that the early settlers sometimes tried to buy lands, but Winthrop also believed that if land was only used seasonally by Native people, then it was free for the taking; Winthrop also believed that Europeans were “more advanced” and therefore could simply take the land.
A critical but largely affirmative article on Winthrop comes from Bradley J. Birzer, "John Winthrop as Imaginative Conservative," The Imaginative Conservative, March 14, 2021; https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/03/john-winthrop-imaginative-conservative-bradley-birzer.html.
For more information on Roger Williams, see Edwin S. Gaustad, Roger Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); James Hammond Trumbull, editor, The Complete Writings of Roger Williams (New York, NY: Russell & Russell, 1963). For an online resource, see also the display by the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
[2] Kenneth R. Mulholland, “Indian carried Christianity: Wampanoag Christianity on Martha's Vineyard, 1643--1690,” Indigenous Policy Journal, July 2010; http://www.indigenouspolicy.org/index.php/ipj/thesis/view/55 says,
“The Puritan mission on Martha's Vineyard [began] in 1643 through the Christianization of the entire Wampanoag people in 1690.”
[3] James Treat, Native and Christian: Indigenous Voices on Religious Identity in the United States and Canada (New York: Routledge, 1996); Michael D. McNally, “The Practice of Native American Christianity,” Cambridge University Press Journal of Church History, Volume 69, Issue 4, December 2000; https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/practice-of-native-american-christianity/BBB169FB43D23671FAC2A2CE25A144C2 has an excellent bibliography.
[4] N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), chs.9 – 10. See especially p.264:
“Thus, in the literature which urged the exiled people to look forward to the coming age when all would be restored, the future glory of the land is described in terms borrowed from paradise-imagery; Israel after restoration will be like a new creation, with the people once again being fruitful and multiplying in her own land.”
Wright also says on p.269:
“This could not be clearer: Israel has returned to the land, but is still in the ‘exile’ of slavery, under the oppression of foreign overlords.”
[5] N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), p.302 – 303:
“This is an important underlying theme here which runs through the entire ministry of Jesus. Some Jews assumed, perhaps on the basis of a facile reading of Deuteronomy and certain psalms, that wealth was a sign of YHWH’s favour. It signalled, apparently, that one was already in receipt of covenant blessings. This explains the disciples’ great surprise (‘they were exceedingly astonished’, Mark 10.25) at being told that rich people would have difficulty inheriting the kingdom. They assumed that the rich were going to be part of the kingdom; the question for them was, who else? But Jesus was saying that the rich were not only not automatically within the covenant, but very likely outside it. This completely overturned the disciples’ worldview; but it was not a new thing in Jesus’ preaching. There were, as we saw, other warnings to the rich. When ‘the age to come’ finally arrived, possessions and property would have nothing to do with membership.”
Notice that in footnote 221 on page 302, Wright refers to many passages in Luke’s Gospel, including Luke 12:13.
“For other warnings cf. e.g. Lk. 6.24; 12.13 – 21; 14.33; 16.1 – 15, 19 – 31.”
[6] Peter likens us to Abraham and Sarah awaiting their inheritance: we “reside as aliens” (1 Pet.1:1), as “aliens and strangers” (1 Pet.2:11) in whatever country and nation and continent in which we live. He braces his audience for suffering, since Jesus suffered in the same way (1 Pet.2:11 – 4:18). That is the opposite of claiming the U.S. as a “Christian nation” where Christians feel perfectly entitled to land and control access to it, and even more entitled than non-Christians to lead and be in places of power.
[7] Hebrews also reminds us of Abraham and Sarah awaiting their inheritance: “By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Heb.11:9 - 10). But curiously, Hebrews says that the Old Testament people of God, even in Israel, and even when Israel was in the garden land, “were strangers and exiles on the earth… seeking a country of their own… they desire[d] a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them” (Heb.11:13 – 16). Jesus also endured hostility against himself, so we should not grow weary and lose heart (Heb.12:1 – 3). For we inherit an unshakeable kingdom (Heb 12:28). So we should “show hospitality to strangers,” and be kind to “prisoners” (Heb.13:2 – 3), “for here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb.13:14).
[8] Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, Donald A. Carson, editor, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), p.241 point out, “Paul has a high view of Exodus traditions, not least in 1 Corinthians.” Paul reminds the Corinthians of Israel’s Exodus and wilderness story. Our when is the "wilderness" time period (1 Cor.10:1 - 13; 2 Cor.8:15). We are like the Israelites in the wilderness, sandwiched in between deliverance and garden land. This parallel reinforces the point that in Paul’s mind, followers of Jesus live in a wilderness period, not a settling period.
· What just happened? Behind us is our Exodus deliverance: Jesus has delivered us from slavery to sin, like God once delivered the Israelites from slavery to Pharaoh. (Rom.6:1 - 11; 1 Cor.5:1 - 13)
· What will happen? Ahead of us is our garden land home: We are journeying together as we wait for Jesus' to renew all creation to be our garden land home (Rom.8:18 - 25; 1 Cor.15:20 - 28, 42 - 58), like God once brought the Israelites into their garden land home.
· So how do we live? People in the wilderness do not claim a land in the mold of theological nationalism. We cannot claim a land, because God is already giving us a planet, but not yet. Our when defines how we live. And where we live can be anywhere in the world, because Jesus calls his people to go everywhere around the world to show his life and love.
· Also, in 2 Corinthians 8:15, when Paul was encouraging the Corinthians to give to the famine relief fund for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and Judea, he quotes Exodus 16:18, which is from the story of God providing manna in the wilderness for Israel. The point is that they are all in the wilderness together, even though the Corinthians have more and the Judeans have less. There's even a moral lesson implied: When Israelites tried to get more manna for that day, it rotted and stank. Greed stinks to high heaven.
· Here again, Paul says that for all Christians, we live in the when of the wilderness part of the story. We are not in the garden land, so we do not claim a land as a nation. There is no theological nationalism.