Among the flags and symbols brandished in the recent attempted coup was the cross, with flags declaring “Jesus 2020” and “God wins.” While many faith groups are condemning the attempted coup and are calling for Trump’s removal from office, the long-term question for Christians is what they will do to excise the theme of supremacy and authority within Christianity’s narrative, theology and scripture.
This strain of belief, which some call Christian Nationalism or Christian Supremacy, is authoritarian, not democratic. Senator Josh Hawley, a leader in the attempt to overturn the election, has publicly declared that his charge is to “Take the Lordship of Christ, that message, into the public realm, and to seek the obedience of the nations. Our nation.” (Katherine Stewart, NYTimes, Jan. 11, 2021) He does not take his charge to be to uphold the US Constitution or the integrity of elections. When he was sworn in to the US Senate, he must have been lying.
When Pastor Brian Gibson declares that “The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ started America,” he has a strong point. In 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, in his bull, Unam Sanctam, (One God, One Faith, One Spiritual Authority) declared the authority of the church over political authorities, like Christian Nationalists do. As European nations acquired the wherewithal to travel to all parts of the earth, several popes blessed them in doing so, so long as they carried out Christ’s directive that his followers convert all nations of the earth. In doing so, Christ declared that all authority on heaven and earth had been given to him. He transferred that authority to his church. The popes were insistent on the requirement that the conquerors convert whomever they encountered who was not Christian. The mission of colonialism was the mission of the church. And the justification of the popes, referred to as the Doctrine of Discovery, was recognized as law in US jurisprudence with the 1823 U.S. Supreme Court case Johnson v. M’Intosh. This precedent of this decision holds sway even today.
Pastor Gibson is correct. The Christian church founded America. In 1510, the Council of Castille formulated a statement for Spanish conquerors to read to the native peoples they encountered. It was a declaration of Christian dominance.
That declaration, Requieremiento, (Requirement: To be Read by Spanish Conquerors to Defeated Indians) stated that what the conquerors were doing was ordained by God, and that the Church was “the Ruler and Superior of the Whole World.” The Native peoples were informed that they were invited to voluntarily convert to Christianity. When they did, they would lose their autonomy and become “the subjects and vassals” of the Spanish crown. Belying the fact that this was not at all voluntary, if they did not convert, “with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their Highnesses; we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their Highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey, and refuse to receive their lord, and resist and contradict him; and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault, and not that of their Highnesses, or ours, nor of these cavaliers who come with us.”
Any wonder that some would now claim that “Christianity represents the worst of the history of colonialism among Indian peoples in North America.” (p. 72, A Native American Theology) When Christians came from Europe to occupy the land they call the Americas, they did so with the belief that they were God’s chosen people, and this was their promised land. The narrative of Manifest Destiny was unquestioned by ordinary Christians while it was the program of their church leaders. As Simone Weil observed, “Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.”
At this point, it is easy for liberal Christians to blame white supremacy or fascism for the danger of Trumpism. This ignores the growing realization that white supremacy had its roots in Christian supremacy. (See Hill Fletcher The Sin of White Supremacy). Liberal Christianity does not take ownership of this problem, rather treating Christian nationalists and not being true Christians. As we have seen in Germany with Nazism and in South Africa with apartheid, health and healing requires taking ownership of the problem by people who initially deny any role. Christian Nationalists and liberal Christians draw from the same source material. And, in many ways, liberal Christianity is the benefactor of the Christian domination that founded this nation and structures it yet today.
In addition to addressing systemic racism, we would do well to address systemic Christian domination, which may be even more difficult to recognize and admit to. We can begin by identifying the authoritarian themes embedded in Christianity’s narrative of chosenness and its promise to what others have, the hierarchical nature of its theology, and the foundational threads in the Christian bible liberal Christianity shares in common with Christian Nationalism.
