Colonisation and conquest
Based on Genesis 28:10-19a
On
the 30th of March this year, something extremely significant happened you
probably don’t know about. The Vatican repudiated a series of papal decrees
that had enabled the so-called doctrine of discovery.
The
Rev. David McCallum, executive director of the Program for Discerning
Leadership in Rome, said, "The statement repudiates the very mindsets and
worldview that gave rise to the original papal bulls. It renounces the
mindset of cultural or racial superiority which allowed for that
objectification or subjection of people, and strongly condemns any attitudes
or actions that threaten or damage the dignity of the human person."
1
So,
what exactly was the doctrine of discovery?
Its
fundamental premise was that it lent the Church’s authority to European
colonisation and conquest, and the suppression and plunder of indigenous
cultures that resulted. For over five hundred years, the doctrine of
discovery, and the international law that was derived from it, legitimised
the theft of land, labour, and resources from indigenous peoples and
systematically denied them their human rights.
So
how did this happen? In June 1452, People Nicholas V issued the decree
Dum Diversas.
This gave authority to King Afonso V of Portugal to conquer, Muslims,
pagans, and anyone else who wasn’t a Christian, and subject them to penal
servitude.
In
other words, slavery.
Indeed, the Church had even stated that slavery served as a natural
deterrent and Christianising influence to “barbarous” behaviour among
pagans.
Three years later, he issued a further decree
Romanus
Pontifex, which strengthened his earlier decree, along with
forbidding other Christian kings from usurping Portuguese ambitions in most
of Africa. And various other decrees that were in a similar vein followed,
and Spain and Portugal were given preferential status over other aspiring
colonisers.
These decrees, which were issued
during a time of global colonial expansion by European powers, enabled
empires that professed to be Christian to invade, conquer plunder, and
subjugate non‐Christian lands, peoples and sovereign nations and
forcibly impose Christianity on their peoples. These were blatant and unholy
alliances between Church and state.
Not very Christian if you ask me
though.
They were justified by appeals to scripture,
primarily an unfortunate interpretation of some of the mission-focussed
texts of the Newer Testament, but also parts of the Older Testament,
including the Book of Genesis.
And
those responsible knew what they were doing; their use of scripture was very
selective. I recently learned that Bibles were produced for African slaves
that were contained only 14 books instead of the up to 81 books contained in
Church Bibles; any books that might incite rebellion were removed.
Heaven forbid that slaves might
read the story of the Exodus.
At this point I need to emphasise
that even though the decrees I have cited were papal bulls, I am not
singling out the Catholic Church here; Orthodox and Protestant Churches also
have the blood of the colonised on their hands. Including we Anglicans. Even
countries that were nominally secular. Such as the USA, which used the
doctrine of discovery to try to justify its conquest and subjugation of
Native Americans.
Of course, Aotearoa New Zealand
was no exception. I am old enough have been born into a generation where the
prevailing narrative was that Great Britain brought a civilising influence
to a savage land. It took me many years to wake up to the reality that many
of the privileges I enjoy through being a middle class Pākehā were
ultimately gained by Crown violence against, theft from, and
disenfranchisement of Māori through colonisation during the 19th Century.
So why did I start today with a
history lesson?
It is because I was reminded of
these unfortunate events while I was reflecting on this morning’s Older
Testament from the Book of Genesis. Genesis is, of course, the first book of
the Older Testament. You may not agree with me – and you are under no
obligation whatsoever to do so – but I believe that about the first eleven
chapters of Genesis, which include the two creation stories, Adam and Eve in
the garden of Eden, and the intertwined separate narratives that we know as
the story of Noah and the great flood, are entirely allegorical. Rather than
describing actual events they are stories and traditions that
helped the
ancient Hebrews make sense of things they couldn’t understand.
The first person in Genesis I
believe to have been likely to have been a real historical figure was Abram
– later called Abraham – and his grandson Jacob is the at the centre of the
text we heard today, which was the story of his dream at Bethel of angels
ascending and descending a ladder extending to heaven.
This dream is of great
significance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. And the central image has
become such an archetypical image that the phrase Jacob’s Ladder has
subsequently become the name of several films, a few novels, various songs,
a family of flowering plants, a toy, and many geographical locations,
including tramping routes in the Orongorongo Valley and on Mt Taranaki.
And I would be very surprised if
Jacob’s Ladder wasn’t the inspiration for Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to
Heaven’. But I digress.
There have been many
interpretations of the meaning of the various symbols in this this dream,
but the most widely accepted meaning of the overall text is the
identification of Jacob as one of the three key patriarchs of the Hebrew
people following his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac.
In this regard, it is important
to consider when Genesis was written. Although its authorship was
traditionally ascribed to Moses, we can safely say Moses did not write
Genesis, or for that matter, any other books of the first five books Hebrew
Scriptures attributed to him, which we know as the Torah, or the Law.
Scholars used to believe The Torah was written around the time of King
Solomon, but more recently thinking points to it being commenced before or
during the exile of the Hebrews in Babylon and completed after their return.
And this makes a lot of sense. This was a time of great turmoil and crisis
and cementing Jacob’s place in the official story of the Israel added gave
legitimacy to the claim of the Hebrews to the land to which they had just
returned.
And as I have already noted,
parts of Genesis and other scriptures have been misused to attempt to
justify the now repudiated doctrine of discovery I spoke of earlier. And
given how this text does indeed condone conquest of lands that are already
owned and occupied, how do we make sense of that?
My usual approach to scripture is
to consider the cultural, historical, and literary contexts of the original
texts before trying to determine how they might possibly be speaking to us
today, and use Jesus the Christ and his teachings as the benchmark against
which they should be measured.
Texts that endorsed Hebrew
nationalism, such as what we heard this morning, were written at a time of
national crisis when nationhood and identity needed to be restated.
Especially considering their perceived divine right to occupy that land that
had just been taken from them by the Babylonians. Those who wrote and edited
these stories did so in the context of their own national struggle, and
these stories should never have been taken out of context to justify
European colonisation. They can however be used to affirm the role of the
Jewish people in the story of creation and redemption.
So rather than interpreting texts
like this as offering divine support for the doctrine of discovery and the
colonisation of much of the world that this empowered, we should consider
them in the light of the teachings of the gospels.
I believe we have to some degree
benefitted from the systemic violence of unjust power structures or the
past. And I say it’s time for us to acknowledge this and learn from our
past. Including making amends where they need to be made.
I say we are called to form an
empire. But not one based on conquest and material gain. I believe the
Church is the Body of the Christ in the world, and we have a mission to
proclaim we are good news for the poor, release for the captives, recovery
of sight for the blind, and liberty for those who are oppressed.
So rather than misusing Jacob’s
dream to justify Europe’s colonial conquests, let’s use it to affirm
becoming a community establishing justice and peace on all the Earth.
Darryl Ward
23 July 2023