What is now jointly named Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day should serve as a reminder to Christian scholars. Some of our past brethren in the universities and Church used their power and intellectual abilities to justify the enslavement and mistreatment of Native Americans. But this day should also remind us of a noble band of Christian scholars who thought differently, reasoned counter-culturally, and remained faithful to the liberating message of the Gospel in a way that did not serve the material interests of their rulers.
The source of this conflict came from a question that emerged from the European “discovery” of the new world: How should political representatives of Christian countries treat the First Nations population? Two problematic streams of thought emerged and combined to produce dreadful results. One stream, however, set forth abundant life. Unfortunately, few drank from and imbibed that stream.
The Problem with Christian Aristotelians
To answer this question, some university and church leaders turned to a revered pagan scholar instead of the Bible. Lewis Hawke noted in his volume, Aristotle and the American Indians, “Aristotle’s authority remained so strong among Christian thinkers that some eminent Spaniards did not hesitate to apply his doctrine of natural slavery to the Indians.”1 Most scholars point to a 1510 writing by John Major (Mair), a Scottish theologian who taught at the University of Paris, as the first instance of a scholar applying Aristotle’s understanding of natural slavery to the Native Americans, or “barbarians,” as those who made this application called them.2 Major’s approach was then copied by numerous Spanish thinkers in debates before the Spanish crown, particularly by the theologian Ginés Sepúlveda. These scholars failed to recognize pagan authorities must be interrogated and rejected if their anthropology operates outside the Christian understanding. Instead, they allowed Aristotle to trump Christian theology.
The Problem with OT Israel-Typology Christian Thinking
There was also a second group of Christians who were more faithful to Scripture. Yet, they still produced an atrocious way of thinking about the relationship with Native American tribes as political groups within the Christian narrative. These were the early Spanish and English settlers who saw themselves as Israel entering the Promised Land filled with Canaanites. Thus, they perceived that they could justify the taking of land and conquering of people by copying Israel’s holy war approach.
For instance, the Spanish lawyer Juan Lopez de Palacios Rubios famously led the Council of Castile that published the 1510 Requerimiento, a document to be read to Native American communities the Spaniards encountered. It declared,
Of all these nations God our Lord gave charge to one man, called St. Peter, that he should be Lord and Superior of all the men in the world, that all should obey him, and that he should be the head of the whole human race, wherever men should live, and under whatever law, sect, or belief they should be; and he gave him the world for his kingdom and jurisdiction.
It then declared in a manner reminiscent of Dt. 28-30 that the Native Americans faced a choice. First, they could become Christians:
If you do so, you will do well, and that which you are obliged to do to their Highnesses, and we in their name shall receive you in all love and charity, and shall leave you, your wives, and your children, and your lands, free without servitude,…
But, if you do not do this, and maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, 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….
Unfortunately, one of the consistent mistakes among Christians with or longing for more political power is to envision themselves as ancient Israel entering the promised land—a hermeneutical mistake employed both by contemporary Christian nationalists and progressive Christians when they want to advance those portions of the Old Testament law they adore in a contemporary nation-state such as America.
The good news is that a better way of thinking about Native Americans was produced by Christian practitioners and professors that gained attention and influence.
The Image of God and the Political Status of non-Chrisitan Peoples
The University of Salamanca was where an opposing group of scholars, largely associated with the Dominican order, developed a thoroughly Christian approach to personhood combined with a theologically-informed approach to non-Christian peoples that should be a model for Christians today.
Regarding the latter, these thinkers rejected the idea that Christians or Christian nations could act like Israel and simply declare holy war on the Native American populations. This opposing view originated from the Dominican Thomas de Vio or Cajetan (1469-1534), who declared that in the scriptural narrative, “War was never declared against any nation on the ground that it did not profess the true faith.” Thus, Cajetan concluded that “non-Christian rulers, whether Muslims or pagans, had a perfect right to their independence from the Church, which had no right to judge them, let alone war against them.”3 The only just wars were those of defense against attacks against persons or land. In this case, the Native Americans had not engaged in those actions.
Later, in 1537, a theologian at Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria, also set forth an academic answer to the question of Native American’s humanity. The first set of sermons decrying the mistreatment of Native Americans had already been delivered during Advent (November 30 and December 7) more than two and half decades earlier in 1511. Preached by a Dominican, Fray Anton Montesino who was personally witnessing the horrific mistreatment of Native Americans by the Spaniards in the Dominican, Montesino set forth a clear rationale against this mistreatment to the Spanish colonists by asking a simple question, “Are they not rational human beings? Are you therefore not obliged to love them as you love yourselves?”
Vitoria, a Dominican professor in Spain heard these reports from his fellow Dominicans. He then affirmed the Native Americans’ full humanity by establishing the argument against mistreatment using Christian theological anthropology. He argued that Native Americans should be understood as being made in God’s image and therefore sharing in God’s creation mandate to steward creation. He also pointed out that some previous thinkers, such as John Wycliffe, held that one lost the image through sin [contra Gen. 9:6]. Vitoria rightfully dismissed this view as a “lunatic heresy”4 that is inconsistent with Scripture and Church Fathers such as Augustine, “for man is the image of God by his inborn nature, that is by his rational powers. Hence he cannot lose his dominion by mortal sin.”5 Thus, he argued that the Native Americans shared full humanity and the ability to exercise the creation mandate specified in Genesis 1.
One scholar, William Bain has pointed out that Vitoria’s claim that the Native Americans were made in God’s image was the fundamental premise of his argument. Bain goes on to note that “the inescapably theological character” of Vitoria’s argument for universal human dignity, that humans are made in God’s image, creates problems for its use in politics today.6 Bain is right. Certain Christians in politics pay more respect to John Rawls than Christian metaphysics and believe there is no room at the domestic or international relations inn for even the most basic theological premise. It is a good thing that Martin Luther King, Jr. did not have this view about American political thought. He heavily relied upon this theological teaching to justify the full and equal inclusion of African Americans in American life.
Fortunately, Vitoria did not have this narrow modern view either. Indeed, he, along with Bartolomé de Las Casas, publicly defended Native Americans as God’s image bearers in the face of possible persecution and even death before the Spanish Crown.7 Their argument won the day. As a result, the Spanish crown did attempt to work out how to prevent the dehumanization of Native American peoples.
Unfortunately, scholars must remember that good theological thinking is never enough. It must then be transferred into legal structures and actions. As Brian Tierney noted, “In the end, all the writings on behalf of the Indians did little or nothing to ameliorate their plight. The battles that were sometimes won in the debating halls of Salamanca and Madrid were nearly always lost among the hard realities of life in Mexico or Peru.”8 The problem was that the Spanish crown did not have the will and accountability structures needed to reign in the dehumanizing actions of the conquistadors.
This episode in history should serve as a warning to Christian scholars. The inheritors of sixteenth-century Christian Aristotelian or Israel-Typology thinking can still include Christians on the political right and left. Furthermore, there are those pure secularists, extreme separationists, or pragmatists who always want to keep even the most fundamental theological premise about humanity away from the public square.
All can turn away from core Christian doctrines to favor secular visions of personhood or distorted biblical justifications for Christian political hegemony. Yet, there is no better way to affirm human dignity, than acknowledging that all humans are made in God’s image.
Footnotes
- Lewis Hawke, Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959), 1.
- Roger Ruston, Human Rights and the Image of God. (London: SCM Press, 2004), 73; Lewis Hawke, Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959),16; Bartolomé de las Casas. Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian Rights: A Brief History with Documents. Edited by Lawrence A. Clayton and David M. Lantigua (The University of Alabama Press, 2020), 87.
- Ruston, Human Rights and the Image of God, 76.
- Francisco de Vitoria, Political Writings, eds. Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrence (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 243.
- Vitoria, Political Writings, 242. In connecting the image of God to humanity’s rational powers, Vitoria is drawing upon Aquinas. Today, Protestant theologians would not restrict the image of God to those with “rational powers.”
- William Bain, “Vitoria: The Law of War, Saving the Innocent, and the Image of God.” Just and Unjust Military Intervention, eds. Stefano Recchia and Jennifer M. Welsh (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 71, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107323681.004.
- Bartolomé de las Casas. Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian Rights; Hawke, Aristotle and the American Indians..
- Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, 256.
Perry
This is a wisely written Christian ethics article that weaves a Biblical moral truth all humans are created in The image of God and then shows a historical time when some held to that truth and some were swayed from it.
And then you appeal for us to be faithful in the current challenges.
Thanks for being a prophetic voice!
Thank you for an enlightening post, Perry.
This argument suggests that racist, gender- or ethno-phobic claims about “others” are largely detachable from Christian theology and biblical interpretation. The “core” biblical story or worldview, perhaps “social imaginary”, affirms human dignity throughout the diversity of humankind. I want to believe that slavery, patriarchy, and subjection of indigenous peoples represented mere off ramps from “core biblical doctrines.” But as Willie James Jennings and Stuart Clark have argued about race and witchcraft belief respectively, those convictions rested at the heart of that world’s Christian theological cosmology. Scripture on occasion highlights a Kingdom conviction about “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor . . . male and female”. But not always, if even all that often. For example, Bigotry against Jews in early-modern British Protestantism did important theological work. Scripture nowhere denounces slavery, which delighted American Christian defenders of chattel slavery. And when Scripture wasn’t enough, such arguments embraced one or more versions of the created order and natural law for support. I don’t think we do Scriptural authority, or the integrity of the Good News, any favors by pretending that past injustices by Christians were primarily acts of willful Scriptural ignorance or self-serving theological narrowness. Nor does it help to drag modernity into the mix as an accomplice after the fact. It would be more prophetic to own up to all this.
Mike, I appreciate your desire to wrestle with these difficult issues, but I think you missed the key part of my argument and fail to acknowledge some important realities. I’ll respond to each of your points.
You claim, “This argument suggests that racist, gender- or ethno-phobic claims about ‘others’ are largely detachable from Christian theology and biblical interpretation.”
–I do not suggest that. In fact, I point out how a particular biblical interpretation was used to justify holy war against “others”
The “core” biblical story or worldview, perhaps “social imaginary”, affirms human dignity throughout the diversity of humankind. I want to believe that slavery, patriarchy, and subjection of indigenous peoples represented mere off ramps from “core biblical doctrines.” But as Willie James Jennings and Stuart Clark have argued about race and witchcraft belief respectively, those convictions rested at the heart of that world’s Christian theological cosmology.
–You fail to acknowledge that all ancient cosmologies justified slavery and certain views of race (e.g., the interpretation about Ham’s curse being related to race came from Muslim scholars, Aristotle, etc.). The important question is what cosmological/theological resources were helpful in breaking free of these ancient cosmologies? Here is where the image of God proved crucial.
Scripture on occasion highlights a Kingdom conviction about “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor . . . male and female”. But not always, if even all that often.
–This passage is unrelated to my argument, which was based on how certain thinkers drew upon the image of God. I have noted elsewhere that the first anti-slavery argument we know of by Gregory of Nyssa drew upon this key theological doctrine as then do many following abolitionists.
For example, Bigotry against Jews in early-modern British Protestantism did important theological work.
–I’m not exactly sure how this claim is related to my argument, but I have no problem pointing out the Church’s history in this area (e.g., the book Faith and Fratricide).
Scripture nowhere denounces slavery, which delighted American Christian defenders of chattel slavery. And when Scripture wasn’t enough, such arguments embraced one or more versions of the created order and natural law for support.
–Sure, but there were two sides to this argument. Slave defenders like Southern Baptist Gov. Furman of SC was countered by abolitionists, such as Angela Grimke and Frederick Douglas who relied for part of their argument upon the image of God (as did MLK) and the “one blood” reference in Paul’s Mars Hill sermon.
I don’t think we do Scriptural authority, or the integrity of the Good News, any favors by pretending that past injustices by Christians were primarily acts of willful Scriptural ignorance or self-serving theological narrowness.
–Those who perpetrated these past injustices were hardly scripturally ignorant. I do think they were theologically self-serving at times. I’m sure they also thought of themselves as faithful to Scripture and God. You seem to imply however, that biblical cosmology necessitated the approach they took. As my column points out, it did not. Other Christian thinkers took different approaches drawing upon different biblical resources.
Nor does it help to drag modernity into the mix as an accomplice after the fact.
–Not sure what you’re claiming here.
Thank you, Perry, for your prompt and clear response. I really do appreciate that. Yet I’m afraid I’m unrepentant over my initial comments. I think there are two parts to your original argument most relevant to our conversation. 1) Christians who defended enslaving aboriginal peoples did so largely from Aristotle’s authority, implying they could not do so on Scriptural grounds (“turned to a revered pagan scholar instead of the Bible”); 2) Christian theology has always had a through line, a single voice, reading the rest of Scripture with an “anthropology” derived from the image of God (“a thoroughly Christian approach”, “Christian theological anthropology”, “Christian metaphysics”, “core Christian doctrines”).
Among your responses, you suggest that 1) I should acknowledge how “all ancient cosmologies” defended slavery, in principle similar to Scriptural accounts of slavery, though again challenged by “cosmological/theological resources”, such as the image of God; 2) Christian abolitionists wielded the very Christian resources you celebrate to challenge defenders of slavery; and 3) the Christian tradition includes not only defenders of colonizing oppression and slavery, but vehement opponents of such injustices.
I trust we share the defense of some kind of “core” through line of Christian anthropology depicting God’s gracious gift of his own image to each human. At first I read your essay to offer a brief account of the history of theological views of native peoples suited to conversation and repentance on Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day. What you say you intended to do, was to follow that through line of “core” Christian theology, to instruct your readers for today’s civic challenges. But that seems to have a problem. I don’t see Christians over time to have honored that “core” as the common thread you see throughout the Church’s history. You yourself suggested as much; the history of Christian interpretation of Scripture includes a good deal of troubling ideology. Instead of adhering to the systematic theological anthropology built from Genesis 1, defenders of colonial injustice, and later Furman, proof-texted the Bible ideologically (and they weren’t alone; hence my comments on theological uses of “the Jews”). The failure to recognize or obey those “core” convictions, you suggest, resulted from self-interested state and economic policies, craven obedience to rulers, stubborn uncritical adherence to ancient authorities, which disabled basic human sympathy or the leading of the Holy Spirit. I believe your story collapses all that historical complexity you began to discuss in your response to my post. Of course there is more to say, but I’ve gone on too long. I apologize, then. I think we understand historical protocols differently.
Mike,
Sorry I was not as prompt responding today, since I was traveling. Those are helpful clarifications. I think we’re getting a better understanding of each other’s views. I’ll respond to each of your comments.
1) Christians who defended enslaving aboriginal peoples did so largely from Aristotle’s authority, implying they could not do so on Scriptural grounds (“turned to a revered pagan scholar instead of the Bible”);
-Contra your assumption, I wasn’t implying that others did not justify the slavery or the mistreatment of Native Americans on Scriptural grounds. Certainly, a variety of mistreatment and slave defenders did that throughout the history of slavery (which still exists today in certain parts of the world). Yet, if you read the debates to which I was referring (the Spanish debates before the Spanish crown), you’ll realize that Aristotle’s authority was also one of the key aspects of the argument—especially the Spanish debates before royalty by Sepulveda and de las Casas, which relied heavily on Aristotle and Aquinas.
2) Christian theology has always had a through line, a single voice, reading the rest of Scripture with an “anthropology” derived from the image of God (“a thoroughly Christian approach”, “Christian theological anthropology”, “Christian metaphysics”, “core Christian doctrines”).
-Again, you’re reading into my essay and assuming things I never said. Christian theology has never even had a single voice regarding what it means to be made in the image of God much less theological anthropology as a whole. My point, and scholar’s such as Bain’s point as well , is that Vitero’s argument was distinctly Judeo-Christian and distinctly theological. That humans are made in God’s image is a core Christian doctrine, a key to Christian metaphysics and a key aspect of Christian theological anthropology, but it does not mean there has been a uniform voice on its implications for all Christians throughout all time (or that it even made it into all the various Christian creeds). That being said, there is a reason why Vitero called Wycliffe’s view that we lose the image after the Fall a “lunatic heresy.” He obviously thought there was substantial agreement in the Church on that point.
Among your responses, you suggest that 1) I should acknowledge how “all ancient cosmologies” defended slavery, in principle similar to Scriptural accounts of slavery, though again challenged by “cosmological/theological resources”, such as the image of God; 2) Christian abolitionists wielded the very Christian resources you celebrate to challenge defenders of slavery; and 3) the Christian tradition includes not only defenders of colonizing oppression and slavery, but vehement opponents of such injustices.
-yes, that’s accurate
I trust we share the defense of some kind of “core” through line of Christian anthropology depicting God’s gracious gift of his own image to each human. At first I read your essay to offer a brief account of the history of theological views of native peoples suited to conversation and repentance on Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day. What you say you intended to do, was to follow that through line of “core” Christian theology, to instruct your readers for today’s civic challenges. But that seems to have a problem. I don’t see Christians over time to have honored that “core” as the common thread you see throughout the Church’s history.
-I agree that we share a core throught line. Also, we agree that many so-called Christians have failed in this area (e.g., Andrew Jackson), but I think we also need to recognize and emulate the exceptions who successfully defended that core (that was what I was doing in this post). For example, to use later history, there were missionaries to the Cherokees who took their case to the Supreme Court to try and prevent Jackson’s Trail of Tears orders. I think Wilberforce’s efforts to abolish slavery and the 300,000 Union dead also bear witness to efforts to honor that core. So do the efforts by various Christian thinkers to promote universal human rights (which includer some of the original thinkers who formulated the thinking about human rights). MLK and the Christians who marched to get rid of Jim Crow laws. Now, could and should Christians do more? Absolutely. Should it be supported by more Christians? Absolutely.
You yourself suggested as much; the history of Christian interpretation of Scripture includes a good deal of troubling ideology. Instead of adhering to the systematic theological anthropology built from Genesis 1, defenders of colonial injustice, and later Furman, proof-texted the Bible ideologically (and they weren’t alone; hence my comments on theological uses of “the Jews”). The failure to recognize or obey those “core” convictions, you suggest, resulted from self-interested state and economic policies, craven obedience to rulers, stubborn uncritical adherence to ancient authorities, which disabled basic human sympathy or the leading of the Holy Spirit.
–Agree completely with you here.
I believe your story collapses all that historical complexity you began to discuss in your response to my post. Of course there is more to say, but I’ve gone on too long. I apologize, then. I think we understand historical protocols differently.
-I’m not sure what to say here. Certainly, a response to a post does not capture all the historical nuance. In my original post, I attempted to get at some of this complexity by demonstrating a couple Fallen responses. I could have also cited other villains and heroes when it comes to the treatment of the Native Americans (Jamestown colonists/Puritans vs. Roger Williams/William Penn), as well as other Christians who went along with the fallen crowd. Thanks for engaging.
Perry