Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery

The premise of the book is that the United States applies the Biblical cognitive metaphors of “Chosen nation vs Canaan”, “Promised Land”, and other Old Testament conquest language to shape its own treatment of Native American nations.However, the scholarship is abysmal. The basic issue is that the author is not familiar with source languages and NEVER actually quotes, references, or cites the primary sources themselves. As a result, everything related to Spanish, Latin, and Portuguese never actually references the original texts, but instead relies on paraphrasing and commentary from secondary sources.The author is obsessed with applying an “idealized cognitive model” to everything, but constantly gets word origins, language families, and language relationships wrong – even the words are wrong sometimes, because the author consistently relies on bad translations of the Romance languages. As a result, the ICMs are based on the associations entirely personal to the author, rather than anything based in either statistical analysis of word usage across a corpus of texts or on a rigorous analysis of historical linguistics and language evolution.In addition, the author collapses history, linking ancient Israel, Christian Rome, Crusaders, Reconquista Iberians, and 20th century Americans in a vast chain of conquest ideology. That might be possible, except the author never engages with source texts or intellectual history, but instead just makes declarative statements based on objectively wrong premises, and creates convoluted connect-the-dots between people and societies who are hundreds of years and hundreds of miles apart. Why would 19th century America – a secular Protestant common law country – have the same legal and religious ideology of conquest as 15th century Castile – a confessional Catholic civil law country? The answer is that they did not, because they were different societies with different ideologies of empire, each of which evolved over time.A breakdown is below, but fundamentally the author engages in bad history, bad linguistics, bad historiography, bad law, bad religion, and just generally shoddy work all around. I will throw this book in the garbage so that other people are not tempted to read it.Chapter 2 The Metaphorical Experience and Federal Indian Lawp. 15 There is an extended explanation of how colony is derived from the Latin colere, and related to cultivation. However, the author then says that “another root metaphor of colonization is colo “to remove solids by filtering” and “to wash gold”. This is nonsense. “Colo” is related to cultiavation, and is the first person indicative of “colere from above. The author then goes on to describe how filtering is related to the “colon”. This is also nonsense, since “colon” is from Greek, not Latin.p. 16 There is a lengthy explanation that “capacious swallow” is referring to a big swallow.p. 17 – 18 “Does a tree have a front or back without us imaginatively projecting a front or back onto a tree. The answer is no. Attributing fronts or back to trees involves a process of mentally project the conception of the front and back of the human body onto trees.” How? Why does “front” now only refer to the human body? The author can’t just declare his personal definition to be the “true” meaning and everything else a “metaphor”, this should at least be backed up in a study of usage.Chapter 3 The Conqueror Modelp. 23. “In cognitive theory, we find two main metaphors that express a state of being: A STATE IS A BOUNDED REGION IN SPACE and STATES ARE LOCATIONS. Thus the phrase a state of domination is unconsciously conceptualized as a region, area, or location of domination, exercised and maintained within well-defined boundaries.” What does “find a metaphor” mean? Are metaphors transhistorical, transcultural, and translingual acts that can apparently be projected hundreds of years into the past to people across the planet?p. 24 “The ICM of the Conqueror model posits a central figure . . . who is considered to be divine.” Again, in which culture and language are we talking about? What does “divine” mean? What separates “divine” from “non-divine”?p. 24 “The conqueror has the divine right to exert control or force.” What if the conqueror is deemed an illegitimate tyrant and is penalized or executed?p. 27 “In the Johnson ruling, John Marshall wrote a lengthy section that drew up on the prototype of what he termed the conqueror. He did not write about any specific conqueror in history; rather, he wrote in terms of a conqueror ICM.” Or, John Marshall wrote a great deal of nonsense to justify an unjust usurpation of land. I don’t think it is really necessary to dive into cognitive theory to explain a post-hoc justification for material gain.p. 28 “The Old World idea of property was well expressed by the Latin dominium: from “dominus” which derived from Sanskrit “domanus”. This is nonsense. Sanskrit and Latin are different languages that are equally old and thousands of miles apart. The people of Latium did not acquire their basic vocabulary from northern India.p. 29 “The term due, which is embedded in the word subdue, is derived from Latin debere, to owe.” This is also wrong. “Subdue” is derived from either sub+do or sub+ duco, entirely different from debere.p. 31 “This is the basis for the Vatican’s call in a number of papal bulls or documents . . . “ The Vatican did not exist and was not a concept in the 1400s, when the Pope ruled Central Italy. Referring to the Papacy as “the Vatican” is completely anachronistic.p. 34 In regards to the Requerimiento, the author writes: “The phrase “their Highnesses” uses the UP-DOWN image-scheme and the metaphor CONTROL IS UP to conceptually position the monarchs above indigenous people.” Problem is that “their highnesses” is from a bad second-hand translation. The actual phrasing is “sus majestades”, but apparently language doesn’t matter anyway in this LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS so who cares.Chapter 4 Colonizing the Promised Landp. 40 “Similarly, the Old Testament portrays the Lord (dominus) as a conqueror.” A great deal is made of the relation between the title “dominus” and the concept of domination. However, the Bible was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, NOT Latin. Why are we analyzing the Latin Bible, and not any of the actual source languages for the Bible? Why are we just assuming that this portrays the Lord as a conqueror, instead of referencing any of the medieval Bible commentaries? What did medieval Jews think? Does the Talmud has opinons? Why is the author just declaring interpretations based on dubious linguistics and no evidence?p. 43 “During the 15th, 16th, and later centuries, the monarchies and nations of Christendom lifted the Old Testament narrative of the chosen people and the promised land from the geographical context in the Middle East and began carrying it over to the rest of the globe.” CITE SOME SOURCES FOR THIS!!!p. 44 “From such a perspective, the peoples of Christendom could claim that specific passages of the Bible proved that they had a divine Christian mandate and therefore, the right to possess . . . any non-Christian peoples and their land throughout the world.” CITE SOME SOURCES FOR THIS!!P. 44 “As one scholar has framed the matter . . . “ That is not a primary source.p. 45 “C. Raymond Beazly explains how the Portuguese conceptualized themselves in terms of the Old Testament . . . “ No, Beazley, in 1911, is explaining THEIR interpretation of how God favored the Portuguese, not how the Portuguese saw themselves.p. 44 - 45 “Yet another example of the conquistors of Christendom viewing themselves in terms of the chosen people of the Old Testament is provided by Enrique R. Lamadrid in the essay “Luz y Sombra: The Poetics of Mestizo Identity.” The example is “In their chronicles, these children of the True Cross likened themselves to the children of Israel.” That might be true, but we don’t know that because this is COMPLETELY UNSOURCED. At no point is the thesis ever supported with evidence from primary sources.p. 46 The author collapses the Doctrine of Discovery with 15th century Papal Bulls, without any explanation of how they are remotely connected.p. 48 “The following is an example of the Portuguese crusaders applying the language of the chosen people to themselves . . . : In the earlier Portuguese expeditions . . . “ Ok, I am going to stop you right there. 1) You are quoting Beazley again, the author from 1911, and 2) Beazley is applying the language of the chosen people to the Portuguese, he is referring to them in the third person. This is not actually a primary source. This does not explain how the Portuguese saw themselves, this explains how 20th century Americans saw the Portuguese.p. 50. The author references “Pedro de Santander, an official of the Catholic Church.” Who was Pedro de Santander? What was his title? What was his role? Why was he advising the king? What is the context? The author is appalling lazy by failing to even identify who this person is and why they matter.Chapter 5 The Chosen-People Promised Land Modelp. 55 In order to explain Ronald Reagan’s vaguely biblical language, the author cites two theologians – W. Burueggemann and G. Lilburne. Neither is from Reagan’s denomination.Ch. 6 The Dominating Mentality of Christendomp. 59 “The term dom in the word Christendom evokes the ICM of the Conqueror.” How? The root dom relates to state or status.p. 59 “The 19th century political philosopher Francis Lieber revealted that the word freedom . . . is actually derived from the German word freithom “baron’s estate.” This is wrong. English is categorically NOT derived from German. Proto-Germanic, maybe, but not German. Also, this is wrong, and the author should start reading 21st century linguists instead of 19th century philosophers to get their etymologies correct.p. 59 “Christendom is a word that refers to Christian imperialism.” Again, citation needed.The rest of the chapter criticizes Columbus, which I am generally fine with. However, again the basic problem is that the author never once cites Columbus or a contemporary author, but rather cites later interpretations. For example,p. 65 – 66 “Columbus was the product of “a new crusading spirit [that] swept through western Christendom in the mid-fifteenth century.” Paolo Emilio Taviani points out that it was this “spirit” of crusade that “nourished the impetus of the Portuguese to expand overseas, not only for down to earth commercial reasons, but in the fervent hope of spreading Christianity and converting heathens.” He further says that Columbus “was part of this same crusading spirit.” Delno C. West and August Kling, in their English publication of the above-referenced Libro de Profecias, declare “that the vision of Columbus was one of a missionary and a crusader.” . . . For example, West and Kling cite a passage from the Latin Vulgage Version of the Bible that reads as follows: O clap your hands . . . “Ok, so I agree with the author that the Libro de Profecias has some Crusading connections, because I have read it (would not recommend). But here is the problem – not once, NOT ONCE, in this entire section about Columbus, does the author actually cite Columbus. He only cites people who are interpreting Columbus. This is bad history – the author needs to support their claim with evidence from the text. I included the Vulgate quote because it is egregious – besides the fact that the author is linking a pre-Christian Hebrew poem, a 5th century Roman translation of the Bible, the medieval Crusades, 15th century mariners, and 20th century historiography, the author isn’t event quoting the Vulgate. The Vulgate is Latin, categorically any English version is not actually the Vulgate.p. 69 Sovereignty’s prefix sover contains the over and is derived from the Lati super, meaning “over” or “above” When the words sover and reign are combined (and contracted by dropping one r) we get sovereign “to reign over”. This is all wrong. “Sover” does not contain “over”, they are different morphemes from different language families (sover is Romance, over is Germanic). Sovereign is not sover+ reign, sovereign is from soverain, from superanus, while reign is ultimately from regnum. The author needs to study basic linguistics or just use an etymology dictionary, instead of deciding that words come from each other based on the modern spellings happening to look similar.Chapter 7 Jonson v. M’IntoshThere is a lengthy explanation of the case, along with some writing from Associate Justice Story for a DIFFERENT case which mentions Inter Caetera. Here is where the basic problem emerges:p. 84 “The point here is that Justice Story identified a Vatican papal bull issued in 1493 as the origin of the principle of discovery that his friend and mentor John Marshall incorporated into the Johnson ruling. The Vatican promulgated that principle for the religious purpose of overthrowing heathenism and propagating the Christian religion.”1. By the author’s own admission, all of the Story quotes are from a book published “one decade after the Johnson ruling was handed down,” (82) – i.e., AFTER the Johnson ruling, so they cannot be a basis for it.2. Story is not Johnson, they are different people. Story writing an account YEARS after the Johnson ruling is not the same thing as Johnson himself thinking something at the time.3. More importantly – Inter Caetera and the various Papal bulls regarding Castile and Portugal are categorically NOT doctrine of discovery. The doctrine of discovery is the idea laid out by Johnson that whichever Christian nation discovers the “heathens” first, gets the heathens and their land. The papal bulls reserved land for Castile/Portugal BEFORE they even discovered it, and banned all other Europeans from it. They are two completely different ideological models.4. Story DID cite the Papal bulls for doctrine of discovery, which is weird because the Popes did not support the doctrine of discovery at all. Why did Story write “The principle, then, that discovery gave title to the government, by whose subjects or by whose authority it was made, against all other European governments . . . “? Why would a secular republic (US) based on an anti-Catholic Protestant monarchy (Britain) care about a Catholic Pope who banned them from empire? Papal bulls never came up at all during English colonization of the Americas because the English were not Catholics, so why would an American judge care? The author needs to engage with the text and figure out why Story is (mis)reading the bull, and why he is citing the bull as evidence now.I am leaving off here, because cataloguing all the errors and bad logic is exhausting. If you want a good book about this topic, I would recommend “Lords of all the World” by Padgen. Don’t bother with this book.

A commentary by a United Methodist Pastor on the book "Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery" by Steven T. Newcomb (2008; Fulcrum Press. ISBN 978-1-55591-642-8).A little background for those of you who are unfamiliar with "decolonization". Anthropologically speaking, decolonization refers to the effort to systematically remove all forms of the invasive and pernicious effects of colonization upon indigenous peoples. Further, decolonization includes developing ones ability to understand and discuss non-European cultures from an unbiased and non-Western perspective. In other words, decolonization finally offers "voice" to the First Nations of the Americas. Native American nations have experienced 500 years of the destructive affects of Euro-American colonization upon their bodies, minds, spirits, souls and psyches. Decolonization thinking attempts to un-do or at least seriously address this destruction. There is a growing body of research and writings which contribute to such decolonization thinking, including "Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery".For those unfamiliar with it, decolonization literature can seem frightening or "radical" because it tells history's tales and approaches the truth of existence from completely different perspectives than those with which the mainstream is familiar. In the case of the North American continent, the tales are told (and assumes that the world works) from an indigenous worldview, NOT a Euro-American one. Euro-American critics of decolonization bandy about terms like "revisionist history". The truth is: when anyone is confronted by a body of knowledge radically different than what they've always heard/been taught/accepted "fright-flight" pretty much takes over. Humans fear and condemn what we do not know and recognize. Each of us have deep-seated views and ideas about how the world works, what our place is in it. We hearse and rehearse our stories and know them by heart. When something or someone comes along that attempts to change or add too our story, our experience, what works for us, we (naturally) become uncomfortable (in the old vernacular: it can "pull the rug out from beneath us"). The process of decolonization can have that affect. Books like "Pagans in the Promised Land" are meant to shake up the readers' status quo and shove readers outside their comfort zone.What makes this book unique however, is it's specific focus on the realm of "law": United States law as applied to the indigenous peoples of North America. It takes the reader back to the origins (the "whys") of the US governments' approach to "Indian law". Particularly, it brings to light the U.S. American "Christian" assumption/belief/philosophical construct which asserts that USAmerican Christians are the successor/inheritors of the "chosen people" status bestowed upon the Hebrew people by Yahweh as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament, and that because the indigenous nations inhabiting the Americas were not Christian but "heathen" the "Christian's" had divine right to the land.The author asserts that the central premise of United States Indian law and policy - that the United States has plenary (virtually absolute) authority over Indian nations on the basis of discovery of the North American continent by Christian people. Also called the "right of Christian discovery", this praxis is derived from the Old Testament theology in which Jehovah declares the favored and chosen status of the Hebrew people and by virtue of this chosen status delivers to them a promised land whose inhabitants they are to completely obliterate and whose fruits they are to take as their own. Euro-American Christians coming to North America during the so-called "Age of Discovery" see themselves (as they have throughout their history) as the new "chosen people" with a divine mandate to take over this new "promised land", exploiting its resources (per the Genesis command to subdue the earth) while disposing of the heathens dwelling therein.Using cognitive theory (particularly "idealized cognitive models" or ICMs) as a tool for decolonization thinking, the author takes readers through a detailed examination of the 1823 Supreme Court ruling "Johnson [& Graham's Lessee] v. M'Intosh" - which the author asserts is "the cornerstone" of the use of "the dominating mentality of Christendom against Indian nations and peoples in U.S. law". Successive chapters aptly titled and smoothly progressing from one premise to the next (The Conqueror Model, Colonizing the Promised Land, the Chosen People-Promised Land Model, the Dominating Mentality of Christendom, Converting Christian Discovery into Heathen Conquest, the Mental Process of Negation, and Christian Nations Theory: Hidden in Plain Sight) slowly build the authors compelling case.Now that you know what "Pagans in the Promised Land" is about (it's core idea, if you will) let me tell you what it ISN'T about. First, it isn't about your comfort level as a reader; you will be challenged about some basic assumptions - that is, if you LET yourself be challenged. Second, this book isn't a chronological history of the "age of discovery". It's a "there is no spoon" journey of revelation, and a "turn-history-upside-down-and-shake-and-see-what-falls-out-of-its-pockets" primer. Third, "Pagans in the Promised Land" isn't a history book or an anthropological treatise. It's really more of a psychology/sociology study. Although it's application is in the field of law, you do not need a legal degree to understand the text. And fourth, regardless of what you may think by its title, this book also isn't a primer for Christians on the most effective means of evangelizing indigenous populations. Its a wake-up call - an indictment of a "Christianity" whose rigid legalisms and centrisms not only allow for but even appear to leave room for the enjoyment of the oppression of certain groups of human beings. This is the kind of "Christianity" the author of "Pagans in the Promised Land" is referring to throughout the book - the kind of Christianity with which the vast majority of First Nations people have been exposed to, inundated by, and destroyed by in the 500 years since first contact with "Christian" European nations. Perhaps if the "Christians" who came to a "new world" had been more devoted to following the teachings and moral example of Christ than in establishing themselves as the new "chosen people" in a new "promised land" by subjugating the "heathens" they found there, history would be very very different.And now for a few parting thoughts about this book, on a personal level. I read "Pagans in the Promised Land" because I wanted to know more about the whole "doctrine of discovery"/"manifest destiny" thing - especially as it plays out in the field of law. I'm no slouch when it comes to historical study (it would be difficult to "pull the wool over my eyes"). But this book left me shaking my head and blinking to get the wool out as I realized that somewhere along the line an awful lot of "Christians" have been lulled into an alarming sense of "rightness by divine right"...and it plays out on every stage of life: social, mental, theological, etc. This in turn has given me as a United Methodist pastor, a profound distaste for ever using the argument "God told me to ____", and a newfound respect for the deep humility that MUST be central to a pastor's life.I found the core arguments of "Pagans in the Promised Land" extremely compelling. This is not a lengthy book (approximately 150 pages of text and 40 pages of footnotes and bibliographies - a solid thesis), but I found it necessary to put it down periodically in order to reflect on what I'd read.Who should read this book? Students of history, culture and race relations; folks concerned with social justice issues; those with an interest in legal theory. And ultimately, if it were up to me, I'd like every "Christian" to read it - really read it and engage with it and with others over it. It would provoke some excellent discussion in seminaries and churches, I think. If after considering these comments you decide to read this book, please do so with an open mind. Thank you.

Exellent

This was a conversation for me of my years of Indigenous study. How so many have suffered genocide in the name of Christianity. The assumptions of the courts ,the outright abuse of due process was extreme.The government still continue to carryout the genocide against our Indigenous people's around the world to this day,will it never end.

Education.