The Slander of Christianity In Discussions About American Indians

Over the past couple of days, I have been in a sort of debate on social media with a post someone published regarding the American Indians in West Virginia, my home state.   While the post itself was interesting, it also drew out some "social justice warrior" and snowflake types who painted Christianity as somehow being an "instrument of White colonial oppression" and thus somehow "evil" to the "peaceful" Natives.   Thing is, does this actually have any basis in fact?   I want to talk a little about that today.

The subject of the American Indian is one that I am very intimate with, as it is part of my own history too.  Going back several generations in my own family, I have on my father's side about a one-sixteenth heritage that is Mvskoke (Creek).   A cousin of mine, Marcus Briggs-Cloud, who is actually a member of the Mvskoke Nation and teaches at their college in Oklahoma also has provided some valuable family history information on a 4th great-grandfather of mine by the name of Richard Taylor.  According to some transcribed oral histories (found at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Taylor-40820 - Accessed 2/27/2019), Richard Lawrence Taylor (1781-1884) was originally from North Carolina, where a small branch of the Mvskoke Nation had settled near the western part of the state.  My cousin mentions that he was registered as a member of the Mvskoke Nation with the Eastern Creek #11141 and that he fought in the Creek Wars in northwest Florida during the years 1814-1815.  His granddaughter, Parsilla Buckelew Richburg (1851-1931), was my great-great-grandmother on my maternal grandmother's side of the family tree.  Richard Taylor appears to have been a fascinating individual too, living to the age of 101 and having a HUGE family due to three marriages, the last to my 4th great-grandmother Nancy Hollingshead Taylor (born 1812).  This American Indian heritage was talked about and was a source of pride in my dad's family, although no one really could figure out where it came from until thankfully my cousin and other family members were able to research it more fully.   There is a lot more that could be said about this subject, as it would warrant a whole article for itself, and perhaps I can revisit it later.  For now though, the point is that I have American Indian heritage, and unlike Elizabeth Warren's publicity stunt, I can actually prove and document it.  That puts me into a position to say what I am about to say next.

On the social media post, many Leftist people were saying some disturbing things about the Church, mainly because one better-informed person noted that Protestant Christian sects such as the Moravians not only brought Christianity to the Indians in North Carolina but also literacy and a standard of living that helped them rise above some of the squalors they lived in at the time.   For making that point, some ignorant young girl who was perhaps in her teens or twenties got on there and castigated this guy for saying it, saying that Christianity "stripped" the Indians of their "native culture."  Others loved attacking the Franciscan, Jesuit, and Dominican missionaries in the Spanish Southwest, who likewise brought literacy and the faith to those Indians there and in Mexico.  Of course, to such people Christianity is seen as a "White religion" and thus an "oppressive tool of colonialism," and therefore must be eradicated for all the "damage" it has done.  Many of the people leveling this slander, however, are often sheltered young White kids who reap the benefits of Western Civilization (they have their smart phones, Chromebooks, and i-pods) and all of a sudden they become "social justice warriors."  If they are that adamant, then I would say perhaps that they need to set a precedent and leave all their luxuries behind and go away.  In contrast to the liberal claptrap many of these people spew so ignorantly, the evidence overwhelming documents that Christianity often benefits the cultures it is introduced to - after all, if it wasn't for the Moravians teaching the Cherokee to read, would Sequoyah have been able to create a whole language system for his people?  Sequoyah's accomplishments as far as the Cherokee language are concerned can be ranked with St. Mesrop Mashtots and his creation of the Armenian alphabet, as well as the numerous Aramaic-based scripts one finds among tribes in Central Asia and China that can be attributed to Assyrian Christian missionaries who worked among those peoples.  All of them, ironically, are connected to the spread of Christianity among their respective peoples.  Not only that, but also the hospitals, universities, and libraries we see in many parts of the world are the fruit of Christian mission work too, with some exceptions (many of the exceptions, though, can be credited to Jewish communities).  Also, the advent of healthy hygienic practices and other things we often take for granted are attributed in many cases to Christians of devout faith who used that faith to reach others.  Even classical antiquity as far as Western Civilization is concerned owes its survival to dedicated monks in medieval Europe.  A few books I would encourage people to read on this which document the contributions the Christian faith has made to civilization are the following:

Alvin J. Schmidt, Under the Influence: How Christianity Changed the World.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.

Thomas E. Woods and Antonio Canizares, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.  Washington, D.C.: Regnery History, 2012.

Mar Aphrem Barsoum, The Scattered Pearls - The History of Syriac Sciences and Literature.  Trans. by Matti Moosa.  Piscataway, NJ:  Gorgias Press, 2001.

These books show that far from being "destructive," in many cases Christianity saved human civilization, and often from its own negative aspects.  As Aquinas and Bonaventure both taught in their writings, it is to be remembered that God authored two "books," Nature and Revelation.  Nature should always bear witness to Revelation, and through supernatural grace Revelation heals, elevates, and perfects nature.  To put that into this perspective, supernatural grace has the capacity to restore things to the way they were created and intended, and this too is part of the missionary mandate of the Church.  This means that the Church has always mandated preserving what is good in a culture, and reforming what is bad.  So, if anything, contrary to some liberal White self-haters, the Indians actually benefitted from the fruits of exposure to Christian faith.  Although it is obvious that abuses happened, and persecution was real - no one can deny that for sure - a cursory look at history affirms that often those abuses and persecutions against Indians were often carried out in spite of Christian conviction, as those doing such things were often motivated by other things than spirituality - they were often more or less influenced by Enlightenment secularism in many cases, which was on the rise both in Europe and later in colonial America.  If one really looks at the evidence further, they may be surprised to find that often the greatest defenders of Indians were in fact Christians, both Protestant and Catholic.  The same thing is true today as well.  That leads me to address some disturbing things I have heard from some who want to either discredit the Judeo-Christian worldview or European/Middle Eastern people (read that as White people).

In the course of debating this issue with self-styled "experts" on social media and elsewhere, some things were very shocking that I heard coming from the keyboards of these people.   For one, when certain things such as the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe that occurred in Mexico in 1531 are mentioned, some of these weirdos online actually defend the pagan religious practices of the Aztecs, which incidentally included ripping the beating hearts out of human sacrificial victims, or flaying them alive so that some demonic pagan shaman can dance around in the skin until it rots off his body.  Such people think these despicable practices are somehow "superior" to the Catholic faith which later came to predominate in Mexico (including the ten million or so conversions that happened as a result of Blessed Juan Diego's witnessing of the appartion of Our Lady of Guadalupe).  Of course, what is also interesting is that many of these people identify also as "pro-choice," which essentially means that they also hold up the racist eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, as almost a godlike figure (not to mention their adulation of sex pervert Alfred Kinsey, who was responsible for more human trafficking and sexual abuse of his "research subjects.").  It also explains why they also would gravitate toward socialism and anarchy (some of the more radical of these people are involved in Antifa and other terrorist groups) and would suppress the rights of those they disagree with in order to promote their own agendas.  In reality, the average modern "progressive" Bernie Sanders supporter has more in common with George Armstrong Custer when it comes to human rights than they would with someone like Wilberforce, who ended slavery in Britain peacefully in the 1800's. thanks in part (wait for it!) to Judeo-Christian principles.  There are a lot of contradictions on the Left side of the political spectrum on this and other issues, and ironically it is the Judeo-Christian worldview that shows how deficient those leftist agendas are.  Leftists talk a lot about "human rights," but then turn around and glorify butchers such as Che Guevara and Mao, and even pagan Aztec leaders like Tlacaellel, who more or less intensified the brutal human sacrificial system in Aztec religion (as if it wasn't bad enough already!) by slaughtering thousands on the pinnacle of the Temple Major in Tenochtitlan on a single day.  They cite the abuses of certain Conquistadors of the period as justification for this, but in reality it is as Warren Carroll notes in the following:

"Moreover, many Indians had the impression that the new faith was something alien, something belonging to White men which could only be mediated through them.  It is a danger that confronts all missionary work, and especially in a situation such as this was, where the differences between cultures were so sharp, the contact had been so sudden, and the break with the past so complete.  

The Indians waited, and watched.  What did Christianity really mean to their conquerors?  What did it really mean to them?" (Warren Carroll, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness.  Front Royal, VA:  Christendom Press, 1983. p. 88)

I also want to note what my friend Charles Coulombe says about this as well, as it is important to see things in context here:

"At any rate, it so happened that, at the time of their discovery, there were no Indian nations capable of real resistance to the Europeans, save the Aztecs and Incas.  The bloodthirstiness of the former and the rigid interior conformity of the latter seriously depleted their ability to defend themselves against any technologically superior culture with which they might come in contact." (Charles Coulombe, Puritan's Empire.  Arcadia, CA:  Tumblar House, 2017. p. 17).  

The point of both quotations above is this - a combination of factors led to the historical events that unfolded, and rather than painting the Conquistadors and other European explorers as the sole "bad guys," it is important to remember that humanity as a whole has a concupiscent nature - Romans 3:23 reminds us of that when it says that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that is due to the events in Genesis 3, when sin entered the world through Adam's deception by Satan and his willful disobedience that resulted.  This means then - great revelation knowledge coming here! - that the Indians were not perfect either!  Indians had been warring with each other, enslaving and conquering rival tribes, and also engaging in barbarity (human sacrifice and other things) since before they arrived in North America over either the Bering Strait or across the Atlantic (in the case of the Solutrians, which I personally believe to be a valid hypothesis).  So, my question to the "social justice warriors" is this - are the Spaniards, Brits, French, and Portuguese somehow worse because they messed up on occasion too than the Aztecs, or perhaps were they all just products of sinful nature?  Also, is it fair to paint every White European who came to America as somehow "bad?"  To answer that, perhaps some of the detractors of "colonialism" need to take a more objective look at history, and they may be rudely surprised at the fact that many dedicated missionaries - both Protestant and Catholic - really reached out to the Indians in various parts of the Americas, and perhaps maybe the Indians of that time who were recipients of that display of Christian charity were actually grateful (God forbid, right?) for that service.  A careful and objective reading of real history may surprise many honestly. And, that leads to a final point I want to make on this.

The same young SJW girl who castigated Christianity as being "harmful" to the Indians also took issue with the name "Indian," insisting instead that we call them "Native Americans."  The interesting thing about this girl is that in looking at her profile, she was whiter than Wonder Bread, and probably has about as much Indian heritage as Elizabeth Warren if not even less.  Over the years, I have been in touch with many of my Mvskoke relatives, as well as a number of friends who are members of different tribal nations, and I have yet to find one who is actually offended at being called an "American Indian."   As a matter of fact, most of them could honestly care less, save a radical faction among them, and they even use the term themselves.  If I could get truly technical on this with the White liberal ding-dongs who insist on the "Native American" nomenclature, that too would be incorrect, as historically there are actually in that sense no Native Americans per se - the Indians were just the first to arrive, that is all, and they also came in successive stages and even booted out earlier arrivals who came before them, conquering and subjugating them long before the first European explorers even knew about the existence of the Americas.  Given the racial diversity among Indians (they are by no means a homogenous group), not all of them even came from the same place;  some crossed the Bering Strait, and others followed the Ice Age Atlantic ice shelf (probably fishing or hunting seals) across the Atlantic (that is known as the "Solutrean Theory," as proposed by Dr. Dennis Sanford and others), which means some Indians may actually be European themselves if one looks back far enough!  Therefore, if we want to battle semantics, our Liberal friends may want to reconsider that due to the fact that Indians themselves don't really care one way or another if you call them "Indian" or not.  They know who they are, and if they are not bothered by it (and having Mvskoke heritage myself, I am not either) than why should anyone else be?  Of course, this will naturally go against the mythology of "political correctness," but that mythology needs to die anyway.

Suffice to say, Christianity is not the "evil" it is often portrayed as being in the mythology of "political correctness," and as a matter of fact, even its detractors owe much of their own existence to it.  Rather than destroying civilization, Christian missionaries have often overwhelmingly been the saviors of civilization - Christianity finds and incorporates the best out of a culture and preserves it, thus making its benefactors better in many cases than they would have been without it.  It is true of European, African, and American civilizations, and thus is the narrative we need to propagate.  Thank you, and look forward to sharing with you all again soon.

Cowardly Christians in An Age of Political Correctness - the Shapiro/Grand Canyon University Incident

For some time now, I have been documenting how our American Evangelical Protestant friends are at this point essentially a house of cards about ready to collapse.  For many people, the delusion is that the Evangelical Christian of today is essentially the same as the Moral Majority activist of the 1980's, but more often than not this is far from the facts if one sees current events objectively.  One recent incident that exemplifies this well is the cancellation of a speaking engagement that conservative personality Ben Shapiro was supposed to have at Grand Canyon University, which is a well-known Evangelical Protestant institution based in Arizona.  I wanted to weigh in on this a little today, as it ties into some other observations I have made in the past as well as some I didn't touch on but have been watching closely.

Ben Shapiro

I want to first talk a little about Ben Shapiro.   Shapiro is a sort of "rising star" in conservative circles due to the fact he is articulate, can hold his own very effectively in a debate, and he also takes seriously the whole "know thy enemy" strategy as he prepares for his appearances in debates and such by reading up on the opposition (something more of us should do, just sayin').   He is the host of a radio program that is easily accessed online at his organization, The Daily Wire, and he is definitely worth checking out if you haven't done so already.  Also, as a devout Orthodox Jew, Shapiro is strongly pro-life, he advocates unapologetically for traditional marriage (one man and one woman), and also holds views that I as a traditionalist Catholic would share.  In other words, he is pretty sound in his convictions, and no conservative/traditionalist Christian should have any problems with where he stands, as on moral/social issues he is in complete agreement with us.  I first heard of Shapiro a couple of years ago, and honestly, I enjoy his broadcasts and try to listen to them at least once a week.  Also, like myself, he is not a 100% Trumper necessarily, but like myself, he rightly gives credit to where credit is due.  He is, in essence, a brilliant thinker who objectively observes the situation, and then responds accordingly.   I have nothing but the highest respect for Ben, and honestly, I would love to meet the guy in person.  If you want more biographical information on Ben, there is some good material at his website, www.dailywire.com.   

Now, let's talk a little about Grand Canyon University.   GCU, as it is popularly called, dates back to 1949 when the Arizona (Southern)Baptist Convention established it as Grand Canyon College.  However, in 2000 GCU ended its affiliation with the Southern Baptists and was for a time under management from a corporate entity called Significant Education LLC and was a for-profit enterprise (the first Christian for-profit educational institution).  The university re-instated its non-profit status in 2018 (due to a tax debt - go figure!).  It is now touted as the "largest Christian university in the world," within excess of twenty thousand enrolled students.  However, in all honestly, it is basically a Christianized University of Phoenix setup, and its academics I am not quite sure about.  My wife had originally attempted to enroll there for an elementary education program a few years back, but for some reason she just didn't feel comfortable doing so and backed out.  It was probably a wise decision on her part to do so.   That gives a bit of background on GCU, and to be honest I am just not all that impressed with it, and haven't been for a long time, but until they blackballed Ben Shapiro I never really took anything to do with them seriously.  However, given they are a highly visible presence in the American Evangelical spectrum, perhaps more attention should be given to them regarding what they are truly about. 

Turning now to the current focus of our discussion, the events surrounding it happened just this week, when Shapiro was scheduled to appear at an event at GCU but was abruptly cancelled due to some jibberjabber about "the school's commitment to promoting inclusion and unity on campus at a time when political divisions run deep."  Many felt that this excuse was lame due to the fact that GCU is supposed to be a "conservative Evangelical Christian institution," and that its own faith statement is not in conflict with anything Shapiro has said or convictions he holds.  Even a GCU spokesman admitted this, but then said "a high volume of rhetoric" in Shapiro's speeches is what led to the cancellation.  They then tried to justify this by saying that such "rhetoric" does not lead to "community-building" or "problem-solving," and that their stated position was to "bring unity to a community that sits amidst a country that is extremely divided and can't seem to find a path forward toward unity."  What they are really saying is this - "We don't want to offend anyone with the truth because it might cost us our tax-exempt status."  Of course, tax perks are only part of it, as there are even bigger issues I have seen at some other institutions, and I want to talk about that now ( Information on this incident from Jessica Chasmar, "Grand Canyon University cancels Ben Shapiro, Citing Schools Mission of 'Unity," published 2/4/2019 at https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/4/grand-canyon-university-cancels-ben-shapiro-citing/ - accessed 2/5/2019).  

Anyone following my blog posts over the past few years knows of the rather negative experience I have had at my alma mater, Southeastern University, back in 2012-2013 when originally I had contemplated earning my Master's from there.  Southeastern, which like GCU identifies as an Evangelical Protestant university (although affiliated with the Assemblies of God instead of the Baptists), was but one example.  Also, you have read about the recent decision of a high-profile Pentecostal academic, Dr. Paul Alexander, who "came out" as transgender and decided to change his name to "April" after years of pushing the "gay agenda" amongst Pentecostal academic elites.   Other self-identified Evangelical institutions (Wheaton College comes to mind) have waffled on issues ranging from the "gay agenda" to embracing Islam, and the rise of such personalities as Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Doug Padgett, and other "Emergent Church" people among Evangelicals have spawned an anomaly called the "Evangelical Left," something honestly that would have been unconscionable only 20 years ago.  While there have been those occasional radicals and oddballs in Evangelical circles (two that come to mind are Tony Campolo and Ron Sider) for decades, in general, they didn't reflect their faith tradition and were even sort of shunned for their views.  However, in recent years this has changed drastically - I am not going to get into all the statistics, but Josh McDowell, James Emery White, Christian Smith, and others have documented these trends among younger Evangelicals in particular and it is disturbing.  Lest you think Catholics are unaffected, look at the recent actions of some among the Catholic hierarchy too - Cardinals Wuerl and Cupich, and Archbishops Dolan, Stowe, and others - and you see it there too.  Christians are acting ashamed to be Christian, and to stand up for traditional values, and not only that but we are becoming cowards when we think a MAGA hat is dangerous or that allowing someone like Ben Shapiro to speak at a Christian campus is somehow "divisive."  It is an obvious sign of the times, and let's examine that briefly.

In the Bible - which both Catholics and Evangelicals view as authoritative in all matters of faith and morality - Jesus Himself gives us a dire warning concerning this cowardice in Matthew 10:33 when he says this - "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."  Let me just say to preface that Church teaching is unchanging - while praxis can be adaptable, belief and doctrine are eternal.  For those who try to make Church teaching and Biblical commands fit their agenda, Jesus also has a warning for them in Revelation 22:18-19 - "18I testify to everyone who hears the words of prophecy in this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."  This warning didn't come in a vacuum either, for in Deuteronomy 4:2 God Himself warns that we do not add nor subtract from His commands, and in Deuteronomy 12:32 we are instructed to just obey those commands and not to "tweek" them to our liking, to interpret it in modern vernacular.  There is a reason for this - those commands and that law are from God Himself, and in themselves they are the perfect embodiment of faith and morality because they have divine origin and sanction.   Therefore, when we seek to compromise that truth because it is not "popular" with the current cultural paradigms, we commit a grave error.   GCU, by its own complicity, is doing just that.  When we also look at the parables of Jesus, in particular the classic "Parable of the Sower" found in Matthew 13, it is an indication that there will be some upon whom the Gospel will never take root, despite their exposure.   These people are the Laodiceans, and their fate is apostasy unless they have a heartfelt conversion to the truth and repent of their lukewarmness.  Apostasy, then, leads to eternal damnation if it is not dealt with and corrected.  Those who are in charge at GCU and other professed "Christian" universities need to recognize this fact, and they need to more clearly understand where their loyalties are and make some serious decisions.  In other words, what Ben Shapiro says is not what they should be worried about - as a matter of fact, Ben is probably more on-point than they are.   They should be worried more about offending the Holy Spirit than they are about offending the proponents of cultural conformity.   

I am not going to invest a lot of time on this issue except to say many Christians in the US need to grow some stones and "man up" a little, because the cowardice shown by GCU and even Archbishop Stowe in regard to the Covington boys is reprehensible, and it may cost us dearly in the future if we don't correct that now.  I am sure that great Christian leaders of the past - Jerry Falwell, James Kennedy, Pope St. Leo XIII - are turning in their graves at how weak and wimpy American Christianity has become while our enemies are making gains even without popular support.  If we are to prevail in the culture wars (and we must, as our own freedoms to live our lives productively may be at risk) we need to stop apologizing for crap we are not responsible for, and be proud to take a stand for what is right.  If we don't, who will - let's remember the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler against Christians and Jews to remind us.   Have a good week.