Lethal Discovery/Toxic Denial
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
The “Doctrine of Discovery” is constituted by a series of papal teachings in the 15th century, culminating in 1493, the year after Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World. This series of papal declarations asserted that the “New World” rightly belonged to White Europeans and was to be divided between Spain and Portugal, two states fully supportive of the Vatican. That teaching, over time, provided cover and justification for White occupation of the New World with an eager readiness to convert, enslave, or kill the indigenous population.
Amid a slew of new books on the “Doctrine,” I have found most accessible and readable that of Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future (2023). Jones exposits the “doctrine” in a clear way. Beyond that, as his title indicates, he views the “doctrine” as the taproot of White supremacy in the New World whereby Whites were empowered to own the new land, use its resources, and kill its inhabitants as was necessary to their interests. In his chilling commentary, Jones links this doctrine of the church to three specific instances of lethal racism in three venues where he has lived and which he knows well.
In the Mississippi Delta, racism provided cheap labor for the production of cotton. That exploitative practice of cheap labor culminated, among other things, in the murder of Emmitt Till.
In Duluth, Minnesota, in 1920, three Black men were accused of assault, given no trial, and were lynched publicly by an violent mob.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Greenwood District, known as “Black Wall Street” flourished culturally and economically. In 1921, outraged White violence completely destroyed that Black community in the Tulsa Massacre.
In all these cases, White violence was justified, according to the “doctrine” of White supremacy, whereby Black people had no economic rights, no legitimate claims to property ownership, and no status or standing in the social life of the community. In all three instances, the violent murder of Black individuals was taken to be justified according to the “doctrine.” Jones’s exposition of these rampages of violence is compelling and so to the point. It is all grounded in White supremacy. As Jones avers, many other subsequent acts of violence against Black people share the same rootage and the same pedigree.
What I find most compelling in Jones’s exposition, however, is another matter. I have found in Jones, as nowhere else, the bold linkage between the Doctrine of Discovery from the 15th century and the recent virile resistance to Critical Race Theory. We may pause here to consider what is meant by Critical Race Theory:
Critical Race Theory (CRT), an intellectual and social movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct groups of human beings, but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color. Critical race theorists hold that racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans. Critical race theorists are generally dedicated to applying their understanding of the institutional or structural nature of racism to the concrete (if distant) goal of eliminating all race-based and other unjust hierarchies.
Taken on its own terms, the theory seems to be almost commonplace and beyond doubt for anyone who thinks seriously about the matter. What is most remarkable, however, is that advocates have mobilized great energy to insist that the theory is only a part of progressive ideology that is not related to social reality. Thus, for example, Jones notices that in 2020, the White male presidents of all six Southern Baptist seminaries together state that “any version of CRT” is “incompatible with their denomination’s confession of faith” (268). Jones observes that never before has there been such an official joint statement released by the six presidents, about “neither poverty, nor hunger, nor slavery, nor racial prejudice, nor the discovery of widespread sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy trained in seminaries. Not even evangelism.” Jones concludes that this singular statement by the six presidents must be linked to the long-standing “compatibility of slaveholding and the gospel” that requires and evokes such a statement.
Jones makes a singularly compelling connection between the Doctrine of Discovery and resistance to Critical Race Theory, a connection that seems to me to warrant long and careful attentiveness. That is, current resistance to CRT is only one more passionate effort to maintain and protect White supremacy and so to sustain the “universe” of White people in their resistance to social reality, or as Jones has it, “the protection of an American story of innocence.” (298)
When we consider CRT and resistance to it seriously and alertly, we can see that the protection of innocence is a foremost agenda entry. This resistance becomes a screen to preclude our thinking about the reality of the vigilant, violent past. That “innocence,” of course, is an act of bad faith that requires endless denials and cover-ups. For good reason, Jones can judge:
I am stunned by the sheer amount of energy and capital required to maintain this world view in the presence of so much counterevidence. And I am transfixed by the command it has had on white American psyches from the founding to the present (286).
As I considered this “innocence,” it occurred to me that the counterpoint to such “innocence” is “being woke.” This interface of “innocence” and “being woke” has led me in turn to ruminate about the meaning of being “woke,” of being in touch with social reality that can no longer be hidden. If we think well on this, we do not want our children or our grandchildren to live in a make-believe world that is an illusion which denies real facts of historical reality.
The juxtaposition of “innocence” and “woke” further led me to think about the summons of the gospel to be “awake.” Already in Isaiah 52, the poet summons Israel in exile to be awake to its emancipation from exile that is about to be performed by YHWH via Cyrus the Persian:
Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion!
Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city;
for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more.
Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem;
loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter Zion!(Isaiah 52:1-2)
The point is that if exilic Israel is not alert, it will miss its chance for emancipation.
The great weight of “woke” as alert discipleship is in play at the center of the synoptic gospels. Apocalyptic imagery is utilized for the coming arrival of the new age. Thus in the parable of Matthew 25:1-13 the foolish bridesmaids “became drowsy and slept” and were ill-prepared for the arrival of the bridegroom (v. 5). The parable ends with as urgent imperative:
Keep alert therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour (v. 13).
The matter is echoed in the imagery of Mark’s anticipation of the new age:
Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake (Mark 13:35-37).
In Mark’s next chapter, Jesus is disappointed three times as he finds his disciples asleep just the moment of his “hour”:
He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come.”
(Mark 14:37-41; see Matthews 26:40-46; Luke 22:45-46)
The disciples missed their moment. Just at the instant that demanded their full attentiveness, they slept. It is no wonder that in his exasperation, Jesus, says “Enough” (Mark 14:41). He might have said, “Enough already.” Enough indifference to the crisis. Enough disregard of this ultimate moment of urgency. Enough indeed! But then he said to his dismayed disciples, “Get up, let us be going.”
(Mark 14:42)
It may be that the “woke” to which Jesus summons his disciples and the “woke” that some in our current context refuse is not the same. Maybe the first is all wrapped up in apocalyptic imagery while the second is engaged in the practical, strategic maintenance of a culture of privilege and illusion. But consider. What if the two summonses to “woke” are much alike? What if in both cases the imperative of “woke” is a call to face historical reality? What if being woke now to racist reality is a gospel imperative as great and urgent as that on the lips of Jesus? One can conclude that Western White culture, since the papal edicts of the 15th century, has been in a long dream-like life of innocence and privilege. Except that that long-running dream-like existence has been a long-running nightmare for many others.
If we ponder the sweep from the Doctrine to the denial of Critical Race Theory, we may arrive at the inescapable conclusion that we are now, by the force of historical reality, summoned to wakefulness from which our Ersatz innocence can no longer protect us. What if this moment of racial reckoning is indeed our chance to receive the coming kingdom of Christ’s neighborly governance?
Before the apostle finishes his reflection on responsible government, Paul can conclude:
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
(Romans 13:11-14)
The “works of darkness” and the “desires of the flesh” include for us White supremacy, thus the call away from pretended innocence to be fully woke to reality. Apocalyptic rhetoric is a summons to “put up or shut up.” It is now time for the church to respond to that imperative and “put up.” It takes no great imagination to see that the apocalyptic rhetoric of the Bible is available for our moment of truth-telling.
Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential Bible interpreters of our time. He is the author of over one hundred books and numerous scholarly articles.
