Some history for us Christians to ponder regarding the day traditionally known as Columbus Day.
Since the 11th century, European Christians had engaged in various forms of holy wars. We call them the “crusades” today. In Spain, it took 781 years for them to regain the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim kingdom of Granada. The year that kingdom fell? 1492.
In the desire to continue to maintain Christian dominance, the Spanish Crown and Pope Alexander V1 gave the rights for conquest of new worlds, under the condition that those they conquered would be baptized Christian. This included Christopher Columbus’s expedition, and many others after him. We are still living in the European, Christian dominance of the Western world due to this period in history.
This period of history lead to the colonization of nations, extermination of cultures, languages, religions and often the enslavement or genocide of a people group under the banner of Christ’s name. All under the narrative that European culture, politics, and religion were fundamentally superior to that of those they were conquering. Can you imagine if that happened to your ancestors? Then having your history written by the victors? I cannot even imagine.
There is such a vast difference between being baptized into the faith on your own freewill, and being baptized while being conquered. This should grieve our hearts deeply.
This is in stark contrast to how the Holy Spirit advances God’s kingdom. We see on the day of Pentecost the birth of the church, that the Holy Spirit did not colonize the people for God, rather people from every nation, race, gender, and social cast were unified and understood one another. Quoting the Prophet Joel, Peter said, ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18) Their differences were not eliminated or conquered, but it was precisely in and through the inherent diversity by which God created humanity that became a bridge to better love and understand one another.
We learn this history, not to take on personal shame, but to lament the pain of the past, better understand where we are today, and how to move forward more lovingly from here.
I pray we, especially we Christians of European decent, would allow the Holy Spirit to move us in Pentecost fashion, healing the wounds of a colonized past, towards a future of understanding one another, precisely where we are, in all our beautiful complexity, in Spirit and in truth.
May we not be driven to fear by our differences, but driven to love.
constant investigations 