Unsettling Truths – The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award
American Society of Missiology Book Award
★ Publishers Weekly starred review You cannot discover lands already inhabited. Injustice has plagued American society for centuries. And we cannot move toward being a more just nation without understanding the root causes that have shaped our culture and institutions. In this prophetic blend of history, theology, and cultural commentary, Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah reveal the far-reaching, damaging effects of the "Doctrine of Discovery." In the fifteenth century, official church edicts gave Christian explorers the right to claim territories they "discovered." This was institutionalized as an implicit national framework that justifies American triumphalism, white supremacy, and ongoing injustices. The result is that the dominant culture idealizes a history of discovery, opportunity, expansion, and equality, while minority communities have been traumatized by colonization, slavery, segregation, and dehumanization. Healing begins when deeply entrenched beliefs are unsettled. Charles and Rah aim to recover a common memory and shared understanding of where we have been and where we are going. As other nations have instituted truth and reconciliation commissions, so do the authors call our nation and churches to a truth-telling that will expose past injustices and open the door to conciliation and true community.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Who We Are and What We Bring
1. The Doctrine of Discovery and Why It Matters
2. The Power of Narratives and the Imagination
3. The Kingdom of God Is About Relationship Not Empire
4. The Rise and Defense of Christendom
5. A Dysfunctional Theology Brought to the “New” World
6. Exceptionalism and the Founding Documents of the United States
7. Dysfunctional Theology and the Spread of Settler Colonialism
8. Genocide, the Impact of a Dysfunctional Theology
9. Abraham Lincoln and the Narrative of White Messiahship
10. Abraham Lincoln and Native Genocide
11. The Complex Trauma of the American Story
12. The Christian Worldview and the Failure of Re-conciliation
Conclusion: Truth and Conciliation
Acknowledgments
Appendix
Notes
Name and Subject Index

Soong-Chan Rah (ThD, Duke Divinity School) is Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. He and his family live in Chicago. His books include The Next Evangelicalism and Prophetic Lament.

Mark Charles, a man of Navajo and Dutch American descent, is a speaker, writer, and consultant on the complexities of American history, race, culture, and faith. He is the author of the blog Reflections from the Hogan and was the Washington, DC, correspondent and columnist for Native News Online. He has served on the boards of the Christian Community Development Association and the Christian Reformed Church of North America. He and his family live in Washington, DC.