The Anglican Church of Canada’s governing body has approved a landmark resolution today repudiating and renouncing the Doctrine of Discovery. It also pledged a review of the church’s policies and programs to expose the doctrine’s historical impact and to end its continuing effects on indigenous peoples.
The resolution, passed at the 2010 General Synod meeting here, said the Doctrine of Discovery is “fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from God.”
The Doctrine of Discovery was a principle of charters and acts developed by colonizing Western societies more than 500 years ago.
It begins with “the very simple idea in the Western tradition that is if you discover place, you have control and ownership over that place,” said National Indigenous Anglican Bishop Mark MacDonald speaking to the resolution. “It had to be an uninhabited place. How do you apply that to the Americas where there were millions and millions of people?”
The Doctrine of Discovery was also based on the idea that “indigenous peoples in the Americas were uncivilized because they didn’t have any of the traditions and institutions of Western society,” noted Bishop MacDonald. They were no better than “beasts of the forest…savages…weak and destined to not survive,’ ” he said. This doctrine also formed the basis for the Indian Residential Schools that took aboriginal children from their homes in an effort to assimilate them, said Bishop MacDonald.
“It’s a kind of thinking, a way of life that has clouded the minds and hearts of people around the world far too long. Today, if we repudiate the idea that this land was uninhabited, we will say something very important.”
Ironically, the vision of Elijah Harper, considered one of Canada’s grand chiefs, and other elders was that “this great land could accommodate many peoples…and that if we all came together and worked together, we would indeed create one of the greatest nations for all time.” This is still the vision and dream of the elders, said Bishop MacDonald.
Repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery means that Canada will now be able to “recognize its destiny, both in church and state, to be a nation of first nations and of all the people who have come since then,” said Bishop MacDonald. “It’s not about saying, ‘everybody go back to Europe or any other place.’ It is about is [the fact] that we can live together in honesty, truthfulness and hope.”
The Episcopal Church as well as Quaker and Unitarian congregations in North America passed similar resolutions repudiating the Doctrine last year. A number of synod members spoke in support of the resolution.
The Rev. Susan Hermanson, Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior (APCI), said she realized the import of the resolution, particularly as it relates to the struggles of First Nations people opposed to mining in Williams Lake. “If I vote in favour of this resolution, I must stand with my First Nations brothers and sisters who know what’s right for the territory they live on,” she said.
Catherine Speechly-Pell, diocese of British Columbia, said she was “absolutely astounded” that the General Synod had not, during the start of its meeting, recognized the aboriginal land it was standing on. “We walked in here like we own this place,” she said.
The diocesan bishop of New Westminster, Michael Ingham, called the Doctrine of Discovery a “Eurocentric and arrogant idea,” adding, “I’m happy to repudiate it even though I never did believe it.”
The resolution also requests that every diocesan bishop of the church issue the synod’s proclamation in every parish and to share this “with all the nations and peoples located within their dioceses.” It also requested the primate to share the declaration with the United Nations.
In a related development, the synod approved a resolution endorsing the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007. It also requests that the church’s General Secretary call on the Canadian government to endorse this declaration “in compliance with the will of the majority of the Members of Parliament,” which endorsed it in 2008.
Synod also voted to establish June 21 as the National Aboriginal Day of Prayer in the church’s calendar. This day is to be celebrated on June 21 “or the nearest convenient Sunday,” and liturgy will be developed and authorized.
The Doctrine of Discovery and the Churches of the West
Although it has touched every aspect of life in North America for centuries, most people are unaware of The Doctrine of Discovery. The Doctrine continues to be the central animating factor in the dispossession and oppression of Indigenous Peoples, in the Americas and around the world. All the Western institutions that now govern so many aspects of Indigenous life see the People of the Land through the distorted lens of the Doctrine of Discovery. This is especially true of the churches that are a part of the Western Cultural framework. Beyond its direct influence on Indigenous Peoples, we can see that this way of thinking is a contributing part of the Western attitude towards Creation and our environment, giving permission to treat this sacred gift as a human storehouse that can be plundered without restraint.
In this Resolution the Church “repudiates and renounces the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from God.” The Church pledges to proclaim the Resolution among its congregations and dioceses. Further, the Church promises to “review its policies and programs with a view to exposing the historical reality and impact of the Doctrine of Discovery and eliminating its presence in its contemporary policies, program, and structures.”
At least three major church bodies in North America (The Episcopal Church, Quakers, and the Unitarians) have been inspired to promote similar resolutions. Google “General Convention and the Doctrine of Discovery” or “The Episcopal Church and Indigenous Rights” and you will see some of the general excitement of a theologically broad range of commentators.
At the 2001 General Synod of The Anglican Church of Canada we spent a half day of learning about The Doctrine of Discovery and accepted a report and the suggestions from the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples about renewing the relationship between the Church and its Indigenous members. The result was A New Agape, a work-plan and vision for this new relationship.
The Doctrine of Discovery, a description of a systemic evil that is both well hidden and tenacious, precludes, by its nature, easy comprehension or prompt effective action. The unveiling of the Doctrine of Discovery reveals a camouflaged, pervasive, and damaging strain of thought in Western institutions and culture. The recognition of its presence helps us understand the continuing incapacity of modernity to understand and fruitfully engage Indigenous Peoples.
Unveiling the Doctrine of Discovery
The Doctrine of Discovery is a phrase describing a consistent set of judgments and acts by colonizing Western societies over the past 500 years. It begins with the idea of Terra Nullius, an uninhabited land. If such a land is “discovered,” the persons or powers that make the discovery have the right of discovery, meaning that they may own, rule, and exploit this land as they see fit. Indigenous Peoples, in the Doctrine of Discovery, are not seen as inhabiting the land. Since they have none of the institutions of civilization, especially the Church, they are judged to be similar and with the same status as other products of the land. They now are under the jurisdiction of civilized institutions who, “for their own good,” may now order their lives as they see fit. Their “primitive” nature is seen to have robbed them of the right to control their lands, their communities, or their destinies. This point of view is still being used against Aboriginal legal claims in court cases around the world. The pace of all of this has been increased in recent years, as Indigenous Peoples Aboriginal use and occupation of land comes into conflict with the accelerated demands of globalizing economic expansion.
Church practice is also influenced by the Doctrine. The capacity of Indigenous Peoples for progress and success in matters of religion and faith is equal to their capacity to mimic the institutions, values, and cultural practices of the West. Proclaiming its desire to help Indigenous Peoples, the Church took a lead role in promoting and overseeing the project of civilizing them along Western lines. There was little engagement of their cultural or religious ideas and practices; their manifestly rich spirituality and religious traditions were treated as impediments to their well-being and progress, even though they were largely monotheistic. The churches persisted in this civilizing project despite the obviously destructive and deadly results. For most of the past 500 years, the underlying assumption appears to be that it is better to be dead than to not be Western. The Church committed itself in earnest to seeing that any trace of Indigenous culture and life would be erased. Without hiding or disguising it, the Church, along with the other colonizing institutions, was committed to the disappearance of Indigenous life in any form (This proposed disappearance was, we admit, less violent than those who called for immediate extermination. The relative moral merit of the different approaches is difficult to evaluate competitively).
Today, things have changed some, but not enough. For virtually all Western institutions, Indigenous life is still to be steered towards the imitation of Western life, though now Indigenous Peoples may be permitted to mimic other minorities as a means of access to the benefits of Western life. The Doctrine of Discovery continues its influence in the myriads of ways that a colonizing culture sets the standards that control and limit the horizon of Indigenous life in our contemporary world. Though the remedies that mass Western society developed and applied have been, at best, ineffective, and, quite a bit more often, disastrous in their impact on Indigenous societies – the more “help” administered, the worse things get – it is only very rarely noticed. Because the assumptions of the Doctrine of Discovery are so well hidden in the mainstream of Western thought the deadly incompetence of Western agencies and institutions remains astonishingly invisible to its perpetrators.
The Doctrine and the Church
For centuries, the Western churches have given a privileged status to the trajectory of the Word of God in their constituent traditions, cultures, and societies. Certainly respect is due to the path of Western Christian development, even the pagan philosophies which prepared the way for the Gospel in the Western Tradition. Yet, to demand that the overall path of development that the West has followed is to normative, or even a prerequisite of serious Christianity, is wrong. It voids the trajectories of other cultures. The absurdity expands with the continuing demand that Indigenous Christian leaders submit to contemporary Western patterns and standards of learning, including pagan elements from the past or anti-theistic sentiments from the secularized present. This priority remains even though Western institutions of learning and scholarship are no longer positively correlated with growing and vital orthodox Christianity.
Today, with very few exceptions, Indigenous Christians must place their churches within the trajectory of Western ideas, governance, and sovereignty if they wish to remain full members of churches of the Western cultural framework. This means that there is very little attempt to adapt to the unique cultural and social dimensions of Indigenous communities. The borders and boundaries of colonial occupation remain the enforced borders and boundaries of Indigenous Christians in Western churches, in governance, in theology, in faith. The trajectory of the Word of God in Indigenous life, the vibrant and surprising story of the Gospel’s unlikely yet astounding progress among Indigenous Peoples is ignored, trivialized, or denied.
It appears that the Western churches are still saying, in order for the Word to become flesh and dwell among Indigenous Peoples, they must first abandon their culture. Jesus can only become living and real if you see him through Western values and institutions. Such an approach is absurd and heretical. That it has such strong currency among Western churches is a testimony to the systemic power of colonialism and the on-going influence of the Doctrine of Discovery.
A Preliminary Response
A full response to this must unfold over time. We would do harm to predict its outcome and then act on the prediction. We can, however, outline some of the broad steps that would make a robust preliminary response:
1) Promote and proclaim the repudiation and renouncing of the Doctrine of Discovery as the Resolution outlines.
2) Begin at every level, as soon as possible, an introduction to the damage caused by the Doctrine of Discovery.
3) Immediately recognize the primal and aboriginal authority of Indigenous nations, recognizing their right to exist and treating them with the respect and dignity that they deserve as the first and founding nations of North American life.
4) Recognize that the Indigenous Nations transcend the borders of colonial occupation. To enforce these borders on Indigenous social development and community is an endorsement of the Doctrine of Discovery (and a violation of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.).
5) The living relationship that Indigenous Peoples have with the environment means that the destructive pattern of colonial economic development creates a special risk for the life and life ways of the People of the Land and Seas. To honour and protect this special relationship must be a top priority for the advocacy of Western churches.
6) Leadership and congregational development within Indigenous Peoples must be designed with the hidden assumptions of the Doctrine of Discovery exposed and eliminated. Theological formation must include decolonization.
7) The church must begin a process that will allow Indigenous church communities decide their own destiny on the basis of their full and aboriginal authority as peoples, tribes, and nations.
8) In Indigenous thought, Spirit animates matter. Separating the spiritual from the physical, mental, and emotional, especially in social life is deadly. The way that the West cleaves these can not be imposed on Indigenous nations. Only the life of the spirit is transformative in Indigenous life.
9) Last and most important, The Gospel alone must be the centre point and the vehicle of Indigenous church development. The goal of the Gospel is the Word’s incarnation in Indigenous communities.
The scandal of Indigenous poverty in their own lands is rarely given its due weight, even by those who would seek to help them. Poverty reduction, as praiseworthy a project as it is, is not likely to create real change until the real reasons for Indigenous poverty are addressed. The dispossession of their lands, the lack of compensation or reparation, and the continuing assault on their cultures, families, and clans is an injustice that cannot be remedied with well-meaning charity and Western sociology. If there is to be a positive relationship between Western institutions and Indigenous Peoples, it must be built on the foundation of the very real commitment that is imagined in the actions of The General Synod of The Anglican Church of Canada. Without such actions, the churches of the West will live in a prison of systemic evil that is the antithesis of the freedom and life that is promised in the Cross of Christ.
Despite the daunting nature of the struggle to dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, it is a path that promises much. If truly applied and followed, this could be the beginning of a spiritual reconciliation and awakening that would reach every particle of our spiritual and theological ecology.