CAMP Spirit

Today’s world is a place of incredibly rich diversity. Technology, in such manifestations as quick and easy intercontinental travel, mass media, and the Internet, has created a truly global village, the citizens of which blend together in varying combinations with individual stories, life circumstances, challenges, and opportunities; yet even in their diversity, groups often maintain some commonality according to language, ethnicity, gender, race, or sexual orientation.

As the world proceeds along this trajectory, it is no longer possible for one to be isolated or unconnected to others in some way; nor is it possible for anyone to go very far without encountering others who are different from oneself in some way, shape, or form. Such interaction in more ways with more people is welcomed by some and feared by others.

Often what we do not know, we fear; and what we fear, we label so that we may push it (or them) away. Polarities of "us" and "them" multiply, however, when we do not see the diversity around us as an opportunity to grow in knowledge and experience without sacrificing our uniqueness and individuality.

Over the course of world history, explorers have traveled to foreign lands and have regarded the "them" as an "Other" to be changed, captured, or colonized. The quest for power and wealth led those with might to believe they were right in conquering the Other and forcing them to submit to their authority. Nowadays, even when we know so much more about "foreign" lands, peoples, and customs, those in dominant societies still have the need to make the Other conform through political, economic, military, and even religious means. In the twenty-first century this is often accompanied by a religious and political fundamentalism that recognizes only one way of thinking and living in community.

Some voices in the last fifty years or so, however, have dared to confront those in power and call their systems of hegemony "colonial," "imperial," "tyrannical," "fascist," or "totalitarian." Most United States citizens (except for some radical fringe) would have no trouble so labeling Hitler, Amin, or Milosevi?; yet many of these same people would be extremely reticent to label Bill Clinton or Margaret Thatcher or even George W. Bush or Tony Blair in this way, even though there are no doubt many in the world who would not hesitate to do so. Of these daring voices, some of the most significant are those who call their ideological stance "post-colonialism"—a radical questioning of the notion and manifestation of Empire.

As the pastor of a Christian church rooted in and reaching beyond the Rainbow Community, I constantly struggle with how to bridge the gap between the ancient world and the contemporary scene, the premodern and the postmodern, the spiritual and the secular. If our world and its people are indeed interconnected, there must be more and better ways of speaking spiritual truth and breaking down the barriers that exist between people. Thus, though we just passed our national holiday in honor of Christopher Columbus’ "discovery" of America in 1492, I am reluctant to wave the flag and prattle on about the "New World" and the "progress" it has made. A postcolonial sensibility makes me remind myself and those who will listen that Columbus was not some romantic wanderer but an aggressive adventurer paid handsomely from the coffers of the court of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, with the aim of enriching the Crown still further and claiming new lands for the Catholic Church and these Catholic monarchs.

Schools in the United States still teach children that Iberian explorers like Columbus, Vasco de Gama, Cortes, and Magellan, succeeded by the British colonists in Massachusetts and Virginia, not only "discovered" this continent they named America but also "civilized" it by rescuing it from the savages whom they incorrectly called "Indians." What is less talked about is the extraordinary culture that these Native Americans or First Nations People already had in place—a culture that respected life, revered the earth and its wildlife, and worshiped the Divine in unique and holy ways. The Europeans utilized the biblical warrant of the book of Joshua as a blueprint for how to overrun and conquer a land, destroying its inhabitants, their ways of life, and their religious rituals—all in order to amass lands, resources, and fortunes for the wealthy governments and churches in the Old World.

We often romanticize this history, but we do so at our peril, for the theology of manifest destiny that has undergirded all colonial movements throughout history is alive and well today in the foreign policy of the United States. We think nothing of taking over other lands and their resources, overthrowing their governments, and taking people prisoner. While many give lip-service to the idea of religious pluralism in America, the highest places of government are run as a thinly-disguised theocracy that caters to a militant and aberrant Christianity that bears little relation to its roots in the Jesus Movement. I believe that an alternative is out there if we are willing to learn from history: the great Empires of the past—Rome, Spain, Holland, Britain—declined because they were blinded by their own arrogance and acquisitiveness, coupled with a mindset of Divine mandate. If people of faith would look beyond their sloganeering and their differences, we would see that together we could make the world better, safer, and more loving, but not if we duplicate colonial and imperial ambitions, whatever we may call them.