The Great Evil

Christianity, the Bible, and the Native American Genocide

Chris Mato Nunpa

• Publisher: See Sharp Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781947071360
• eBook ISBN:
  9781947071414
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

A shocking account of the role of Christianity in the Native American genocide.

In Great Evil, Chris Mato Nunpa reveals the devastating impact of Christianity and the Bible on Indigenous Peoples. Readers will learn about the biblical rationales used to justify genocide, land theft, and religious suppression. Mato Nunpa draws on his Dakota heritage, historical research, and personal experiences to expose a darker side of American history. He challenges readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about the role of religion in the oppression of Native Americans.

• Discover the biblical justifications for the conquest of Native lands.
• Understand the impact of religious suppression on Indigenous cultures.
• Examine the connection between Christianity, colonialism, and genocide.

This insightful and provocative work is for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Indigenous history and the complex relationship between religion and colonialism. Chris Mato Nunpa is a Dakota man, scholar, and member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

1

RELIGIOUS/HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS

of Genocide, Land Theft, Slavery, and Religious Suppression

“And when the Lord your God shall deliver them [7 Canaanite Nations] over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them … Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them …” (Deuteronomy 7:2, 16, NKJV)

There were three main religious factors which underlay and contributed to the genocide of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, and more specifically of the Native Peoples in what is now known as the United States of America.

These three factors were 1) the Old Testament God’s genocidal commands; 2) the imperialistic pronouncements of Jesus Christ from the New Testament, specifically, the Great Commission, and his assertion that He is the Truth; and 3) the papal bulls of the Roman Catholic Church. We’ll discuss these in turn and see how they relate to the genocide, the land theft, slavery, and the religious suppression of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

Genocidal Commands of the Old Testament God

The Lord is a man of war; the LORD is His name (Exodus 15:3, NKJV)

The LORD, the Warrior—LORD is His name! (Torah)

The main purpose of this chapter is to give the reader a flavor of the brutality and horror of the genocidal commands of Yahweh, the Old Testament God. Thus, we will look at a number of Old Testament commands from the New King James Version. We’ll also look at the same verses from the Torah and the Tanakh. Occasionally, we’ll look at the same verses from the New American Bible, a Catholic translation,

First a few comments about the name Yahweh: Yahweh is an abbreviation of the longer name “Yahweh Sabaoth.”¹ This name means “He who musters armies.” The name “Yahweh” identifies the Jewish God as the military leader of His chosen people, the Israelites. It is thus no wonder that the God named Yahweh is a killer God. As well, it is no surprise that Yahweh is called “a man of war” (NKJV) and a “Warrior” (Torah) in Exodus 15:3.

Yet it’s difficult to understand why Yahweh calls himself a warrior. As I understand the teaching of the missionaries, who came to our little Dakota community back in the late 1940s and early1950s, God is omnipotent, all-powerful. If this God is all-powerful, then, He will always win a fight or a battle. When this God kills someone, it cannot be called war, or combat, it must be called what it is: murder. The omnipotent Yahweh, by this inescapable logic, is not a warrior but a murderer. We’ll shortly see this murderous and brutal Jewish God of war at work.

We’ll also look at what five theologians from the Bethany Parallel Commentaries have to say about particular verses and passages, and we’ll discuss selected chapters and/or verses, or one could say “texts of terror”,² to use Dr. Philip Jenkins’ term, from Psalms, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and I Samuel, chapter 15.³ Thus, the reader will have a baseline with which to contrast or compare what the theologians say about a particular verse, the killers’ understanding and actions based upon the same verse(s), and the author’s commentary.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion … Happy is the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock! (Psalms 137: 1 & 9, NKJV)

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we thought of Zion … a blessing on him who seizes your babies and dashes them against the rocks! (Tanakh)

The New American Bible (NAB), a Catholic version, has a footnote regarding Psalm 137:9: “According to the ruthless custom of ancient warfare, children were indeed thus cruelly killed.” The footnote says, “But it seems more probable that here the psalmist is personifying ‘the daughter of Babylon’ as a mother whose little ones are the adult citizens, not the infants, of the city.”⁴ I will leave it to the reader to determine if it is probable that the “little ones,” or “babies,” are the adult citizens and not the infants of the city.

Phillip Jenkins, in Laying Down the Sword, states that “the Bible overflows with ‘texts of terror,’ … and biblical violence is often marked by indiscriminate savagery.”⁵ Jenkins mentions the above Psalm (Psalm 137), and, comments upon it as a “text of terror” marked “by indiscriminate savagery,” and which ends with “blessing anyone who would seize Babylon’s infants and smash their skulls against the rocks.”⁶

Our five theologians cited in the Bethany Parallel Commentaries on the New and Old Testaments—Henry, Jamieson, Fausset, Brown, and Clark—say nothing condemnatory of either Yahweh or of the Israelites seizing babies and dashing them against rocks. Adam Clarke, our Methodist theologian, writes approvingly of the “total extermination of your inhabitants” [the Canaanites, which would include the “little ones,” the toddlers] because the [chosen people] have “rid the world of a curse so grievous.”⁷ This attitude is very much like that of the genocidal Old Testament God and is much in the vein of the “Herem” warfare of the Israelites, that is, of “utter destruction.”⁸

So Israel made a vow to the Lord, and said, If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities … And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of that place was called Hormah [or “utter destruction].⁹ (Numbers 21:2–3, NKJV)

The NAB’s footnote for verse 3 says, “Hormah: related to the Hebrew word ‘herem,’ meaning ‘doomed.’ A reminder: ‘herem’ means ‘utter destruction.’”¹⁰ The Torah uses the term “proscribe” for the NKJV’s “utterly destroy.” The footnote, also, defines the term “proscribe” as “utterly destroy.”¹¹

Regarding Numbers 21:2–3, none of the theologians express any horror nor condemnation of God and the Israelites for their “utter destruction” of the Canaanites and their cities. In fact, Matthew Henry says that God “enabled the Israelites by his [God’s] grace.” I checked my Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for the definition of “grace.” The first meaning is, “unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification.”¹² To connect the term “grace” to a blatantly genocidal event, as Matthew Henry has done, is incredible. JFB applies the phrase “vow of extermination”¹³ to describe what God and the Israelites did to the Canaanites. At least, these three writers (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown) used an accurate term, “extermination,” to signify what God commanded the Israelites to do.

And they warred against the Midianites, just as the Lord commanded Moses; and they killed all the males. (Numbers 31:7, NKJV)

It is noteworthy that the New American Bible, the Catholic version, titles Numbers Chapter 31 “Extermination of the Midianites.”¹⁴

The Bethany theologians use terms and phrases like “God’s over-ruling providence,” “just vengeance,” “divine order,” “sinners against God,” and “their cup of iniquity was full,” to express God’s attitude, one part “hatred of the sinners,” i.e., the Canaanites, et. al., and the other part approval of the slaying and the mass-murdering of the males.¹⁵ These theologians are saying that God’s “over-ruling providence,” His “divine order,” and His need to “punish sin” justified all this violence and slaughter. Also, since not believing in the Old Testament God makes one a “sinner against God” and makes his “cup of iniquity full,” then it is “proper”¹⁶ for God to destroy the person or group.

Now therefore Kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman who has known a man intimately. (Numbers 31:17, NKJV)

Note that God is commanding “the little ones” who are male to be killed, as well as every woman who has had sex with a man. How different is this from the words and actions of Pol Pot or ISIS?

As I read about the killing of the male “little ones” and about the Midianite women, I could not help but think that the Old Testament God, as well as the theologians, are judgmental and misogynistic in their attitudes toward women. Note Henry’s characterization of women, “the principal criminals,” “dangerous to let them live,” and “they still will be tempting the Israelites to uncleanness.”¹⁷

JFB says this about the women: “The Midianitish women had forfeited all claims to mild and merciful treatment.”¹⁸ Finally, Adam Clarke writes of the women of the Midianites, “their lives were forfeited by their personal transgressions.”¹⁹ The misogynistic statements and attitudes of these theologians, and of the Old Testament God, remind me of several passages in David Stannard’s book. In one he quotes a Ioan P. Couliano saying that “woman is the blind instrument for seduction of nature, the symbol of temptation, and evil … Besides her face, the principal baits of her allure are the signs of her fertility, hips and breasts … only witches will dare to have wide hips, prominent breasts, conspicuous buttocks, long hair.”²⁰ Stannard also describes the male world of the adventurer as “a world in which women are at best irrelevant or ineffectual, and at worse are harlots, castrators, or murderesses.”²¹

That’s a stark contrast to the statement by Floyd Red Crow Westerman (a Dakota) who said, “Honor and protect our women,” which is a teaching of the Dakota People.²²

One might also contrast the attitude toward women of the theologians, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, with a statement of Dr. Charles Eastman, Wahpetunwan Dakota, “the place of our women (in Dakota society) is secure.”²³

Then let’s consider the “My God, Right or Wrong” attitude. Theologian Adam Clarke says, in regard to Numbers 31:17: “ … the principle that God, who is the Author and Supporter of life, has a right to dispose of it when and how He thinks proper; and the Judge of all the earth can do nothing but what is right.²⁴ I have to admit that I have trouble understanding Clarke’s logic. Here is a God commanding the killing of women and children, vulnerable members of any society, and yet this God “has a right,” is “proper,” and the Judge (God) “can do nothing but what is right”—in killing women and children. Such dissonance! Adam Clarke is, indeed, a true believer in “my God, right or wrong.” It makes me wonder if most Christians have this same belief. If they did (or still do) it would go a long way toward explaining why they didn’t (and in many cases still don’t) have a more respectful, loving, and caring attitude not only toward their own women and children, let alone toward Indigenous women and their children.

The repugnant commands of the Old Testament God to kill women and children are not the type of commands that we would expect from an all-good, all-perfect God. These commands are what we would expect from a Hitler, a George Washington, a Saddam Hussein, an Andrew Jackson, a Josef Stalin, or from current and recent U.S. Presidents and military commanders w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Religious/Historical Foundations of Genocide
• 2. The Coming of Columbus
• 3. The Pequot Holocaust
• 4. Manifest Destiny
• 5. The Bible and Religious Suppression
• 6. Genocide of the Dakota People
• 7. No Justice, No Peace
• Appendices
• Bibliography