BY ROBERT P. JONES
SOCIETY
To fully understand the deep roots of the toxic blend of ethno-religious identity politics known today as white Christian nationalism, we need to go back at least to 1493—not the year Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” but the year he returned to a hero’s welcome in Spain, bringing with him gold, brightly colored parrots, and nearly a dozen captive Indigenous people. The return of Columbus also precipitated one of the most fateful theological developments in the history of the western Christian church: the creation of what has come to be known as the Doctrine of Discovery. Established in a series of 15th century papal bulls, the doctrine claims that European civilization and western Christianity are superior to all other cultures, races, and religions.
The Doctrine of Discovery merged the interests of European imperialism, including the African slave trade, with Christian missionary zeal. While the doctrine has escaped scrutiny by most white scholars and theologians, Indigenous people and scholars of color have long been testifying to these Christian roots of white supremacy, while dying from and living with their damaging effects.
As I’ve continued my own journey of re-education over the past 10 years, I have come to consider the Doctrine of Discovery as a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding the deep structure of the European political and religious worldviews we have inherited in this country. It furnished the foundational lie that America was “discovered” and enshrined the noble innocence of “pioneers” in the story we, white Christian Americans, have told about ourselves. Ideas such as Manifest Destiny, America as a city on a hill, or America as a new Zion all sprouted from the seed that was planted in 1493. This sense of divine entitlement, of European Christian chosenness, has shaped the worldview of most white Americans and thereby influenced key events, policies, and laws throughout American history.
The contemporary currency of this worldview is reflected in the telling results of a 2023 Christian Nationalism Survey, conducted by PRRI in partnership with the Brookings Institution, which asked: Do you agree or disagree that “God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world”? While only 3 in 10 Americans agreed, majorities of Republicans (52%) and white evangelical Protestants (56%) affirmed it. Moreover, the survey found that among white Americans today
