Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery
Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery
S04E02: Exploring the American Religious Tapestry: From Civil Religion to Secularism and the Impact of the January 6th Insurrection with Joel Harrison
Embark on a profound journey through the tapestry of American religious history with Joel Harrison, associate professor of religion, and his sharp students, Jason Armstrong and Christian Oppenhagen. Together, we unravel the complex narratives of civil religion and secularism, with a particular lens on the interplay of race and religion since the colonial era. Our conversation pivots around Joel's innovative teaching methods, as he leverages the January 6th insurrection as a vivid case study in his Religion 100 course at Northern Virginia Community College, engaging students with the pressing relevance of historical events in shaping today's religious and political landscapes.
Witness firsthand the transformative power of academic discourse as it escapes the confines of lecture halls and influences the broader world. The Doctrine of Discovery conference epitomizes scholarship's potency in initiating societal reflection and change, a revelation deeply felt by attendees like Jason. The connections forged among participants of various backgrounds underscore the role of academia in facilitating a collective confrontation with our intricate historical legacies. These moments serve as catalysts for personal growth and cultural respect, sparking an appreciation for the diverse tapestry that is our shared human experience.
Finally, we navigate the profound relationship between land, heritage, and identity, acknowledging the stark repercussions of European conquest on indigenous communities. Chris shares his enlightening experiences from the conference, inspiring a broader discussion on the primacy of land identity within indigenous culture and the importance of understanding our ancestral ties. Through this revelation, we are reminded of the enduring significance of our roots and the narrative of who we are, ensuring the past is not merely history—but a compass that guides our ongoing quest for understanding and empathy.
View the transcript and show notes at podcast.doctrineofdiscovery.org. Learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery on our site DoctrineofDiscovery.org.
Hello and welcome to the Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery podcast. The producers of this podcast would like to acknowledge with respect the onondogga nation fire keepers of the hoodnashoni, the indigenous peoples on whose ancestral lands Syracuse University now stands. Now introducing your hosts, phil Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery. My name is Phil Arnold. I'm faculty in religion here at Syracuse University and also core faculty in Native American indigenous studies.
Speaker 3:And I'm Sandy Bigtree, citizen of the Mohawk Nation in Aqua-Suzney, and I'm the board of the indigenous values initiative.
Speaker 2:This podcast is being sponsored by the Henry Loose Foundation and we appreciate them continuing to support this work. Today we have some special guests from Virginia, and first I'd like to introduce Joel Harrison to us all. Joel is associate professor of religion at Northern Virginia Community College at Manassas, virginia, where he teaches courses on the academic study of religion as well as college composition. He holds an MA and PhD in religious studies from Northwestern University, chicago, my kind of town. In 2019, he received Henry Loose Foundation responsive grant in theology with Christina Trayna and Barlin Milner. Today we're speaking with Joel and some of his students who recently attended and presented at our conference the Religious Origins of White Supremacy, johnson B McIntosh and the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. Joel, welcome, thank you. Is there anything else you'd like to say about yourself before you introduce?
Speaker 4:your students. No, I mean, I think that that pretty well covers a solid academic introduction there. I've been teaching at NOVA since 2019, focused mostly on the Religion 100 course, the introduction of the study of religion course, which is where these students of mine came from and where their papers for the conference came from, where the idea to submit a panel for this conference came from. So the students here with us today are Jason Armstrong, who's a dual enrollment student at NOVA, and Christian Oppenhagen, who's also, I think, just finished You're almost done at NOVA. I can't remember, but they were both students of mine Christian two years ago, jason last spring, so yeah, Well, it's fantastic to have you here.
Speaker 2:I mean, as a teacher myself been in this a long time I really appreciate you bringing students. I mean, this is kind of new for us because we have kind of academic-y sort of folks and legal scholars and activists and other kinds of folks, and then from a community college, I think that's really, really outstanding. You must be doing a great job down there. So I appreciate that. Thank you, and can you fill in us? Fill us in on the story you know, like how you learned about the conference and sort of how it resonated with your students.
Speaker 3:And also how it impacts how you teach the academic study of religion. Sure yeah, it must turn it all on its head when we're talking about American religions right, right, yeah.
Speaker 4:I think that probably the story starts actually way back in 2021, in December of 2021, when I found out about the Uncivil Religion Project that was put together by the Religious Studies Department at the University of Alabama, mike Altman, who is an associate professor there, and the Smithsonian Museum and that is a project that sort of documents the religious aspects of the January 6th insurrection and as I was looking through that resource, I thought it was such a fantastic resource. It's a free resource and that's the perfect kind of thing to have as a sort of centerpiece text in a community college course, because the more free materials you can provide students, the better in a community college setting. So I redesigned my Religion 100 course to use the January 6th insurrection as a case study for students to sort of practice the academic study of religion, to try to make it. I mean, it still is theoretical, right, we can't really think about an event like that without thinking theoretically about it. But I wanted them to sort of see how do religious studies scholars think about this kind of event and how do they write about this kind of event. It was a little bit of a risk, admittedly my colleague in my very small department there's only two of us. My other colleague was like good luck with that, not because she didn't think that I could do it, but just because how volatile the political situation was and just being in Northern Virginia, being so close to it, there could have been a lot of room for controversy. But really it hasn't gone that way. It's been, I think, overall very well received by the students. It's not a typical 100 level course.
Speaker 4:I asked the students to do reading that is not at the 100 level. It's well beyond the 100 level, but the way that I assess them is sort of at the 100 level. So, after kind of a general introduction to the history of the academic study of religion, we were looking at that event from three different perspectives from American religious history, from the concept of civil religion and secularism, and then from the history of kind of the interaction or entanglement of race and religion through the colonial period. And what I wanted them to see is that all of these elements are sort of bubbling under the surface of this one event. That to analyze the religious aspects of an event like January 6 is not just to look for sort of the outward signs of people singing or invoking the name of Jesus on a sign with Donald Trump or something, but to ask the question of sort of like, where does this idea of chosenness come from, where does this idea of entitlement come from? And to think sort of from a deeper historical perspective about those things.
Speaker 4:And so when I saw the call for papers and I think I just saw it on Twitter, to be honest, you know, just following a religious studies conference account I saw the title of the conference and I thought, oh, this is really interesting. And a lot of my students have asked me in the past like they want to know, like what are the next steps? Because for some of them really like writing, all I ask them to do in this class they have some, you know, weekly assignments, short kind of reflection writing assignments, but the main assignment is just to produce a short paper, four and a half to I think the maximum is 10 pages, which only a few students actually take me up on Jason included in that group, but most, you know, for so many of them it feels like a very important paper for them to write and I have students telling me that like I really want to do a good job on this paper. This feels very significant for me personally to write this paper to try to make sense of this. You know, for myself, and that has really struck me, because I've never had students tell me that before about an assignment, like I mean, they may like an assignment, they may have fun doing an assignment, but I've never had a student say this paper is really important to me. This means something to me, especially in a 100 level course.
Speaker 4:And so, you know, I think, when I saw the call for papers for the conference, I thought well, here's an opportunity for some of those students to maybe engage in a wider conversation about the origins of white supremacy.
Speaker 4:They've started, you know, they already started thinking about it, they've sort of dipped their toe into that and if they have the opportunity to go to a conference like this, they can see this ongoing wider conversation taking place and kind of see how their you know, their work is fitting into that.
Speaker 4:So that was kind of the thinking behind it and you know, and I will say it was a first for NOVA too I don't think that I mean, to my knowledge, no one had tried, had tried to take students to an academic conference like this before, and you know, so trying to, you know, find financial sources and, you know, do that work. It was a lot of, you know, a bunch of us, including administration, which you know. I really am so thankful for the administration at the college for really taking this seriously and not simply saying, like you know, well, I don't know if this sounds like a thing community college students would do or should be doing. Nobody said that. Everyone was like, yes, this is a great opportunity, let's find the money, let's make this happen. And they did it, and it was. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's so inspiring for me because, you know, I've always thought, even since I was a graduate student, which is a long time ago now, that you know the academic study of religion really needs to speak to the moment, to what's going on in society right now. And I try to train graduate students that way too, you know, even though you know a lot of them are graduated with philosophy or other kind of more abstract ideas. Of course that's that's what we do too, that's our bread and butter, but you know, but I think kind of have an engaged scholarship is what I'm going for here. And, frankly, not many of our students I'll just say this, not many of our grad students get jobs at community colleges I mean, it's not like a thing, it's more kind of a larger research-oriented universities that have these tenure-track jobs. So there are a lot of things about this whole story that I find inspiring. Is someone training? We don't train many grad students. A few every year but it's like where do they go?
Speaker 2:And particularly when? In this moment when humanity seems to be dying or becoming more and more irrelevant for many people I'll put that in scare quotes, but I think that the academic study really needs to step up.
Speaker 2:We need to do this work kind of on us to make it relevant, and so I see this your story here, joel, is very inspiring. I appreciate it. Yeah, we've been at this for I don't know, over 15 years now in the area of doctrine, of discovery work and, as I said, the Loose Foundation is now funding us, which is something that probably wouldn't have happened 15 years ago, or even probably five years ago. So I think that there are foundations, there is interest in these topics and moving into these topics that I have seen in a longer arc and maybe could really help us moving into the future. But let's step back a little bit. I want to hear from you, chris and Jason. I want to hear from you about, like your experience your around this topic of your experience, of how the conference impacted you or what you saw or what kind of you know, so we can get some feedback from a student perspective, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so, coming into the conference. Can you identify yourself? Sorry, I'm just so.
Speaker 5:Oh, I'm Jason. Coming into this conference I didn't have a lot of experience and I hadn't heard much about the doctrine of discovery, apart from the religion class with Dr Joel. But being there at the conference it gave me like a deeper understanding of the topic and it was, it's really well. It was saddened to see all this, but it would. Yeah, I was just appreciative of, like now I know of this stuff. Right, you're not taught this stuff in schools, you're not taught doctrine of discovery, but it was. It was really I okay, that's what it was. The conference is very eye-opening for me, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Has it changed the way you perceive the world in general, or in being an American, or your identity? And what you thought was the history.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so yeah, definitely the history right, but I think I have a greater appreciation for different cultures. I think that's what it gave me, and you know, because when you're taught just one thing, you don't see the other side. And so, yeah, it's very. The conference is eye-opening and allowed me to appreciate the other sides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you mentioned, Jason, that it's very sad, it's a traumatic history and that we're dealing a lot with a lot of trauma here, but then also it's a unifying issue. You know, it's a way that we can kind of work collaboratively. That's one of the themes that we hope to bring out, I hope. Did you see that in the conference at all?
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, it was cool to see so many different people Like. It was like a working. You know the conference was collaborative, right? It was everyone working towards one goal, right? Or talking about the doctrine of discovery, which is really cool to see so many different perspectives and people from different backgrounds coming together.
Speaker 3:The bottom line is all your ancestors in the past were indigenous at one point, so there has to be some element that was an awakening in your own being and understanding of your own lineage. Maybe this is why you have more understanding and interest now in other cultures, because your ancient cultures were also wiped out with this kind of authoritarian rule.
Speaker 2:We hear that a lot from Putt and Shoney. You know, leaders, or Boyani as they're called, that you know. It's just that the age of discovery has hit them most recently. Where you know, the history of Europe is sort of littered with these stories of indigenous peoples being overrun, you know, at various moments, and so they always are encouraging even members of our board, in fact encouraging all of us to really investigate our own genealogies. You know, I mean, it is a thing now. You know, that people are interested in their backgrounds, their genealogical backgrounds, and I'm one of those. But you know, there's a reason for that too. I mean, I think people are looking for something. You know, it's a more orientation.
Speaker 3:So when land identifies who you are in indigenous cultures, it's hard to identify when that relationship with the natural world has been stripped from you, from your ancestors. So there is this longing of detachment, because that's in effect where we receive life, and it's regenerative and it's exciting and ever-changing right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I will say, sandy, I so appreciated your words about the connection to land and the indigenous connection to land.
Speaker 4:I think it was on the opening night of the conference.
Speaker 4:Because one of the most impactful for me days of the class is when we talk about the way that the Spanish sort of theologically justified their conquest of indigenous peoples based on their, you know, accusing essentially the indigenous peoples of having the incorrect relationship to the land or misunderstanding the relationship which opened them up to demonic possession and so forth, and that we read an essay by Willie Jennings who talks about Jose de Acosta, the priest who you know was surveying the land and the people for the Spanish crown, and it's a difficult essay for students to read, we spend a bit of time unpacking it.
Speaker 4:But the idea that even the white students in the class have, at some point in their history, some indigenous ancestors who had land, that's a really, I think, useful way of framing that conversation, because I do have. I regularly have white students who will say to me, right sort of in confidence, as a white professor, you know, I don't know how I'm supposed to identify with this or think about this. You know, they, you know, and I think that. That's a really helpful way of framing for that. Yeah, that's really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's important, joel, because I think this investigation always drives us back to primary sources, or primary sources, which is a real experience for students as well. I mean, you know, I read some of those, you know, like the Columbus diaries or some of these papal bulls or things like that. You go through them in class and it's like it's like revelatory, you know, you know so. So we don't. You know, it's not biblical exegesis, but it is, you know. It is a sort of you know, interpretation of texts that are primary in a different kind of way. But, chris, I wanted to give you a chance to jump in here to talk about your experience at the conference and also how it might have impacted you, like going forward.
Speaker 6:Yes, well, I actually had some experience with some of this between previously, before the degree I was working on. That brought me into Professor Harrison's class. I was working on an anthropology degree and so I've been exposed to some of the ways that anthropology had been used as a tool of oppression. Because anthropology they're very open At least most of the disciplines within anthropology are very open about this was our past being used to oppress the minorities. But now we're looking, we're trying to look at things through their lens, while also looking from the outside. So while I never interacted directly with the doctrine of discovery itself, I've been around and I've known through my experiences, I've seen the history of what's happened and what the doctrine of discovery did.
Speaker 6:So for me a lot of the conference was actually putting into life of. You know, it was a bit. It was a bit like working on a puzzle have all the pieces. Then I went to the conference and somebody finally showed me what the picture was supposed to look like. You know, here's the, here's the top of the box. Okay, now I see how all these pieces come together, whereas before it was more like oh yeah, I know about the oppression of Native Americans.
Speaker 6:I know how they were treated and how indigenous cultures were treated by most of the conquering groups, but now it was, oh, this was the justification given Beyond. Just here, let's pour a bunch of sand into this skull and see how much that skull can hold, and we're going to completely hide the fact that the skull with the more amount actually came from a minority. This is the white skull. This is the black skull because that can't be right.
Speaker 2:That can't be right, right yeah.
Speaker 6:Exactly so. For me, the conference was very much so putting everything into life and kind of giving me a little bit more perspective on things. Yeah, which I really appreciated as a student of culture, as a student of history, being able to see where things fit on the other side of the lens of the historical texts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean I think the university I don't know about down in Virginia, your place, but we divide up academic study of religion and the humanities, and anthropology and social science, even natural sciences, right. So here we have an indictment really across thought knowledge systems in a way, because for me I think religion gets more at the root of this issue, because it supplies the worldview and, as you said, risk of justification for these conquerors who, after all, they leave home and then set up shop somewhere else and do these atrocious things to people. And what's driving all that? What could make a person do that? Right, it just seems absurd in today's world, but in a way it's still operative. So I think there are different ways of coming at this, from different points of view. For me, religion seems to get a little deeper. You get us deeper into the quagmire, you know. So I appreciate you. You know mixing it up.
Speaker 3:And at the same time of discovery, there are these great thinkers right who are envisioning a new world. So when we're creating the United States, there's two forces here going kind of head to head against one another the explorers, the what land speculators, and then you have the great thinkers of the Enlightenment era. And if you dig into that, what ignited that school of thought and many writers today are saying it, was this involvement over hundreds of years of interactions with the indigenous people from the Americas, because they lived in these true democracies that were not hierarchical. So you have these idealized visions of creating this new world and then you have these greedy speculators who just want to take the land as a resource. And then you have those back to the just the founding right.
Speaker 3:You know, when the British were still in power and during that switch over to the Americanists, they were using, you know, the wisdom of the hood and the show me talking about the great law of peace where people lived in equity and freedom and the great and peace, and these were not concepts readily discussed in Europe. So this, this issued for the new possibility of living with one another in this world. But we had that. That iconography, by the way was incorporated into presidential seal and if you delve into that history will find references to that living in peace and the message of the hood and the show me. And years later that the fashion of the loose salini Well, this is before mostly, but of Rome, because he took that emblem from Rome, the Roman Empire and Empire building authority, authoritarianism that iconography started being introduced after they were using this other bundle of arrows that the show me talked about representing peace. So so much was in conflict in those early years and then, of course, 1823, the doctrine discoveries and coded into American property.
Speaker 3:So people need to know what was going on then, and you know you have choices to make, and are we going to continue?
Speaker 2:I don't know how close you are to Washington DC, but it's a fascinating look at just the art iconography in the, in the, in the nation's capital, you know. I mean you look at the kind of figures, the authoritative figures, you know, columbus, of course, is there All through the capital building. But then on the flip side, then you go down to the screen court chambers that are underneath the Senate, the original screen court chambers, and there are cord corn, cob columns that are supporting just. They've been just recently restored in the last 30 years. This is a, this is a hearkening back to, you know, when the capital was first constructed in the early 1800s, before Johnson, and it's a, it's a nod to the hood and a shone influence. And then you know tobacco leaf lentils, of course you know that support that are in the basement of the capital supporting that, that dome, you know. So actually, you know we're integrating a lot of those images in the scant of center right now I don't know if you got to see the scant of center.
Speaker 2:that was one of my questions. Were you here early enough to be able to go to the scant of center?
Speaker 4:I think Jason, did you take that tour.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I did. Yeah, okay, it's really cool yeah.
Speaker 2:What did you like about it? I mean, we're, you know we were, we were instrumental in creating that space, like 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago now, but but I'd appreciate, you know, your comments about that.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I mean again, like just going to that, I got a deeper understanding of the story of oppression and I didn't realize how, like the magnitude of the oppression war, and it was yeah, I really loved how, as you could walk through like well, I didn't like it but no, so you walk through, you know the story continued and how it's a path, it was yeah, it was very, it was very powerful.
Speaker 2:And then the fact that Haudenosaunee are still here. I mean you're eating their food and you know you're interacting with them, you know. I mean, I think that's what we're, that's kind of what we're going through.
Speaker 3:There's still possibilities in the world you know they're still here. We're still here, yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you need help catching up on today's topic or do you want to learn more about the resources mentioned? If so, please check our website at podcastdoctrineofdiscoveryorg for more information and, if you like this episode, review it on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And now back to the conversation.
Speaker 2:Your classes, joel, how does, how do, how do? How has the conference? Will the conference sort of change your ideas about your curriculum for your class? I mean, you said you started with some of these earlier texts, but one of the things we're hoping to accomplish, we created this website. Actually, adam has created the website and we're sort of loading it up with other materials that can. That might be of help. I'm wondering if that's of interest to you.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely, yeah, I'm. I am always trying to point my students to as many free resources as possible. You know, I think that for a lot of undergraduates they're they're kind of go to is just to start with Google and go from there, and so you know I'll get papers that have a lot of. You know we'll cite a lot of like journalism or something like that. But I really try to encourage them to, you know, use the sources. I mean, I try to set up the class so that they don't have to do any outside research if they don't want to. And you know they can use all the reading from my class.
Speaker 4:But I am in court, you know, wanting to incorporate this semester more about the doctrine of discovery specifically. As you know, we talk about, like the doom diverse table bowl and when these are the song gray laws in Spain and some of these earlier kind of iterations of justifications for persecution of non white, non Christian, non European peoples. And I think that the doctrine of discoveries, you know, certainly a natural, you know one, one kind of bridging point between what's going on in colonial, you know Europe to January 6. Right, I think, I think that that's a good. Yeah, so I'm definitely going to be.
Speaker 4:That's one way that the conference certainly changed the syllabus is to add in more of that specific discussion of what the doctrine of discovery did in the US, because I mean, they're like, like you were mentioning, you know, even with things is sort of like, you know, fine grained in my nude as as the symbolism of the country and how all these little details come from these other places. It, you know, it can be overwhelming, I think, for students to try to wrap their their heads around all of this. But yeah, I think that conference gave me some, some good tools for for thinking about how to kind of guide them even more, you know, bridge that gap between the colonial entanglement of race and religion. And then what's happening on January 6.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:I mean that's what.
Speaker 2:that's what I was interested in. How do we, how do we connect those dots right? How do you connect, like you know, 500 year olds, you know racist theology essentially with what's going on now in terms of, like, christian nationalism? You know, I mean, I mean, I see it, I see it everywhere. But you know, you know how do you do that. I'm just you know, just curious.
Speaker 4:Right, Well, so I mean, one of the things that I do is we focus a lot on the language of demons in this class Are evil, evil.
Speaker 2:I suppose, or yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4:Well, so the ways that in American religious history, you know, the others right, those who are, you know, part of, are the worldly or the non Christian, the, the unregenerate, are passed as demonic at some level or sort, or agents of the satanic or something like that.
Speaker 4:How the culture wars get, you know, throughout the 20th century, get touched in those terms, and then when you go back in time to the colonial period, you see similar language about the demonic right, how the indigenous peoples, physical bodies, are, you know, porous and sort of susceptible to demonic possession, whereas the, you know, conquistadors, because of Christ, they can't be, you know, possessed by the devil, you know. And so we, we talk about the kind of analogously, how that language is similar and the idea that I mean, if you truly believe that your opponent is an agent of the devil, is, you know, possessed by demons or is a demon a demon themselves, then that gives you some more insight into the violence I think of why people are, you know, willing to sort of take up the cause of January 6, you know, from that one perspective. So that's one of the ways that we, that we connect that.
Speaker 2:Wow, and that language is picked up by the January January 6 people, that is. That are some of the groups, some of the religious orientations of those right.
Speaker 4:Well, you have, for example, the Q and on conspiracy theory, you know which you know, which believes, literally, that the members of the Democratic Party are Satan worshiping. Pedophiles, right, right, who are you know?
Speaker 4:and there's various iterations of that, where you know, in some cases, the, you know, opponents of just in general, are demonic forces or demons themselves or something like that, and it gets very convoluted very quickly. But you do see that that language. You also see the language of chosenness. I mean there's some fantastic video resources from that day on the uncivil religion site that will show, you know choirs of Trump supporters. You know singing we're the chosen of the Lord. You know chosen generation. You know that, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4:So this idea also of chosenness, that you will be protected from the demonic forces because God has chosen your side for victory, which is also similar to the language that Jose de Acosta uses right in his theological justification of the conquest way God has commissioned the Christians right to go to the Isaiah, which that's the way the word that he uses to describe the new world, right, the that nobody would go to the quote unquote new world if God had not put these resources there for, as a kind of reward, right for. And so there's this also this idea that God has commissioned the Spanish to go there and write the relationship to the land that you know and use these untapped resources that are, that are there that God has commissioned them to use. So there's, there's some similar language there to with with this language of chosenness, yeah, yeah, it's, a reminiscing.
Speaker 3:The ashes of corn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want me to tell them. Oh, okay, so, so you know, I have actually five ancestors that crossed on the Mayflower, so now, now, three of them didn't last through the first winter, but so to survive, but, but you know this. So, so part of accounting for for our history here in the Americas, 500 or 400 year old history, is looking at these sites, right, one of the sites that we visited as a family and remember Sandy and our kids are holding the show. So one of the sites we visited, a cake pod was called corn hill, which is a giant X really in the middle of the parking lot, and they're where the pilgrims landed they were literally starving in November of 1620. And these are my ancestors, right, they sit upon this little cache of corn that is is buried there and they, they in the, in the plaque that's nearby, they thank God, or, without finding that corn, they would surely have perished, something like that right in the fact stole the corn.
Speaker 2:I call it kind of like the first theft, you know, because not because they took the corn, but because they didn't thank the right people right, or even thank the people actually gave them the corn. They weren't appreciative of more like this, you know, rather thanking this divine intervention for something you know that that really had very little to do with it. I mean in a way so so it's like you know there are these, there are these other stories, personal stories that Sandy and I are working on right now, that that that can help fill in some of those details, you know. But yeah, here I hear some of the resonance of like piece pizza gate, for example, or other kind of thing going on.
Speaker 2:You know, but, chris, chris, I wonder if you have, if you have some some sense of how those dots are connected. You know those 500 year old dots are connected after taking Joel's course. You know, like between you, know this kind of 500 year old crazy religion talk, which is still with us, by the way. You know but but and and how how it is changed and also remain the same.
Speaker 6:Yes, I actually have the unfortunate honor, suppose dishonor, maybe. The profession that I've been in for most of my adult life is actually rather, at least down here in the South, it's rather infested with Christian nationalist groups so I've gotten to see kind of from the inside. I was raised without Christian nationalism and so I'd always aired on the side, away from it, shy away from it. But I got into a profession where it was very prevalent and I've gotten to see a lot of the shifting. It's no longer necessarily always calling out things like demonic nature. I mean, obviously there's still that major dot when you have QAnon and Pizza Gain and all that, but there's also redirecting towards what can be considered more common enemies and more secular enemies, such as pedophilia, which is a major cry from these Christian nationalists to try and discredit the LGBTQ. Plus. They try and discredit immigrants. Anyone they don't disagree with can potentially become either demonic for the hardcore sex or pedophilic in the sex. That want to be almost more secular.
Speaker 2:And so you see it as a kind of range of positions, of groups, orientations that run from explicitly religious to more secular? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 6:I don't necessarily see it being more secular, but I do see a range where it's they're trying to demonize in a more secular way because necessarily I mean the satanic panic of the 70s and 80s.
Speaker 6:Going after things like Dungeons and Dragons and rock music didn't work for them. So instead of calling out satan and demons in the modern era, it's that there's still that hardcore sex that thinks that will shake people out of their revelry for these groups. But then there's the sex that realize and try to use a more secular enemy. Whereas the hardcore religious groups are using their religious enemy of satan, of the devil of demons, these almost more tactical groups that are still religious and still potentially in their hearts feel that way, are instead using terminology of society's demons, of the pedophile, of the rapist, of the robber, and they're using that to frame their enemies in a negative light as well. And it just shows a little bit more of the not necessarily like we can't fight them, so we might join them, but we still want to fight these groups, so we can't fight that nobody believes in demons and that demons aren't going to freak everybody in the country out anymore. So we'll join that and call them something that everyone can still agree is bad.
Speaker 4:Right, right, I think that there's also a common thread, like, regardless of whether a group is using the kind of a blanket term like pedophile or demonic, in that they there's sort of viewing the one group of people as like a complete existential threat. Right, so it's not simply that you know these people are immoral, but it's that they threaten the very fabric of existence. Right, this is a cosmic, it's still a cosmic battle, I think, for them on on on some level, which makes it part, still part of, I think, the culture, war logic throughout, especially 20th century American religious history. And again, when you, when you're, when you see your opponent as this, you know pure existential threat, that that makes this kind of reactionary politics all the more dangerous, because then disagreements are not simply political disagreements or, you know, social disagreements or something like that, but they are truly viewed as threats like what matters of life and death, I think, to a lot of people. And that's it's, it can, it can be scary, I think.
Speaker 3:Well, don't we know it? Yeah, of course I think it's referred to as savage Indians. You know, we repurposed a peace center where they had beforehand talked about the Jesuits coming in the 17th century, and a local historical association built a fort that was 200 years off the mark so they could promote the cowboy and Indian theme, built in 19th century for the family to get down in the 70s. But you know, from 1933 onward everybody thought the savage Indian was right here among the hood and the shoni. So, much alive in the world.
Speaker 2:And I appreciate also what you're saying Christian, because you know in many ways that's in all of us, you know that legacy of Christian nationalism you know. I mean I think I think it's kind of in the in the water by now because you know so many of our, our students, grad students in fact, in in the academic study really in various ways, are kind of recovering from their traumatic upbringings in, you know, fundamentalist Christian groups. You know, to some degree that was my experience, I mean. You know it wasn't, it wasn't as intense as some of my students. I'm thinking actually of Adam, who's a producer here, who's who's got his PhD from our department and also had to work very hard to to, you know, deal with his own demons, if I could say that you know from his, from his upbringing.
Speaker 2:Another transgender student in our department, jess, she's grappling with this traumatic legacy, having grown up in the South as well. It's very personal in a way, but I think this work in the Dockerman Discovery can help us all sort of organize and maybe even heal. We're talking to another. Another podcaster actually runs a podcast called divorcing religion out of BC Vancouver and she and her husband actually came to the conference and their therapists that are working in this space. You know, so now I wanted to. So I do appreciate that that the personal dynamics of how this this, this work might be helpful as well.
Speaker 3:Jason, has this impacted the way that you just talk with your friends or family when you brought this knowledge into any of those sorts of conversations?
Speaker 5:Definitely with my family. I've discussed this topic and, you know, tried to share what I learned at the conference with them and, yeah, yeah, I think, I think I've been successful with that.
Speaker 3:Initially, though, they're in shock. Right, that's what I have found. That can't even believe it. You know real yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my dad's 95 and he still has to go with what I do. I mean I love you, dad, but wow.
Speaker 3:That's what he's done.
Speaker 2:I hope he doesn't listen to this. He won't.
Speaker 3:I'm absolutely convinced.
Speaker 2:So one of the questions that you actually brought up for me, joel, and one of the questions we consular turning over in this work, is like when does the doctrine of discovery start? You know, I mean it's, you know, is it mid 15th century? Well, yes, that's kind of it, is it? Is it the crusades? Because so much of the, so much of the spirit of, and you see that today it's still operative, you know, is it the 11th century? You know, I mean, and then you can make an argument, I think is the foundation of the Roman church. You know, in the fourth century. I mean it's, you know, I think we should be open to that kind of investigation. You know of thinking about the, you know. So now we're talking about what 1500 years or more that that were that were kind of grappling with these questions. I mean, you know, james Carroll wrote this book, constantine Sword, which really places the origins of anti Semitism, something that I listened to about on the radio just today. You know, you know, and the origins of that are in the in the fourth century Roman church and, you know, fashioning the Bible in certain kinds of ways.
Speaker 2:So I mean you know, you know it can get too expensive, but then on the other hand it does seem relevant, you know, not to say you should bring this into your class, but you know, you know because you kind of want to keep it focused on the American issue. But but you know there are these other facets of the problem that I see could could easily motivate you know, further kind of graduate work, things like that.
Speaker 3:There are indigenous cities here that rivaled any city in Europe, but there were no police forces or prisons. You know, they lived freely and with equity with one another and with the natural world, so for 10,000 years, you know. So what was so different here? How? Why was it so different?
Speaker 1:here than in.
Speaker 3:Europe Right and you should evaluate this and talk about it Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate all of you I it is our hope that we can continue this relationship with with your spot, you know, with Virginia, with your, with your students, and even we have plans on trying to make some of your papers those of you who want to make your papers sort of public through our website or through other sorts of means. So I really appreciate all of you for coming on today and and I hope we can continue this conversation.
Speaker 3:Thank you, hope we meet again. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:The producers of this podcast were Adam DJ Brett and Jordan Lawn Cologne. Our intro and outro is social dancing music by Oris Edwards and Regis Cook. This podcast is funded in collaboration with the Henry Luce Foundation, Syracuse University and Hendrix Chapel and the Indigenous Values Initiative. If you liked this episode, please check out our website and make sure to subscribe.
