Excerpted from Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis after Losing Faith in the Bible by Liz Charlotte Grant ©2025 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.). Reprinted by permission from the publisher.
I had never heard of the Doctrine of Discovery, the fateful 1493 papal declaration that initiated the European colonization of the “New World.” I had never heard such a doctrine mentioned in any history class—especially not in my private Christian school education—and yet, this theological conviction profoundly shaped the Christian church and the wider world from the moment the pope ratified it.
Here’s how it came to be: Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. Then he returned to his senders, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. He had good news for the court: the planet had no edge; the planet resembled a globe, not a pancake; and Columbus’s boats had made it there and back again. Even better, his crew had landed in unknown territory, land that, as yet, remained unclaimed by the rest of Europe. And, the explorers believed, the indigenous peoples there could be effortlessly exploited by Spain. In other words, across the sea lay land and people for the taking.
Columbus’s news spread across the continent, creating competition amongst the Europeans to claim the country across the ocean before the others could. So, to protect its rights abroad, the monarchs of Spain requested that the state-funded leader of the Catholic Church weigh in. After all, the Spanish government had only sent explorers evangelistically, to “spread the faith,” (4) meaning the church only benefited from blessing Spanish efforts now, right?
As requested, Pope Alexander VI blessed the Spanish colonizers in a verdict that came to be known as the Doctrine of Discovery. In this one document, Spain claimed a monopoly over the continent across the ocean in the name of God, over lands “found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered,” and Spain also received a charge to overthrow non-Christian “barbarous nations” in a bid to conquer every square foot of dirt on the planet for Christ. (Spain failed at securing a monopoly but did succeed in subverting indigenous land rights.) The only exception put on this land grab: if a Christian leader or country currently claimed title to land, only then would conquest of that land be called theft. Unbelievers’ property could be confiscated with impunity, as their unbelief disqualified them from full citizenship within a religious state, as Spain claimed to be.
Not once did the absurdity occur to these leaders, who claimed original ownership of the Americas while ignoring the land rights of peoples who had inhabited these continents for centuries before the Europeans ever knew these lands existed. To the European Christians, native peoples simply did not count. These beliefs were adopted widely by European settlers in the Americas, resulting in practices that further dehumanized the first Americans on the continent. Widescale abuse and eventual genocide of these communities followed.
Notably, prophetic voices did spring up to oppose the Doctrine of Discovery during its time, especially regarding European disregard of indigenous land claims in North America. For example, Spanish Dominican theologian Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) admonished both the state and the pope to discontinue the policy of discounting the unbelievers’ right to ownership and forcing conversion—which never works anyway, he argued, since belief is an act of personal will, not law.
Another notable dissenter was Roger Williams (1608–1683), a Puritan English colonist to North America who defended indigenous ownership. He implored his fellow colonists to purchase land in the New World directly from the tribes who owned the land. He argued against incorporating with England, as such action assumed that the natives had no claim to the land. (7) Ultimately, both dissenters proved unsuccessful in their time, though their efforts would influence international law in the following centuries.
Greed is a powerful temptation, it seems, a temptation too enticing for the European Christian church to resist. So, when transplanted abroad, Christians undermined indigenous governance, property, and personhood so that European wealth could grow unhindered. Worse, this doctrine held sway even recently: the doctrine informed the writing of the American Constitution, the policies of Manifest Destiny, and even appeared in a 2005 US Supreme Court brief in reference to the legal history of indigenous Americans’ land rights. Pope Francis only repealed the Doctrine of Discovery decree in March 2023, 530 years after the Spanish pope formally called indigenous Americans less than people.
~
Sometimes Christians say we must bury the past. What’s the point in digging it up, brushing off the bones and flagellating ourselves for the sins of our fathers? But I believe the God of Bible demands that we must face the horror done by the Christian church across its history. We must unwind lies from truth, repenting of the harms of the past and present. Only then can we understand and embody the truth of God as expressed within the Bible. To do that, however, means returning to the site of past war crimes to identify the bones of the dead. I mean this literally and figuratively. Only a thorough reexamination of our history can initiate repair. Only a fearless return—literally turning around, an about face—can be classed as repentance.
