Post 5: Why Americans Believe in the Illusion of Meritocracy | Sangwon Yang and Mako Nagasawa
The Purpose of A Long Repentance Blog Series
People talk about issues of race and justice in the United States as issues of ‘justice and injustice.’ Sometimes we launch into debates about ‘the proper role of government.’ But is that the original framework from which these issues were asked and debated?
The purpose of the blog post series called A Long Repentance: Exploring Christian Mistakes About Race, Politics, and Justice in the United States is to remind our readers that these issues began as Christian heresies. They were at variance from Christian beliefs prior to colonialism. Since Christians enacted and institutionalized what we believe to be heretical ideas, they were very destructive and harmful, then as now. And we bear a unique responsibility for them. As a result, we believe we must engage in a long repentance. We must continue to resist the very heresies that we put into motion. Thus the title of this blog series, A Long Repentance. The journey is long and challenging. It may be impossible to see the end. But along the way, it is also inspiring and sometimes breathtaking.
We also encourage you to explore this booklet, A Long Repentance: A Study Guide, for further reflections and discussion questions. Here’s a YouTube video called Colonization, Globalization, and Liberating Theologies where co-author Mako Nagasawa did an introduction and summary.
Please read Posts 1, 2, 3, and 4 if you have not already done so.
John Locke’s Misreading of Native Americans
“Bill, it feels like we as white Christian people have a lot to lose,” said Eric. “You’re saying we have much to gain. What would we as Christians gain?”
“Before the age of colonialism,” said Bill, “We Christians believed certain glorious truths. But in order to take Native lands, European Christians had to forget those truths, and then create justifications for teaching something else. We lost both truths and practices that we used to have. We can recover those truths. And everyone would benefit.”
“Like what?” asked Eric.
“For a while,” replied Bill. “Catholics believed in something called ‘the Doctrine of Discovery,’ which Pope Nicholas V declared in 1452.[1] He was hoping Portugal and Spain wouldn’t fight each other. So he said that European Catholic rulers could just take the lands of non-Christians, and whoever got there first got first dibs.”
“But Protestants,” said Eric, “Couldn’t just accept the Pope’s word for it. What did Protestants believe?”
“Protestants,” replied Bill, “Had to read the Bible in a heretical way. John Winthrop had one method: make a covenant with God involving taking land. John Locke (1632 – 1704), an overt heretic, developed another.”
“Who is John Locke?” asked Eric.
“The English political philosopher who is called the father of classical liberalism. He influenced the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution more than anyone else.[2] Locke believed that God made the land for those who are “rational” and “work hard” by English standards: “private property” as opposed to “communal property,” and industry with tractors and guns to show for it.
“God gave the world to men in common; but since he gave it them for their benefit, and the greatest conveniencies (sic) of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, (and labour was to be his title to [land];) not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious.”[3]
Locke argued God might have given land in common at first, but intended a shift of ownership to those who practice a certain kind of “labor.” In Locke’s mind, God’s command to subdue and cultivate the land was synonymous with European-style settled agriculture and “improvement.” According to Locke, God did not want the land to remain “uncultivated” and “wild,” but used for “fruitful” production. Therefore, Locke asserted that land should be given to those who are “industrious and rational,” those capable of “working the land.””
“Wait a minute,” said Eric. “But the Native Americans did “work the land.” I’ve lived in Massachusetts for years, so I know that the Pilgrims would have died if the Wampanoag didn’t know how to farm, and teach them how to do it, too. The Pilgrims only knew how to farm the rich, loamy, easily-tilled soil of southern England. But the coastal soil of New England was poorer and rockier. The Wampanoag taught them how to grow the “three sisters” – corn, squash, and beans. They knew about cultivation and crop rotation, and they even used wood ash and fish remains as soil fertilizers.”[4]
“Right,” agreed Bill. “Native American farming practices served as the foundational knowledge of farming for Europeans in other American colonies.[5] John Locke had a library of books with better information in his own personal library,[6] which means his misrepresentations were intentional. He became one of the first white people to accuse non-white people of “laziness.”[7] Because “lazy people” are not “deserving.” He said Native Americans were not entitled to the land because they did not “labor in” it or “improve” it.[8] Who did? The white Englishman. Native Americans, to him, wasted the gift of rich lands.”
“Locke also interpreted all Native Americans as “poor” because some were semi-nomadic,” Bill continued. “Not only was Locke’s judgment erroneous and intentionally deceptive, he simply did not have a place in his mind for semi-nomadic people, despite Biblical Israel’s nomadic history (Gen.12 – Dt.34, memorialized especially in the Feast of Booths in Lev.23:33 – 36), and even Jesus’ commending his own pilgrim lifestyle to his disciples, “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Mt.8:20; Lk.9:58). To Locke, the Natives’ relationship to land did not conform to European views of settled land ownership, labor, technology, and productivity; and to him, it failed to win biblical support. That was a major failure in conflating English culture with Jesus. John Locke read that out of the language of “dominion” from Genesis 1.”
John Locke’s Misreading of Scripture
“Genesis 1 has taken some heat because of that,” said Eric.
“Very true,” said Bill. “But that’s not what Christians believed about Genesis 1 before colonialism, stretching all the way back to Jesus.”
“Really?” Eric asked. “I’m curious. What did Christians say about Genesis 1 before John Locke?”
“In Scripture, God gave land to human beings as a pure gift,” said Bill. “To communities, He gave land with some sense of “boundaries,” according to Genesis 10, Deuteronomy 32:8, Amos 9:7, and Acts 17:26 – 27. There was no hint that humans had to “work the land” in a certain way, in any of those passages. And Christian leaders in the fourth century, seeing that Roman Emperors were becoming Christians and looking to Christian ethics for guidance, drew from Genesis 1 a more precise conviction. They said every human being was supposed to have a share of “dominion” in creation, and be nourished by creation, too. Here is Ambrose, archbishop of Milan (340 – 397 AD), who helped lead Augustine of Hippo to faith:
“When giving to the poor, you are not giving him what is yours; rather, you are paying him back what is his. Indeed, what is common to all, and has been given to all to make use of, you have usurped for yourselves alone. The earth belongs to all, and not only to the rich... You are paying back, therefore, your debt.”[9]
Here is John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople (340 – 407 AD):
“Are not the earth and the fullness thereof the Lord’s? If, therefore, our possessions are the common gift of the Lord, they belong also to our fellows.”[10]
Christians taught that God wanted to bless every person with the wealth of creation.[11] We can see that in Leviticus 25: God pressed a “reset button” to give land back to Israel’s families, because Israel was supposed to be living like Adam and Eve and their children if they never fell. God looked at Israel and said, ‘You’re all my kids. I regift the garden land to all My kids.’”
“I’ve never preached on that text, I admit,” said Eric.
“Not many have,” said Bill. “And notice that God in Leviticus 25 was not establishing a culture of “private property” in Israel. It goes back to God’s original vision behind Genesis 1, and for human beings to live generously towards each other because we’re all made in God’s image. To enslave someone else was to violate Genesis 1, because masters took away what God wanted that person to own. To reduce a person to poverty was also to violate Genesis 1. In our society, we believe wealth should come through “deserving it” by being rational and working hard. But in Scripture, God gives every person good land, clean water, clean air – a share in the wealth of creation, before people did anything to “deserve” it. We are supposed to pass the creation down as an inheritance to all of God’s children. It’s not just their smarts, but just their personhood, that matters.”
“But Americans have always believed in this idea of manifest destiny,” replied Eric. “Which obviously served to take land from the Native Americans.”
“Right,” said Bill. “We believe that God gave us this land, from sea to shining sea. The so-called “manifest destiny” of taking land has always been bound up with work and whiteness, hasn’t it? It’s like being white is part of a permit system that allows you to own something and belong here.[12] But white people have to justify stealing Native lands by pointing to how much more we produce. It’s an “end justifies the means” form of reasoning.”
“Maybe that is what helps fuel white American workaholism?” asked Eric. “It seems like John Locke would have to say that land should go to the most productive person.”
“Exactly,” said Bill, “and he did.[13] There is no rest for the unrepentant. It’s not just that we feel guilty about taking land from Natives that drives our workaholism. We also feel anxiety that other people – smarter immigrants – are going to take our land, even by the rules we set up. And why are so many white evangelicals in denial that we’re destroying the environment? Only 28% of evangelicals believe human activity is contributing to climate change - the least out of any religious group.”[14]
“Because all that matters to us is productivity?” Eric offered.
“Exactly again,” said Bill. “If you start questioning productivity, other people look at you funny, or brush you off. So Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg told his constituents, “As a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us, and I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, He can take care of it.’[15] Strange how evangelicals don’t say that miracles will bring down abortion rates. Or protect religious liberty. But when it comes to the environment, we rely on miracles? Pope Francis said we have to care for the environment.[16] Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is called “the Green Patriarch” because he insist we have to care for the environment.[17] But we white evangelical Americans don’t have to care? We justify robbing our children of a clean world by saying we made stuff and some people got rich. Thank you, John Locke.”
“It’s easy to see in other areas of life,” said Eric, “that when people don’t want to repent, we go to great lengths to deny our sin.”
“Right,” said Bill. “White American Christians built heresies to take Native people’s land. And that set psychological and social forces into motion that are still with us. Like how John Adams and the 1787 Constitutional Convention discussed the Iroquois Confederacy and other Native governments as a model.[18] But it’s like we can’t acknowledge being inspired by Native people.”
“If you’re right,” said Eric, “then the real question now is: How can we repent of heresies if we still live by them?
“I agree,” said Bill. “And how can we recover Christian truths and practices that European Christians had before colonialism? It’s not just an issue of injustice, or race. It’s an issue of faith and repentance. How can we claim to be Christians, when we’re not even repenting of heresy and sin? Many Americans, following Locke, believe that American society is a simple meritocracy for all people, when in fact it is not. In reality, it continues to reflect a racial hierarchy.”
Our next posts will examine this notion of “meritocracy” and how it has actually been practiced in American society. Check out this booklet, A Long Repentance: A Study Guide, for further reflections and discussion questions.
[1] We explored the meaning and significance of the Doctrine of Discovery in the last blog post. For more information, see Navajo Christian writer Mark Charles, “The Doctrine of Discovery - A Buried Apology and an Empty Chair,” Wirelesshogan: Reflections from the Hogan, December 22, 2014; http://wirelesshogan.blogspot.com/2014/12/doctrine-of-discovery.html
[2] John Quiggin, “Leave John Locke in the Dustbin of History,” Jacobin Magazine, March 6, 2019; https://jacobinmag.com/2019/03/john-locke-freedom-slavery-united-states points out, “Locke authored the Constitution of the Carolinas, a document that enshrined both chattel slavery for blacks and hereditary serfdom for white “servants.””
Conservative writer David Lewis Schaefer, “Locke’s American Legacy,” Law & Liberty, February 4, 2021; https://lawliberty.org/lockes-american-legacy/ affirms that Locke “exercised the greatest influence on the American Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution itself.” Curiously, Schaefer defends Locke’s complicity with colonialism by arguing that no people ever had a “right” to land. Schaefer mistakenly seeks to place “rights” underneath the biblical sensibility that God gave land to people as gifts to share and steward in some sense. Ironically, however, Schaefer simultaneously undermines his defense of colonialism precisely because colonists have no “right” to land, either. In fact, by arguing this way, Schaefer undermines Locke’s own claim that labor and enclosure justify private property rights. Moreover, Schaefer admits that Locke portrayed America as a “vast, undeveloped domain,” which was factually wrong and decidedly manipulative. He defends Locke by arguing that Locke did not view conquest alone as giving the conquerors a “right to command obedience from a conquered people,” since Locke was trying to defend the Orange Revolution of 1688. Locke argued for reasons to limit the English government and reasons to rebel against it – reasons which the American colonists would later use. And while that is technically true, Schaefer nevertheless omits that Locke believed that if the conquerors had superior industry and meritocracy, their conquest of the land would be justified.
[3] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chapter 5, paragraph 34. Boldface ours.
[4] Andrew Amelinckx, “The Pilgrims Had No Idea How to Farm Here. Luckily, They Had the Native Americans,” Modern Farmer, November 23, 2016; https://modernfarmer.com/2016/11/pilgrims-no-idea-farm-luckily-native-americans/.
[5] For example, in South Carolina, Michael R. Coughlan and Donald R. Nelson, “Influences of Native American land use on the Colonial Euro-American Settlement of the South Carolina Piedmont,” Plos One, March 29, 2018; https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0195036 write,
“Historical narratives suggest that Native American agricultural legacies (successional old fields, floodplain canebrakes, semi-cultivated nut and fruit bearing trees) were important in the Euro-American settlement process [44, 45]. Given widespread acknowledgement of localized effects of prehistoric land use surrounding settlements [34, 38], we take archaeological evidence of Native American occupation as a proxy for the potential occurrence of prehistoric land use legacies… By the late Archaic (ca. 5000–3400 BP), foraging groups began to cultivate domesticates in upland and riverine settings [54]. On the Southern Piedmont, agricultural land use probably began later, either during or after the middle Woodland period [50]. Groups were farming bottomland floodplains by the late Woodland and this activity intensified with the cultivation of Zea mays (maize) during the Mississippian period.”
[6] Morag Barbara Arneil, ‘All the World Was America’: John Locke and the American Indian (University College London, 1992), http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317765/1/283910.pdf in this doctoral dissertation shows how Locke relied very selectively on travel journals and books in his library for information about Native Americans to portray them unfavorably. For example, he knew the Jesuit Joseph D’Acosta’s work in which he says that the earliest form of Peru’s and Mexico’s government involved “commonalities” and not kings. But since Locke believed that monarchies were primitive and democratic governments were mature, he did not acknowledge D’Acosta’s work. Locke would have known about the debate between John Winthrop and Roger Williams in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as there is much material about freedom of religious conscience shared between Williams and Locke. Locke may have read Roger Williams’ 1643 work A Key to the Language of America.
Additionally, David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021), ch.11 point out that early European Enlightenment thinkers were responding to the Native American challenge to European economic inequality. In effect, Europeans argue that inequality is justified because of the division of labor, i.e. your individual work and means of livelihood. For a video lecture, see David Graeber and David Wengrow, “The Myth of the Stupid Savage,” Red Plateaus, December 22, 2019; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8. At the 52 minute mark, they say:
“This is the smoking gun. This is where it comes from. The very idea of social evolution based on means of livelihood -- which wasn’t considered all that important before this -- is essentially concocted as a direct response to the indigenous critique of the inequalities of European society.”
[7] Andrew Kaczynski, Chris Massie, and Nathan McDermott, “Homeland Security’s Head of Community Outreach Once Said Blacks Turned Cities to ‘Slums’ with ‘Laziness, Drug Use and Sexual Promiscuity’,” CNN, November 16, 2017; https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/kfile-jamie-johnson-dhs/index.html which is significant because Jamie Johnson, head of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, was a pastor and ordained minister. Rev. Johnson apologized for his comments, but it is significant that he was
“a fixture in grassroots Republican politics in Iowa, serving as a GOP state committeeman and working for Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Donald Trump in the state. He also frequently appeared on the radio airwaves as a guest and as a host of his own weekend program and guest host for other conservative talk radio hosts.”
See also Lacey Young and Mari Hall, “The Lazy Mexican: A Damaging Stereotype That’s Far from the Truth,” Montana Kaimin, May 3, 2017; http://www.montanakaimin.com/opinion/the-lazy-mexican-a-damaging-stereotype-that-s-far-from/article_8ef41c22-3034-11e7-95b9-83d270d08b2d.html who write,
“According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average Mexican worked 2,246 hours in 2015, exceeding all other countries involved in the study. The average American worked 1,790 hours that same year.”
[8] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chapter 5, paragraph 41, writes:
“There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any thing, than several nations of the Americans are of this, who are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life; whom nature having furnished as liberally as any other people, with the materials of plenty, i.e. a fruitful soil, apt to produce in abundance, what might serve for food, raiment, and delight; yet for want of improving it by labour, have not one hundredth part of the conveniencies [sic] we enjoy: and a king of a large and fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day-labourer in England.” (boldface ours)
Locke claims that Native Americans categorically lacked a work ethic and technological development, which was false. Consider the above, and moreover, Native American knowledge of the medicinal use of plants and herbs, wide-ranging skills at hunting, fishing, and agriculture, etc.
[9] Ambrose of Milan quoted by Charles Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1983).
[10] John Chrysostom of Constantinople quoted by Charles Avila, Ownership: Early Christian Teaching (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1983).
[11] The Epistle to Diognetus (2nd century), ch.5, says that Christians “have a common table, but not a common bed.”
Gregory of Nyssa (c.335 - c.395 AD), Fourth Homily on Ecclesiastes, demonstrated this remarkable understanding of Genesis 1:
“You condemn a person to slavery whose nature is free and independent, and in doing so you lay down a law in opposition to God, overturning the natural law established by Him. For you subject to the yoke of slavery one who was created precisely to be a master of the earth, and who was ordained to rule by the creator, as if you were deliberately attacking and fighting against the divine command… What price did you put on reason? How [much money] did you pay as a fair price for the image of God? For how [much money] have you sold the nature specially formed by God? God said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness.’”
Basil of Caesarea (329 - 379 AD) said,
“That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you were able to help others, and refused, so often did you do them wrong.”
The greatest of Roman Catholic medieval theologians, Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274 AD), said,
“In cases of need, all things are common property. There is no sin in taking private property when need has made it common.”
These quotes demonstrate the Orthodox and Catholic stance on Genesis 1, that God gifted the earth to all human beings in common, before they did any work or technological development. It confirms that John Locke’s view of Genesis 1, and all Protestants who followed him, were specifically following a Protestant error. John Locke effectively reversed Thomas Aquinas, in believing that there was no sin in taking what was held in common or even privately!
[12] The legal construction of whiteness reached its final stages of clarity and absurdity with Ozawa v. United States (1922) when SCOTUS ruled that whiteness was defined as being of the Caucasian race, and with United States v. Thind (1923) when SCOTUS ruled that whiteness was defined by “common sense.” These Supreme Court cases were never officially overturned in principle. The legislative actions of the Luce-Celler Act in 1946 allowed 100 Filipinos and 100 Indians to immigrate into the U.S. per year, functionally overturning the Thind decision. The Hart-Celler Act in 1965 changed the immigration quota system which had been in place since 1921 which favored immigration from northern and western Europe.
[13] John Quiggin, “John Locke Against Freedom,” Jacobin Magazine, June 28, 2015; https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/06/locke-treatise-slavery-private-property/ argues even more strongly that Locke legitimized expropriation and enslavement. Quiggin notes that even SCOTUS case Keto v. City of New London, Connecticut (2005) relied on faulty Lockean assumptions.
[14] Cary Funk and Becka A. Alper, “Religion and Views on Climate and Energy Issues,” Pew Research Center, October 22, 2015; http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/22/religion-and-views-on-climate-and-energy-issues/
[15] Steve Hanley, “Why White Evangelicals Don’t Care About Climate Change,” CleanTechnica, April 5, 2018; https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/05/why-white-evangelicals-dont-care-about-climate-change/; Lisa Vox, “Why Don't Christian Conservatives Worry About Climate Change? God.” Washington Post, Jun 2, 2017; https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/06/02/why-dont-christian-conservatives-worry-about-climate-change-god/; Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Why So Many White Evangelicals in Trump’s Base Are Deeply Skeptical of Climate Change,” Washington Post, June 2, 2017; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/02/why-so-many-white-evangelicals-in-trumps-base-are-deeply-skeptical-of-climate-change/ details evangelical tactics to deny climate change or its seriousness.
[16] Pope Francis I, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home (2015)
[17] Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and John Chryssavgis, On Earth as in Heaven: Ecological Vision and Initiatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011); see also John Chryssavgis and Bruce V. Foltz, Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013)
[18] Becky Little, “The Native American Government That Inspired the US Constitution,” History, https://www.history.com/news/iroquois-confederacy-influence-us-constitution.