Christian Nationalist History Day

Trump's Columbus Day proclamation is a Christian nationalist's dream

Many years ago, in Portsmouth, Ohio, I learned in school that Christopher Columbus was a brave explorer who accidentally discovered a new world. According to my teachers, Columbus accomplished something great: He initiated European settlement of largely untapped lands and brought civilization to savage people. I don’t recall much contemplation by my teachers about the lands that were taken and the native lives that were lost, tortured, and enslaved. In fact, the history presented to me was similar to how modern-day Christian nationalist David Barton describes the mission of Columbus.

Barton says that Columbus’s mission represented “mankind piercing the mist of the Ocean Sea to plant the seeds of individual rights, liberty, and freedom on a faraway shore so that they could finally germinate and grow, providing its fruit to the world both Old and New.”[i] Unfortunately, those seeds of rights, liberty, and freedom only bore fruit if you were European, Christian, and male. The Spanish and other Europeans who came later did not grant those blessings to the Indigenous people they invaded and killed or to the Africans they later enslaved.

In my upcoming book, The Christian Past That Wasn’t: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths That Hijack History, I start with Columbus and the belief that God established a covenant with the European colonizers. That mythical covenant gave them cover to take land and life from the Indigenous people. In my writing, an invaluable resource was Robert P. Jones’s book The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future. In that book, Jones writes, “The Doctrine [of Discovery] claims that European civilization and Western Christianity are superior to all other cultures, races, and religions.”[ii]

Jones explains that the Doctrine of Discovery was derived from Papal and royal decrees in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries declaring Christianity to be the one true religion and a justification for political conquest anywhere in the world. The mission of Columbus and others who came after him, such as Englishmen John Cabot and his sons, was conceptualized as one of discovery. However, these lands were not “discovered,” they already had occupants and owners. The Europeans, however, saw the land as wilderness for them to possess. Yes, they acknowledged that there were people in the land, but, according to the colonizers, they were savages who needed to be Christianized or eliminated.

Early American historians wrote histories that do what Christian nationalists do today: provide an inspiring origin story. Despite the fact that there were populated cities and complex civilizations on the American continent, early American historians painted a picture of a vast wilderness with a few savage humans in the way. They were backdrop for the emerging story of the hearty Christian Europeans who came to these shores yearning for religious and personal freedom. Christian nationalists tell that same story today and love October 13 as a vehicle for this history.

Christian nationalists have a friend in President Trump. His Columbus Day proclamation is a Christian nationalist’s dream. Despite the murder and mayhem Columbus unleashed on Indigenous people, Trump has taken Columbus worship to greater heights calling him “the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth.”

In addition to whitewashing the murder and enslavement of Indigenous people Columbus was responsible for, Trump’s proclamation links America’s religious history to Columbus, saying “he planted a majestic cross in a mighty act of devotion, dedicating the land to God and setting in motion America’s proud birthright of faith.”

Reading this proclamation is a déjà vu all over again moment. It reminds me of my elementary school education. But we are not children anymore. Trump and his Christian nationalist allies want to take us back to a time of ignorance and make believe. This is no way to do history or run a nation.

It makes me wish we could release my book early. In it, I address the myths of the American covenant beginning with Columbus. Then I examine the claims about America as a covenant nation with the colonies at Jamestown, Plymouth, and Boston and finally with George Washington. But in fact, there was no American covenant and no promised land. And Christopher Columbus is no “giant of Western civilization.”

In the mean time, I can point you to Robert Jones book and to another one by Ned Blackhawk I have listed below. Today, I am not celebrating Columbus Day. He is not worthy or our admiration.

What states celebrate Indigenous People Day?

Why is Columbus Day controversial?

Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press, 2024).

Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future (Simon & Schuster, 2023).

And one more…

Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Vintage, 2006). - Explodes myths about European superiority over Indigenous people and civilization.

Coming in 2026: The Christian Past That Wasn’t: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths That Hijack History. Published by Broadleaf Books, available to pre-order for Kindle and hardback at Amazon or wherever books are sold.

My first book Getting Jefferson Right: Fact-Checking Claims About Thomas Jefferson is only $4.99 at Amazon.com right now.

PHOTO: This is from the Portsmouth flood wall murals in Portsmouth, Ohio depicting the first residents of the Southern Ohio region, the Shawnee people.

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[i] David Barton, “Before the West Was Won: Pre-Columbian Morality,” WallBuilders, May 29, 2023, https://wallbuilders.com/resource/before-the-west-was-won-pre-columbian-morality.

[ii] Robert P. Jones, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future (Simon & Schuster, 2023), 14