Posted by Helen on: 02.21.2007 /
Trissa recently e-mailed me a link to a blog article saying that disease played a major role in spreading Christianity in the Americas. Here’s an excerpt from it:
Once one gets one’s head out of the Bible and looks at the evidence, then it becomes clear why the native Americans did not have livestock and were so vulnerable to the diseases carried by the Spaniards such as smallpox. Archaeologists have dated the earliest human settlements in the Americas to approximately 11,000 B.C., during the waning of the last Ice Age. The domestication of animals in Eurasia did not begin until around 8,000 B.C., around the same time that the inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent began to take up agriculture. Therefore, the available evidence clearly indicates that the Americas were colonized BEFORE the domestication of livestock and the adoption of farming in Eurasia. The native Americans were geographically and genetically isolated from the civilizations of Asia, Africa and Europe for over ten thousand years.
Thus, in summary, the spread of Christianity in the Americas is indebted to the deaths of millions of native Americans who perished because their ancestors migrated to the Western hemisphere thousands of years before the adoption of agriculture and the domestication of livestock in Eurasia and thousands of years before the Earth was supposed to have been created according to a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis.
The author of the blog entry evidently bases his argument on content from the Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I haven’t read it but it sounds interesting.
The Wikipedia page about smallpox is pretty interesting too.
I’ve heard before about how missionaries have brought diseases with them that proved fatal to the people they were trying to convert. (To me, this is one more strange thing about Christianity: why would God set up a system where the vital news a people group needs to hear, has to be brought by other people who also bring diseases fatal to that people group?)
Comment by: Mike Clawson
1I’m not really following his argument – or maybe I don’t understand what he’s trying to argue against. He acts as if his restatement of an obvious historical fact (of course lots of Native Americans died off from either ChristiEuropean diseases – and yes, this was followed by the Spanish conquest and forced conversions) is somehow a major argument against Christianity or the Bible. But I guess I’m just not seeing the connection. What does he think this proves?
Comment by: Helen
2I think he was responding to people who say “because Christianity spread, it must be true”. His response seems to be that a variety of things not related to whether it’s true or not helped it spread – like disease.
Comment by: NCxian
3If that’s all he is saying, then he is certainly correct. But of course, there are nine million (or so ;) ) other things as well. To chose such an overwhelmingly lamentable event is mighty inflammatory, IMO.
And whether there is a cause and effect relationship is very different than whether two things just happen at the same time. Because the indigenous people died, Christianity spread? I’m not sure that follows.
Comment by: Tommykey
4Hi Helen.
Thanks for linking to my post.
From reading the two comments above, I see I need to clarify a few things.
The purpose of the post was not to argue against Christianity or the Bible per se. It was to examine how the decimation of the Native American population from smallpox made it easier to spread Christianity in the Americas because (1) millions of pagans died, and (2) the fraction that survived would conclude, quite logically to them, that the Christian god must be true because the Spaniards seemed to be immune to the disease. Furthermore, a greatly reduced indigenous population is easier to convert and control. Can anyone deny that?
I don’t know if Mike Clawson or NCxian read the entire post, but as I wrote in the opening paragraph, the post was inspired by an argument put forth by someone I was debating on another blog that Christianity must be true because so many people believe it today.
While there is no doubt that Christianity, as well as any other religion, gains adherents because the message of Christianity resonates with them in some way, is there really any doubt that the death of so many Native Americans from smallpox made it easier for the Spaniards to establish control and spread Christianity?
Comment by: trissa
5I was the one who recommended this blog entry to Helen. I think that one needs to read the entry in its entirety to understand the authors point. The point of the article, from my perspective, was that the numbers argument for Christianity is not valid. Just because many believe in something does not make it legitimate.
I suggested that article for a few reasons: 1) I found the subject very though provoking. 2) As someone who once identified themselves as a Christian, but is currently taking a hiatus, I think it’s important for Christians to understand their past. At one time, the church willingly followed conquerors and slave traders into the new world with the idea that they could save the savages. The only way one prevents the atrocities of the past is to understand them. 3) I was recently at an event where Brian McClaren spoke. He stated that the “church around the corner” (the future church) needs to be post-colonial. I understood him to be saying that the church needs to be cognizant that they are not using power and control to push Christianity on others. This, in my opinion, is something the US is still doing today.
I think the subject matter lends itself to a conversation that certainly “at the edge”.
Comment by: Helen
6Tommy and Trissa, my apologies if I mischaracterized Tommy’s argument.
Comment by: NCxian
7Tommykey wrote:
No, I didn’t read the entire post, but I do share your view that the numbers argument is not terribly persuasive. It makes me think of the age-old parental admonition, “If your friends all jump off a cliff . . .”!
I agree Trissa, that this is an interesting topic for this conversation at the edge. I was struck by your statement:
Were you thinking of the Christian community in the US, or were you thinking of the US government?
Comment by: benjamin ady
8I love doing that–nested quotes. awesome. I think the two of you bring up a fascinating line of enquiry. what does it mean to attempt to differentiate between “the U.S. government” and “the Christian Community in the U.S.”? I’m strongly suspecting that from a true *outsider’s* point of view, this attempt is doomed to fail. An interesting web site along these lines … watchingamerica.com, which translates articles from big foreign language newspapers so we can see what the rest of the world is writing/reading about us from their perpsective.
There is certainly a very large element within the christian community in this country–a supermajority, I’m guessing–which has strongly supported our government’s colonial tendencies. In fact, I even heard Ravi Zacharias, a guy who seems relatively moderate and … reasonable, speaking in glowing terms about the change in opportunity for proselytization in Iraq pre and post invasion-by-the-U.S.
Comment by: Pete S.
9I found this quotation particularly convoluted and confusing. It doesn’t seem to serve one’s purpose to interject comments about a “literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis” in the midst of a sentence about the spread of disease. My guess is that the original blogster was meaning Genesis 1 and 2, not the whole book. But what does that have to do with the spread of disease? Also it appears by the tone of the article/blog posting, that the spread of disease was intentional: as if the Spaniards who sailed over the Atlantic 500 years ago planned to infect millions with viruses and bacteria. Let us remember that such microscopic critters of ill repute (meaning the viruses and bacteria, not the Spaniards) where unknown, undiscovered villians 500, 400, even 300 and 200 years ago. To imply that Christianity was helped by the spread of disease is unfair and inflammatory. Indeed, millions of people died: This is quite tragic to God and to His Christ.
As for is this evidence against Christianity: no. It is evidence that people get sick who don’t have natural immunities to diseases. Just because bad things happen, we should not scurry around thinking it’s necessary to cast blame and assume it’s someone’s fault.
If anything it just points out what happens when whole groups of people live in isolation for great lengths of time. It is neither bad nor good, in other words, no one is culpable. Diseases just happen. For health or sickness: Diseases or our ability to resist them just happen without guilt needed to be attached.
It sure appeared that there was a hidden agenda in the blog excerpt: Christianity is guilty of the death of millions of Native Americans due to disease.
Comment by: Karen
10A lot of smart people seem to use the numbers argument for Christianity and it always surprises me because it’s like tossing a softball to Major League homerun hitter.
You don’t have to say anything about native Americans or diseases to refute it. All you have to do is point to Islam, the second-largest and fastest-growing religion in the world today with 1.4 billion adherents. Pretty impressive.
But if sheer popularity makes it true, we’d all have to believe that Mohammad flew up to heaven on a winged horse. ;-)
Comment by: Tommykey
11Pete, it is obvious you did not read my entire post, just the portion that Helen excerpted above.
In my post, I specifically state that the Spanish did not intentionally infect the Native Americans with smallpox. What I wrote, if memory serves, as I don’t want to keep flipping back and forth, is that though the Spanish had muskets, armor and horses, the most effective weapon in their arsenal was one they did not even realize they had, smallpox.
Again, I did not indict Christianity as causing millions of Native Americans to perish from smallpox. The point of my post, to repeat again for the umpteenth time, was to demonstrate how the spread of the religion in the Americas benefited from the loss of lives from smallpox because (1) millions of pagans died, and (2) the remaining 10% or so of the population that survived came to what would be to them a logical conclusion that the religion of the Spanish, Roman Catholicism, must be true. You have to be in serious denial not to accept this. It might be uncomfortable for you and others, but that does not make it any less true.
And as Helen wrote in the last paragraph of her post above, I was pointing out the irony of it all, namely that if belief in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation that the millions of Native Americans who died from smallpox contracted it from the people who were the bearers of the message of Christ.
Even though I am an atheist, what I wrote has no bearing on the value of the teachings of Jesus itself.
Comment by: trissa
12Both. The evangelical culture is very on-board with the colonialistic attitude of the current administration.
My point exactly. I know many a conservative Christians that hold a similar point of view.
Good point. I think I think the comment I made on Tommy’s original post was something about how a thousand years ago everyboyd believed the world was flat, but that didn’t make it true.
Comment by: joe
13I’ve not read the original blog – I have enough angst to deal with already.
I think it is true that we have to face up to our part and role in events in the past. Too often christianity became tied with a form of colonialism, and left the terrible effects of colonialism including disease.
Of course, it is by no means alone in this kind of behaviour – for example Islam, even arguably Communism have had a similar effect.
My position is this – whilst I accept that if Christians in the past were anything like most of those today, it was not a deliberate action to give Native Americans Smallpox. I do not even believe it was a deliberate action to start the slave trade or carry out the Inquisition.
These are the results of the Instituionalising of Christianity. When the belief moved from being a bunch of radical ideas preached by a couple of longhairs to being a State religion with all the abilities and features of a state (eg tax raising, warring, colonising) it almost entirely lost the plot. Suddenly horrific actions are justified because we are ‘Working on Behalf of God’. Somewhere along the line we lost our humanity.
The truly tragic thing is that in our post-colonial times, we are left with the relics of colonialism – which our nations and religion was closely entwinned with – and the realisation that we have clouded the acts and words of Christ.
Comment by: Helen
14Joe wrote:
Yes indeed. That’s why I liked The Myth of a Christian Nation (I’m not sure if you saw my review of that, Joe) – because it denounced the colonialism which many seem to mistakenly assume is part of Christianity.
Comment by: NCxian
15Benjamin, what an interesting website–the watchingamerica one. Another thing to distract me from things like vacuuming and preparing my taxes! Since you are more familiar with it, can you tell me if they are picking up news stories, or just editorials? My brief click-and-read activity yielded all opinion pieces–which are fascinating. Or maybe foreign newspapers don’t label things “news” and “opinion” like we do?
(Dang, I can’t get the nested quotes to work–how do you do that?) Anyway, there are two things Trissa and Benjamin said. I would just be the voice of conscience here and suggest that it is not useful to speak of any group of people as if they are of one mind. I am always taken aback when I hear American Christianity spoken of as if it is a monolith, because I belong to the community of Christians who don’t agree with the current political administration on many things at all, do believe in a strong separation of church and state, and so on. And lest you think we are few, please google Red Letter Christians for a long list, which includes evangelical Christians like Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren. You may have read recently of a convocation of baptists called by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton which, surprise, surprise, does not have an agenda that corresponds to that of the current administration!
Back to Trissa’s post of McLaren’s post-colonial notion:
I could not agree more. I think that risk is more apparent within our borders than in our international relations (I wonder if that was the direction of McLaren’s “post-colonial” comments). Do certain kinds of Christians in the US push their agendas politically, in an effort to make it difficult not to be Christian (or behave Christianly?) here? I think so. And I think that sort of thing relies on an upside-down interpretation of the original message of Jesus.
BICBW (But I Could Be Wrong)
Comment by: Eliza
16Helen wrote:
It’s a fascinating book – I’d highly recommend it.
There’s also a ~hour-long program of the same name (National Geographic, I think?) narrated by Jared Diamond, available on DVD, which covers the highlights in less time – that was good too, but necessarily less detailed & nuanced.
It’s been a few years since I read Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I don’t remember Diamond pointing a finger at Christianity, or any religion – I can’t remember that he mentioned religion at all (but, that was before my involvement here – I might simply have ‘blipped’ over those parts without paying much attention). His schtick is that geography is destiny – a big point being that the peoples who lived in regions with large, tameable animals to serve as beasts of burden then (a) were able to ‘advance’ technologically (less human effort needed for basic survival like food production, more human effort could go into invention, then exploration) and (b) developed resistance to livestock-borne disease (notably smallpox) so weren’t wiped out by it.
In Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, religion does come up – over and over – as a factor which (he says) has contributed to the downfall of several societies, including Easter Island & the Norse colony in Greenland ~600 yrs ago. One situation in which societies fail, he says, is when too many resources are devoted to religious expression, at the expense of the basic needs of the land, or the people living on it. Ironically, that diversion of resources may accelerate as a society’s plight worsens, causing the whole situation to spiral more and more rapidly to failure, as desperation drives people to increasingly focus on the hope that the god/s will hear the people’s pleas (& be pleased at their sacrifices, & the efforts expended in worship) and will come save them.
Comment by: Helen
17NCxian thanks for politely and patiently reminding us that not all Christians [do whatever some conservative Christians do] each time we need reminding.
Comment by: April Terry
18I think that that conclusion is a bit of an assumption.
First of all, if a great many people died from smallpox, there is no way to determine whether those who died would have embraced or rejected Christianity or even what percentage of them might have. Therefore, in my opinion, it would be nearly impossible to determine whether or not Christianity benefitted from the deaths or whether Christianity might have benefitted more if they had not died.
Secondly, there is no way to determine that the reason that Christianity prospered after the deaths was because they assumed that Christianity must be true if the Christians didn’t die. There are too many variables to make that kind of assumption. For instance, I could assume that the reason that they they turned to Christianity after the smallpox epidemic was because they were cared for and nursed by the Christians, but I wouldn’t have any more evidence for that. I could also assume that the reason that they turned to Christianity was because they had lost many members of their families and the story of the afterlife that Christianity offered appealed to their desire to see their loved ones again.
It is just as possible that the loss of all those people to smallpox may have actually hurt the rise of Christianity in those areas because many, many potential converts were lost.
Comment by: Tommykey
19I disagree April. The conversion of the natives to Catholicism came in the wake of their conquest by the Spanish conquistadors. The catastrophic death toll from smallpox reduced the native population to such an extent that it made it much easier for Spanish to conquer them and establish control, and there followed the priests and friars and their missions.
Comment by: Pete S.
20My point is that the loss of even one “pagan” life to any disease is not beneficial to Christ or Christianity. Christianity doesn’t “benefit” from people dying: either by accident or by design. I am a Christian and I perceive only tragedy, no benefit. To say Christianity benefited from the deaths of millions of Native Americans, who you call pagans, is to simply not understand–truly comprehend the nature of a faith in Jesus, Who is called the Christ. That is my point. The Conquistador-minded religion of the Spaniards only gave lip-service to a true understanding and practice of the Christian faith.
Comment by: Julie Clawson
21I haven’t read all the comments here, but I just finished reading a book that presented the opposite opinion (and it wasn’t a religion friendly book) In Nicholas Ostler’s Empires of the Word: A Language History the World, he claims that the spread of christianity and the Castilian Spanish in the “new world” was greatly hindered by the tendency for the natives to catch disease and die. Unlike other world conquests where the language of the winners was spread through natural means (men married native women and the households taught each other language), in the New world language texts had to be written for the first time ever in history because it had to be taught by celebte priests. Anyway, he includes a number of letters and please to the queen by the priests to stop the mandate to teach the natives Spanish because it was a waste of time since their students died too soon.
Comment by: Mike Clawson
22Thanks for the clarification Tommy. I think I understand what you’re saying better now. I think I wrongly inferred from the tone of your post that you were attacking Christianity and the Bible as a whole, rather than that one particular bad argument.
I agree with you on your clarified point – there are certainly lots of factors that have contributed to the spread of Christianity. To say Christianity’s success is proof of its truth is poor reasoning – though it may be fair to say that Christianity’s success is at least reason to give its possible truth further consideration. If so many people from so many diverse cultures throughout history have at times freely chosen to follow the way of Christ, I’d be at least a little curious as to why this strange Middle Eastern religion has such a broad appeal.
Peace,
-Mike
Comment by: Lee Oates
23As a native american I see Christanity as a disaster to our people, in the past and present. They stole our children and put them in residential school, beat them, sexually abused them, starved them, and totally controlled them through fear, even when back on the reserve. They outlawed our religions and jailed those who praticed them. Basically Christianity was spread through terror, much like muslims. Christianity has been a curse to most of the non-european world.