Menu Close

Tag: Christopher Columbus

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: God Used Slaughter of Native Americans for Greater Good

According to Snopes, this meme is true.

There is no denying that the arrival of Western civilization in the Americas has brought with it the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ to those who would have never otherwise heard it. While such evil things — unjust killings — certainly happened, in God’s sovereignty, He used this to bring about a greater good.

….

If these people [America-hating Evangelicals] were truly Christians, they would be thankful that God used such a broken man as Christopher Columbus to bring the gospel to the Americas. North America, much like the continent of Africa, was filled with idolatry of the worst kind. Native Americans, especially in Central and South America, practiced some of the worst affronts to God. Not that America today doesn’t still practice such idolatry — but before the arrival of Western civilization, there was absolutely no gospel to confront it.

The fact that God allowed Westerners to come to the Americas is an enormous act of mercy and grace on His part. He could have completely given them over to their idolatry, or worse, completely wiped them off the face of the Earth. But he didn’t. He chose to show them mercy and by allowing the gospel to be heard in a land that had never heard it before.

— Jeff Maples, Reformation Charlotte, America-Hating Evangelicals Declare War on Columbus Day, October 14, 2019

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Praise Jesus for Forced Conversions and Genocide

Christopher Columbus
Cartoon by Sergio Hernandez

Indigenous people should, as every year, be thanking God for colonization on Columbus Day. The Great Commission as promised by Jesus – to spread his name and message throughout the world – has largely been the byproduct of the expansion of Christian empires through colonization. And through colonization, disadvantaged parts of the world have thrived by the influence of God-fearing nations.

….

Native peoples around the world are far better off, more happy, more healthy, and more at peace than they ever would have been before, if it were not for colonization of the New World and the expanse of Christendom throughout the world. Although Columbus himself was a Romanist and not a real believer in Jesus, his voyage across the Atlantic brought the competition of religion between Romanists and Protestants, and set-off the race to Christianize the savage in the New World.

— Pulpit & Pen, Thank God for Colonization on this Columbus Day, October 13, 2019

Bruce Gerencser