Paleo-Indian Hunting Camp (Fair Use)
Paleo-Indians and the Bible
Armstrongism in Contention with Anthropology
By Scout
Back a couple of decades ago, my wife and I were eating in a restaurant with another couple. He was a Deacon in the WCG. It was after Sabbath Services and all seemed cordial and pleasant. But then something happened that made me feel as if I had stepped into the surreal. We were talking about the fact that there were some nearby Indian Reservations. He said that the Indians did not belong here. She said that God said to “wipe ‘em out.” This was dreadful not because I had never heard it in the WCG before but because I had not heard it in a long time. It was as if they really did not understand the consequences of what they were advocating – the terror, the screams, the slaughter, blood on the ground, men, women and children dying. I was taken aback. I recall hearing such statements when I first came into the WCG. A prominent professional man in Spokesman Club told a small group of men in conversation that “People feel sorry about how Native Americans were treated but they’re the Canaanites!” The Deacon and his wife had no trouble asserting the needed genocide because they were reciting what they thought was orthodox WCG belief.
The point of this short essay is that the informal doctrine of the extermination of Native Americans held by the WCG is invalid.
The WCG Indian Policy
I never ever heard the WCG pulpit advocate the extermination of Native Americans. I heard it many times from the pews. The position of the pulpit was much more subtle than making a blatant statement that advocated genocide. All the pulpit really needed to do was to establish that Native Americans were Canaanites and everyone would get the picture. And they did this. The Torah was quite specific about what should happen to Canaanites – they were destined to become slaves and those who lived in the Promised Land (including North America) should be exterminated. So, this was a policy never spoken from the pulpit but it was also never denied by the pulpit even though it was a view held explicitly by many in the pews. Ron Dart was the only minister I ever heard stand in opposition to this viewpoint on genocide before a congregation. Otherwise, it seemed to be agreement by silence.
And, of course, the Torah was written on the heart of all who believed including the instructions to exterminate the Canaanites, according to Armstrongism. But genocide could be eschewed according to Rod Meredith because the Ministry of Death had been abrogated in the New Testament. This view, actually without exegetical validity, avoided mandatory bloodshed but it left Native Americans in a dismal should-have-been-killed state.
Who are the Native Americans?
About a decade ago, a genetic study of Northern Europeans was done and the results were puzzling. There was a genetic connection between Europeans and Native Americans. Archaeogenetics further revealed that both Europeans and Native Americans were descended from a group of people called Ancient North Eurasians. Native Americans are about 30 percent Ancient North Eurasian and about 70 percent Ancient East Asian. The important point to notice is that none of the Native American ancestry came from the Near East or North Africa where the ancient Canaanites lived. Native Americans are Eurasians.
Who are the Canaanites?
In this context, it is important to define the Canaanites. It is because Native Americans were thought to be Canaanites and lived in a land that properly belonged to “Israel” that the WCG considered them to be candidates for extermination by the righteous. Spencer Wells, a famous geneticist, worked on a National Geographic project that identified the Canaanites. He discovered that the ancient Canaanites, the Phoenicians and the modern-day Lebanese were genetically continuous. I am wondering if current Armstrongist denominations have ever advocated the extermination of the Lebanese. I just heard today that Israel and Hezbollah have made a truce. Will Armstrongists wave a copy of the Torah and warn Israel that it should not make peace with the Lebanese as the Torah states (Exodus 34:12)? It makes you wonder why HWA never brought this important end-time message to Teddy Kollek.
Summary Argument
Armstrongists were always happy to keep Thanksgiving. But I would imagine the typical imagery of Thanksgiving, with Indians and Pilgrims in cordial festivity, might cause Armstrongists to cringe. Israelites and Canaanites in friendship – an unnatural condition. This is not a valid view because Native Americans are not Canaanites. Native Americans came to North America from Siberia maybe around 20,000 years ago – long before Canaan even existed in Palestine. The date is revised as more discoveries are made. But the larger question is should any racial group of people be targeted for debasement because of something that happened in the Bible? Some in the WCG deplored Native Americans. Is it now time for them to deplore the Lebanese instead? Should Christians ever relegate anyone to a deplorable state based on ancient Biblical events?
2 comments:
Great article Scout, yea the WCGs unwritten rule was that the native Americans were the Canaanites or I read where Armstrong had blacks as Canaanites to basically justify some of their doctrines to coincide with the history of Israel entering the promise land and the foundation of America. Thirteen colonies, thirteen tribes etc. America must get to those deportations if they……
Anonymous 7:09
The Canaanites were thought to be any people who occupied the lands where "Israel" entered. That is the model, unofficially. This would then include the Maori, the Australian Aborigines, the Lapplanders in addition to the Native Americans. I once had a book written by a WCG member that claimed this. But he was not a minister and had no official capacity.
But I never heard that model preached from the pulpit. What I heard from pulpit or from publications was that the Canaanites were Native Americans or West African Blacks. The West African Blacks do not fit the model stated in the previous paragraph. I believe they were counted as Canaanites because they were enslaved by Europeans.
I believe there was some justification of Early America in this. Instead of the Early Americans being guilty of crimes against the Native Americans and West African Blacks, they were only doing what the Torah said to do. They were good ol' White patriots. That kind of thinking attracted a lot of strange people to Armstrongism.
Even back in the Seventies it was pretty obvious that the West African Blacks and Native Americans could not both be Canaanites. So, I wrote to Herman Hoeh and brought this point up. He had a smooth answer. He said that the Native Americans were descended from Tiras but Tiras had married one of the daughters of Canaan, making Native Americans both descendants of Tiras and Canaan.
This, we now know from genetics, is fascetious. But we must remember that Hoeh did not have genetics to aid his analysis. He worked from arcane texts. He actually sent me a copy of the material on Tiras marrying the daughter of Canaan. I think if was an early text from somewhere in Africa. I don't know how he found so many erroneous sources.
The West African Blacks and Native Americans are totally unrelated to eachother and neither people stems from Caanaan. But they entered Hoeh's Legendarium as Canaanites. My guess is that there are Armstrongists who very much believe this and could not be convinced otherwise. It so nicely fits British Israelism. It is the case of using BI as a hermeutic to interpret history rather than using history and science to interpret BI.
I don't know where the Armstrongist denominations stand on this today. But it used to be heavy duty with some people - you know, your obnoxious uncle who talks about the Compendium all the time.
Scout
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