Undoing Manifest Destiny - by L Daniel Hawk (Paperback)

About the Book

"L. Daniel Hawk seeks to bring an awareness of the narratives and beliefs that were constructed and then played out in settlers' displacement of Indigenous peoples, from the early American colonial period to the present. He asks, how are white American Christians to pursue justice while at the same time benefiting by a structure that has been constructed by and for people like them? In short, the task must entail dismantling the settler structure and its hierarchies of power, exposing and rejecting the settler narrative's denials and fictions of innocence. Christian settlers constructed the structure and false narratives, and Christian settler descendants must join others in dismantling them. Scripture provides both a resource for configuring the work and an arena for facilitating hard conversations"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Reckoning with the Colonial Past to Bring Justice to the Present

As White settlers spread across North America, they crafted and enacted an epic story of their God-given dominion--over the land, over Indigenous nations, and over the future. Their narrative constructed a myth of innocence that justified a massive program of violence and dispossession by suppressing a darker history. That history still reverberates today, from settler America's relations with the Indigenous nations of the United States to ways the land has been commodified as property. It's time for the whole truth to be told.

In Undoing Manifest Destiny, L. Daniel Hawk exposes the belief systems and practices that settlers developed to justify the displacement, destruction, and cultural erasure of Indigenous peoples, beginning in the early American colonial period and extending to the present day. Writing as the descendant of White settlers and as a biblical scholar, he challenges settler Christians to uncover what the settler narrative denies and to work toward addressing historic injustices.

In this book, Hawk

• combines settler colonial theory, historical analysis, and Christian theology to examine how settler America sought to erase Indigenous presence from lands taken by the United States and its colonial predecessors;
• offers a decolonizing perspective that challenges the church to acknowledge its complicity with the colonial project and to enter into dialogue directed toward setting things right; and
• highlights contemporary manifestations of colonialism in US interactions with its Indigenous citizens, demonstrating that past issues are still present and need to be addressed today.

Hawk asserts that Christians were complicit with programs of erasure, and so Christians are called to confront and heal their residue today. Joining historical research with theology and biblical scholarship, Hawk helps us recognize the myths that shape the American imagination and to engage our faith for a better way forward.

This book is an invaluable resource for scholars, educators, students, and readers invested in areas such as post- and de-colonial studies, race and ethnicity, United States history, and social justice. Deepen your understanding of history, confront unsettling truths, and work toward justice and healing with Undoing Manifest Destiny.

Review Quotes

"The importance of L. Daniel Hawk's Undoing Manifest Destiny dare not be underestimated. This is an incredibly important book. Hawk counters the persistent tendency for Christian folk to justify their use of violence against American Indians in their conquest of Indian homelands, and he adds his theologian's voice to the unending cry of Native peoples for justice and truth in remembering that past. Too many turn American history into a romance of the European Christian conquest and the Indians who lived here into merely minor impediments to that winning of the West. Hawk demonstrates the falseness of that romance."

--Tink Tinker, member of the Osage Nation and emeritus professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at the Iliff School of Theology

"This book is exceptionally timely. With the return of the imperial idea of Manifest Destiny to the highest level of the US government, the whole idea of one nation manifestly having the right to take over another's land needs a fresh challenge. L. Daniel Hawk forcefully provides this challenge in Undoing Manifest Destiny. Drawing on both history and Scripture, Hawk unmasks the appeal and un-Christian logic of 'destiny' ideology and calls for a return to the ways of Jesus. This book deserves study in classrooms and churches across the country."

--Howard A. Snyder, author of Jesus and Pocahontas and The Community of the King

"Get ready for a disturbing yet hopeful journey as L. Daniel Hawk, writing not just as an academic but as someone whose heart beats for genuine reconciliation, walks us through the painful truths behind Manifest Destiny and the doctrine of discovery. Undoing Manifest Destiny challenges the descendants of settler colonists to question the stories that formed them, to see with new eyes, and to join the work of truth-telling and restoration. I hope the reader will hear the call to walk alongside those who long to see harmony and balance restored."

--Terry M. Wildman, lead translator, general editor, and project manager for the First Nations Version and First Nations Version Psalms and Proverbs

"The destructive power of a warped imagination lingers throughout the American story. The lack of awareness about the doctrine of discovery and Manifest Destiny reveals the inability of the church and American society to deal with reality. In this thoroughly researched text, L. Daniel Hawk offers an essential study of American history. With clarity and precision, Hawk exposes the White settler narrative that needs to be dismantled. This text exemplifies the type of truth-telling that is required if the healing that all sides of the narrative desperately need can occur."

--Soong-Chan Rah, Robert Boyd Munger Professor of Evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary and coauthor, with Mark Charles, of Unsettling Truths

"This book is a well-crafted overview of the history, ideology, and legacy of settler colonialism's 'logic of elimination, ' which clarifies how, as Dr. King put it, 'our nation was born in genocide.' Historian and biblical theologian L. Daniel Hawk grounds each chapter in the regional lore of his home place, interrogates devised and dismembered public narratives, and concludes with suggestions for, and a call to, decolonizing discipleship. A highly recommended primer that meets this moment!"

--Ched Myers, coauthor of Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization

"'Fake news!' some might react upon seeing the title of L. Daniel Hawk's book. Yet echoing the voice urging St. Augustine before biblical scrolls to 'take up and read, ' I dare any considering Undoing Manifest Destiny to do the same and then prove the Scriptures wrong that 'the truth will set you free' (John 8:32)! What truths? Settler truths! Government truths! Native and Indigenous American truths! Each of these voices resound concretely through Hawk's pursuit of justice so that--and here be forewarned!--you and I as readers will be unsettled from the blinders of our preferred 'testimonies' and impelled by the Spirit of truth to bear ever more authentic witness to the coming divine reign that promises, finally, to undo all earthly colonial regimes, even the ones that we are complicit with because of the benefits gained."

--Amos Yong, professor of theology and mission at Fuller Theological Seminary

"A necessary and prophetic text for those interested in the unsettling yet essential work of reconciliation between settlers and Indigenous people. L. Daniel Hawk is a compelling storyteller, myth buster, Bible expositor, and bridge builder. Hawk's book brings the 'receipts' of colonization--receipts of settler violence, broken treaties, missionary missteps, and stolen land. If the church is courageous enough to take Hawk's stories seriously, it may yet restore the integrity of its presumed destiny to manifest good news, living in right relationship with Indigenous people and the Creator."

--T. Christopher Hoklotubbe, director of graduate studies at NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community and coauthor, with H. Daniel Zacharias, of Reading the Bible on Turtle Island

About the Author

L. Daniel Hawk (PhD, Emory University) is professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio. Aspects of his work on biblical narrative take a postcolonial turn in books such as Joshua in 3-D: A Commentary on Biblical Conquest and Manifest Destiny and as coeditor of Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations.