Robert P. Jones joins us for a discussion about the Doctrine of Discovery and it’s impact on American History and it’s influence on some of the core ideas promoted by purveyors of American Christian Nationalism.
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Taking the story of white supremacy in America back to 1493, and examining contemporary
communities in Mississippi, Minnesota, and Oklahoma for models of racial repair, The Hidden
Roots of White Supremacy helps chart a new course toward a genuinely pluralistic
democracy.
Robert P. Jones returns to the fateful year when the Christian “Doctrine of Discovery”—the idea
that God designated America as a new promised land—shaped how five centuries of Europeans
would understand the “new” world and the people who populated it. As he brings this story
forward, Jones shows us the connections between Emmett Till and the Spanish conquistador
Hernando De Soto in the Mississippi Delta, between the lynching of three Black circus workers
in Duluth and the mass execution of thirty-eight Dakota men in Mankato, and between the
murder of 300 African Americans during the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa and the
Trail of Tears.
This reframing of American origins explains how the United States could build the philosophical
framework for a democratic society on a foundation of mass racial violence—and why this
paradox survives today in the form of white Christian nationalism. Through stories of people
navigating these contradictions in three communities, Jones illuminates the possibility of a new
pluralistic, democratic American future.
Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
His writing on religion, culture, and politics has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic,
TIME, and Religion News Service. He is the author of White Too Long and The End of White
Christian America. He writes a regular Substack newsletter at robertpjones.substack.com.
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