Many of the original colonies were founded by religious communities looking for a place where they could practice their faith.

Sadly, too many of them once established then persecuted those who did not share their faith. Dissenters were seen not only as a threat to their faith but also a threat to their political institutions.

A few of the colonies, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Maryland, began with a different vision, one of tolerance.

They were fleeing Europe where religious conflicts led to violence and even wars that disrupted political and economic life. They longed for something better.

Religion and the State

After the U.S. Constitution was written, many demanded the federal government be kept out of religion; the result was the First Amendment, stating, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

At the beginning, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, but soon the states (successors to the colonies) also got out of the religion business. At the same time, most felt that religion fostered the honesty and sense of duty essential to a functioning democracy.

While America had no established religion, Christian morality still influenced law and politics. There were laws dealing with marriage, divorce, birth control, abortion, prostitution, gay sex, suicide and more that all reflected Christian norms.

Many such laws have been successfully challenged by a more libertarian view that prioritises individual autonomy and freedom.

Meanwhile, Christians concerned about social justice joined labour unions and movements fighting for laws protecting workers, advocating for civil rights and helping the marginalised.

The change is exemplified by San Francisco, where go-go dancing was legalised but smoking indoors was banned, meaning the dancers now have the right to work in a smoke-free environment. Quite a change from the 1950s.

The two extremes

There are two extremes when dealing with the role of religion in politics.

One argues that God is supreme and that his views should be legislated and enforced by the state. The other argues that any law motivated by religious values should be unconstitutional.

I also believe God is supreme, but there is a problem with wanting to legislate his will: Who is going to decide what is God's will?

In Iran, it is the clerical establishment that determines what is God's will.

Too many religious leaders believe they have a direct line to God and therefore want to impose their views on others. They also presume there is only one way to fulfill God's will. Such arrogance is the epitome of clericalism.

Extremists who want to bar religious motivations from politics would limit the religious freedom of believers and ignore American history.

They need to remember the role of religion and religious ministers in the Civil Rights and antiwar movements. For many, inspired by the Hebrew prophets, working for justice is a religious duty.

If those with religious motivation had been banned from Civil Rights and peace activism, the movements would have failed if they had ever even gotten started.

In American politics, we need to agree on what to do, not why we are doing it. Different people will be motivated by different things, especially in complex legislation. That is how democracy works.

As long as we stay within constitutional rules, we can push to get our way. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. If we are willing to throw away the Constitution in order to get our way, then we have moved out of politics and into despotism and revolution.

Christian nationalism and Catholic integralism

Christian nationalism and Catholic integralism suffer from the temptation to arrogantly believe only they know God's will.

Christian nationalism is the belief that America was founded as a Christian nation and should maintain or return to its Christian heritage.

Catholic integralism is an old idea — that when churches and kings clash, the church should win — applied to a modern era, insisting Catholics should occupy important positions to exert religious influence over society.

The desire to impose God's will can lead to authoritarianism. The desire to be politically relevant can lead to prostituting religion for partisan purposes.

Catholics need to remember that some of those involved with Christian nationalism do not believe that Catholics are Christians. What place will they have in the new America of the Christian nationalists?

Catholic integralists are different from earlier attempts by Catholics to dominate politics.

This is a lay movement, whereas in the past it was the Catholic clergy who wanted to run things. Catholic integralists are also cafeteria Catholics who choose to ignore much of Catholic social teaching that focuses on workers, migrants and global warming.

Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the church has encouraged ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and cooperation for the common good.

We know we don't have all the answers and can learn from others. Today's challenges and opportunities are too great for a single sectarian view. We all need to work together for a better world.

• First published in RNS
• The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at RNS.

Indigenous activists and organisations in North America were pleased but ultimately underwhelmed by the Vatican's move, however, as the formal statement failed to submit the Roman Catholic Church to any accountability for the extensive harm the doctrine caused over the centuries — colonisation itself, as well as the motivating values and beliefs inherent in the Doctrine of Discovery that continued well after the first several centuries of active colonialism and conquest declined.

The repudiation, which came in a statement from a bureaucratic office, not Pope Francis himself, said the doctrine had been "manipulated" by colonisers "to justify immoral acts against Indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities."

Native Americans also felt the statement downplayed the Catholic Church's active role in driving the colonisation and destruction of Indigenous populations.

The real question is, how much can we expect such a statement to change long-held attitudes regarding the right of European Christians to displace and destroy Indigenous peoples in centuries past?

Indigenous advocates' fears about the lack of a long-term impact appear well-founded. Surveys of the American public demonstrate that the influence of the theological justifications for dominion and violence created by the Doctrine of Discovery is still strong, primarily through the cultural framework of Christian nationalism.

Christian nationalism is the desire to see a particular expression of the Christian faith fused with American civic life and identity.

Christian nationalism regards its version of Christianity as the principal and undisputed moral and cultural framework in the United States and prefers a government that vigorously preserves it.

In 2023, a survey on Christian nationalism in the United States from the Public Religion Research Institute and The Brookings Institution measured the prevalence of Christian nationalism by gauging how much Americans agreed with the following five statements:

• The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation. U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.
• If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.
• Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.
• God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.

Those who agree or strongly agree with these statements score higher on the scale, while those who disagree or strongly disagree score lower on the scale.

As the figure below clearly shows, Christian nationalism is intimately intertwined with the belief that God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society to serve as an example to the rest of the world.

"God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world" Graphic courtesy of Andrew Whitehead

Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are much more likely agree that God destined America to be a new "promised land" for European Christians. Furthermore, Christian nationalism considers these European Christians as tasked with creating a society that would be "a shining city on a hill," in the words of Ronald Reagan, echoing Puritan leader John Winthrop.

The declarations of the Doctrine of Discovery were the earliest iterations of many of these ideas and formed a theological foundation for the white Christian nationalism we see in our body politic today.

The Doctrine of Discovery created a binary society of European Christians on the one hand and those deserving of domination on the other. Only such a society would align with the will of the Christian God.

This theology survived the Reformation and its cleaving of Christianity.

The Protestant sect we call the Puritans viewed themselves as special in the eyes of the Christian God, a status that justified their forceful occupation and seizure of land, resources, and people in North America.

As Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah write in their 2019 book Unsettling Truths, "The Doctrine of Discovery allowed Native genocide to be understood as a holy act of claiming the promised land for European settlers."

After a massacre of hundreds of Pequots in 1637, one captain of colonial forces declared, quoting Psalm 110, "thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen."

Beyond baptising the use of violence to take hold of the "promised land," the Doctrine of Discovery implicitly required settlers to distinguish "us" from "them," encouraging the creation of racial categories in North America. European Christians quickly differentiated themselves from the Indigenous people they encountered and those they brought to these shores as slaves. White skin signalled good and Christian, while black or brown skin signified bad and heathen.

This fruit of the doctrine is still with us today.

Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are much more likely to deny the reality of racial injustice, view authoritarian violence towards minorities as justified and view racial diversity as a greater hindrance to national unity than even religious diversity.

At its root, Christian nationalism idolises self-interested power, fear of outsiders and violence towards those who threaten the boundaries between "us" and "them." The Doctrine of Discovery was essential to creating these idols of Christian nationalism.

And as the heinous actions of those expounding the doctrine throughout history show us, quests to protect self-interested power based on hierarchical relationships between "us" and "them"— founded on fear of "them" — usually result in violence.

While the statement from the Vatican is an important step, Indigenous activists point out that more direct action from the Catholic Church is necessary to repair prior wrongs, perhaps in the form of reparations for those communities most harmed by the Doctrine of Discovery.

At the very least, the church can speak out against the cultural framework of Christian nationalism.

Otherwise, those who believe God promised this land and its fruits to our forebears will remain convinced of their right to allow nothing — not even those who were here long before — to stand in their way.

• Andrew Whitehead is an author at Religion News Service.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.