Permalink: https://doi.org/10.1353/cro.2024.a963641

Abstract

As we wrap up this volume and grant period we would like to express our deepest gratitude to S.B. Rodriguez-Plate and the entire team of CrossCurrents for helping to make this special issue a success. Again, we would like to extend our gratitude to all of our sponsors, funders, friends, colleagues, and of course conference attendees. Together we rise and work together to challenge and combat the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Johnson V. M'Intosh. As we bring this issue to a close we would like to outline the scope of future work and next steps, inviting all of you to join us in the furtherance of this work. However, our research is going to be going in four main directions moving forward.

INTRODUCTION

Teaching the Doctrine of Discovery

Philip P. Arnold along with Adam DJ Brett and Sebastian Modrow have developed an advanced undergraduate/graduate syllabus centered around this work. The proposed course is entitled The Religious Origins of White Supremacy: Johnson v. M'Intosh and the Doctrine of Christian Discovery Syllabus. Likewise, Arnold is also teaching a course on the religious dimensions of white supremacy. These two courses, one proposed and one happening in the Spring of 2024, are both explorations of ways to teach and integrate not only the lessons from the conference but also digital humanities pedagogies like working with primary sources, creating digital surrogates, transcriptions, and of course podcasting. One of the important lessons for the conference for us is how incredibly vital it is to take our scholarship and make it free and accessible to the public in many different formats, not only articles but also audio and video with accessible transcripts so that people can engage with the content through a wide variety of methodologies. [End Page 537]

Doctrine of Discovery Project

First, we hope to continue to collaborate on joint publishing ventures like this one, while also updating and maintaining the Doctrine of Discovery Project site (doctrineofdiscovery.org) and the Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast (podcast.doctrineofdiscovery.org). We plan to continue to call for the repudiation of the DoCD and its domination framework by all Christian denominations and for the Roman Catholic Church to rescind the "discovery" bulls. Likewise we invite churches to join in the next steps of meeting with Indigenous nations and peoples, listening, learning, and participating in #Landback initiatives, and working to return home all stolen Indigenous relatives whether they are the children buried at Indian residential boarding schools or Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (#MMIR) which includes all Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, and trans folks. Churches need to acknowledge their complicity and participation in these systems of domination and begin to work towards harm reduction and the being willing to make financial and theological recompense to Indigenous nations and peoples. Likewise, we encourage churches to listen and learn from the International Commission to Combat Religious Racism (ICCRR) on how to address and end religious racism in their contexts. Afro-Indigenous, Black, and African religious adherents should be protected and be safe from religiously motivated violence and hate crimes. This is an audacious and auspicious list of next steps precisely because of the insidious nation of what Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) calls the framework of domination.1 Healing begins with committing slowly and consistently to listening, growth, and the pursuit of transformation.

Translation Project

Another focus of our work moving forward is providing a single contemporary volume of modern translations of the papal bulls that are concomitant within the DOCD. Not all the bulls have contemporary translations, and the ones that do these translations are scattered around and there is no single volume which includes digital image surrogates of the originals with transcription and side by side translations. We wish to provide exactly such a volume with the help of our friend and colleagues Dr. Sebastian Modrow and Melissa Smith. As proof of concept he has already transcribed, translated, and provided a scholarly footnote apparatus for Inter Caetera.2 [End Page 538]