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[img]http://americanindiansource.com/clip_image00210.jpg [/img] Leading on from the JS thread… here’s a question.
Does the church consider Christopher Columbus to be some kind of prophet? Maybe that’s a bit extreme, how about an inspired leader?
In Sunday School we talked about that part of First Nephi, which mentions someone crossing the waters under the inspiration of God. This is usually interpreted as Columbus (why not Leif Eriksson though, for heaven’s sake, or some of the many other non-Siberians who appear to have got there first?)
Here’s my problem. Columbus inspired. Okay. Wanted to get to China, or India… Fine.
My problem begins with what Columbus did AFTER he arrived in Hispaniola.
In many places, people have been urged NOT to celebrate Columbus day.
This is because he worked hundreds of people to death, and his men led a campaign of rape, murder and forced labor. So bad in fact that Negroes had to be brought into the West Indies. (Not that they were much better treated) Of course disease took its toll, but it’s not just that.
This is a quote from Las Casas, a monk, regarding “the Admiral”. He was an eyewitness to much of what happened.
Quote:Endless Testimonies… prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives… But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then… The admiral, it is true was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians…
This quote, off Wikipedia, suggests that Columbus became religious LATER in life.
Quote:While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which passages from the Bible were used to place his achievements as an explorer in the context of Christian eschatology
I have no good answer. As a white American anglo —- I’m thankful for Columbus. As a guy who is married to a Native American and have half breed kids — I can see why celebrating Columbus Day could be offensive to some people. And what the Europeans did to the natives, is, well, just cannot be part of God’s plan. It doesn’t make sense.
It’s kind of like the argument I hear about how we sometimes try to justify slavery and wiping out the American Indians….”the blacks and Indians today should be thankful we conquered them and made their ancestors slaves because now they are middle class and wealthy Christian Americans, with all the luxuries of the white people etc etc”
Hmmm. No. It doesn’t quite work that way.
cwald wrote:And what the Europeans did to the natives, is, well, just cannot be part of God’s plan.
Agreed. While some tribes, such as the Aztecs were brutal, it’s not enough to justify European brutality.
Yet, there is little that can be done to reverse it.
Quote:As a guy who is married to a Native American
I didn’t know that about Jwald…
SamBee wrote:Quote:As a guy who is married to a Native American
I didn’t know that about Jwald…
She is Navajo
Yeah, in the wald house, people speak two of the most difficult languages ever invented, spoken fluently only by babies and Mormon missionaries: Navajo and Mormon.
As to how most members see Columbus, I think:
Prophet? No.
Inspired leader?
Yes and no.
Inspired “discoverer”? Yes.
That’s my short summary answer – and “inspired” doesn’t have to mean “righteous” or “good” in any way, when it comes to some things.
Columbus was just a product of his times. A great explorer with a single minded determination. He regarded Native Americans as inferior which just about everyone from Europe did for centuries. Perhaps if Joseph had known the real devastation he brought with just germs that killed the majority of the Native population he would have not painted him the hero. Orson Scott Card wrote an interesting book of fiction called “Pastwatch The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus” It is an alternate history of Columbus if things had been different. It was rather interesting.
I see nothing to call Columbus a prophet or inspired in any way. Even if we take the Nephi account literal, and the Spirit showed Nephi Columbus would sail to the Americas, it doesn’t require we accept he was inspired to do so. There were prophecies of Lamanites killing all the Nephites…that is just what was going to happen, not that the Lamanites were inspired by God to do it.
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=8&num=1&id=208 Quote:And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and
I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land. I embolden one bit of this quote from 1 Nephi, as it strongly suggests divine inspiration.
It’s just his lifestyle wasn’t that pleasant.
Good quote. And if his lifestyle didn’t seem that pleasant, how is it the Spirit of God would work upon him? Can the spirit work upon the unrighteous, or if we take that account in Nephi to be true, do we think the accounts of his lifestyle are inaccurate?
I think we tend to define others’ righteousness too much – that we are too quick to judge without knowing them well enough to do so. God will work with whomever God chooses to work, imo. If he could work with Saul of Tarsus and Alma, the Younger . . . I think he can work with Christopher Columbus and lots of people we might not pick automatically.
Agreed. Which doesn’t make them all prophets. It just means God can work with flawed individuals, maybe even Heber13 some day. Heber13 wrote:Good quote. And if his lifestyle didn’t seem that pleasant, how is it the Spirit of God would work upon him?
I really don’t know.
Shouldn’t the Book of Mormon mentioned Leif Eriksson as well?!
Quote:Can the spirit work upon the unrighteous, or if we take that account in Nephi to be true, do we think the accounts of his lifestyle are inaccurate?
My belief is that the spirit can act on the unrighteous. I think that there are times, when the Spirit has guided the brutes of history, to bring forth the divine purpose.
Not. Adventurer? Yes.
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