Alien Invastion -- Joshua, the Biblical Conquest and Manifest Destiny

I have been reading with great interest the five guest postings by Dr. Daniel Hawk at Allan Bevere's blog.  Dan is an Old Testament professor at Ashland Theological Seminary and author of a new commentary on the book of Joshua entitled Joshua in 3-D (Cascade, 2010).  I'm intrigued because Dan brings the story of the conquest of Canaan into conversation with the Anglo-European colonization of North America, and the emergence of the ideology of Manifest Destiny to justify the expansion of this invasion.  Dan has been playing with the movie Avatar, but in this final post, which I've received permission to republish in full, he brings in the idea of the impact of alien invasions in general.  Note that in this conversation he suggests that American apologists for Manifest Destiny rarely used Joshua to justify/explain the expansion, and yet there are important parallels that require our attention.  I hope that you will find this a helpful conversation, and will engage the subject in focused conversation.  

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Alien Invasion

L. Daniel Hawk

I would like to take this opportunity once again to thank Allan for his invitation to post to this blog and for those who have responded with thoughtful and incisive comments. It’s been a pleasure to participate in this web-exercise with Allan, whose theological and cultural acumen I deeply respect

Renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has recently cautioned against trying to contact extra-terrestrial life, warning that aliens advanced enough to reach the earth might be looking for a world to conquer and colonize. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” he says. “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans."

Hawking is speaking to a theme that has acquired increasing cultural prominence in the last twenty years. Avatar is the latest in a flurry of alien invasion narratives that have proliferated in the movies (e.g. Independence Day, War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Signs, among many others), television (V, X-Files, Alien Nation, Invasion, etc.), and popular culture (e.g. UFO sightings, alien abductions). The current interest is matched only by its original manifestation in the sci-fi films of the late 50’s and early ‘60’s, when the United States emerged into a position of unparalleled global influence and cultural dominance.

I began this series by suggesting that the stories we tell reveal much about how we look at ourselves, our world, and our place in the world. What does America’s present preoccupation with alien invasion motifs, now exemplified by Avatar, the highest-grossing film of all time, say about what might be going on in our national psyche?

It is not uncommon to encounter the claim that the United States used the biblical book of Joshua as a template to legitimize the conquest of the continent. On the face of it, this seems self-evident. The earliest Puritans saw themselves as a new Israel birthed by deliverance from oppression, a passage through the sea, and entrance into a Promised Land. The early Republic then took up Exodus imagery as a way of identifying America as a new people, delivered from tyranny and destined to be a beacon of liberty and emancipation for all nations.

The Exodus, however, is incomplete without the Conquest. Even a cursory acquaintance with American history reveals that the United States replicated the mass killing, ethnic cleansing, exclusion – often with appeals to destiny – that tell the tale of Israel’s conquest of Canaan. It thus seems a foregone conclusion that America, “the New Israel,” looked to Joshua as its paradigm for westward expansion.

The truth of the matter is that references to Joshua have been virtually absent from America’s religious and civic discourse from the colonial period to the present. Whereas expansionist America readily identified with the Israel of the Exodus, it could not seem to face the fact that, in practice, it was more like the Israel of the Conquest. In other words, the United States explicitly and consistently defined itself as an Exodus people, a beacon of salvation and freedom to all, but it repressed actions that suggested it behaved like a Conquest people.

While we easily recognize how repressed memories and impulses influence individual attitudes and behavior, we find it more difficult to recognize how this may also true of corporate entities. Memories repressed by a people, like those repressed by individuals, don’t fade away. Left to themselves, they lurk within the corporate unconsciousness, warping perspectives and practices, until they bubble to the surface in a time of crisis.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that invasion motifs have surfaced in America during a period of economic instability, decline in global influence, and a war on terror, just as it was no coincidence that they arose when the Cold War and the prospect of nuclear annihilation confronted the U.S. What does our preoccupation with alien invasion manifest? repressed guilt and remorse? anxiety that in a just universe, “what goes around comes around”? a realization that the God who gives is also the God who may take away?

It’s time for the Church to enter the public arena with the words and practices of repentance that open the path for healing from the sins of the past and their residue in the present. Native Americans continue to suffer the effects of a centuries-long program to rob identities, cultures, lands, and dignity. The rates of poverty, unemployment, suicide, alcoholism, and diabetes, to name but a few social ills, are many times the national average. It’s time to acknowledge the full scope of what was has been done and to make tangible moves to reverse course and begin to repair what has been damaged or destroyed.

As Israel reflected on its memories of conquest, it could not get around the violent stories and events that had shaped its national identity. But at a later time, in light of its own experiences of suffering and salvation, the nation realized that the dehumanizing and violent impulses associated with those traditions were not consistent with the nation God had called Israel to be. If the American Church is inclined to follow Israel’s example, it might enter this moment with the prophet’s challenge to name America’s original sins, turn from the perspectives and practices they have generated, and bring a justice long denied. In doing so, the body of Christ might more fully reveal the Prince of Peace to a watching world.

The Double Vision of our Conquest Narratives

How do you feel about the book of Joshua?  It's the story of a conquest, the story of a displacement of a people already living in the land, so that another people can have a place to live.  In fact, according to the narrative, God unleashes genocide upon the inhabitants.  Consider the story of Ai in chapter 8, where God commands the slaughter of the entire population, including women and children -- 12,000 in all.

What do we make of these conquest narratives?  The biblical one and our own?   How  exactly was the West won?

Dr. Daniel Hawk, an Old Testament Professor at Ashland Theological Seminary, has a new commentary out on this book and this subject.  It's entitled Joshua in 3-D.  I've not read the commentary -- though if you stop by Allan Bevere's blog you can order it for 40% off (I must do this!).  Dan Hawk is in the midst of a series of guest posts at Allan's blog, the latest being entitled "Double Vision."  As with earlier posts, Dan weaves together commentary on Joshua with comments about American understandings of Manifest Destiny and the anti-conquest images of Avatar (I must confess to being among the few Americans to have not yet seen the movie).   

In today's posting, Dan speaks of the images with which the conqueror uses to describe the other.  Often we use negative terms like savage and uncivilized to describe the people in the land, while the invader takes on the aura of civilized and noble.  And yet, there is at the same time counter images, that seek to picture the other in a different manner.  It's one of ambivalence. 

One problem is that reality exposes these projections for the pernicious fabrications they are. The early colonists would not have survived had not indigenous peoples imparted to them their rich agricultural wisdom. The eloquence and acuity of indigenous orators consistently impressed colonial listeners. Indigenous cultures were so strong and sophisticated that many scholars have conjectured that were it not for the epidemics that ravaged Native peoples (at mortality rates that in some cases approached ninety percent), the whole colonial enterprise might have turned out very differently.

The other problem is that even the invader recognizes the falsity of the constructions. Guilt and misgiving leak through in stories that exemplify the nobility of the indigenous peoples and portray invaders “going Native.” The result is an ambivalent, schizoid invader identity.

On that last point, I'd suggest another movie adaptation of the idea -- Dances with Wolves. 

But in terms of our biblical narrative, the writer of Joshua does find a people in the land, the Gibeonites, who are even more faithful than the Israelites.  They become, in a sense, the "noble savage" of our "Manifest Destiny" lore.  Both Allan and I -- and Dan -- would welcome your thoughts about conquest/invasion stories, and how they shape us. 

One thing that I'll add in closing relates to comments I made on Allan's post -- we have a discomfort with narratives that speak of ethnic cleansing and genocide, especially if God is involved.  And so, we create alternative myths.  That is, we picture the land as uninhabited and needing settlers.  This was true of the American scene.  It was true of the Afrikaner conquest of South Africa.  It is true of the Israeli conquest of Palestine.  If the land is sparsely populated, then surely we have the right to take it -- especially if God has promised it to us (whether we're the old Israel or the new Israel).