Embark on a profound historical exploration with João Chaves, Assistant Professor at Baylor University, as we uncover the lasting effects of the Doctrine of Discovery and its legacy of colonialism, faith, and power struggles in the Americas. Our conversation traverses from the Portuguese conquest and the influx of Confederate exiles post-American Civil War to the development of Brazilian Protestantism. Chaves' expertise illuminates the complexities of property rights and racial hierarchies that continue to shape Latin American religious and social dynamics, offering a rare lens into the past that still echoes today.
As we discuss the unique challenges faced by Brazilian Baptists migrating to the United States, we uncover the reshaping of identities and ideologies in the shadow of the Southern Baptist Convention. Identity conflicts, the role of local converts, and the navigation through Christian nationalism, all contribute to a vibrant tapestry of faith and community. Chavez guides us through the intersection of theology and justice as these communities grapple with immigration issues and ethnic solidarity, revealing how deep-rooted beliefs can both hinder and empower transformation within these religious enclaves.
The episode culminates in a critical examination of the intertwining of racism, Christianity, and capitalism—forces that have shaped the modern world, with a spotlight on Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro's 'pan-Christian' leadership. We then pivot to Baylor University's own introspection into its historical narratives, highlighting the Commission for Historical Campus Representations' work toward truth and academic freedom. The personal stories Antonia Teixeira serve as a somber reminder of how the quest for institutional goodness often clashes with the painful realities of our shared history. Join us as we navigate these sensitive landscapes, striving for a deeper understanding of where we've been, and where we might go from here.
View the transcript and show notes at podcast.doctrineofdiscovery.org. Learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery on our site DoctrineofDiscovery.org.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to the Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast.
The producers of this podcastwould like to acknowledge with
respect the Onondaga Nationfirekeepers of the Haudenosaunee
, the indigenous peoples onwhose ancestral lands Syracuse
University now stands, and nowintroducing your hosts, phil
(00:27):
Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome back to Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast.
My name is Phil Arnold.
I'm faculty in religion atSyracuse University and founding
director of the Scano Great LawPeace Center.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And I'm Sandy Bigtree , a citizen of the Mohawk Nation
at Akwesasne, and I'm on thecollaborative of the Scano
Center and I'm the board of theIndigenous Values Initiative.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
And we're very pleased today because this
podcast has been sponsored bythe Henry Luce Foundation and we
have a very special guest, joeChavez, who was a presenter at
our recent Doctrine of Discoveryconference here in Syracuse.
(01:22):
So we were able to welcomeProfessor Chavez to Syracuse
University.
He's Assistant Professor of theHistory of Religion in the
Americas at Baylor Universityand, like many of us, he wears
many hats, so I'll ask him tointroduce himself.
Chavez is a historian ofreligion with expertise in US
(01:45):
Protestantism in Latin Americaand the development of Latin
American religious networkswithin the United States.
So, joe, why don't youintroduce yourself to our
listening audience?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Of course.
Oh, thank you very much andit's good to see you again,
Cindy and Phil.
It was a formative time that wespent together there in
Syracuse and then before thatwhen we met in the offices of
Auburn Seminary in New York City.
And yeah, I'm like youmentioned.
(02:20):
I teach at Baylor University.
That's where I got my PhD froma few years ago.
I'm a native of Recife, brazil.
After I graduated from Baylor, Iworked for Princeton Seminary
and then Austin TheologicalSeminary.
After that and then returnedhere my first year back in the
(02:40):
faculty in the Department ofReligion year back in the
faculty in the Department ofReligion, and I teach in
addition to the required coursecalled the Christian Heritage
that I teach here.
I also will teach courses onmigration, geopolitics and
(03:00):
missions and things of that sort, and one of the things that in
this course the Christianheritage that I have introduced
this semester after having beenwith you, colonists in the
United States, but also in otherplaces, have dispossessed
(03:34):
native land in different ways.
As a matter of fact, baylorUniversity has its own, as many
other universities do, historiesof that particular kind of
violence.
So I appreciate having walkedwith you in these opportunities
and it's already changed the waythat I think about many things,
(03:55):
even the way that I teach, andI'm very appreciative of that.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, that's really terrific news, Joe.
I mean, we do focus on probablymore on the North American
context, so we really appreciateyou joining us on the podcast
and giving us a sense of, youknow, the Brazilian context Also
.
Of course, you know 15thcentury Roman Catholicism and
(04:20):
papal bulls Catholicism but, andpapal bulls but.
But you know, we really need todig into how that, well, that
mantle of conquest andcolonialism was taken up by
Protestants.
Right, you know, certainly inin North America we're looking
(04:43):
into that, but we'd like to hearmore about how that was formed
in Brazil.
You know, I mean, and you knowthat kind of legacy.
You know, so maybe you couldstart with that sort of you know
the 101 version of, like,brazilian religious history.
You know, from the Portuguese.
You know colonization forward,you know, into the Protestant
(05:03):
era colonization forward, youknow, into the Protestant era.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Yeah, I mean, I can mention a few things about that.
As you mentioned, it goes backto those bulls in the 15th
century that themselves alreadyhave some inspiration in the
Crusades that preceded them andso on.
Right, so you see thathappening later on.
First to Portugal.
As Portugal develops with Henrythe Navigator's sponsorship you
(05:35):
know the story schools andtechnologies for naval
exploration that begins in someislands away from the shore of
Europe and goes through Africaall the way down to Asia, but
then also crosses over to theAmericas.
(05:58):
Brazil is a big.
They divide that possession ofnative land in ways that are
(06:28):
analogous to what happened inthe United States and also the
(06:52):
place where most, by far most,of the 10 to 12 million enslaved
people who went to the AmericasFor comparison's sake to the
United States, some scholarsestimate around 3 to 400,000, 5
million to Brazil, around 3,000to 400,000, 5 million to Brazil,
and part of that was because ofthe way in which slavery worked
(07:14):
in sugar plantations and thebusiness models of Brazilian
slave owners.
That also happened in theCaribbean, where the model was
to work enslaved people as muchas they could.
The death rates were higher, sothe replacement was needed more
often, which was different fromthe cotton plantation kind of
(07:36):
developments in the UnitedStates.
Although there was enoughbarbaric acts in all of these
places, more than enough.
It was really outrageous.
And around the 19th century yousee Protestants coming into
(08:02):
Protestant missionaries andmigrants to different places in
Latin America and also with thiskind of white supremacist
imagination and although theysaw the Catholic Church as their
competitors in the religiousmarket and there was some
animosity to go both ways there,those Eurocentric assumptions
(08:24):
about property, about land andabout relationship with people,
with other races, was notchallenged.
It remained mostly unchallenged.
As a matter of fact, theBaptist missionaries that became
the most successfulnon-Pentecostal group in Brazil
(08:48):
are Baptists and they began withConfederate exiles who went to
Brazil after the Confederateshad lost the Civil War because
Brazil remained a slave-holdingcountry for 23 more years after
the end of the American CivilWar.
It was the last one to abolishslavery in 1888.
And it is in these Confederateenclaves that you see not only
(09:14):
Baptists but also SouthernPresbyterians and Southern
Methodists and so on going toand starting churches.
And some of those Confederateenclaves became beachheads for
the introduction of thesustainable phases of a big
portion of missionary work fromthe US to South America, to
(09:35):
Brazil, in this ways, and thereare many analogous situations to
what's happening in the UnitedStates too, in terms of how the
dispossession of native land isjustified and continue to be
justified in terms of RomanCatholicism.
(09:57):
But also you have the SupremeCourt here in the United States,
as you know very well, drawinginspiration from these papal
bulls too, and then, withProtestantism, bringing their
own forms of neocolonialism andwhite supremacy there.
Although they did not introducewhite supremacy to South
(10:19):
America or to Brazil, they didbring their own networks and
dispositions and resources todevelop different streams of
that disposition, asChristianities and different
forms of Christianity continueto grow in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wow, wow, that is something.
Wow, thank you for that, joe.
And so, I think, kind ofriffing off what you just
explained to us, adam, ourproducer tells us that your
dissertation, which is almostwhat 400 pages long, became
(10:59):
three books.
But I love the title of thedissertation because it's right
on topic, right, I think.
Disrespecting Borders for Jesus, power and Cash, southern
Baptist Missions, the NewMigration and the Churches of
the Brazilian Diaspora.
Are we still talking about whatyou just explained to us?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
In significant ways.
Yes, because another version ofthis story is the fact that
some of these folks, who weredeeply formed by missionary
forms of Protestantism that wentto Latin America, are part of
(11:43):
migrant groups that go todifferent places and form
churches that are sometimesconnected to very socially
conservative theopoliticaldispositions.
Right, so this story goes on indifferent iterations and as we
(12:05):
look at migration continuing togrow in the world today.
As a matter of fact, it isprojected to become the number
one factor in the growth of theUS population in decades to come
, and a slice of that not thewhole, but a slice of that is
(12:26):
still very much influenced andformed by these forms of
missionary Protestantism thatwere incorporated into the lives
of many people in the globalSouth that now bring back with
their own religious expressions.
But to step back a little bitin terms of the dissertation,
there were mostly two books andthen a few other things that
(12:48):
came out from it.
I look first at missionaries toBrazil, looking mostly at the
Baptist stream, but some of thatstory is applicable to all the
groups and I looked at racerelations between Southern
Baptist missionaries to Braziland locals.
(13:12):
And you see, in that storythat's about first half of the
dissertation and I saw about 100years, from 1880 to about 1980,
looking at how Southern Baptistmissionaries or missionaries in
the largest Protestantdenomination in the United
(13:32):
States, really implemented asuccessful way to form and
maintain connections to theirdenomination in Brazil.
And because they had powerful,eventually built powerful
publication houses and hadpowerful seminaries, their
(13:52):
influence really goes beyond thenumbers, although they are in
Brazil the largestnon-Pentecostal Protestant
denomination Actually theBrazilian Baptist Convention is
the largest non-Pentecostaldenomination in the whole Latin
America but the influence isbeyond that because of the,
again, influence of publicationhouses, of groups that publish
(14:19):
and record music, because oftheir theological seminaries,
the influence really spreadsbeyond the numeric side of
things.
So I looked at how effectivelythey did that.
I had a question about why is itthat Brazilian Baptists are
(14:40):
ideologically so alike SouthernBaptists?
And I went into that researchproject with that question in
mind and I kind of laid that out.
Although it is a diverse group,that is a majority story that
I'm telling.
But then in 1980, I shift tothe groups that are then
(15:03):
migrating to the United Stateswithin that same denomination
and forming churches in the USin different places.
And I do follow those groupsand I do some archival work in a
few churches and interviewleaders and look at that history
.
A few churches and interviewleaders and look at that history
(15:27):
and at the end of that storyand the migrant story comes out
in another book called Migrationof Religion.
But in terms of a thesis thatencapsulates part of those two
books, claim that BrazilianBaptists are closer to Southern
(15:53):
Baptists when they are actuallyin Brazil than the way they
migrate to the United States.
So I mentioned that the closestto the Southern Baptists
Brazilian Baptists aregeographically, the farther from
them they get ideologically fordifferent reasons.
But proximity reveals certaininconvenient dispositions that
(16:17):
distance does not introduce tothese groups Anti-immigrant
sentiments and the support foranti-immigrant policies is one
of those elements that theseimmigrants that really
appreciate.
The Southern Baptist Conventionwhen they are in their
(16:38):
countries of origin, when theysee them up close, then
challenges them to reimaginewhat that relationship means.
And there are a few otherelements that are involved, but
certainly anti-immigrant andpolitical dispositions in the
(17:00):
groups that I saw is part ofthat.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Is it more than just the anti-immigrant sort of
disposition that you're talkingabout that indicates their
closeness in a way, you know,brazilian Baptists and Southern
Baptists in the US, or are therelike theological elements that
one could point to, or or someother factors?
(17:27):
I mean, this is a fascinating,you know discovery, I guess.
In a way, I'm wondering howthat feeds Well, are there other
factors, other than a kind ofanti-immigrant?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
There are other factors, but they are not
necessarily theological Meaning.
Brazilian Baptists in generaland Southern Baptists do not
have pronounced theologicaldisagreements.
Disagreements Now, the extentto which one is consistent in
(18:10):
their political way of beingwith their theological
understandings of certain things.
I mean, that is there's a lotto look at that, but that is not
articulated theologicaldisagreement.
What happened is that part ofit is that in the US,
immigrant-migrant churches arehave as a central aspect of
their existence ethnicsolidarity.
(18:31):
So the people who attend thosechurches, they do not go because
of anything or because of thedenominational identity or the
theological disposition.
They go because there arepeople like them there.
And then what happened in thesechurches led by these Brazilian
(18:51):
Baptist missionaries in theUnited States is that most of
the people who go to theirchurches are not Baptists.
They are something else.
And because of the polity ofBaptist churches.
Baptist churches claim to bedemocratic.
So people vote on things in thechurch and you have these
(19:12):
leaders with mostly Pentecostalmembership trying to negotiate
what the church's identity wouldbe.
But what happens in theseimmigrant communities is that
the central aspect that guidetheir lives are not theological
claims but are again the idea ofliving as Brazilians in a
(19:34):
foreign land and that introducesa series of different dynamics,
one of which is the fact thatmost people in the churches I
looked at and that correlateswell with what sociologists that
looked at Brazilian migrants inthe US have found that most of
(19:56):
these memberships is comprisedof undocumented immigrants, and
that becomes a pastoralchallenge that really helps
redefine the commitments ofthese migrants and of these
leaders, religious leaders thatare now trying to dissociate
(20:22):
their theological beliefs fromsome of the implications of
serving a primarily undocumentedcommunity.
They begin to dissociate moreclearly justice from law, where
they see the immigration lawparticularly as being not
(20:45):
something that manifests orrepresents justice but, as a
matter of fact, something thatdenies it right.
And that realization of thisdistinction between legality and
justice becomes another elementin that struggle to pastor
undocumented immigrants, many ofwhom come from different
(21:06):
religious or even Christianbackgrounds, from different
religious or even Christianbackgrounds, but are together in
these churches because, youknow, they are kind of hubs of
social support and ofmaintenance of ethnic identity.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Hmm.
So I'm trying to sort out thissort of racist path and this
element, so this emphasis, Iguess, on missionization right
and growing the base, I suppose,of the church and then
(21:42):
simultaneously having a kind ofanti-immigrant framework that
associates them with the North,right.
So can you speak a little bitabout the missionary activity, a
little more, with respect, forexample?
I mean, you know, one of thethings we focus on here is on
(22:05):
indigenous peoples, right.
So how does that missionizationgo in Brazil among these
Protestant groups?
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Yeah, well, that is a topic that continues to be
problematic in different waysways.
(22:39):
So missionaries to Brazil havebeen very active in the Amazon
Brazilian missionaries andmissionaries from the US.
One of the things that peopleoften overlook is that the
expansion of Christianity,protestantism particularly that
I looked at more closely inthese places often count with
(23:01):
the strong support of locals whojoined the new religion.
So if you hear missionariestalk about missionary influence
in these places, they often, orsometimes anyway, overstate the
impact that missionaries haddirectly and under and
(23:24):
understate how locals who joinedthe religion have done a lot of
that legwork of introducing thenew religion to people.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Oh, that's, very yeah , that's, very yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
And and and that is and, and I say that not to say
that, therefore, that that thatis, uh, it becomes less
problematic.
I, I actually sometimes it'sthe opposite right Cause less
problematic.
Actually, sometimes it's theopposite right.
But the issue with this kind ofWestern dispositions and even
white supremacist kind ofsentiments is that some locals
(24:02):
incorporate them and disseminatethem too.
So you see that happening inBrazil in different ways, and
you see that happening today,where locals are people who are
spreading the message in waysthat are sometimes problematic
(24:26):
and sometimes in ways thatreinforce their own subjugation.
Yeah, and sometimes in ways thatreinforce their own subjugation
.
Yeah, I was just in Brazil ayear ago for a project that I'm
doing now with a colleague thatlooks at Christian nationalism
in Brazil and different places,and one place that we went to
(24:51):
was the Amazon.
We went to Manaus and we wentto a particular service of a
megachurch, a Pentecostalmegachurch, that they have a
missions day, and what they hadin that church.
We're interviewing the pastorsand what they had.
(25:12):
Their missions they werebecause we're writing the Amazon
.
They had a native Brazilianpresentation where there were
native Brazilian groups in thestage or in the pulpit talking
about how they are part of theseevangelization missions.
They are part of theseevangelization missions Because
(25:39):
the Brazilian government todaymakes it illegal for non-natives
to introduce Christianity tonative groups out of a concern
of protecting their culture and,eventually, their land, which
is threatening so many differentdirections.
What is left?
Their land, which isthreatening so many different
directions?
What is left?
So what these Christiancommunities are doing now to
(26:02):
circumvent the law is actuallyrecruiting native missionaries
so they can do that work,because it's illegal to do some
of that work otherwise, and theydo it in different ways.
I mean there are schoollanguage schools to teach
Portuguese to natives.
That then I mean you saw thishappening, right?
You see you're shaking yourhead here, I can see you.
(26:23):
I mean that's a common story,right?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Right.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
So you see that happening today also from native
Brazilian groups or nativeBrazilian-led groups, and some
Christian allies too.
So then it becomes fuzzy inthat regard.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Yes, because you see, on one hand, christian natives
(27:35):
or native Brazilians who, butalso Christians who recognize
the deeply problematic legaciesthat was introduced with deep,
fundamental Christian supportand means, but they're also part
of that resistance trying todismantle that project.
So it becomes a fundamentallycomplex situation in the
Brazilian case.
I'm not sure if I addressedsome of your questions.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Oh yeah, what you're describing is right on.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Intentionally made confusing.
That's the whole purpose ofdividing and conquering
indigenous people and lands.
You know, you have to like,immediately convert christians
and even if they aren't, they'rethreatened.
I mean in the early, you know,when the jesuits first arrived,
I mean the, the, the horrible um, abuse, forcing, um, the
(28:25):
christianization of women.
They would target the women asbeing, you know, the most
firebrands of hell.
We were just hearing stories whythe Onondaga Nation remains
outside the Bureau of IndianAffairs, and the story we were
(28:49):
just told is that through thechurches in this community this
is like in 1935, they werealready, of course, anchored in
there with Christianizing, youknow, trying to Christianize the
Haudenosaunee, they were tryingto instill the Bureau of Indian
Affairs government of anelective system of chiefs
(29:12):
whereby, you know, we had aprocess of raising chiefs that
were through the clan mothersand the Confederacy would always
come into consensus andagreement.
They did not vote.
But we have these foreigngovernments and the churches
facilitating this, and even, I'msure, there were Christian
(29:34):
native people, haudenosauneepeople, that were now
Christianized and allying withthe priests or the ministers
would have been ministersbecause there were no Catholic
churches at Onondaga, becausethere were no Catholic churches
at Onondaga, but there was thisone vote where the community had
to vote in this BIA governmentand all across Indian country.
(30:04):
Traditional people would notvote in those elections and the
only people that would vote inthem were those that were more
compliant with the church'swishes on their territories.
So they would vote and thosewould be the elections the
United States would recognize.
So then they would installthese BIA governments because
the people voted for them.
Well, traditional people didn'tvote in those elections because
(30:26):
it's a foreign regime cominginto their territories.
So when this happened atOnondaga, rather than not voting
at the prospect of letting aBIA government in there, they
went to one another and said forthe first time, get out and
vote it out.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Vote no.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Vote no and they're the only ones that kept the BIA
out.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Vote no, vote no.
And they're the only ones thatkept the BIA out of Onondaga.
Yeah, and other nations acrossthe United States were like,
astounded that they didn't haveto, you know, accept that BIA
puppet regime of the UnitedStates.
So, many of them were trying toundo you know that process in
(31:13):
their own territories.
But the US said no, you votedus in.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
We're in and that's I mean that continues today.
Actually it's, you know, 90years ago, but it's still
happening.
People are still wondering, ordifferent nations are wondering,
how they can get out of thefederal system.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
But you triggered that whole story when you were
talking, you know, aboutinstilling more of a democratic
process of voting in these areas.
I'm going.
That's not necessarily a goodthing.
Yeah, it's a really good thing,I mean now that most people are
(31:51):
, of course, bound to thissystem of voting.
I mean, I'm not saying you getout and vote because you're
already in that process, butbeing indigenous, no, you do not
want to bring that into yourcommunity because it's divisive,
really, in the larger pictureif you have not a better way of
bringing minds together.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
And, of course, I mean, of course, what you're
describing too.
Zhao is, and it's also truehere at Onondaga.
You know, what you'redescribing has a backdrop of
these economic forces, right?
So, organization is not just aconversation about the nature of
, you know, the spiritualdimension of existence.
(32:29):
Right, right, it's not atheological debate.
There are these very bigeconomic forces that are
yearning to, you know, get chief, cheap beef in the, you know,
out of the am that's right, youknow that's exactly right, yeah,
and so that I'm.
I'm drawn to the, to that cashelement in your dissertation,
(32:51):
right?
So I mean these two things arealways conjoined.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
No, I agree.
I agree with that completely.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Do you need help catching up on today's topic or
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If so, please check our websiteat
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listen to podcasts.
And now back to theconversation.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Which now, connecting to what Sandy mentioned, it
makes it very difficult to do itoutside of a system Because, so
to mention, the fact of cattleand beef deforestation is a big
deal in Brazil and depending onwho's on the government,
depending on who is in themajority in the Congress and
(33:43):
Senate, regulations and policingof deforestation can change
drastically and policing ofdeforestation can change
drastically.
You saw a previousadministration in which there
was less investment inregulations for deforestation,
and you have all this big cattlemoney that is deeply investing
(34:05):
in just burning forests andnative land even more so that
they can raise cattle, so thatthey can make money.
So how do you do it?
Are you going to mobilizepeople to be able to vote and to
protest?
I mean, it's really a bloodystory, a bloody story.
(34:28):
As a matter of fact, one of thepictures that I have outside my
office door is a picture of anative Brazilian woman with the
flag full of blood.
That kind of brings this imageof this nation-making that
happened in different places.
(34:48):
That does involve these threecolumns, and I do tell my
students that the modern worldwas founded on three columns or
three pillars racism,christianity and capitalism.
(35:09):
It's hard to distinguish onefrom the others.
When I think about missionaries, I am, I am thinking about
these dynamics going together,like you mentioned, phil and I.
I don't, I do not think aboutthem separately.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I think they work in consort.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, wehad, you know, the Christian
front through the 30s.
It was very strong in Bostonand the person you know
spreading this, you know, theFather Coughlin, had a huge
radio show reaching millions andmillions of people and the
(35:48):
speech was basicallyanti-Semitic.
And so the person they hadleading this front in Boston was
actually working with acounterintelligence operative of
Hitler's and they were feedingthis Moran how to use propaganda
(36:09):
to sway your audience.
And they aligned over thisanti-Semitism of the fascists
and Nazis with the Catholics whofound, you know, also aligned
(36:29):
to anti-Semitic because theywere killers of Christ.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
They said the.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Jews were killers of Christ and that that was like
fabricated, you know, duringduring the Roman period.
But and then, and interestinglyenough, after the thirties, it
kind of morphed into kind of theMcCarthy era where they were
attacking and imprisoningcommunists Because again, it's a
(36:59):
continuation of theanti-Semitism, because they
viewed Marx as being a Jew.
So not much has changed, it'sjust morphed and it's continued
to just move around the globe.
But these are old systems ofmanipulation and domination used
from this.
You know these doctrines ofdiscovery that one human being
(37:24):
has the right to dominate andcontrol another.
You know it's control another.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
You know it's right.
Right, I mean it's an old story, but it also has these new
manifestations.
I guess you know here you havein your context you have
bolsonaro, who's catholic rightbeing embraced by the
protestants in brazil.
You know the evangelicals, Imean it's an analog, it's
analogous to to our trump, ourstory of Donald Trump.
In many ways, you know that'scorrect, yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
No, that's right, and Bolsonaro is an interesting
case.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
It was a sociologist, paul Freston I think, who
coined very appropriately thathe's the first pan-Christian
president of Brazil, meaningthat he can.
I mean he's Catholic, like youmentioned, but he was baptized
by a Pentecostal pastor in theJordan River and he is married
(38:23):
to a Baptist woman.
So it's really interesting,michele, when they go to
Protestant churches together,you can really see her taking
the lead in some of that.
And, yeah, I think that hereally, because what's happening
in Brazil also Brazil is inthis odd position of being the
(38:47):
country with the largest numberof Catholics in the world, but
also the largest number ofPentecostals in the world, and
the number of Protestantscontinue to grow and the number
of Catholics to diminish.
So if it was possible forCatholics to imagine running the
(39:12):
country without having to entercoalitions with Protestants,
that is no longer the case, andBolsonaro is one of those
figures around which thesecoalitions, ultra-conservative
coalitions, have been built, andso you see that Christian
(39:35):
nationalism growing in Brazil,with both Catholic and
Protestant participation.
I think that for me, whoself-identify as Christian,
although I was raised with afather who was a black Brazilian
(39:55):
, who wasn't, and he would oftenremind me of the histories and
the complex entanglements of thetradition that I ended up
entering, that I ended upentering.
(40:17):
I feel compelled to mentionthat the most.
I wouldn't say the most, but avery important resistance.
It also comes from those whoare able to tell more honest
stories about their Christianbackground or the history of
their tradition and try toreimagine it to be what they
(40:37):
think, something that is closerto what would be a Christ who
was killed by a state for beinga subversive.
Yeah, that is not the Christ ofmany who want to sit on the
throne and oppress people andtake what is theirs and violate
(41:02):
them in so many different ways.
So I think it was Gandhi whosaid that he didn't have a
problem with Christ.
He had a problem withChristians.
And you know, often I feelclose to that disposition.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, christ was not a Christian, you know.
I mean, you can put it that way, right?
You know, when doesChristianity start?
It's fourth century, you know,and that's probably when
doctrine of discovery began, youknow.
But but I think I appreciatethat comment because you know
Brazil is such an interestingplace Religiously speaking.
(41:40):
You know, I mentioned, youmentioned your father, I'm
thinking of.
You know Afro Brazilian, or youknow Afro Brazilian traditions.
You know that are all throughthe country and you could say
minority traditions, but in away, but then also infused into
the culture in so many ways.
(42:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
That is right.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Condomble, and you know I mean yeah, so that is
right, condomblé.
And you know I mean you cantalk about yeah, yeah, so it's
such a rich area, culturallyrich place, largely through
trauma, of course, but you knowI mean this is the way the new
world is founded.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
That's right and also it's interesting because often
scholars, especially scholarsfrom the global north that look
at Brazil but other places inthe global south, often think
that those allegiances aremutually exclusive.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Whereas they're really not.
But on the ground, it is oftenthe case where people do
translate aspects ofChristianity to align with
cosmologies and worldviews thatwere already there, yeah, and
are very creative in terms ofwhat they incorporate and what
(43:08):
they don't incorporate.
So it's not always candomblépractitioner or Catholic.
Sometimes it's candomblépractitioner and Catholic.
So you have those differentaffiliations, translations and
multiplicities happening aspeople grapple with these new
(43:31):
ideas, but they do not adoptthem uniformly or even fully.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
There is often a lot of local rethink their
traditions.
In many ways, you know, alongthe lines you were just, you
were just reflecting on, youknow, I mean, what kind of
Christianity is it that wereally truly embrace?
Right, these are conversationsthat are happening internally,
(44:21):
these different denominations,different religious communities.
They no longer feel that, theymight feel that their tradition
has been hijacked in some ways.
You know, maybe from thebeginning.
You know maybe from from itsinception, given Protestants.
You know history rather shorthistory, you're stating is a
(44:47):
kind of realignment of theologyin some ways with respect to, to
.
You know what's a more viablefuture.
You know what's a more just andsane world that we want to, to
embrace.
You know, and I think that'sthat's also part of the mapping
of the doctrine of discoverythat we have to take account.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Christianity, it's become more of a battle of
conquest of good over evil.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
And I think that morphed in some way with the New
Age movement, thanks to VincentPeale, norman Vincent Peale.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Norman.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Vincent Peale's positive thinking theology.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, the power of positive thinking, the power of
positive thinking, theology,yeah, the power of positive
thinking.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
It's, it's still the same thing of good over evil.
Because it's the power ofpositive thinking, I mean it's
still dominating.
It's still going to dominateany honest interaction that you
have with the world around you.
Right, you're still competingand conquering um someone who's
not going to be quite aspositive as you might be.
(45:54):
I mean there's so many levels ofall of this right.
And Norman Vincent Peale hadhis first church here in
Syracuse and then he moved it toNew York City and he was a
major capitalist and that'swhere Trump's parents joined
that church in New York City.
And Norman Vincent Peale hadgiven a talk in Central Park one
(46:15):
Easter during the 30s and itwas like announced that it was
actually like a Nazi rally.
So there's these alliances thatmay appear to be all well and
good, but they're problematictoo.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Yeah, that's right.
But you know, what isinteresting though and again, I
do not have a big enough sampleto draw any strong conclusions,
Perhaps you have had even moreexperiences in this area is that
when I speak about Christianityin ways that are not despairing
(46:54):
but are honest and are criticalto my students they are here at
Baylor, which is a universitythat calls itself a Christian
university they are verytolerant and welcoming and
critical about that conversation, but it is when there is
(47:17):
criticism against the UnitedStates that I see more reaction.
I mean, of course, those two arenot necessarily, unfortunately
not necessarily very distinctfor some people.
For some people they see such aclose connection between
Christianity and the UnitedStates, and this is where the
(47:40):
doctrine of discovery seems to,or conversations about that,
seem to meet at the intersectionof criticizing deeply both
religion and nations.
But I do wonder if the kind ofreactions against that truth
that needs to continue to berevealed and challenged, not
(48:02):
only in its story but also inits continuing implications, If
the resistance is because of theimplication of a form of
Christianity or because of theimplication of property and
nation, there is where, it seemsto me, some people will react
more strongly.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Right, that's where the rubber meets the road, right
.
So I mean, so Adam is tellingme we should go back because
you've been incrediblyproductive with all these books,
and I want to ask you to go ina little more detail about the
your book, the global mission ofthe jim crow south.
(48:42):
I mean, you know, a talk up,talk to us about the
confederados.
Um, not sure how you pronouncethat in in portuguese, but
that's right, you know.
And and how does that factorinto where we are today?
You know, again going back tothis kind of racist missionary
(49:02):
past, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Well, let me start, perhaps not at the end, but at
the middle.
Okay, the middle.
I think it was a historian ofthe US, south, charles Reagan
Wilson, who said or maybe it wassomebody else that skips my
mind now who said that the Southlost the battle but won the war
(49:32):
, meaning that the culturaldispositions that were deeply
formative for that certainmentality in terms of racial
superiority and anti-black,anti-native racism,
anti-semitism, and all of that,that remain a guiding light in
(49:56):
significant ways of Southernculture even after the war was
ended.
And I say this because theconnections between Brazilian
Protestants and Southerninstitutions are very strong,
and in some ways they remain.
I mean with agreements to sendleaders to train in theological
(50:21):
seminaries in the US, and on andon.
But what happened in Brazilagain was we have these
Confederates who lose the war.
Thousands of families go toBrazil, and to Mexico too,
actually and I say this assomeone who is in former, not
only native land, but alsoMexican land, beyond that, and
(50:42):
there is some overlap even inthat terminology but when they
get to Brazil, though, althoughBrazil remained a slave-holding
country, they think that there'stoo much racial fluidity in
Brazil, wow.
So then they go into enclavesof Confederate exiles that
(51:03):
attempt to draw a harder racialline and boundaries.
And again, it's there where wesee churches beginning, uh, in
terms of baptists, but alsopresbyterians and and methodists
.
You see southern baptistmissionaries going to brazil and
(51:24):
first staying in those coloniesand then moving away.
Now there is another element tothis, which is brazil already
has its own head when thesemissionaries go there, because
of the Portuguese influence.
That dates back hundreds ofyears before that happened in
the 19th century.
Brazil has a racial taxonomyand imagination that is not
(51:49):
based in, or it doesn't becomebased on, heritage, like in the
United States, but it's based onphenotype.
So there is that distinction.
But that said, the hierarchy ofwhites at the top and everybody
else at the bottom was alreadyestablished.
So you see that agreement there.
And then what happens is thatthose missionaries, they send
(52:15):
the local leaders of theirdenominations to be trained in
the segregated South.
I'd say so.
The people are trained here.
They go back, they foundchurches and seminaries and they
translate books.
The books that train theseministers are all books written
by Southern Americans, or by andlarge the great majority.
(52:37):
That is then translated intoPortuguese.
That's where they learn theirtheologies, and then you see
that disposition growing inchurches and this goes on to the
extent that up until the 1980s,after I was born in 1980, so
even a few years after I wasborn, the presidents of
(53:01):
Brazilian Baptist seminaries, orat least one of the major ones,
was still a Southern Baptistmissionary.
So this is.
It goes on very recently.
So and then after, even after,that changes and goes more
strongly into the hands ofnatives or locals, I should say
the networks continue and theimpact is very much continue to
(53:28):
this day where many, manyleaders of the denomination are
trained in the United States andhave US connections.
Again, I don't want to painteverybody with the same brush.
I don't know if that's correct.
That saying is correct.
I want to acknowledge that thatis diversity, but by and large
(54:01):
there is a major tendencytowards this welcoming
disposition and connection withthe Southern Baptist Convention
and that disposition and thatbleeds into the kind of
political dynamics happening inBrazil.
That includes Baptists but alsoPentecostals and Presbyterians
and others.
That includes Baptists but alsoPentecostals and Presbyterians
and others, and I can mention somany examples, but I mentioned
that I was in Brazil not toolong ago for that research.
(54:22):
We not only went to the Amazon,me and my collaborators.
We also went to Brasilia and weinterviewed elected politicians
.
One of them was the leader ofthe Evangelical Caucus.
We had a conversation with himand he mentioned that the
following morning he had abreakfast with the leaders of
(54:44):
capital ministries.
They also continue to work inand around Congress and Senate
in Washington DC, in and aroundCongress and Senate in
Washington DC, having prayermeetings and breakfasts and
things of that sort.
You see, you know differentkinds of connections between the
(55:07):
Bolsonaro and the Trumpadministration.
Steve Bannon said one time thathe had greater hopes for
Bolsonaro than he did for Trump.
He was an unofficial counselorof Bolsonaro and his sons said
one time that he had greaterhopes for Bolsonaro than he did
for Trump.
He was an unofficial counselorof Bolsonaro and his sons.
One of Bolsonaro's sons wasseen on January the 6th in
(55:30):
Washington DC with a MAGA hat.
I mean, you can see thesetransnational flows coming and
that is beyond this missionarystream that I'm mentioning.
But that is certainly part ofthe story.
It's more complex, it's morediversified and it follows
different pathways.
But one element of this storythat we can draw in broad
(55:52):
strokes to today has thatinfluence there in broad strokes
to today, has that influencethere?
Certainly so.
And the social issues that areconnected to theological
convictions are also analogousto the one in the US Abortion,
gay marriage, and I mean areissues that are brought up and I
(56:13):
mean are issues that arebrought up and then the
(56:59):
protection of the religiousright, both in significant ways
co-created by the United Statesand Brazil, given their
different partnershipsthroughout the 19th and 20th
century.
So that is a lot of analogoussituations and dynamics there.
There are many partnerships tobe talked about, and those two
(57:19):
countries, it's important to say, are projected to continue to
be the countries with thelargest numbers of Christians in
the world.
Brazil and the United Statesare that today, and they are
projected to continue to be thecountry with the largest number
of Christians in the world.
So it is hard to think that itis coincidental that those are
(57:43):
also very important hubs of thiskind of authoritarian right
that is brewing, althoughsimilar issues are happening in
other places, via otherreligions too.
We can talk about Hindunationalism, and on and on.
There are other manifestationsof this also, yeah, modi and
(58:06):
others.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
It's on the rise and you can feel it.
I really appreciate theengagement that your work has in
the world and along that vein,we can kind of finish up with a
brief conversation about thisbook, this other book that you
co-wrote with Mike Parsons andforgive me, I'm going to
(58:29):
slaughter this title, butremembering Antonio Teixeira,
teixeira, teixeira a story ofmissions, violence and
institutional hypocrisy.
What really strikes me aboutthis, of course, is your
detailing a story of a rape by,while Antonio was a guest at
(58:55):
Baylor University, by thepresident in 1894 at your own
institution.
That is brave, my friend.
As an assistant professor, youknow that's an important story.
It's an important story, let meput it that way, first, that we
(59:16):
need to all tell about our owninstitutions and I think and
according to Adam, this has hada great impact.
It's continuing to have a kindof impact in our world.
Please tell us about that andwhy you decided to do that.
(59:39):
Tell that important story.
Speaker 4 (59:43):
Yeah, well, thank you .
Thank you for asking.
As a matter of fact, Baylorgave a grant of $25,000 to help
with the research of the book.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Good for them.
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
So this was well.
This started with.
Michael, I should say, is thelongest serving faculty member
in the Department of Religion.
He's been here for 38 years andhe's the only distinguished
university professor at Baylor.
So he has been in thisinstitution for a while and he
(01:00:24):
was part of a commission puttogether and supported by the
president and the board oftrustees, called Commission for
Historical CampusRepresentations.
They were going to look at thestatues and see what kind of
figures the university wanted tocelebrate.
(01:00:47):
Now, one of those statues wasRufus Burleson, the president,
who was the host of AntoniaTeixeira and then later tried to
blame her for her own rape insome ways, and that story came
up in connection to thatcommittee.
And then Michael, who was a partof that initiative, emailed me
(01:01:11):
and asked me if I knew aboutAntonio Teixeira.
I thought he had misgenderedAntonio, because Antonio
Teixeira was the first BrazilianBaptist pastor in Brazil.
He was actually ordained in aMasonic lodge in a Confederate
enclave and the name of theMasonic lodge was George
(01:01:33):
Washington in the state of saopaulo.
So uh, by the way, aparenthesis here I do show my
student a picture of confederateparties and I ask them where do
you think this is happening andthey guess mississippi, they
guess louisiana, they guess, andthen I tell them no, this is
sao paulo, is in the state ofsao paulo.
(01:01:54):
They still have the ConfederateParty there, but anyway in that
area.
But so, and the reason why Iask that is because Antonio
Teixeira's story is well knownbut nobody knew of Antonio.
As a matter of fact, hisbiographer just calls her the
firstborn, Doesn't even know hername, apparently, just calls
(01:02:18):
her the firstborn, Doesn't evenknow her name, apparently.
Well, she came to the after herfather died.
She was brought by SouthernBaptist missionaries here to
Baylor, which was a differentkind of school at the time, and
she was housed at thepresident's home.
She was raped by a relative andthen there was like a
(01:02:45):
controversy around the trialbecause there was a partially
because there was a journalisthere, a very controversial
journalist here in Hueco, calledlast name Bran, who was
nicknamed the apostle of thedevil, and he wore that nickname
very proudly and Bran did notlike Baptists or bailers, so he
(01:03:06):
had a periodical that had astrong circulation and he
revealed that in the late 1800s.
He exposed all of that and thetrial happened here and we tell
that story, but more thantelling the story of Antonio, we
(01:03:29):
also found out that Antonio,when he was a Catholic priest,
was accused of kidnapping whenhe was 32 years old, kidnapping
a 17-year-old woman who waspresumably Antonia's mother.
We tell that story too.
And then we tell the story ofAntonia.
But more than that, we want toshow these stories as an
(01:03:52):
illustration of how institutions, in order to preserve the story
of institutional goodness, arewilling to erase the oppressed
and the marginalized, To theextent that the maintenance of
institutional goodness, or themyth that institutions want to
(01:04:15):
tell about themselves, is veryoften in opposition to the best
interest of those who are in themargins.
And we show how that happenedin relationship to the foreign
mission board of the SouthernBaptist Convention, who had the
reputation of the missionariesconnected to that of their
(01:04:37):
Brazilian Jew, Antonio Teixeira,who converted from being a
Catholic priest and was reallybig for Baptists.
So they erased the story of hisown issues, sexual issues.
But then here, in terms ofBailor, Antonio Teixeira's story
was the story that wasforgotten.
In terms of Baylor, AntoniaTeixeira's story was the story
(01:04:59):
that was forgotten.
And when we tell that story,but then showing that
institutions in many ways dothat, and making clear that,
although Baylor was part of that.
All the institutions do thattoo, and not to necessarily
diminish Baylor's implicationand responsibility in that story
, but just to show that to alarge extent institutions have
(01:05:24):
something to gain by hidingcertain truths.
It is only now where takingthese skeletons out of the
closet became its own way toarticulate institutional
goodness.
We have institutions fundingthese kinds of projects, like
(01:05:51):
BALO funded the project.
So I mean it's a complexsetting in which now there is
something to gain in telling howbad you have been Right.
So it is within that cycle too.
It's just the patterns ofidentifying institutional
goodness now include beinghonest about one story, but
there's something to gain fromthat Right, from that right.
(01:06:21):
So it's again.
It's a story full ofentanglement and complexities,
as these stories often are.
But you are right that Baylorhas been extremely supportive,
financially and otherwise.
And I did ask because I knewthe book was coming out when I
was interviewing here and I didask is this going to be a
problem?
Was interviewing here and I didask is this going?
to be a problem, and I was toldthat some people might dislike
(01:06:53):
it, but I was assured that theydo value academic freedom to the
extent that I'll be protectedin that regard.
So far that seems to be true.
Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Well, that ends us on a really happy note, I would
say.
I mean, you know that there ishope.
And again, really appreciateyou, João, and all that you do.
You're out there.
You're out there, man, Reallytelling the truth, which is not
(01:07:23):
always a comfortable position tobe in, but really appreciate
what you're willing to do.
So really appreciate all ofthat, Okay.
Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Likewise, I appreciate you all and you've
been part of the many witnessesthat have shaped my trajectory
in different ways and I reallyappreciate that and hope we'll
continue to collaborate indifferent ways in our journey.
Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Absolutely, absolutely.
We're at the beginning of this.
You'll be back in Syracuse, inOnondaga Nation territory, I
predict, in the near future.
I'll look forward to that, allright.
Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Yes indeed, take care All the best.
Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye.
Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
The producers of this podcast were Adam DJ Brett and
Jordan Lone Colon.
Our intro and outro is socialdancing music by Oris Edwards
and Regis Cook.
This podcast is funded incollaboration with the Henry
Luce Foundation, syracuseUniversity and Hendrix Chapel
and the Indigenous ValuesInitiative.
If you liked this episode,please check out our website and
(01:08:36):
make sure to subscribe.
Hello and welcome to the Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast.
The producers of this podcastwould like to acknowledge with
respect the Onondaga Nationfirekeepers of the Haudenosaunee
, the indigenous peoples onwhose ancestral lands Syracuse
University now stands, and nowintroducing your hosts, phil
(00:27):
Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome back to Mapping the Doctrine of
Discovery podcast.
My name is Phil Arnold.
I'm faculty in religion atSyracuse University and founding
director of the Scano Great LawPeace Center.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And I'm Sandy Bigtree , a citizen of the Mohawk Nation
at Akwesasne, and I'm on thecollaborative of the Scano
Center and I'm the board of theIndigenous Values Initiative.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
And we're very pleased today because this
podcast has been sponsored bythe Henry Luce Foundation and we
have a very special guest, joeChavez, who was a presenter at
our recent Doctrine of Discoveryconference here in Syracuse.
(01:22):
So we were able to welcomeProfessor Chavez to Syracuse
University.
He's Assistant Professor of theHistory of Religion in the
Americas at Baylor Universityand, like many of us, he wears
many hats, so I'll ask him tointroduce himself.
Chavez is a historian ofreligion with expertise in US
(01:45):
Protestantism in Latin Americaand the development of Latin
American religious networkswithin the United States.
So, joe, why don't youintroduce yourself to our
listening audience?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Of course.
Oh, thank you very much andit's good to see you again,
Cindy and Phil.
It was a formative time that wespent together there in
Syracuse and then before thatwhen we met in the offices of
Auburn Seminary in New York City.
And yeah, I'm like youmentioned.
(02:20):
I teach at Baylor University.
That's where I got my PhD froma few years ago.
I'm a native of Recife, brazil.
After I graduated from Baylor, Iworked for Princeton Seminary
and then Austin TheologicalSeminary.
After that and then returnedhere my first year back in the
(02:40):
faculty in the Department ofReligion year back in the
faculty in the Department ofReligion, and I teach in
addition to the required coursecalled the Christian Heritage
that I teach here.
I also will teach courses onmigration, geopolitics and
(03:00):
missions and things of that sort, and one of the things that in
this course the Christianheritage that I have introduced
this semester after having beenwith you, colonists in the
United States, but also in otherplaces, have dispossessed
(03:34):
native land in different ways.
As a matter of fact, baylorUniversity has its own, as many
other universities do, historiesof that particular kind of
violence.
So I appreciate having walkedwith you in these opportunities
and it's already changed the waythat I think about many things,
(03:55):
even the way that I teach, andI'm very appreciative of that.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, that's really terrific news, Joe.
I mean, we do focus on probablymore on the North American
context, so we really appreciateyou joining us on the podcast
and giving us a sense of, youknow, the Brazilian context Also
.
Of course, you know 15thcentury Roman Catholicism and
(04:20):
papal bulls Catholicism but, andpapal bulls but.
But you know, we really need todig into how that, well, that
mantle of conquest andcolonialism was taken up by
Protestants.
Right, you know, certainly inin North America we're looking
(04:43):
into that, but we'd like to hearmore about how that was formed
in Brazil.
You know, I mean, and you knowthat kind of legacy.
You know, so maybe you couldstart with that sort of you know
the 101 version of, like,brazilian religious history.
You know, from the Portuguese.
You know colonization forward,you know, into the Protestant
(05:03):
era colonization forward, youknow, into the Protestant era.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Yeah, I mean, I can mention a few things about that.
As you mentioned, it goes backto those bulls in the 15th
century that themselves alreadyhave some inspiration in the
Crusades that preceded them andso on.
Right, so you see thathappening later on.
First to Portugal.
As Portugal develops with Henrythe Navigator's sponsorship you
(05:35):
know the story schools andtechnologies for naval
exploration that begins in someislands away from the shore of
Europe and goes through Africaall the way down to Asia, but
then also crosses over to theAmericas.
(05:58):
Brazil is a big.
They divide that possession ofnative land in ways that are
(06:28):
analogous to what happened inthe United States and also the
(06:52):
place where most, by far most,of the 10 to 12 million enslaved
people who went to the AmericasFor comparison's sake to the
United States, some scholarsestimate around 3 to 400,000, 5
million to Brazil, around 3,000to 400,000, 5 million to Brazil,
and part of that was because ofthe way in which slavery worked
(07:14):
in sugar plantations and thebusiness models of Brazilian
slave owners.
That also happened in theCaribbean, where the model was
to work enslaved people as muchas they could.
The death rates were higher, sothe replacement was needed more
often, which was different fromthe cotton plantation kind of
(07:36):
developments in the UnitedStates.
Although there was enoughbarbaric acts in all of these
places, more than enough.
It was really outrageous.
And around the 19th century yousee Protestants coming into
(08:02):
Protestant missionaries andmigrants to different places in
Latin America and also with thiskind of white supremacist
imagination and although theysaw the Catholic Church as their
competitors in the religiousmarket and there was some
animosity to go both ways there,those Eurocentric assumptions
(08:24):
about property, about land andabout relationship with people,
with other races, was notchallenged.
It remained mostly unchallenged.
As a matter of fact, theBaptist missionaries that became
the most successfulnon-Pentecostal group in Brazil
(08:48):
are Baptists and they began withConfederate exiles who went to
Brazil after the Confederateshad lost the Civil War because
Brazil remained a slave-holdingcountry for 23 more years after
the end of the American CivilWar.
It was the last one to abolishslavery in 1888.
And it is in these Confederateenclaves that you see not only
(09:14):
Baptists but also SouthernPresbyterians and Southern
Methodists and so on going toand starting churches.
And some of those Confederateenclaves became beachheads for
the introduction of thesustainable phases of a big
portion of missionary work fromthe US to South America, to
(09:35):
Brazil, in this ways, and thereare many analogous situations to
what's happening in the UnitedStates too, in terms of how the
dispossession of native land isjustified and continue to be
justified in terms of RomanCatholicism.
(09:57):
But also you have the SupremeCourt here in the United States,
as you know very well, drawinginspiration from these papal
bulls too, and then, withProtestantism, bringing their
own forms of neocolonialism andwhite supremacy there.
Although they did not introducewhite supremacy to South
(10:19):
America or to Brazil, they didbring their own networks and
dispositions and resources todevelop different streams of
that disposition, asChristianities and different
forms of Christianity continueto grow in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wow, wow, that is something.
Wow, thank you for that, joe.
And so, I think, kind ofriffing off what you just
explained to us, adam, ourproducer tells us that your
dissertation, which is almostwhat 400 pages long, became
(10:59):
three books.
But I love the title of thedissertation because it's right
on topic, right, I think.
Disrespecting Borders for Jesus, power and Cash, southern
Baptist Missions, the NewMigration and the Churches of
the Brazilian Diaspora.
Are we still talking about whatyou just explained to us?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
In significant ways.
Yes, because another version ofthis story is the fact that
some of these folks, who weredeeply formed by missionary
forms of Protestantism that wentto Latin America, are part of
(11:43):
migrant groups that go todifferent places and form
churches that are sometimesconnected to very socially
conservative theopoliticaldispositions.
Right, so this story goes on indifferent iterations and as we
(12:05):
look at migration continuing togrow in the world today.
As a matter of fact, it isprojected to become the number
one factor in the growth of theUS population in decades to come
, and a slice of that not thewhole, but a slice of that is
(12:26):
still very much influenced andformed by these forms of
missionary Protestantism thatwere incorporated into the lives
of many people in the globalSouth that now bring back with
their own religious expressions.
But to step back a little bitin terms of the dissertation,
there were mostly two books andthen a few other things that
(12:48):
came out from it.
I look first at missionaries toBrazil, looking mostly at the
Baptist stream, but some of thatstory is applicable to all the
groups and I looked at racerelations between Southern
Baptist missionaries to Braziland locals.
(13:12):
And you see, in that storythat's about first half of the
dissertation and I saw about 100years, from 1880 to about 1980,
looking at how Southern Baptistmissionaries or missionaries in
the largest Protestantdenomination in the United
(13:32):
States, really implemented asuccessful way to form and
maintain connections to theirdenomination in Brazil.
And because they had powerful,eventually built powerful
publication houses and hadpowerful seminaries, their
(13:52):
influence really goes beyond thenumbers, although they are in
Brazil the largestnon-Pentecostal Protestant
denomination Actually theBrazilian Baptist Convention is
the largest non-Pentecostaldenomination in the whole Latin
America but the influence isbeyond that because of the,
again, influence of publicationhouses, of groups that publish
(14:19):
and record music, because oftheir theological seminaries,
the influence really spreadsbeyond the numeric side of
things.
So I looked at how effectivelythey did that.
I had a question about why is itthat Brazilian Baptists are
(14:40):
ideologically so alike SouthernBaptists?
And I went into that researchproject with that question in
mind and I kind of laid that out.
Although it is a diverse group,that is a majority story that
I'm telling.
But then in 1980, I shift tothe groups that are then
(15:03):
migrating to the United Stateswithin that same denomination
and forming churches in the USin different places.
And I do follow those groupsand I do some archival work in a
few churches and interviewleaders and look at that history
.
A few churches and interviewleaders and look at that history
(15:27):
and at the end of that storyand the migrant story comes out
in another book called Migrationof Religion.
But in terms of a thesis thatencapsulates part of those two
books, claim that BrazilianBaptists are closer to Southern
(15:53):
Baptists when they are actuallyin Brazil than the way they
migrate to the United States.
So I mentioned that the closestto the Southern Baptists
Brazilian Baptists aregeographically, the farther from
them they get ideologically fordifferent reasons.
But proximity reveals certaininconvenient dispositions that
(16:17):
distance does not introduce tothese groups Anti-immigrant
sentiments and the support foranti-immigrant policies is one
of those elements that theseimmigrants that really
appreciate.
The Southern Baptist Conventionwhen they are in their
(16:38):
countries of origin, when theysee them up close, then
challenges them to reimaginewhat that relationship means.
And there are a few otherelements that are involved, but
certainly anti-immigrant andpolitical dispositions in the
(17:00):
groups that I saw is part ofthat.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Is it more than just the anti-immigrant sort of
disposition that you're talkingabout that indicates their
closeness in a way, you know,brazilian Baptists and Southern
Baptists in the US, or are therelike theological elements that
one could point to, or or someother factors?
(17:27):
I mean, this is a fascinating,you know discovery, I guess.
In a way, I'm wondering howthat feeds Well, are there other
factors, other than a kind ofanti-immigrant?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
There are other factors, but they are not
necessarily theological Meaning.
Brazilian Baptists in generaland Southern Baptists do not
have pronounced theologicaldisagreements.
Disagreements Now, the extentto which one is consistent in
(18:10):
their political way of beingwith their theological
understandings of certain things.
I mean, that is there's a lotto look at that, but that is not
articulated theologicaldisagreement.
What happened is that part ofit is that in the US,
immigrant-migrant churches arehave as a central aspect of
their existence ethnicsolidarity.
(18:31):
So the people who attend thosechurches, they do not go because
of anything or because of thedenominational identity or the
theological disposition.
They go because there arepeople like them there.
And then what happened in thesechurches led by these Brazilian
(18:51):
Baptist missionaries in theUnited States is that most of
the people who go to theirchurches are not Baptists.
They are something else.
And because of the polity ofBaptist churches.
Baptist churches claim to bedemocratic.
So people vote on things in thechurch and you have these
(19:12):
leaders with mostly Pentecostalmembership trying to negotiate
what the church's identity wouldbe.
But what happens in theseimmigrant communities is that
the central aspect that guidetheir lives are not theological
claims but are again the idea ofliving as Brazilians in a
(19:34):
foreign land and that introducesa series of different dynamics,
one of which is the fact thatmost people in the churches I
looked at and that correlateswell with what sociologists that
looked at Brazilian migrants inthe US have found that most of
(19:56):
these memberships is comprisedof undocumented immigrants, and
that becomes a pastoralchallenge that really helps
redefine the commitments ofthese migrants and of these
leaders, religious leaders thatare now trying to dissociate
(20:22):
their theological beliefs fromsome of the implications of
serving a primarily undocumentedcommunity.
They begin to dissociate moreclearly justice from law, where
they see the immigration lawparticularly as being not
(20:45):
something that manifests orrepresents justice but, as a
matter of fact, something thatdenies it right.
And that realization of thisdistinction between legality and
justice becomes another elementin that struggle to pastor
undocumented immigrants, many ofwhom come from different
(21:06):
religious or even Christianbackgrounds, from different
religious or even Christianbackgrounds, but are together in
these churches because, youknow, they are kind of hubs of
social support and ofmaintenance of ethnic identity.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Hmm.
So I'm trying to sort out thissort of racist path and this
element, so this emphasis, Iguess, on missionization right
and growing the base, I suppose,of the church and then
(21:42):
simultaneously having a kind ofanti-immigrant framework that
associates them with the North,right.
So can you speak a little bitabout the missionary activity, a
little more, with respect, forexample?
I mean, you know, one of thethings we focus on here is on
(22:05):
indigenous peoples, right.
So how does that missionizationgo in Brazil among these
Protestant groups?
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Yeah, well, that is a topic that continues to be
problematic in different waysways.
(22:39):
So missionaries to Brazil havebeen very active in the Amazon
Brazilian missionaries andmissionaries from the US.
One of the things that peopleoften overlook is that the
expansion of Christianity,protestantism particularly that
I looked at more closely inthese places often count with
(23:01):
the strong support of locals whojoined the new religion.
So if you hear missionariestalk about missionary influence
in these places, they often, orsometimes anyway, overstate the
impact that missionaries haddirectly and under and
(23:24):
understate how locals who joinedthe religion have done a lot of
that legwork of introducing thenew religion to people.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Oh, that's, very yeah , that's, very yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
And and and that is and, and I say that not to say
that, therefore, that that thatis, uh, it becomes less
problematic.
I, I actually sometimes it'sthe opposite right Cause less
problematic.
Actually, sometimes it's theopposite right.
But the issue with this kind ofWestern dispositions and even
white supremacist kind ofsentiments is that some locals
(24:02):
incorporate them and disseminatethem too.
So you see that happening inBrazil in different ways, and
you see that happening today,where locals are people who are
spreading the message in waysthat are sometimes problematic
(24:26):
and sometimes in ways thatreinforce their own subjugation.
Yeah, and sometimes in ways thatreinforce their own subjugation
.
Yeah, I was just in Brazil ayear ago for a project that I'm
doing now with a colleague thatlooks at Christian nationalism
in Brazil and different places,and one place that we went to
(24:51):
was the Amazon.
We went to Manaus and we wentto a particular service of a
megachurch, a Pentecostalmegachurch, that they have a
missions day, and what they hadin that church.
We're interviewing the pastorsand what they had.
(25:12):
Their missions they werebecause we're writing the Amazon
.
They had a native Brazilianpresentation where there were
native Brazilian groups in thestage or in the pulpit talking
about how they are part of theseevangelization missions.
They are part of theseevangelization missions Because
(25:39):
the Brazilian government todaymakes it illegal for non-natives
to introduce Christianity tonative groups out of a concern
of protecting their culture and,eventually, their land, which
is threatening so many differentdirections.
What is left?
Their land, which isthreatening so many different
directions?
What is left?
So what these Christiancommunities are doing now to
(26:02):
circumvent the law is actuallyrecruiting native missionaries
so they can do that work,because it's illegal to do some
of that work otherwise, and theydo it in different ways.
I mean there are schoollanguage schools to teach
Portuguese to natives.
That then I mean you saw thishappening, right?
You see you're shaking yourhead here, I can see you.
(26:23):
I mean that's a common story,right?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Right.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
So you see that happening today also from native
Brazilian groups or nativeBrazilian-led groups, and some
Christian allies too.
So then it becomes fuzzy inthat regard.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Yes, because you see, on one hand, christian natives
(27:35):
or native Brazilians who, butalso Christians who recognize
the deeply problematic legaciesthat was introduced with deep,
fundamental Christian supportand means, but they're also part
of that resistance trying todismantle that project.
So it becomes a fundamentallycomplex situation in the
Brazilian case.
I'm not sure if I addressedsome of your questions.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Oh yeah, what you're describing is right on.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Intentionally made confusing.
That's the whole purpose ofdividing and conquering
indigenous people and lands.
You know, you have to like,immediately convert christians
and even if they aren't, they'rethreatened.
I mean in the early, you know,when the jesuits first arrived,
I mean the, the, the horrible um, abuse, forcing, um, the
(28:25):
christianization of women.
They would target the women asbeing, you know, the most
firebrands of hell.
We were just hearing stories whythe Onondaga Nation remains
outside the Bureau of IndianAffairs, and the story we were
(28:49):
just told is that through thechurches in this community this
is like in 1935, they werealready, of course, anchored in
there with Christianizing, youknow, trying to Christianize the
Haudenosaunee, they were tryingto instill the Bureau of Indian
Affairs government of anelective system of chiefs
(29:12):
whereby, you know, we had aprocess of raising chiefs that
were through the clan mothersand the Confederacy would always
come into consensus andagreement.
They did not vote.
But we have these foreigngovernments and the churches
facilitating this, and even, I'msure, there were Christian
(29:34):
native people, haudenosauneepeople, that were now
Christianized and allying withthe priests or the ministers
would have been ministersbecause there were no Catholic
churches at Onondaga, becausethere were no Catholic churches
at Onondaga, but there was thisone vote where the community had
to vote in this BIA governmentand all across Indian country.
(30:04):
Traditional people would notvote in those elections and the
only people that would vote inthem were those that were more
compliant with the church'swishes on their territories.
So they would vote and thosewould be the elections the
United States would recognize.
So then they would installthese BIA governments because
the people voted for them.
Well, traditional people didn'tvote in those elections because
(30:26):
it's a foreign regime cominginto their territories.
So when this happened atOnondaga, rather than not voting
at the prospect of letting aBIA government in there, they
went to one another and said forthe first time, get out and
vote it out.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Vote no.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Vote no and they're the only ones that kept the BIA
out.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Vote no, vote no.
And they're the only ones thatkept the BIA out of Onondaga.
Yeah, and other nations acrossthe United States were like,
astounded that they didn't haveto, you know, accept that BIA
puppet regime of the UnitedStates.
So, many of them were trying toundo you know that process in
(31:13):
their own territories.
But the US said no, you votedus in.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
We're in and that's I mean that continues today.
Actually it's, you know, 90years ago, but it's still
happening.
People are still wondering, ordifferent nations are wondering,
how they can get out of thefederal system.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
But you triggered that whole story when you were
talking, you know, aboutinstilling more of a democratic
process of voting in these areas.
I'm going.
That's not necessarily a goodthing.
Yeah, it's a really good thing,I mean now that most people are
(31:51):
, of course, bound to thissystem of voting.
I mean, I'm not saying you getout and vote because you're
already in that process, butbeing indigenous, no, you do not
want to bring that into yourcommunity because it's divisive,
really, in the larger pictureif you have not a better way of
bringing minds together.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
And, of course, I mean, of course, what you're
describing too.
Zhao is, and it's also truehere at Onondaga.
You know, what you'redescribing has a backdrop of
these economic forces, right?
So, organization is not just aconversation about the nature of
, you know, the spiritualdimension of existence.
(32:29):
Right, right, it's not atheological debate.
There are these very bigeconomic forces that are
yearning to, you know, get chief, cheap beef in the, you know,
out of the am that's right, youknow that's exactly right, yeah,
and so that I'm.
I'm drawn to the, to that cashelement in your dissertation,
(32:51):
right?
So I mean these two things arealways conjoined.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
No, I agree.
I agree with that completely.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Do you need help catching up on today's topic or
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If so, please check our websiteat
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listen to podcasts.
And now back to theconversation.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Which now, connecting to what Sandy mentioned, it
makes it very difficult to do itoutside of a system Because, so
to mention, the fact of cattleand beef deforestation is a big
deal in Brazil and depending onwho's on the government,
depending on who is in themajority in the Congress and
(33:43):
Senate, regulations and policingof deforestation can change
drastically and policing ofdeforestation can change
drastically.
You saw a previousadministration in which there
was less investment inregulations for deforestation,
and you have all this big cattlemoney that is deeply investing
(34:05):
in just burning forests andnative land even more so that
they can raise cattle, so thatthey can make money.
So how do you do it?
Are you going to mobilizepeople to be able to vote and to
protest?
I mean, it's really a bloodystory, a bloody story.
(34:28):
As a matter of fact, one of thepictures that I have outside my
office door is a picture of anative Brazilian woman with the
flag full of blood.
That kind of brings this imageof this nation-making that
happened in different places.
(34:48):
That does involve these threecolumns, and I do tell my
students that the modern worldwas founded on three columns or
three pillars racism,christianity and capitalism.
(35:09):
It's hard to distinguish onefrom the others.
When I think about missionaries, I am, I am thinking about
these dynamics going together,like you mentioned, phil and I.
I don't, I do not think aboutthem separately.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I think they work in consort.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, wehad, you know, the Christian
front through the 30s.
It was very strong in Bostonand the person you know
spreading this, you know, theFather Coughlin, had a huge
radio show reaching millions andmillions of people and the
(35:48):
speech was basicallyanti-Semitic.
And so the person they hadleading this front in Boston was
actually working with acounterintelligence operative of
Hitler's and they were feedingthis Moran how to use propaganda
(36:09):
to sway your audience.
And they aligned over thisanti-Semitism of the fascists
and Nazis with the Catholics whofound, you know, also aligned
(36:29):
to anti-Semitic because theywere killers of Christ.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
They said the.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Jews were killers of Christ and that that was like
fabricated, you know, duringduring the Roman period.
But and then, and interestinglyenough, after the thirties, it
kind of morphed into kind of theMcCarthy era where they were
attacking and imprisoningcommunists Because again, it's a
(36:59):
continuation of theanti-Semitism, because they
viewed Marx as being a Jew.
So not much has changed, it'sjust morphed and it's continued
to just move around the globe.
But these are old systems ofmanipulation and domination used
from this.
You know these doctrines ofdiscovery that one human being
(37:24):
has the right to dominate andcontrol another.
You know it's control another.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
You know it's right.
Right, I mean it's an old story, but it also has these new
manifestations.
I guess you know here you havein your context you have
bolsonaro, who's catholic rightbeing embraced by the
protestants in brazil.
You know the evangelicals, Imean it's an analog, it's
analogous to to our trump, ourstory of Donald Trump.
In many ways, you know that'scorrect, yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
No, that's right, and Bolsonaro is an interesting
case.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
It was a sociologist, paul Freston I think, who
coined very appropriately thathe's the first pan-Christian
president of Brazil, meaningthat he can.
I mean he's Catholic, like youmentioned, but he was baptized
by a Pentecostal pastor in theJordan River and he is married
(38:23):
to a Baptist woman.
So it's really interesting,michele, when they go to
Protestant churches together,you can really see her taking
the lead in some of that.
And, yeah, I think that hereally, because what's happening
in Brazil also Brazil is inthis odd position of being the
(38:47):
country with the largest numberof Catholics in the world, but
also the largest number ofPentecostals in the world, and
the number of Protestantscontinue to grow and the number
of Catholics to diminish.
So if it was possible forCatholics to imagine running the
(39:12):
country without having to entercoalitions with Protestants,
that is no longer the case, andBolsonaro is one of those
figures around which thesecoalitions, ultra-conservative
coalitions, have been built, andso you see that Christian
(39:35):
nationalism growing in Brazil,with both Catholic and
Protestant participation.
I think that for me, whoself-identify as Christian,
although I was raised with afather who was a black Brazilian
(39:55):
, who wasn't, and he would oftenremind me of the histories and
the complex entanglements of thetradition that I ended up
entering, that I ended upentering.
(40:17):
I feel compelled to mentionthat the most.
I wouldn't say the most, but avery important resistance.
It also comes from those whoare able to tell more honest
stories about their Christianbackground or the history of
their tradition and try toreimagine it to be what they
(40:37):
think, something that is closerto what would be a Christ who
was killed by a state for beinga subversive.
Yeah, that is not the Christ ofmany who want to sit on the
throne and oppress people andtake what is theirs and violate
(41:02):
them in so many different ways.
So I think it was Gandhi whosaid that he didn't have a
problem with Christ.
He had a problem withChristians.
And you know, often I feelclose to that disposition.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, christ was not a Christian, you know.
I mean, you can put it that way, right?
You know, when doesChristianity start?
It's fourth century, you know,and that's probably when
doctrine of discovery began, youknow.
But but I think I appreciatethat comment because you know
Brazil is such an interestingplace Religiously speaking.
(41:40):
You know, I mentioned, youmentioned your father, I'm
thinking of.
You know Afro Brazilian, or youknow Afro Brazilian traditions.
You know that are all throughthe country and you could say
minority traditions, but in away, but then also infused into
the culture in so many ways.
(42:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
That is right.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Condomble, and you know I mean yeah, so that is
right, condomblé.
And you know I mean you cantalk about yeah, yeah, so it's
such a rich area, culturallyrich place, largely through
trauma, of course, but you knowI mean this is the way the new
world is founded.
Speaker 4 (42:24):
That's right and also it's interesting because often
scholars, especially scholarsfrom the global north that look
at Brazil but other places inthe global south, often think
that those allegiances aremutually exclusive.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Whereas they're really not.
But on the ground, it is oftenthe case where people do
translate aspects ofChristianity to align with
cosmologies and worldviews thatwere already there, yeah, and
are very creative in terms ofwhat they incorporate and what
(43:08):
they don't incorporate.
So it's not always candomblépractitioner or Catholic.
Sometimes it's candomblépractitioner and Catholic.
So you have those differentaffiliations, translations and
multiplicities happening aspeople grapple with these new
(43:31):
ideas, but they do not adoptthem uniformly or even fully.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
There is often a lot of local rethink their
traditions.
In many ways, you know, alongthe lines you were just, you
were just reflecting on, youknow, I mean, what kind of
Christianity is it that wereally truly embrace?
Right, these are conversationsthat are happening internally,
(44:21):
these different denominations,different religious communities.
They no longer feel that, theymight feel that their tradition
has been hijacked in some ways.
You know, maybe from thebeginning.
You know maybe from from itsinception, given Protestants.
You know history rather shorthistory, you're stating is a
(44:47):
kind of realignment of theologyin some ways with respect to, to
.
You know what's a more viablefuture.
You know what's a more just andsane world that we want to, to
embrace.
You know, and I think that'sthat's also part of the mapping
of the doctrine of discoverythat we have to take account.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Christianity, it's become more of a battle of
conquest of good over evil.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
And I think that morphed in some way with the New
Age movement, thanks to VincentPeale, norman Vincent Peale.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Norman.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Vincent Peale's positive thinking theology.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, the power of positive thinking, the power of
positive thinking, theology,yeah, the power of positive
thinking.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
It's, it's still the same thing of good over evil.
Because it's the power ofpositive thinking, I mean it's
still dominating.
It's still going to dominateany honest interaction that you
have with the world around you.
Right, you're still competingand conquering um someone who's
not going to be quite aspositive as you might be.
(45:54):
I mean there's so many levels ofall of this right.
And Norman Vincent Peale hadhis first church here in
Syracuse and then he moved it toNew York City and he was a
major capitalist and that'swhere Trump's parents joined
that church in New York City.
And Norman Vincent Peale hadgiven a talk in Central Park one
(46:15):
Easter during the 30s and itwas like announced that it was
actually like a Nazi rally.
So there's these alliances thatmay appear to be all well and
good, but they're problematictoo.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Yeah, that's right.
But you know, what isinteresting though and again, I
do not have a big enough sampleto draw any strong conclusions,
Perhaps you have had even moreexperiences in this area is that
when I speak about Christianityin ways that are not despairing
(46:54):
but are honest and are criticalto my students they are here at
Baylor, which is a universitythat calls itself a Christian
university they are verytolerant and welcoming and
critical about that conversation, but it is when there is
(47:17):
criticism against the UnitedStates that I see more reaction.
I mean, of course, those two arenot necessarily, unfortunately
not necessarily very distinctfor some people.
For some people they see such aclose connection between
Christianity and the UnitedStates, and this is where the
(47:40):
doctrine of discovery seems to,or conversations about that,
seem to meet at the intersectionof criticizing deeply both
religion and nations.
But I do wonder if the kind ofreactions against that truth
that needs to continue to berevealed and challenged, not
(48:02):
only in its story but also inits continuing implications, If
the resistance is because of theimplication of a form of
Christianity or because of theimplication of property and
nation, there is where, it seemsto me, some people will react
more strongly.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Right, that's where the rubber meets the road, right
.
So I mean, so Adam is tellingme we should go back because
you've been incrediblyproductive with all these books,
and I want to ask you to go ina little more detail about the
your book, the global mission ofthe jim crow south.
(48:42):
I mean, you know, a talk up,talk to us about the
confederados.
Um, not sure how you pronouncethat in in portuguese, but
that's right, you know.
And and how does that factorinto where we are today?
You know, again going back tothis kind of racist missionary
(49:02):
past, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Well, let me start, perhaps not at the end, but at
the middle.
Okay, the middle.
I think it was a historian ofthe US, south, charles Reagan
Wilson, who said or maybe it wassomebody else that skips my
mind now who said that the Southlost the battle but won the war
(49:32):
, meaning that the culturaldispositions that were deeply
formative for that certainmentality in terms of racial
superiority and anti-black,anti-native racism,
anti-semitism, and all of that,that remain a guiding light in
(49:56):
significant ways of Southernculture even after the war was
ended.
And I say this because theconnections between Brazilian
Protestants and Southerninstitutions are very strong,
and in some ways they remain.
I mean with agreements to sendleaders to train in theological
(50:21):
seminaries in the US, and on andon.
But what happened in Brazilagain was we have these
Confederates who lose the war.
Thousands of families go toBrazil, and to Mexico too,
actually and I say this assomeone who is in former, not
only native land, but alsoMexican land, beyond that, and
(50:42):
there is some overlap even inthat terminology but when they
get to Brazil, though, althoughBrazil remained a slave-holding
country, they think that there'stoo much racial fluidity in
Brazil, wow.
So then they go into enclavesof Confederate exiles that
(51:03):
attempt to draw a harder racialline and boundaries.
And again, it's there where wesee churches beginning, uh, in
terms of baptists, but alsopresbyterians and and methodists
.
You see southern baptistmissionaries going to brazil and
(51:24):
first staying in those coloniesand then moving away.
Now there is another element tothis, which is brazil already
has its own head when thesemissionaries go there, because
of the Portuguese influence.
That dates back hundreds ofyears before that happened in
the 19th century.
Brazil has a racial taxonomyand imagination that is not
(51:49):
based in, or it doesn't becomebased on, heritage, like in the
United States, but it's based onphenotype.
So there is that distinction.
But that said, the hierarchy ofwhites at the top and everybody
else at the bottom was alreadyestablished.
So you see that agreement there.
And then what happens is thatthose missionaries, they send
(52:15):
the local leaders of theirdenominations to be trained in
the segregated South.
I'd say so.
The people are trained here.
They go back, they foundchurches and seminaries and they
translate books.
The books that train theseministers are all books written
by Southern Americans, or by andlarge the great majority.
(52:37):
That is then translated intoPortuguese.
That's where they learn theirtheologies, and then you see
that disposition growing inchurches and this goes on to the
extent that up until the 1980s,after I was born in 1980, so
even a few years after I wasborn, the presidents of
(53:01):
Brazilian Baptist seminaries, orat least one of the major ones,
was still a Southern Baptistmissionary.
So this is.
It goes on very recently.
So and then after, even after,that changes and goes more
strongly into the hands ofnatives or locals, I should say
the networks continue and theimpact is very much continue to
(53:28):
this day where many, manyleaders of the denomination are
trained in the United States andhave US connections.
Again, I don't want to painteverybody with the same brush.
I don't know if that's correct.
That saying is correct.
I want to acknowledge that thatis diversity, but by and large
(54:01):
there is a major tendencytowards this welcoming
disposition and connection withthe Southern Baptist Convention
and that disposition and thatbleeds into the kind of
political dynamics happening inBrazil.
That includes Baptists but alsoPentecostals and Presbyterians
and others.
That includes Baptists but alsoPentecostals and Presbyterians
and others, and I can mention somany examples, but I mentioned
that I was in Brazil not toolong ago for that research.
(54:22):
We not only went to the Amazon,me and my collaborators.
We also went to Brasilia and weinterviewed elected politicians
.
One of them was the leader ofthe Evangelical Caucus.
We had a conversation with himand he mentioned that the
following morning he had abreakfast with the leaders of
(54:44):
capital ministries.
They also continue to work inand around Congress and Senate
in Washington DC, in and aroundCongress and Senate in
Washington DC, having prayermeetings and breakfasts and
things of that sort.
You see, you know differentkinds of connections between the
(55:07):
Bolsonaro and the Trumpadministration.
Steve Bannon said one time thathe had greater hopes for
Bolsonaro than he did for Trump.
He was an unofficial counselorof Bolsonaro and his sons said
one time that he had greaterhopes for Bolsonaro than he did
for Trump.
He was an unofficial counselorof Bolsonaro and his sons.
One of Bolsonaro's sons wasseen on January the 6th in
(55:30):
Washington DC with a MAGA hat.
I mean, you can see thesetransnational flows coming and
that is beyond this missionarystream that I'm mentioning.
But that is certainly part ofthe story.
It's more complex, it's morediversified and it follows
different pathways.
But one element of this storythat we can draw in broad
(55:52):
strokes to today has thatinfluence there in broad strokes
to today, has that influencethere?
Certainly so.
And the social issues that areconnected to theological
convictions are also analogousto the one in the US Abortion,
gay marriage, and I mean areissues that are brought up and I
(56:13):
mean are issues that arebrought up and then the
(56:59):
protection of the religiousright, both in significant ways
co-created by the United Statesand Brazil, given their
different partnershipsthroughout the 19th and 20th
century.
So that is a lot of analogoussituations and dynamics there.
There are many partnerships tobe talked about, and those two
(57:19):
countries, it's important to say, are projected to continue to
be the countries with thelargest numbers of Christians in
the world.
Brazil and the United Statesare that today, and they are
projected to continue to be thecountry with the largest number
of Christians in the world.
So it is hard to think that itis coincidental that those are
(57:43):
also very important hubs of thiskind of authoritarian right
that is brewing, althoughsimilar issues are happening in
other places, via otherreligions too.
We can talk about Hindunationalism, and on and on.
There are other manifestationsof this also, yeah, modi and
(58:06):
others.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
It's on the rise and you can feel it.
I really appreciate theengagement that your work has in
the world and along that vein,we can kind of finish up with a
brief conversation about thisbook, this other book that you
co-wrote with Mike Parsons andforgive me, I'm going to
(58:29):
slaughter this title, butremembering Antonio Teixeira,
teixeira, teixeira a story ofmissions, violence and
institutional hypocrisy.
What really strikes me aboutthis, of course, is your
detailing a story of a rape by,while Antonio was a guest at
(58:55):
Baylor University, by thepresident in 1894 at your own
institution.
That is brave, my friend.
As an assistant professor, youknow that's an important story.
It's an important story, let meput it that way, first, that we
(59:16):
need to all tell about our owninstitutions and I think and
according to Adam, this has hada great impact.
It's continuing to have a kindof impact in our world.
Please tell us about that andwhy you decided to do that.
(59:39):
Tell that important story.
Speaker 4 (59:43):
Yeah, well, thank you .
Thank you for asking.
As a matter of fact, Baylorgave a grant of $25,000 to help
with the research of the book.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Good for them.
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
So this was well.
This started with.
Michael, I should say, is thelongest serving faculty member
in the Department of Religion.
He's been here for 38 years andhe's the only distinguished
university professor at Baylor.
So he has been in thisinstitution for a while and he
(01:00:24):
was part of a commission puttogether and supported by the
president and the board oftrustees, called Commission for
Historical CampusRepresentations.
They were going to look at thestatues and see what kind of
figures the university wanted tocelebrate.
(01:00:47):
Now, one of those statues wasRufus Burleson, the president,
who was the host of AntoniaTeixeira and then later tried to
blame her for her own rape insome ways, and that story came
up in connection to thatcommittee.
And then Michael, who was a partof that initiative, emailed me
(01:01:11):
and asked me if I knew aboutAntonio Teixeira.
I thought he had misgenderedAntonio, because Antonio
Teixeira was the first BrazilianBaptist pastor in Brazil.
He was actually ordained in aMasonic lodge in a Confederate
enclave and the name of theMasonic lodge was George
(01:01:33):
Washington in the state of saopaulo.
So uh, by the way, aparenthesis here I do show my
student a picture of confederateparties and I ask them where do
you think this is happening andthey guess mississippi, they
guess louisiana, they guess, andthen I tell them no, this is
sao paulo, is in the state ofsao paulo.
(01:01:54):
They still have the ConfederateParty there, but anyway in that
area.
But so, and the reason why Iask that is because Antonio
Teixeira's story is well knownbut nobody knew of Antonio.
As a matter of fact, hisbiographer just calls her the
firstborn, Doesn't even know hername, apparently, just calls
(01:02:18):
her the firstborn, Doesn't evenknow her name, apparently.
Well, she came to the after herfather died.
She was brought by SouthernBaptist missionaries here to
Baylor, which was a differentkind of school at the time, and
she was housed at thepresident's home.
She was raped by a relative andthen there was like a
(01:02:45):
controversy around the trialbecause there was a partially
because there was a journalisthere, a very controversial
journalist here in Hueco, calledlast name Bran, who was
nicknamed the apostle of thedevil, and he wore that nickname
very proudly and Bran did notlike Baptists or bailers, so he
(01:03:06):
had a periodical that had astrong circulation and he
revealed that in the late 1800s.
He exposed all of that and thetrial happened here and we tell
that story, but more thantelling the story of Antonio, we
(01:03:29):
also found out that Antonio,when he was a Catholic priest,
was accused of kidnapping whenhe was 32 years old, kidnapping
a 17-year-old woman who waspresumably Antonia's mother.
We tell that story too.
And then we tell the story ofAntonia.
But more than that, we want toshow these stories as an
(01:03:52):
illustration of how institutions, in order to preserve the story
of institutional goodness, arewilling to erase the oppressed
and the marginalized, To theextent that the maintenance of
institutional goodness, or themyth that institutions want to
(01:04:15):
tell about themselves, is veryoften in opposition to the best
interest of those who are in themargins.
And we show how that happenedin relationship to the foreign
mission board of the SouthernBaptist Convention, who had the
reputation of the missionariesconnected to that of their
(01:04:37):
Brazilian Jew, Antonio Teixeira,who converted from being a
Catholic priest and was reallybig for Baptists.
So they erased the story of hisown issues, sexual issues.
But then here, in terms ofBailor, Antonio Teixeira's story
was the story that wasforgotten.
In terms of Baylor, AntoniaTeixeira's story was the story
(01:04:59):
that was forgotten.
And when we tell that story,but then showing that
institutions in many ways dothat, and making clear that,
although Baylor was part of that.
All the institutions do thattoo, and not to necessarily
diminish Baylor's implicationand responsibility in that story
, but just to show that to alarge extent institutions have
(01:05:24):
something to gain by hidingcertain truths.
It is only now where takingthese skeletons out of the
closet became its own way toarticulate institutional
goodness.
We have institutions fundingthese kinds of projects, like
(01:05:51):
BALO funded the project.
So I mean it's a complexsetting in which now there is
something to gain in telling howbad you have been Right.
So it is within that cycle too.
It's just the patterns ofidentifying institutional
goodness now include beinghonest about one story, but
there's something to gain fromthat Right, from that right.
(01:06:21):
So it's again.
It's a story full ofentanglement and complexities,
as these stories often are.
But you are right that Baylorhas been extremely supportive,
financially and otherwise.
And I did ask because I knewthe book was coming out when I
was interviewing here and I didask is this going to be a
problem?
Was interviewing here and I didask is this going?
to be a problem, and I was toldthat some people might dislike
(01:06:53):
it, but I was assured that theydo value academic freedom to the
extent that I'll be protectedin that regard.
So far that seems to be true.
Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Well, that ends us on a really happy note, I would
say.
I mean, you know that there ishope.
And again, really appreciateyou, João, and all that you do.
You're out there.
You're out there, man, Reallytelling the truth, which is not
(01:07:23):
always a comfortable position tobe in, but really appreciate
what you're willing to do.
So really appreciate all ofthat, Okay.
Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Likewise, I appreciate you all and you've
been part of the many witnessesthat have shaped my trajectory
in different ways and I reallyappreciate that and hope we'll
continue to collaborate indifferent ways in our journey.
Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Absolutely, absolutely.
We're at the beginning of this.
You'll be back in Syracuse, inOnondaga Nation territory, I
predict, in the near future.
I'll look forward to that, allright.
Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Yes indeed, take care All the best.
Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye.
Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
The producers of this podcast were Adam DJ Brett and
Jordan Lone Colon.
Our intro and outro is socialdancing music by Oris Edwards
and Regis Cook.
This podcast is funded incollaboration with the Henry
Luce Foundation, syracuseUniversity and Hendrix Chapel
and the Indigenous ValuesInitiative.
If you liked this episode,please check out our website and
(01:08:36):
make sure to subscribe.
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