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In God We Don't Trust  /  Chapter 6: A Shining City on a Hill  /  Discussion Questions
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Question 6
The chapter describes Native Americans initially accommodating the settlers but resisting when 20,000 arrivals strained hunting and fishing grounds; how does the Puritan framing of this conflict (“red Canaanites” attacking them) expose the spiritual danger of adopting Old Testament conquest categories to interpret present-day conflicts?
Another way to ask: How does calling Native Americans “red Canaanites” show the danger of using Old Testament conquest stories to explain modern conflicts? What can go wrong spiritually when people label their enemies this way?

Direct Answer The Puritan framing shows the danger of re-labeling real-world disputes as holy-war scenarios, which can make aggressive retaliation feel righteous. In the chapter, treating the Indians like “Canaanites” helped the Puritans justify violence and revealed a failure to understand Jesus’ kingdom.

Support from Transcript:

  • The Indians were “generally willing to accommodate” settlers “so long as” the English remained “in small numbers.”
  • The “Great Migration” brought “up to 20,000 Puritans,” straining “limited hunting and fishing grounds.”
  • The Indians fought because otherwise “they would be pushed out of their land altogether,” a description that frames their resistance as defensive.
  • Yet the Puritans saw it as “the red Canaanites… unfairly and viciously attacking them,” echoing conquest-era categories.
  • This gave them “justification to retaliate,” especially since they had “powerful weapons.”
  • Bercot concludes their actions showed “no real understanding of the kingdom of God,” and they “never grasped the kingdom teachings of Jesus.”
Discussion Follow-ups How do labels that portray opponents as inherently evil or “appointed for destruction” change what Christians think is permissible?

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