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The Myth of Christian America  /  MCA (5 of 14): The English Come to America  /  Discussion Questions
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Question 10
After the 1622 attacks, Bercot describes the colonists poisoning a “toast” during a truce, then slaughtering and enslaving Indians, and later says similar cycles happened in New England as well; how should this pattern reshape the way Christians tell America’s origin stories (Pilgrims, Puritans, “Christian beginnings”), and what concrete repentance might look like in how we teach history, vote, spend, or speak about national identity today?
Another way to ask: How should the pattern of truce-breaking, poisoning, slaughter, and slavery change the way Christians talk about America’s “Christian beginnings”? What could real repentance look like in how we teach history, vote, spend money, or talk about national identity?

Direct Answer Bercot’s account means Christians should stop telling origin stories that sanitize violence or call the colonies “Christian beginnings,” and instead tell the truth that from the start settlers chose revenge and mammon over Jesus’ teachings. The transcript doesn’t lay out a modern program of repentance, but it strongly implies repentance includes truthful teaching and rejecting nationalist myths that excuse blood guilt.

Support from Transcript:

  • After 1622, leaders feigned a truce, then poisoned the liquor: “laced with poison… 200… died, and then 50 more… slaughtered.”
  • He says colonists then “repeatedly killed” Indians, captured children, and “sold them as slaves,” and “systematically decimated entire villages.”
  • He insists Virginia was “not an isolated instance” and that “the exact same thing happened in New England” as land hunger grew.
  • The cycle: Indians initially coexist, settlers keep expanding, Indians massacre, settlers respond with “equally vicious massacres,” leading to tribes becoming “extinct” and survivors pushed west.
  • His conclusion about national identity: “from day one, this was not Christian America,” because it required violating Jesus’ teachings.
Discussion Follow-ups What would it change if our churches taught early American history with this moral clarity? How might Christians practice repentance by refusing to equate patriotism with discipleship, and by examining whether our political and economic choices still reflect revenge and mammon?

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