Skip to content

Add your phone number?

Optional. Nothing is sent unless you choose it.
The Historic Faith
Sign in

Jumpstarter 7 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion
The Myth of Christian America  /  MCA (5 of 14): The English Come to America  /  Discussion Questions
All Questions
Question 7
Cotton argues that “vacant” land may be taken “though they neither buy it nor ask permission,” and Bercot says Europeans would never apply that logic to “civilized people”; where do you see partiality at work in this reasoning, and what does it expose about sin’s ability to disguise itself as “warrantable right”?
Another way to ask: What unfair double standard is shown when Cotton says “vacant” land can be taken without buying or asking, but Europeans wouldn’t say that about “civilized people”? What does this show about how sin can hide as “a rightful claim”?

Direct Answer Bercot shows partiality in that “vacant land” logic only worked because the natives were treated as less than “civilized” equals; sin then hides under legal-sounding phrases like “vacant place” and “warrantable right” to make selfish taking seem moral.

Support from Transcript:

  • Cotton claims: “Where there is a vacant place, there is liberty… to come and inhabit, though they neither buy it nor ask permission.”
  • He adds that if natives “unjustly wrong” them and won’t recompense, the foreigners may “right themselves by lawful war and subdue the country.”
  • Bercot responds: “America was not a vacant land at that time… People lived here.”
  • He argues Europeans would never apply this to “civilized people,” giving the example of “huge tracts in Russia” where the English would not say, “it’s fine… since no one is there.”
  • He concludes it was only considered “right” because it was applied to people Europeans saw as “uncivilized.”
Discussion Follow-ups What groups today get treated as if their rights matter less because they are labeled “less responsible” or “less advanced”? How do we spot when our “rights talk” is really just baptized self-interest?

Jumpstarter 7 of 10
Back Questions Next