Do you guys realize that as Antiguans and Barbudans, we have been living on stolen Indigenous land?

We have been stolen people living on stolen land.

The Caribs and Arawaks and other Indigenous peoples were brutalized by Columbus, who treated the Indigenous people on the land like non-living items to be moved out of the way, crushed and demolished to make room for European domination. And then colonial powers fought over land that was not theirs in order to build their wealth, using African and Afro-descended people as their free and oppressed labour.

This continued in the name of the European monarchs who claimed to be appointed by God to subjugate “heathens” and reclaim the land in God’s name.

This is one of the core reasons that I have a huge issue with the Bible and its genocidal land reclamation stories.

God gave Abraham the job of leading a nation which was to ethically settle in an area. Abraham was an immigrant. Nowhere does God ever in Their dialogue with Abraham advocate the use of any violence or oppression to build a nation.

In fact, Abraham is said to have moved many times when locals disputed land ownership.

Jacob was disgusted by his sons’ attack on the Shechemites whose prince had raped his daughter, Dinah. Jacob’s willingness to give Dinah to her rapist is a different and equally problematic issue. That’s not the point of this though.

The point is that nowhere in any of God’s many conversations with Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob was genocidal claim or reclamation of land proposed or supported.

So how can I trust history that claims that Creator God suddenly decreed that Israel should begin a campaign of genocide to claim land as “God’s people” when the minor prophets and other writers state that all people are God’s people, and that ALL had come short of God’s way of being?

Jesus came and debunked the idea of Jewish military campaigns to reclaim control of land.

So whose word do I trust? Definitely not the genocidal colonizers who “translated” the books of the Bible and anglicized it to support their brutal white supremacist colonialism.

I 100% trust Jesus though, and having accepted God’s invitation to be unravelled from the tangle of lies mixed with truth, I personally experienced the energetic healing of baptism by immersion in keeping with the rituals of rebirth in connection with Creator that I do not understand.

I did it on faith. And just so with faith I claim the full healing that has continued to unfold.

A major part of that healing is being absolutely clear that COLONIALISM IS EVIL! GENOCIDE IS EVIL. SLAVERY IS EVIL.

God has NOT ordained Israel to force Palestinians out of their land now OR EVER!

The widely taught Israel-Canaan narrative of reclamation is a lie.

Freedom from slavery, yes, that I can accept. Genocide and supremacy ABSOLUTELY NOT!

This Bible is rife with white supremacy and its white supremacist ideologies continue to be a major part of modern Christianity where people are exploited so that “the chosen” can build their personal legacies of influence and wealth.

Equity is NOT a part of modern Christianity. The worship of money and control from a white supremacist colonial perspective is foremost. Thankfully, God who HAS ALWAYS lived can show us a better way if we choose to trust the discomfort of the process to healing.

And therefore I can reiterate Maya Angelou’s statement that only equals can be friends. I accept her assertion that friendship requires an open and uncomfortable assessment of history and its impact on the present.

Until there is willingness to actively and consciously dismantle the lies of white supremacy and build a system of true love and togetherness, I accept that I will continue to have many friendly acquaintances and very few friends.

Israeli Zionism, the Western Euro-centred White Supremacist World, and the Modern Christian Movement are centred on supremacy and oppression and a long history of colonialist propaganda.

Time to build our world on better pillars.