Faithful Politics Podcast
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Church & State 250: How Christians Justified Manifest Destiny
Posted
July 2, 2026
Views
44
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2
Engagement
4.55%
July 2, 2026
44
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4.55%
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How did Manifest Destiny become a Christian story about land, providence, and moral duty?
L. Daniel Hawk, Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary and author of Undoing Manifest Destiny, joins Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram to explain how theology helped justify conquest, removal, and Indigenous erasure. Hawk traces Manifest Destiny through John O’Sullivan’s famous phrase, the Doctrine of Discovery, Lewis and Clark’s “Corps of Discovery,” Genesis 1:28, and the settler belief that land had to be owned, fenced, cultivated, and turned into property before it counted as rightly used.
He also challenges a common assumption: early Americans did not usually justify westward conquest by directly appealing to the book of Joshua. The deeper story, he argues, was a Christianized vision of dominion, civilization, and national innocence. This conversation helps listeners understand how biblical language shaped American expansion, and why that history still matters for churches, politics, and America’s 250th.
Guest bio
Dr. L. Daniel Hawk is Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary. He is the author of Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice. His work helps explain how biblical interpretation, settler colonialism, and American national identity shaped Christian justifications for conquest, land seizure, and Indigenous erasure.
Book Mentioned
Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice by L. Daniel Hawk
Bookshop.org
Relevant Links & Resources
L. Daniel Hawk Faculty Profile
Support Sarah Stankorb’s work and preorder Damned If She DoesWhy Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026. Bookshop.org
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