Pat Robertson & Reclaiming the Holy Covenant

The Christian Right is forever talking about "reclaiming" America (by that they mean the United States of America) for Christ. What the hell are they talking about? When did the US of A ever "belong" to Christ?

Well, Pat Robertson and others of his ilk think "America" is 400 years old and that it all began on April 29, 1607. Depending on which Christian Rightist you read, the story goes something like this:

"On April 29, 1607, chartered by the Virginia Company, three English ships landed on Cape Henry, Virginia, the first stop near what would become the first permanent English settlement in America. As Captain John Smith and Vicar Robert Hunt set foot for the first time on Virginia soil, they set the flag of England in the sand naming it Cape Henry. Further up the beach, they planted the Christian cross dedicating the New World in prayer."

Or, like this:

"On April 29, 1607, on the shores of Cape Henry, Virginia, English settlers erected a large, wooden cross, knelt in prayer, and dedicated America to Almighty God."


Last year about this time, Pat Robertson was among many Christian Rightists celebrating the 400th anniversary of America's birth as a "Christian" nation. This is what CBN said: "In remembrance of the 400th anniversary of this sacred moment, join Pat Robertson and the CBN staff in reaffirming this solemn covenant in accordance with Matthew 24:14."

You were also invited to join in with "My Covenant Promise," which went like this: "In remembrance of the 400th anniversary of this sacred moment in time, we reclaim the holy covenant of 1607 and we reaffirm that America is dedicated to our Lord Jesus Christ, for His glory and for His purpose, and to confirm our mission as described in the prayer of our forefather: ... the Gospel shall go forth to not only this New World, but the entire world."


CBN is once again "celebrating" the "sacred moment in time," and the "covenant promise." Once you've rewritten history, there's nothing like pressing the issue!


It's all a bunch of pious malarky. For one thing, in 1607 there was no such thing as "America," or the United States of America. There was only what the English settlers called the "new world," but they hadn't a clue as to what the new world really involved.

Furthermore, the settlers weren't much worried about claiming this unfathomable "new world" for Christ or anyone else! Vicars and priests could worry about that stuff. They were more interested in surviving - in finding food and shelter, and safety from the deep, dark secrets of the forest and and dark-skinned natives who lived in the forest.


Three ships left Blackwall, England (now part of London) in December of 1606 and headed off to set up a settlement in the Virginia Colony, later to become Jamestown. It was a long trip but they finally "reached the New World at the southern edge of the mouth of what is now known as Chesapeake Bay.

There were 104 men and boys, which included 39 ships' crew aboard when they left England. After 144 days at sea, 103 arrived safely in the New World. Upon their arrival on April 29, 1607, Captain Christopher Newport, named the site Cape Henry, in honor of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales and eldest son of King James.

When they landed, the chaplain Robert Hunt (Church of England), offered a brief Anglican worship service and they set up a cross at the site called the "first landing." Some of the men went off to explore the area and ended up in a minor skirmish with a few Native Americans.

Most every group of would-be colonists arriving from England in the New World was accompanied by a chaplain of the Church of England. One of the jobs of the chaplain was to offer prayers of thanks for a safe arrival both aboard ship and on land.

To pretend that these settlers had a burning desire to "dedicate" the New World to God or Christ or Buddha, or that they "claimed" the New World for Christ in some kind of solemn covenant, is stretching the truth beyond any semblance of reality.


And what do the descendants of the Native Americans think of this pietistic rhetoric? Ken Adams, chief of the Upper Mattaponi tribe, says this: "The word annihilation, the word Holocaust, the word atrocity comes to mind when I think of 1607"

That makes sense as "Of the estimated 14,000 to 15,000 Native Americans who lived in the area around the Jamestown settlement in 1607, nearly 90 percent were wiped out within a century, mainly from small-pox, typhus and other Old World diseases inadvertently brought by the colonists and to which the American Indians had never been exposed. Some also died in fighting with the settlers."

Native Americans do not wish to celebrate the Jamestown settlement. They do not celebrate Robertson's 400th anniversary. Bill Miles, chief of Virginia's Pamunkey Indian tribe, one of about 40 tribes that lived in the area in the 17th century, says, politely, that "We are certainly proud to be Americans but from our perspective we don't feel like the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement is something to celebrate or commemorate."

"When the English boats arrived on our shores, that was the beginning of the English taking our land away from us," said Miles. "We fed them and they decided they wanted our food so they took it away from us, and they wanted our land and they took that away from us."

Jamestown was also the site where the first African slaves arrived in 1619.


On the 401st year following the English arrival in the New World, perhaps rather than "celebrate" claiming the New World for Christ which led to a holy hell for the people who had resided in the land for 10,000 years, Christians should shred their clothing and put on sackcloth and ashes and mourn the terrible results of their "claiming" the land and preaching the gospel!