Religion, power, and Indigenous lands: A Quadcast interview with Tisa Wenger

In the new episode of the YDS “Quadcast,” Professor of American Religious History Tisa Wenger discusses the early U.S. government’s use of Christianity to justify Indigenous land theft, the limits of religious freedom in America, and the importance of Yale’s new certificate in Native American and Indigenous studies.

“There’s a whole host of ways I would say that American policymakers drew on specifically Christian ideas to legitimize the theft of Indigenous lands and the dispossession of Indigenous nations,” says Wenger, author of the new book Spirits of Empire: How Settler Colonialism Made American Religion.

First among those says, Wenger says, “is the doctrine of discovery, which is the idea that Christian and civilized nations or nations that consider themselves to be Christian and civilized, claimed the right to govern and seize the lands of places that they claim to have discovered.”

Wenger probes the nature of American religious freedom in the interview, noting that it is more limited in scope than popular rhetoric would suggest. “To whom did it actually apply?” she asks. “Religious freedom is always kind of limited in part based on what you consider to be legitimate religion.”

In addition, she hails the university’s new certificate in Native American Indigenous Studies. Wenger is one of six professors at the university who developed the program and successfully advocated for its creation. 

The YDS Quadcast was launched and continues to be hosted by Emily Judd ‘19 M.A.R., who is Senior Communications Specialist at the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity. She previously worked as a journalist in the Middle East.