Honoring Our Sacred Gifts and Doctrine of Discovery

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe and Adam reflect on the history and ongoing impact of the Doctrine of Discovery and what it means for us today. Together they unpack how this centuries-old doctrine continues to shape our world, our relationships with Indigenous neighbors, and the way we think about land, stewardship, and justice.

The conversation also looks back on this year’s Honoring Our Sacred Gifts gathering, featuring insights from Robin Wall Kimmerer, reflections on climate justice and food sustainability, and the sacred work of truth-telling, repentance, and peacebuilding.

Listeners are invited into a thoughtful and sometimes uncomfortable conversation about faith, history, creation care, and how we can become better neighbors to one another and to the earth.

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time,  many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:02.236)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger today. And we're here to talk about our faith, something that can be hard to do in the best of times and in this current world can be really, really difficult and even sometimes maybe even a little dangerous to our self-esteem. So.

What we're going to be talking about today is the Doctrine of Discovery. If this is new to you, I don't know if you know about the Doctrine of Discovery, not to worry. It is a very old thing. It may be that it was signed on May 4th, 1493 by Pope Alexander VI, and he.

signed into being this papal bull is what it was called, a directive if you want to put it that way, that basically said that lands that were inhabited by Saracens or pagans were considered unoccupied and were able to be discovered, put that in quotes, for those of you who can't see it, they were able be discovered and claimed for the monarch, in this case,

the King of Spain was big, was claimed for the monarch as their property. And the intent was to convert the pagans by any means necessary or destroy them. Either way was kind of okay because the lands were to be discovered and used for basically land speculation is what we might call it, to be claimed for the crown. And so the doctrine of discovery,

may seem like it's very old and why in the world would we talk about it today in 2026? How does that impact our world? And it turns out it still impacts our world. Our legal system is largely based on it. When it comes to tribal law or treaties with our indigenous neighbors, the doctrine of discovery is utilized as a standard bearer for how our laws are enacted even today.

Bishop DeDe (02:19.652)
And so it's really important to know about the doctrine of discovery and to recognize that a lot of what we have thought for so many years is actually really untrue. This idea that Columbus arrived, we often think of the continental United States, but in fact it was Haiti and that there was no one there, that it was just trees and rocks and deer and a few, just a few indigenous people.

Well, there were actually hundreds of thousands of indigenous people all across the United States. The lands and all across were inhabited in some way by different tribes and nations, confederacies that had their own laws, their own legal systems, their own way of living. And the Europeans were coming into a situation of land that was already inhabited, already claimed in that regard.

But with the doctrine of discovery, it empowered them to just lay hold of it, to see it as not discovered in any way, and to claim it. And so of course, what began to transpire and went up until our country was founded and even beyond, the displacement of Indigenous people, the harm, the detriment, the schools, all of the devastating horror.

of what happened to indigenous people in the United States really becomes out of and can be traced back to this doctrine, this understanding that if you were not Christian and European, you were less than and therefore fair game. Europeans who came in often would trade blankets that they knew were infected with diseases. And of course the indigenous having no

history with these diseases, they were devastating. And it was a very intentional way of claiming land for the kingdom, claiming land for monarchs and for power bases. And we can look at the Doctrine of Discovery as a historical document, as an historical moment, or as something that was done before us. But it's really important to recognize that it continues to inform our thinking.

Bishop DeDe (04:44.196)
It continues to inform how we understand our Indigenous neighbors, our self-identity, and of course, our legal precedent. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is still steered in my heart, but she utilized the doctrine of discovery as a way of oppressing or making a decision against Indigenous peoples' right to their land with the Oneida. And so all of us are part of this moment.

Now, this past weekend in the Diocese of Central New York, we had an event and it was a very unique event. First of all, it was multi-denominational. We had the Roman Catholic Church was there and the Roman Catholic Bishop, the Lutheran Bishop was there and Lutherans. We had Presbyterians, Methodists, people without a faith, and of course, people in the Episcopal Church from the Dioceses of Rochester, Albany, and Central New York. It was a coming together.

of people of faith and to talk about how we care for our climate, to talk about and have good conversation about food injustice and how we might work to ensure the sustainability of all humans. And our keynote speaker was Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is indigenous, a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation. And we had a reflection by

Bishop Carol Gallagher of the Episcopal Church, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, and Frida Jacques, the clan mother of the Onondagas, also spoke for a group that went to the Skano Center. So this event was very diverse. It was also focused on three sort of separate things that all danced together. One, our ecumenical relationships. Two, our responsibility.

for God's creation and food sustainability and justice for our neighbors. And then also learning from indigenous wisdom, honoring the sacred voices around us and learning together how to be better neighbors, how to be better stewards of this creation. So it was a really robust event. had visiting folks there with a table set up. We had all kinds of conversations happening.

Bishop DeDe (07:08.602)
And it was really a wonderful offering and central to it, we began with a refutation of the doctrine of discovery. We began the whole day by repenting of this doctrine that has harmed and devastated and really kept us from the fullness of God's mercy, of living in harmony together. Now, over the last month or so, we've been talking about being peace builders and how do we do that?

How do we have conversations that invite peacefulness? How do we in our own hearts, in our own lives, develop peacefulness in our lives that then translates to how we are with the world? And so this event on Saturday was another aspect of that. And I would highlight for all of us that part of being a peace builder is learning truth, speaking truth to one another and love as scripture tells us.

Part of peace building is being willing to take a look at what we believe that might in fact be harming and not a peaceful doctrine for other people. That is hard work. It may mean that some of the sacred cows literally that we like to believe maybe weren't true and were harmful for other people. It is hard to learn that what we've always assumed or what we were taught

was not true because it's destabilizing, it makes us feel bad. Then we think, what do we do with that? How can I, I don't want to feel bad about what happened in 1493 or 1800 or 1920. We're in 2026. All of us have gotten to this point from somewhere. We've arrived in this moment in our lives, having our histories, having our truths and having all those fabrications or those things that are not true.

So all of us working together can only be peace builders when we're willing to live with integrity and honor and honor that truth and that truth between us. So I'm gonna invite Adam into this conversation. It's a very robust conversation. It certainly is not simple. It may raise issues for your listener where you're like, well, I don't like thinking of it that way or you're missing this point over here. Totally true, probably am.

Bishop DeDe (09:31.462)
But part of talking about our faith is a willing to listen and to learn and then to reason together how we might understand more fully God's blessings and God's, especially God's created and diversity. So Adam, as you think about the doctrine of discovery and this past weekend and this movement, what are some things that are percolating for you about this?

Adam Eichelberger (09:54.989)
have to say Bishop, I agree wholeheartedly with what you just said in that this is an uncomfortable conversation for me. I very much embodied this idea, this spirit that you're talking about, that there is one history that I have learned and known my whole life from my childhood all the way through my adulthood. And to hear that even though I didn't cause something, I am directly benefiting from it.

Bishop DeDe (10:03.602)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (10:22.9)
is that's a hard pill to swallow. And I think that the first thing that kind of stands out to me is I need to hear that this is difficult and be willing to sit with this a little bit. That this thing, the doctrine of discovery that I knew very little about before we started having these conversations has propped up so much of contemporary life here specifically in the United States. I think that maybe my first question as

Bishop DeDe (10:25.286)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (10:41.872)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (10:52.812)
And we'll get into unpacking some of the really amazing things that were covered over the weekend and over the weekend at honoring your sacred gifts. But when it comes to this doctrine of discovery that we have talked about in a previous episode, you did a great panel discussion with Bishop Lee Miller of the Upstate ELCA and Bishop Douglas Lucia from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, because this does impact us and we have a deep relationship with this as Christians, specifically

Bishop DeDe (10:56.754)
That's nice.

Adam Eichelberger (11:22.158)
for people of faith in our individual contexts. You talked about refuting it and repenting of the doctrine of discovery. What does this work start to look like in our individual lives? Because I think that it's really good that as a diocese, as Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, as fellow Christians throughout other denominations, we are doing the work as it were. We're starting to start tearing this down some.

What does this maybe look like in our individual context? Because I think that that's really important in our own lives. How do we start undoing this work that's been done that kind of predates us?

Bishop DeDe (12:03.108)
Mm-hmm. I think that's absolutely an essential question. And I can only share my journey to this. I I did not know about the doctrine of discovery not that long ago. There was a time when I learned about it, and at first I thought, that can't be true, or that's not how it was, or well, that's one perspective, but that's not really, you that's what one group is saying.

And I found at that time that one of the pushes for me or the wrestles within me was about, you know, well, people have always taken each other's lands in some ways and people, one group causing harm to another group and taking their land is part of the human condition. And so if you look globally at all kinds of places, you're going to see these, you know, the wrestle for power. You're going to see people trying to take land or harming one another, subjugating each other.

you know, back to Roman, Spartan, and you know, you can keep going. And so this is something that historically and contemporarily, as we sit here, happens. And it's about power and greed or power and sustainability for eight people at the expense of another group. And so that reality of our world, we know to be true. And so we just know that's true. I think the push comes where

Why does it matter to us in the contemporary time when we're talking about something that was signed in 1493? I mean, a lot really has happened since then. And if we want to be upset about something, why not pick something more contemporary? So we can, start to wrestle with these questions like, well, why this? And then we just, it feels bad. It feels bad to look back and think, oh my gosh, I really had pictured like Thanksgiving, for instance.

that the Nina de Pinto and the Santa Maria, I mean, kind of, sometimes we have this bad sort of, first of all, timeframe, what was early and what was later in terms of discovery and America's Vespucci. But then the other part of it is just this image that we may have of people landing on a shore to an uninhabited land, where maybe they pictured there were some people there, but it was like 20 to 50 people. It wasn't like hundreds of thousands of people.

Bishop DeDe (14:28.03)
and the 20 or 50 people were subsistence farmer type people, we don't think of them as having their own language and their own way of governance. And especially when you're talking about the Haudenosaunee with the Six Nations, their way of leadership and their Confederacy was actually a model for Washington and the early founders of the United States.

They have a three house system and it's the people of the long house and they have the way that they were managing their Confederacy really influenced the development of the United States of America. And a lot of people don't know that. That's a kind of sort of good news story until you hear about how that happened. it starts out with, well, at least they recognized

There was goodness here. Benjamin Franklin at the Skynos Center, there's a wonderful framed picture and quote from Benjamin Franklin talking about, know, these people have learned to govern themselves really beautifully with the system. Maybe this has, you know, could be helpful to us as we think about how to govern ourselves. Those are influential to how we think of ourselves. So to answer your question more directly,

I think we wrestle with the complexity of it and to see that not only have we benefited from it, but it continues to happen. I mean, if we could understand what happened with the indigenous in the United States, then we would get closer to understanding what happened with the Holocaust in Germany. And then we get closer to understanding what is happening in Palestine and with Israel right now with settlements and the conscription of land that's happening.

with our Arab Palestinian Christian siblings as well as other siblings, the taking of land and the harming of people. We often say, if you don't know your history, you're destined to repeat it. I think one of our problems is we know our history, we just think we're going to do better, or it wasn't really that bad, or this is just how things are. Hopefully by knowing our history, we can look at our present context and say, you know,

Bishop DeDe (16:55.64)
As human beings, we need to learn a better lesson. Maya Angelou was right, when we know better, we do better. We need to know better so that we can do better. So learning about this is about doing that sacred work. And because we're talking about faith, I really want to advocate for, I think this is gospel work. Because when you talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you talk about Jesus, an Aramaic Jew,

You're talking about an indigenous person. And when you talk about Paul being European and coming in, there is some appropriation that happens when you read the gospel narrative and you hear Jesus speaking about what the truth that Jesus is speaking about. And then you read Paul's take on it. There are some shifts and some turns. There are some ways in which Paul doesn't 100 % line up with what Jesus is saying.

And that may sound sacrilege to some of you, and I am a bishop in the Episcopal Church, so I look forward to getting your letters and your phone calls about that. But look at the scripture, you know, it's right there in the scripture. Paul being, you know, having this Grecon understanding of some things, and then with Jesus as, you know, his understanding, and as I believe the Son of God. This understanding of searching for truth is timeless.

And if we're going to have integrity about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we too are going to need to do our work to be willing to be wrong about some things. I don't know, I understand that right now people want to be right about everything. I understand that right now people want to be certain that they know because it feels better. But I wonder if we realize what a trap that is because no matter how much you know, you can't know it all.

Maybe yes, you know, there was a time when, you know, the last person, you know, all of the things about all the knowledge that's known. But right now with all that is known, no one person can be holder of all. And even some of the things when we think we're right, we're wrong. So humility, curiosity, when I talk about those needing to make a comeback, I really believe it is around this willingness to learn and to change our mind. And it's hard, hard work.

Bishop DeDe (19:19.364)
It's destabilizing and can make us feel kind of bad until we start to feel better.

Adam Eichelberger (19:26.751)
I 100 % agree. I, as somebody who didn't grow up in the area in which I live now in New York, I had this very kind of this viewpoint, like you kind of mentioned before, growing up in Arizona, not far from the U S Mexico border, my relationship with, with indigenous persons is I, and I'm going to, I'm going to use what may now be viewed as problematic language, nothing horrible, but I'm going to say, I'm going to use some common words that I grew up with, like talking about like,

Bishop DeDe (19:32.881)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (19:56.622)
Native Americans or Indians and how we lived into like, were like good neighbors and like we showed up and they let us have some space and we let them have some space and all of these things kind of worked out together. And when I really started to do the work of understanding what that word indigenous means, like people who are of this land and we just kind of showed up and took it and then said, well, here you can have a little bit of it back. And like that is

Bishop DeDe (20:20.646)
If

Adam Eichelberger (20:25.779)
so wildly problematic. It is uncomfortable for me in this time, especially with our neighbors in the Onondaga Nation, the Haudenosaunee, like realizing this very tender work that we have to do with these neighbors of ours. And this very complex intersection for us of as people who identify as Christians and

Bishop DeDe (20:44.508)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (20:55.747)
the root of this history between these two kinds of people groups, especially because they were viewed as the word that you used from the papal bull, that they were viewed as pagans, that this is as heathens. These are lands that were for the taking for the kingdom, both in a fiefdom sense, but also in a kind of religious sense as well, because these two, those two things intersected a lot. There's a lot of hard stuff that goes into that. And it does start leading us into the conversations that we were having.

Bishop DeDe (21:17.362)
and

Adam Eichelberger (21:25.857)
and honoring our sacred gifts around things like food injustice. does lead us into conversations about things like caring for our common home, caring for our climate, because all of these things that are becoming issues that are now at the forefront of the conversation in 2026 are things that kind of find their root in the doctrine of discovery. One of the things that really stood out to me that Dr. Kimmer mentioned in her keynote amongst

Bishop DeDe (21:48.634)
Absolutely.

Adam Eichelberger (21:54.844)
a plethora of things and I have a ton of notes that I was jotting down as she was talking. She made mention of the solutions that we constantly seem to try and find as people that are already happening in nature and we just kind of disregard. She gave this really great example of the race in our world to find sustainable energy solutions.

Bishop DeDe (21:58.93)
I'm going to.

Bishop DeDe (22:11.558)
That's right.

Adam Eichelberger (22:22.287)
And even there's like a monetary value to it. I can't remember exactly how she phrased it, but that like there's like a reward, like a bounty out for being able to create better means of sustainable energy. And then she brought up this slide about how plants have been doing that since forever. And I found it interesting that from her perspective as a member of the Potawatomi Nation, that like they intrinsically understand this. My question for you is,

Bishop DeDe (22:37.68)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (22:48.018)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (22:52.171)
What does this look like for us in our diocese, people who are Christians or perhaps even not Christians who live alongside indigenous persons, and how we start really diving into where we need to make shifts in how we care for our environment? Because I know a lot of times, especially in a political arena, environmental care becomes

this really hot button issue and there's and there are very much sides who say that this is a myth and this isn't yadda de yadda. I'm guessing like how do we start doing that work and respecting our earth in light of these things about like the doctrine of discovery and taking land from people who already kind of maybe knew better than us.

Bishop DeDe (23:38.434)
Well, those are, mean, there's, there's 10 questions in there and they're all good. And they all are, they're all the same. mean, they are related. It doesn't know nothing against you at all. I'm cause it's right. Those are all, that's how you, that's it. Um, you know, for me, I think about,

Adam Eichelberger (23:43.393)
I know, I asked a lot in that.

Bishop DeDe (23:59.122)
As a Christian, as someone who believes in the Bible, if I say God is the creator of all, that God created the world, then God created humans and Genesis says gave us authority over the earth as caregivers of the earth, as stewards of the earth. I don't have to agree with

with other people, know, I can have that opinion, but that is a responsibility, not just a right of privilege. That isn't a kind of doctrine of discovery that God created it, God put us in charge and we can do whatever we want with it and we can destroy it because we have carte blanche. No, our relationship with God calls us to be good stewards, to recognize the gift of the creation, which dovetails and is.

parallel to what Robin talks about so beautifully about the gift economy of nature, about reciprocity, generosity, and community. When we profess Jesus and profess to be part of the kingdom of God Jesus is bringing into being, then we are professing a belief that requires us, not just encourages us or invites us, requires us to respond to the created world

as part of God's good grace. And we can read Genesis and we can hear about God creating and saying, this is good. And we're called into that goodness, but we have traded that goodness for a false teaching, which is, hey, we can do whatever we want. We're at the top of the food pyramid. Anything goes. That does not honor what God has created. And so part of loving God is honoring God.

and God's creation. So that's number one. That is right in the wheelhouse, right? The center core of our orthodoxy is that we are required to be climate activists. We are required to be reduced, reuse, recycle, even though that came from oil companies trying to do a thing, but we are required to be about climate justice. Now I don't have any interest

Bishop DeDe (26:22.234)
listener and wrestling with anyone about, you think climate change is real? It isn't really a value to me in some ways to have that argument or that discussion or try to bring up better slides. What is important is whether or not we see it as changing, we're responsible for engaging with it better. So reducing our carbon footprint is a responsible thing to do. Not over buying is a responsible thing to do.

taking only what we need and leaving goods for others. That's a responsible way to live because it's communally based. We're called in the community. So I would say first and foremost, as people of faith, we start with our basis of faith. So we've gotten too far away from thinking this is some sort of political agenda. And if listener, you're right now thinking, this is one of those partisan things. No, I am talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness of it. Therefore, we will respond with responsibility and with stewardship.

Adam Eichelberger (27:29.217)
I, I, I a hundred percent agree. And not to take it too far back to other things we talked about on the podcast, I would venture, as I look at the final bidding of the final biddings of the baptismal covenant, we are asked, will you seek and serve Christ and all persons loving your neighbor as yourself? And will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being? I would venture that as we

Bishop DeDe (27:43.995)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (27:55.968)
make as we affirm those promises, those statements in the baptismal covenant. This is a part of that because we also, we also have to understand that the things that we do don't just affect us. I think it's really easy for me to say, well, if I'm doing X, Y, or Z, and it may be bad for the earth, it's just me doing it. And I'm, I'm just one drop in a bucket, but

Bishop DeDe (28:02.617)
Absolutely.

Bishop DeDe (28:09.82)
That's right.

Bishop DeDe (28:18.534)
That's

Adam Eichelberger (28:21.451)
It absolutely is not. it does, think, in my opinion, I'm not trying to opine too much here, friends, but I think that that goes against my baptismal, my promises I make in baptismal covenant.

Bishop DeDe (28:32.837)
Well, they are vows. mean, first and foremost, they are promises we make. you know, the dignity of all humans, if you don't have water or food or the ability to clothe and house yourself, you know, these are all dignity. These are all dignity values. And it is so essential to not allow ourselves to be conformed to this world by thinking, these are just talking points or those people don't matter. To recognize that we're

Adam Eichelberger (28:36.27)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (29:02.746)
Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Jesus commands us to pray for our enemies. Jesus commands us to sacrifice for our enemies. We kind of brush past that. We think Jesus wants us to be nice to people who are nice to us, but those people, not so much. But to recognize that whoever we're talking about are God's beloved children too. They got the creation of all and if we have somehow fooled ourselves into thinking God

only created the Christians or only created these people, then we are limiting God and not allowing ourselves to see that God is much bigger, God's mercy is bigger, and we are only humans. We're failed and fragile and we convince ourselves of all kinds of stuff and it's time to change our minds, which is what repentance means, to change our mind and start again seeking a better way forward.

Well, friends, it's been wonderful to have this, this time with you. This is a heavy conversation. We're probably going to unpack it a little bit over the next coming weeks. I just want to say in advance, and I should have said this at the top of the podcast. We're not going to get it all right. I, I assume that when I'm talking about European and indigenous relationships, that I'm not totally with it, that I'm learning and I'm growing. And when I find myself.

being confronted by my own lack of knowledge or assuming something or not being clear on it, then I think, okay, I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna learn this and apologize and then correct and then move on. This is humble work. It is also empowering because what a gift to learn about new things and new ways of having relationships with people who are a gift and an honor to our lives. So I wanna...

Close with recognizing if you haven't read Braiding Sweetgrass by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, or you have not read the Service Berry, or I believe The Way of Moss, but I would especially, the Service Berry was the focus of our event on Saturday about community, reciprocity, and generosity. Certainly building blocks of peaceful and peacemaker work. So.

Bishop DeDe (31:28.038)
This day may you be blessed to know that you are beloved by God. May you join with us and be part of good stewardship of all that God has created. And together may we learn how to be better siblings and partners with our indigenous neighbors, how we might create a new path forward in peace and hope for our world. So be blessed and be a blessing. I look forward to seeing you or talking with you soon.