Before addressing today’s topic, I’d like to wish all my Canadian friends a happy Thanksgiving! During the five years my family lived in Nova Scotia (1994-1999), we would celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday twice — both in October (Canadian Thanksgiving) and November (American Thanksgiving). Two of our five children were born in Canada and have dual citizenship. So “Canadian Thanksgiving” will always have special significance for us.
Today is also significant because it’s a U.S. holiday that commemorates the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492. (He was also born on this exact date in 1452.) As noted on the History.com website, the holiday “was unofficially celebrated in a number of cities and states as early as the 18th century, but did not become a federal holiday until 1937.”
When I was growing up, the name Christopher Columbus had a positive connotation. His adventurous and courageous spirit would characterize America as an emerging nation in the centuries that followed him.
But in recent decades, the celebration of Columbus Day has been diminished by critics who describe the explorer as “a deeply flawed man who, as the short-lived governor of the island of Hispaniola (now Dominican Republic and Haiti), ordered the enslavement and murder of countless native Taino people there.” In addition to these vices, say the critics, “Columbus’ legacy also includes forcing the islands’ indigenous people to convert to Christianity and and introducing smallpox and other new diseases for which they had no immunity.”
For these reasons, 14 states and over 130 cities now observe Indigenous Peoples Day instead of or in addition to Columbus Day.
So how should Christians regard Columbus Day? Should we celebrate it? Disregard it? Denounce it? Should we observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead?
Here is where Scripture can inform our understanding. Let’s begin with the aforementioned statement that Christopher Columbus was a “deeply flawed man.” Without having ever known Christopher Columbus personally, we can affirm that this statement is true, for that is how the Bible describes every human being!
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
“There is no one who does not sin” (2 Chron. 6:36).
“No one is good, except God alone” (Mark 10:18).
The problem isn’t that we’re merely imperfect, but that we are “deeply flawed” to the core of our being.
“For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evils come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:21-23).
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).
There is only one person in the history of planet Earth who was not “deeply flawed,” and that was Jesus, “who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).
The Good News is that God “made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). When Jesus died on the cross, the sins of all who would ever believe in him were imputed (“credited”) to him, and his perfect righteousness was imputed to us.
“For all have sinned an fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-24).
This is the Good News of Jesus Christ! His salvation is available to all who trust in him!
Here is another point to consider: All people “are made in the likeness of God” (James 3:9). Sin distorts the image of God in us, but sin doesn’t eradicate the image of God in us. This means that there are still admirable qualities we can observe in others.
For instance, the author of Hebrews commends several men and women for their faith. But they had some not-so-admirable qualities as well:
Noah got drunk.
Rahab lied.
Jacob deceived his father.
Samson had a vicious temper.
Many more examples could be listed. But all these people are part of history: His Story. We can admire certain traits about them without endorsing everything they did. For instance, we still observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, even though he had multiple affairs. What we’re commemorating is MLK’s lasting contribution to the civil rights movement, not his marital fidelity.
If we shouldn’t celebrate Christopher Columbus Day, then we shouldn’t observe Indigenous Peoples Day either, because they were “deeply flawed” as well. In his book, The War on History, Jarret Stepman notes, “Pre-Columbian civilizations from Mexico to Peru were nearly all responsible for brutal violence on a large scale long before Columbus arrived on the shores of the New World - including human sacrifices, even of children, sometimes by tearing out the victim’s still-beating heart.”
But it would be also wrong to say that Native peoples have made no positive contributions to our country’s history. Many of them helped the Pilgrims and other early settlers greatly by teaching them to plant corn and where to fish and hunt. Plus they made useful and beautiful goods that strengthened the trade industry.
So, yes, celebrate Columbus Day! Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day, too, if you’d like. Just remember that “the best of men are men at best,” and Jesus is the only real Hero in history. The rest of us are all sinners. Before we tear down any statues or wipe the calendar clean of historical holidays, let’s take a good look in the mirror. Thank God for his grace and for using deeply flawed people like us to have a positive impact on human history.
To read more on this topic, check out the Focus on the Family opinion piece published in The Daily Citizen. The article shares “five reasons why we should still celebrate Columbus Day.”