Plenty good room in my Father’s kingdom
Photograph by Samuel Quek via Unsplash
Dr. Marvin A. McMickle
A recent article in The Atlantic focused on a survey conducted among conservative, white, male college students, ages 19 to 25, who identified as Republicans. These are not the conservatives currently in power like Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and J.D. Vance. This article is about the next generation of those that are trying to dismantle the democratic and inclusive society that this nation said was its goal, you know, that E Pluribus Unum that keeps being mentioned “Out of many – One!”
Listen to the dreams those young, white males have for this country. According to Charlie Sabgir, director of the Young Men Research Project, they want “a patriarchal version of Christianity with an unapologetic ethnonationalism.”That means they want a version of Christianity that twists and contorts the Bible to give the impression that only men can play a dominant leadership role. Then they twist history to suggest that the United States of America should only and forever be governed by white people, preferably by white males. Put those two things together and what you come up with is a society that reduces everybody else, including white women, to the status of second-class citizens. You can remain in the country, but you can never be in charge!
The idea of an unapologetic ethnonationalism is not new. A famous 1872 painting by John Gast called “American Progress” features a giant angelic female called Columbia floating westward from what is meant to be the civilized eastern part of the country to the unsettled west. Coming behind Columbia are white prospectors and hunters, wagon trains, farmers, a stagecoach, a railroad, and in her hand, Columbia is carrying a schoolbook and telegraph wire. Moving in the other direction, away from Columbia and pushing West are Native Americans and a herd of buffalo.
This was the primary image for what was called at that time America’s “Manifest Destiny” — the belief that the United States should extend from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Pacific Ocean and occupy everything in between. The plan was for some people to own and occupy the land even if it meant the forced removal of millions of indigenous people who had been living on that land for thousands of years.
That belief first went into full effect in this country in 1830 with the Indian Removal Act that forcibly removed five Native American tribal groups living in several Southern states to the west side of the Mississippi River. This forced removal of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes came to be known as The Trail of Tears and displaced 100,000 people. An estimated 15,000 of those uprooted Indigenous people died. This was done so slavery could be expanded to those states and slave owners could make more money selling cotton off the backs of unpaid and brutalized people who were viewed as three-fifths of a person in the United States Constitution. Years later, in 1876 at the so-called Custer’s Last Stand in Montana, the fight resulted from some people seeking to extract gold from the hills on land promised to Native groups in a treaty.
God never intended for the creation to be ruled by a white, conservative, male-dominated, ethnonationalist agenda. God has always intended that the blessings of life be enjoyed by everyone that God has created.
The assault on indigenous people over mineral rights in this country continues to this day. On July 14, 2026, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order reducing the size of two national monuments in Utah that are also home to various Native American tribal groups by nearly 90% from 3.2 million acres to 303,000 acres. These lands “hold deep cultural significance for Native American tribes and are home to archaeological sites, including petroglyphs and cliff dwellings.” Nevertheless, those ancestral lands were ripped away by the stroke of a pen to allow for oil drilling and uranium mining.
That has always been the issue with Manifest Destiny, westward expansion, and ethnonationalism; one group presumes the right to impose their will and their profit-making agenda on another group. U.S. Senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet said, “Trump’s actions are another broken promise to the tribes who have lived in this region since time immemorial.” Gwen Cantsee of the Mountain Ute tribe said:
The Bears Ears Region is our homeland. Our ancestors lived, hunted, gathered and prayed here long before boundaries were drawn. The Mountain Ute people were forcefully removed from these lands, but our connection to this sacred place cannot be erased.
It should not escape our attention that the very name of the state of Utah is taken from the name of the indigenous Mountain Utes who lived there before Manifest Destiny pushed them off their homeland.
In response to this history, we should hear from the scriptures about what God has to say about ethnonationalism and Manifest Destiny. Psalm 24:1 reads, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein” (KJV). Acts 17:26 echoes this sentiment: “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth...” (NIV).
There are no superior or inferior people in the eyes of God. There are no second-class people based upon race, ethnicity, gender, age, physical limitations, gender identity, religious affiliations, political opinions, educational achievement, or economic status. Each one of us may be different from others in one way or another, but difference does not determine worth or value. God made all nations. The earth belongs to the Lord along with all the people who dwell on the earth. No human being or political movement has the right or the authority to rank humanity based upon their twisted ideology or their unbiblical theology.
God never intended for the creation to be ruled by a white, conservative, male-dominated, ethnonationalist agenda. God has always intended that the blessings of life be enjoyed by everyone that God has created. That certainly must include those Indigenous people who were living here for thousands of years before any settlers from the East set foot upon their lands. As one of my ancestral songs says: “There’s plenty good room in my father’s kingdom.”
Marvin McMickle is pastor emeritus at Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, professor emeritus at Ashland Theological Seminary, OH, and retired president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, NY.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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