“At this time I have seen and put in study to look into all the Scriptures ...which our Lord opened to my understanding – I could sense His hand upon me – so that it became clear to me that it was feasible to navigate from here to the Indies, and He gave me the will to execute the idea ...I have already said that for the execution of the enterprise of the Indies, neither reason nor mathematics, nor world maps were profitable to me: rather the prophecy of Isaiah was completely fulfilled. And this is what I wish to report here for the consideration of your Highnesses (Book of Prophecies, Folos 4, 4 rvs., 5 rvs).”[1]
These are the words of Christopher Columbus in a letter he wrote to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, as recorded in Columbus’s Book of Prophecies. Columbus was a man of deep faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and we would do well to understand his real motives for his journeys so we honor his memory in terms of spirituality rather than simply an excuse to sleep in or go shopping. As I share this with you, I would be remiss if I did not publically thank Claire Jankowski, who managed to find far better information about Columbus than I did, and who was kind enough to share that information with me. Thank you, Claire!
When I was a child, I was taught, like so many of you, that in fourteen hundred and ninety two Columbus sailed the ocean blue when he ran into some islands and mistakenly thought he’d arrived. I was taught that this was the discovery of America and that Columbus had sailed in search of a shorter route to India to get spices for Europe so he could be rich and so he could help make the king and queen richer. I was taught that most people made fun of him because they all thought the world was flat and he insisted it was round. I never really questioned a lot of that till recently when I started looking into Columbus and his faith as well as hearing on the news about how one school district was not going to have the day off but instead would have a Muslim holiday off. There is greater irony in that last bit than is apparent at first.
“The Islamic conquest of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom in the 8th century (begun 711) extended over almost the entire [Iberian] peninsula. After 500 years, in the 13th century, the last remaining Moorish government was the Nasrid dynasty in the Kingdom of Granada in southern Iberia. With its defeat in 1492, the entire Iberian Peninsula was brought back under Christian rule, thus completing the Reconquista.”[2] Columbus had been living under exactly the kind of conditions described in the beginning of today’s passage from Matthew’s Gospel, which says, ““Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”” Columbus lived in a time and place where religious wars had gone on for centuries and where many had given up the Christian faith to become Muslim. The Muslims had taken over previously Christian lands and put rules in place to try to eradicate Christianity. Columbus set sail as a result of these ongoing wars, seeking a new trade route that did not lead through Muslim controlled lands, certainly, but more important to Columbus was the opportunity to spread the true faith to the New World. Whatever your personal beliefs about religious diversity in the schools, it is ironic that a school district would replace a day celebrating one whose faith had been oppressed with one celebrating the faith that had oppressed Christians in the time and place where Columbus lived. That district, by the way, changed its position and is closed on Monday; it will have a different day of classes later instead, but the irony remains.
Other sections of this morning’s passage are directly related to Columbus’s voyages, as well. He witnessed the signs mentioned in today’s Scripture passage: the wars and rumors of wars, the deception of false prophets and the lengthy oppression of Christianity persecution and oppression, death to believers, hatred of nations, increase in wickedness, and those who stand firm being saved. Christopher had studied Scripture and the writings of such religious leaders as St. Augustine.[3] He truly believed that the lifespan of the earth was a total of 7,000 years and that there were only about 150 years of that time left, giving him a great urgency to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth, prior to its end. He felt compelled to evangelize unreached people groups. Granted, his approach might be a bit harsh, one website referring to it as ”spiritual militancy,”[4] but his motives were honorable.
In order to undertake such a voyage, Columbus needed backers – people who would offer the funds to cover the costs of such a trip. The logical place to seek such funds might seem to be the church, but the church leaders had a problem with Columbus. It was not over the shape, of the earth, as we were taught, though. From a website called “Bede’s Library” we learn, “Columbus was wrong and his critics were right - not because the world is actually flat after all, but because at the time everyone knew it was a globe and were arguing about how big it was. The idea that the uncouth people of the Middle Ages thought the Earth was flat is an example of the myth that has been propagated since the nineteenth century to give us a quite unfair view of this vibrant and exciting period.”[5] The religious leaders did not disagree about the shape of the earth, but were incensed that Columbus “maintained the existence of inhabited lands on the other side of the earth. His presumption implied to them the presence of nations not descended from Adam, because it was impossible for those inhabitants to have crossed the ocean.”[6] Rather than lauding Christopher’s devotion to evangelism, they accused him of trying to discredit the Bible and its teachings on creation.
Columbus’s faith never waivered, however. That, too, is Scriptural. “12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Wickedness did abound at this time and the love of many for Christ had grown cold, so many having converted or simply given up the fight for Christianity, but Columbus stood firm in his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, when he arrived on land, he “knelt on the sand and kissed it. Tears of joy were streaming from Columbus’s eyes as he rendered thanks to Almighty God and christened the island San Salvador (“Holy Savior”).”[7] Even the failure of the religious leaders to back him did not make him jaded. It did, however, leave Columbus in need of funds from somewhere else.
So Columbus sought the help of the King and Queen, but that was not easy, either. Ferdinand and Isabella first referred him to committee, which refused since there was a big war going with the Turks, the Muslims who had conquered almost all of Africa and most of Europe. The normal trade routes opened by Marco Polo were not safe, so Columbus used the promise of spices and the associated riches to convince the king and queen of the necessity of his voyage. Spices did play a big role in Columbus’s first voyage, but more in the willingness of Spain to back the trip, rather than as Christopher’s primary motive.
Having procured the needed funds, Columbus made his plans to sail around the globe to India to spread the Gospel and return with riches for his backers. There was a problem with his plans, however, as Columbus believed the world to be much smaller than it is. This belief made for great discoveries, but, combined with some really bad weather delays, resulted in near mutiny and near death as the voyage took much longer than anticipated and rations ran low.[8] It got so bad that eventually Columbus had to beg to keep going for just three more days. He was granted that time and in those three days, Columbus’s prayers were answered and signs of land nearby came to the ships. It was not long before the sailors had their feet on dry ground. The year was 1492, but the journey was not as simple as sailing the ocean blue and Christopher was not the geographic visionary I was taught about as a child.
Still, Columbus was a visionary. He was a spiritual and religious visionary. He saw himself as “the messenger of the new heaven and new earth of which he spoke in the Apocalypse of St. John after having spoken of it through the mouth of Isaiah; and He showed me the spot where to find it.” These are words he penned about his discoveries in what came to be the New World, and that discovery was only the beginning. Columbus made three more trips before his health prevented him from further voyages. In that time he planted the first Christian church in the New World, and he also grew to admire and care for the people he met. Christopher had a keen sense of justice that was unusual for his day and time, and he wrote to the king and queen seeking equal rights for the people of the New World. These are his words, “Procure for the Indians, that are coming under our rule, the same rules and protections as those we have been speaking of [here in Spain]. These rules are to apply to those in power and those not in power equally. I want them to have the same protection I have as if they were my own flesh.”[9] Later he wrote, “I worry immensely about the future…. But we will discover new lands and we will negotiate in some of them according to the law of Castile and if this is not ruled by a strong hand then …. I am afraid we will be misunderstood. I tell you to do it this way because gold is not everything.”[10]
Christopher Columbus was not the man I learned about in elementary school – he was much, much more. He was a devout man whose zealous faith in Christ’s divinity influenced everything he did. He was a Biblical scholar and student of the early church fathers and tireless evangelist. He was a champion of social justice and equal rights before such concepts even had names. Christopher Columbus was a man of deep faith. He lived as if the words of our passage from Matthew’s Gospel today were immediately meant for him. He had a sense of urgency about sharing the faith. He knew the reality of false prophets who tried to convince people that Christ was not divine and the threat of persecution, yet he stood firm.
Christopher Columbus’s time was, in some ways, not unlike our own. We have had earthquakes and wars and rumors of wars. We have seen nation take up sword against nation. We have witnessed deception and false prophets and famines. We have seen the increase of wickedness and love growing cold. There are those who even today preach that the end of the world is near. Are we standing as firm as Christopher Columbus? Are we willing to risk everything for the spread of the Gospel? Do we have any sense of urgency about spreading the Word of the Lord to the ends of the earth? Are we willing to focus less on fame and fortune and more on social justice and equality? If so, how is that reflected in our lives?
I wouldn’t for a moment advocate spiritual militancy. Despite some similarities, the world we live in is not the same as at the time of Columbus, so our approach must be different. But our zealousness of faith in Christ’s divinity must be a strong as Columbus’s. Our desire to spread the good news must be as urgent. Our efforts on behalf of the poor and oppressed, our work for equal rights must be as bold and visionary as were his. Columbus was not a saint, but he was a devout man who lived out his faith in everything he did. And so should we.
There are still lands to be conquered for Christ, but conquered with the power of love rather than the power of dominion. There are still people who have not heard the good news of salvation. There are still false prophets who oppress and who seek to exploit others rather than treating them as equals. And these lands and people are not all on the other side of the world. Many of them are right here, not all that far with modern travel from where Columbus first kissed the ground and thanked the Lord for safe passage. As we remember Christopher Columbus, let us rejoice in the reality that his faith and sailing voyages were inextricably linked, and let us live our own lives integrating our faith and practices as well as he did.
- http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Christopher_Columbus/Christopher_Columbus_002.htm 10/8/11.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista, 10/9/11.
- http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/christopher-columbus-latter-day-saint-perspective/chapter-7-later-years-book-prophecies-and..., 10/8/11
- http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Christopher_Columbus/Christopher_Columbus_002.htm 10/8/11.
- http://www.bede.org.uk/flatearth.htm, 10/8/11.
- Ibid.
- http://chapmanresearch.org/PDF/Christopher%20Columbus%20a%20Spiritual%20Giant.pdf , 10/8/11.
- http://chapmanresearch.org/PDF/Christopher%20Columbus%20a%20Spiritual%20Giant.pdf , 10/8/11.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.