Recently I have seen several Person of Color on Twitter insist that deconstruction has to involve decolonization in order to be “real”. Although I am of the opinion that no one has the right to tell anyone else how they “should” be doing something (most of raised in churches have already been “should-ed” to death), I do think it is important to be aware of what colonization is, where it comes from and how deeply embedded in white Evangelicalism the principles of colonization are.

It is very fair to say that what Mark Batterson did was in fact to colonize a certain area in Washington D.C. For all intents and purposes, he walked out a square and claimed it as his own. That is colonization. But colonization doesn’t just apply to a physical space, there is also such a thing as colonization of thought, and mass colonization almost always starts with or involves colonization of thought.

The reason for colonization is generally based on the idea of “might makes right.” If there’s 200 of us that agree on something and only five of you, we get to be right simply because we have superior numbers. Sometimes, it isn’t about the superior numbers but about superior firepower. If I have more guns than you, I get to be right. This is all part and parcel of colonization, but it all starts with a single belief: I am right and anyone who doesn’t agree with me is wrong. In today’s episode I explore colonization from its tiniest seed to it’s broadest and farthest reaching outcome - and how to identify the most basic elements of colonizing behaviors in us all.

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