THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY

A STRATEGY OF EMPIRE AND BETRAYAL OF CHRIST YESHUA

Introduction: A Lie in the Name of God

The Doctrine of Discovery is one of the most insidious lies ever told in the name of God.

Conceived in the courts of empire and sanctioned by papal authority, this doctrine served as the spiritual justification for centuries of colonisation, genocide and ecological devastation. It was a political strategy cloaked in religious robes, masquerading as divine will.

This doctrine had nothing to do with the message of Yeshua the Christ. In fact, it stood, and still stands, as a complete betrayal of the Gospel. Where Christ came to liberate, the Doctrine enslaved. Where He came to uplift the meek and honor the Earth, the Doctrine trampled on the sacred and crowned the violent.

It is time to renounce this false gospel.

The Origin: Papal Bulls and Imperial Decrees

The Doctrine of Discovery emerged in the 15th century from a series of papal bulls issued by the Roman Catholic Church. Chief among them were:

• Dum Diversas (1452)

• Romanus Pontifex (1455)

• Inter Caetera (1493)

  
  

These decrees gave Christian monarchs the divine "right" to invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue all non-Christians as enemies of Christ to reduce them to perpetual servitude and claim their lands for empire.

This was not revelation. This was Roman conquest reborn in papal ink, merging the sword of Caesar with the seal of the Church.

The result was not the spread of Christ’s love but the spread of Christendom’s domination.

The Strategy of Empire: Legalised Theft and Spiritual Rape

Through these bulls, the Church gave legal sanction to empire’s most violent instincts: land theft, enslavement, cultural erasure and resource extraction. The lands of Africa, the Americas, Australia, the Pacific, and beyond were declared “discovered” as if they had not already been lived on, loved, and stewarded for thousands of years.

Indigenous peoples who walked in deep communion with the Earth, with the Creator and with their ancestors were deemed soulless, subhuman and disposable. Their spiritual wisdom, languages, governance systems and sacred relationship to land were systematically destroyed.

This was not evangelism. This was spiritual rape.

The Great Betrayal of Yeshua the Christ

Yeshua never preached conquest. He preached compassion, humility and radical love. He never took land. He gave Himself. He never crowned emperors. He washed the feet of the poor. He never enslaved. He set captives free.

His message was clear:

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

The Doctrine of Discovery inverted this divine order. It declared that the violent shall inherit the Earth and the meek shall be silenced, colonised or killed.

In truth, the Doctrine of Discovery was not Christian at all. It was anti-Christ in spirit; a false doctrine that replaced the Kingdom of God with the empire of man.

Legal Continuation: From Papal Bull to Settler Law

The spiritual lie became legal precedent. In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court invoked the Doctrine of Discovery in Johnson v. M’Intosh, declaring that Indigenous peoples only had a right of "occupancy" because the land had already been "discovered" by Europeans.

Australia followed suit through the lie of Terra Nullius; that the land belonged to no one, even though Indigenous people had lived in deep custodianship with Country for over 60,000 years.

Thus, the Doctrine of Discovery lives on in Western legal systems, in property titles, in mining contracts, in dispossession and ongoing oppression.

It remains a foundational lie upon which modern settler states are built. This was colonisation Stage 1. In Empire's view nothing is excempt from the greedy and all who benefited from the first stage of colonisation are now experiencing the process themselves as they are about to have everything stripped from them in the same ways the indigenous did in this epic process of recolonisation we are being steamrolled by known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Fruits of the Doctrine: Colonisation, Genocide and Ecocide

The fruits of this doctrine are bitter:

• Entire nations wiped out or displaced

• Sacred sites desecrated

• Languages and traditions lost to fire and sword

• Forests felled, rivers dammed, soils poisoned

• Children stolen, cultures criminalized, bodies buried under churches and jails

And perhaps worst of all: the name of Christ was attached to it all.

The True Gospel: Liberation, Love, and Land Returned

To align with the true Gospel, we must renounce the Doctrine of Discovery in all its forms. Not just the papal bulls, but the entire colonial mindset that elevates empire over communion, extraction over reciprocity and domination over sacred kinship.

Yeshua came to set the captives free not to enslave. To bring good news to the poor not to steal from them. To proclaim release to the oppressed not to codify their dispossession.

The real Christ walks with the colonised, not the coloniser.

A Call to Renunciation and Restoration

We must speak aloud what is true:

• The Doctrine of Discovery is a lie

• It is not from God

• It is a doctrine of devils masquerading in robes of religion

• It must be renounced, dismantled, and replaced with sacred restoration

We must return to the original instructions: To walk gently upon the Earth. To honor God, Creator in every living thing. To listen to the wisdom of the Indigenous. To restore what was broken. To return what was stolen. To reconcile not only with each other but with the Land herself.

Conclusion: A New Covenant with the Earth

The time has come for a New Earth Covenant, one rooted not in conquest but in communion, not in discovery but in remembrance.

Let the lie be named and broken.

Let the true Christ be revealed, not as a conqueror on a warhorse, but as the humble Shepherd walking barefoot on sacred ground.

Nearly 500 years after papal decrees were used to rationalise Europe's colonial conquests, the Vatican repudiated those decrees March 30, 2023 saying the "Doctrine of Discovery" that was used to justify snuffing out Indigenous people's culture and livelihoods is not part of the Catholic faith but the effects of this lie linger in the scars of the indigenous and dispossessed original people of Autralia. Let the Doctrine of Discovery be buried forever, and in its place, may we plant a tree of justice, healing and right relationship.

For the Earth is not to be discovered. She is to be remembered, loved and restored.

https://dismantlediscovery.org/resources/fact-sheet/