Divine Providence and Meaning, Part 1
The Cautionary Tale of Christian Colonialism
About the author: Dr. Ashish Varma is an Indian American theologian based in Chicago, Illinois. His dissertation work explored theological grounding for virtue ethics. In recent years, his research has sat at the intersection of theological engagement with race and ecology, writing and speaking on both. Additionally, he edited and contributed to A Praying People, a collection of essays on prayer (Wipf & Stock, 2023).
Twisting, turning, silently leading, sometimes felt, yet uncontainable. Providence.
This description sounds much like that of a river, and like a river, its flow is difficult to discern beyond generalities. We see the banks and the overall flow, but once within the river, its currents often present a more complex movement. Divine providence is much the same, though Christians tend to forget how little we understand it.
Karl Barth defines divine providence as “the superior dealings of the Creator with His creation, the wisdom, omnipotence and goodness with which He maintains and governs in time this distinct reality according to the counsel of His own will.” For Barth, providence entails God’s unrelenting active posture toward creation. God, as Barth writes, “is never dead [to creation], but always living[,] . . . always awake[,] . . . always concerned.” Providence speaks to God’s active posture of “faithfulness” toward creation.1 It reflects divine care rooted in divine love.
Barth quickly distinguishes his confession of providence from interpretations of it. The creaturely corollary to God’s faithful providence is the confession of faith. Creaturely faith is open to “interpretations, opinions, postulates and hypotheses” concerning God’s providential acts, but any such interpretation is entirely distinct from God’s active, wise, faithful being toward and for creation.2
Arguably, though, our popular rehearsals of providence lose sight of this warning and begin too easily to conflate providence with our interpretations of it. Moreover, our interpretations often fit our social and political aspirations, going against the grain of a biblical construal of providence. This essay examines the concept of divine providence, arguing that common interpretations often reflect colonial and imperialist psychologies rather than the biblical witness.
As social interpretations of providence go, no other has declared itself as boldly as the capital city of Providence, Rhode Island. It is one of the oldest cities of the colonial Americas and bears its name as a sign of relief and hope all at once. Its founder, Roger Williams, was sure that God had led him to the place he would name “Providence” and establish as the center of a new colony for the British crown. After all, the story of Providence tells us that Williams was on the run from religious persecution—Puritan Massachusetts was not so keen on Baptists. So, God delivered Williams and gave him a new home. Providence.
Yet, as we dip our feet in the river, the complex currents become evident, even if slowly. For instance, Williams engaged in the racial slavery of the period. One might argue that everyone (seemingly) did in his day, so he was simply a product of his time. However, it is worth noting that Williams did, in fact, seem to know better. He founded his new colony on the premise of both religious tolerance and the dignity of natives. He rejected the practice of slavery, even calling it a “sin.” It was not until later in his life that he would embrace the logic of racial slavery as a form of punishment and even became a “slave catcher.”3 In other words, he knew what he was doing when he violated his earlier conscience. Providence?
Further complicating our story of providence is that Williams fled from a Christian colony to found another colony. Three points are especially relevant for our purposes. First, Massachusetts Bay Colony was a Puritan Christian colony, meaning it established the same religion as Williams, albeit a different denomination. Massachusetts’s founders were also caught up in the grand storytelling of providence, for they viewed their task as establishing a “city on a hill” for the rest of the world.4 Interestingly, even as the religious path of the U.S. has become more complicated over time, U.S. politicians and Christian leaders alike continue to evoke the rhetoric and posture of a “city on a hill.”
While intra-religious dispute is not necessarily outside the scope of providence, it does raise questions against easy interpretations of providence. Do any of the competing Western Christian regimes truly have the inside track over another in claiming divine favor—never mind over non-Western Christian articulations? If yes, the explanation must move beyond a “might is right” answer that assumes divine movement because of Western political, military, or economic strength. Western prestige in the global theater cannot be why one assumes divine providence in directing any one or group of ecclesial or political visions. Neither can one’s preference for a theology forged in the image of Western philosophies be the standard for “true theology” (see my third point below).
Second, Williams himself goes about the task of creating a colony. The very idea of “colony” is embedded in narratives of conquest. The fact remains that his “providence” was simultaneously an act of displacement of peoples and reordering of creation to make the “new” lands of the Americas fit the imagination and ways of life of those from Europe. That is, Williams’s perception of divine providence wrapped God’s acts into the same larger narrative of control, displacement, and terraforming that directed the Puritans of Massachusetts and European actions worldwide. While it is true that Williams initially treated First Nation’s peoples well and resisted the practices of slavery that were entrenched in the colonial imagination, his greater humanity obscures that Williams remained animated by a colonial imagination. He sought his own “freedom” within a colonial community, and when he fled to find a better colony, he still sought “freedom” through colonial practice. His “Providence” was a colony formed outside an existing colony but remained inside an established set of disruptive global practices. His “free colony” imposed a way of being upon creation from the outside.
The point here is not that human creatures are unable to make changes. The reality of change was always the case in First Nations’ life with the land, too.5 The point is that Williams’s form of change was simultaneously severance from and termination of the past. The kind of disruption at play presumed the logic of over-powering and displacing. At stake was a Christian theology of providence. The agency of God became concurrent with the work and purposes of the peoples and nations, consciously constructing a global reality of Christendom as though their reorganization of the world was a divine mandate. The work of Williams and the other American colonies belonged to global projects that were carving up the world as a Christian mission and in their idiosyncratic theological vision of maturity (“nature and grace”). In this project, theological providence becomes the joining of God’s work and goal within creation to the national purposes of the so-called “Christian civilization.”
Third, the discernment of providence in the colonies belongs to a theological judgment of providential violence that seems to contradict the life and testimony of Jesus. In his own time, Jesus seemed to face expectations of conquest, where his work as the new Moses (Acts 3:17–23) was mistaken for a political force that would overthrow Roman rule and re-establish the ancient kingdom of Israel. Pilate’s interrogation of Jesus seems to be predicated upon this presumption, where the Roman governor’s job was to discern whether Jesus was calling himself “king of the Jews” (cf. Mark 15:1–19). As the representative of Roman imperial rule in the region, Pilate would be required to suppress colonial attempts to overthrow Roman rule; his cross-examination of Jesus was his attempt to discern whether or not Jesus had set himself up in this political way against Roman imperial rule. Jesus’s people, meanwhile, wanted precisely that kind of Messiah who would overthrow Rome. For our purposes, the key here is that Jesus rejected those political impulses.
His ministry, the embodiment of divine providence, consistently sat against the efforts to establish a ruling kingdom that would rival imperial powers. At the onset of Jesus’s ministry, he refused the temptation in the wilderness to submit to the ways of the prince of the enclosures of the world and to take up imperial power for himself (Mt. 4:8–10; Lk. 4:5–8). Later, the Pharisees attempted to trap Jesus by asking him whether or not they should pay taxes. Again, Jesus demonstrates the otherness of his—that is, providence’s—purposes: give to Caesar the things that bear his image and, implicitly, give to God the things that bear his image (Mt. 22:15–21; Mk. 12:13–17). Indeed, in the final act before Pilate’s interrogation of Jesus, soldiers arrive to arrest Jesus. One of his disciples embraces the role of soldier, ready to fight for his king. Jesus rejects this path, chastises the disciple, and clarifies to the soldiers that he’s not leading an insurrection (Mt. 26:47–56; Lk. 22:47–53).
In other words, the work that Jesus had been undertaking, the work that aligned with the “will of God the Father” (Mt. 26:36–39; Mk. 14:32–36; Lk. 22:39–42)—providence—rejects the path of imperialism and colonialism. Whatever abundance and peace arise at the center of the empire—whether Pax Romana or Pax Americana—is qualitatively distinct from the blessings that pour forth from divine providence.
Barth wisely cautioned his readers not to assume an understanding of divine providence's specific movements. Interpreting it is a precarious endeavor. The tale of Providence, Rhode Island, serves as a micro-history of the larger theological pitfalls within the logic of “manifest destiny.” But can we say anything about divine providence beyond Barth’s general confession? Or should we say nothing else at all?
In part 2 of my analysis of divine providence, I will examine the closing monologues of the Book of Job to discern the relationship between faith and providence. Then, in part 3, I will appeal to J. R. R. Tolkien’s Ainulindalë to help make sense of Job's conclusion and sketch a constructive path forward by relating providence and hope.
For now, though, what are some cautionary takeaways?
First, manifest destiny: empires have risen and fallen throughout human history. Leaders of these empires have usually aligned themselves with deities in some way to justify their rule and solidify the masses' allegiance. The actions of the rulers, then, take on divine significance, ostensibly bringing peace to the world. The citizens of these rulers have invariably received special status vis-à-vis the rest of the world. While the goal of peace is admirable and even desirable, our cautionary tale calls for greater scrutiny of these claims of manifest destiny. Sometimes, it is easier to see the skewed claims of peace and blessing under Caesar’s claim to divinity, but we should also scrutinize our rulers’ use of the Bible and prayer to support political agendas with global ramifications. If Jesus rejected the logic of empire, then we, too, should reject the presumption that any nation today is the hand of God in shaping creation.
Second, personally, it becomes too easy to make grand statements of God’s blessings upon ourselves, our families, and our possessions. However, if divine providence does not necessarily equate with divine affirmation of our social structures, our benefit from these structures does not necessarily equate to divine, providential blessing, especially when we consider those who lose when we are “blessed.” God certainly blesses, but as we will see in parts 2 and 3, the peace and blessing of God in Jesus Christ often present themselves despite political and economic structures. When tempted to interpret God’s blessing in real-time, it would be wise to pause and consider the loss that others experience amid the same social factors.
Do these cautions mean God is not active in all these phases of our lives and societies? Of course not! As Barth reminds us, God is never disinterested. However, the prevailing social rubrics of “success” and “blessing” are not necessarily the standards by which God works. God remains lovingly active, but often, we do not recognize God’s activity until we can exercise hindsight. And even then, our interpretations remain provisional. However, providence does manifest over time, and this should be an encouraging thought that is productive of faith and hope.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3: The Doctrine of Creation, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley and R. J. Ehrlich (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), sec. §48.1.
Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3, §48.2.
For a brief overview of the complex history, see the following summary from Ohio State University historian Margaret Newell: “Our Hidden History: Roger Williams and Slavery’s Origins,” The Providence Journal, August 29, 2020, https://www.providencejournal.com/story/opinion/2020/08/29/our-hidden-history-roger-williams-and-slaveryrsquos-origins/42468467/.
For a history of the significance, enduring legacy, and ongoing use of “city on a hill” rhetoric in American social history, see Abram C. Van Engen, City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020). For an excerpt from the book, visit https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/02/18/city-on-a-hill-and-the-making-of-an-american-origin-story/.
See William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, 20th Anniversary edition (New York: Hill and Wang, 2003), 34–53.
Another excellent, thoughtful post. Thank you!