America Was A Colonial Accident Thanks To My Wealthy Indian Ancestors

Welcome to Masala Chai Theology with Father Joash P. Thomas: a space to spice up our spiritual journeys with ancient, Empire-resisting, and precolonial Christian ways of understanding God and neighbour - in ways that risk upsetting our Empire-shaped religious palate. This space builds on Fr. Joash’s bestselling book, The Justice of Jesus, which you can buy here for 30% off plus free shipping (US only) or wherever you get your books / audiobooks globally. Paid Subscribers are Fr. Joash’s inner circle of chai conversation partners who generously support his ministry as a priest and public theologian. If you’d like a Paid Subscription to Masala Chai Theology but are unable to afford one in this season, just reach out and we’re happy to arrange one for you.

I just got back from Satellites festival - UK’s largest Christian youth festival with 5000 teenagers + youth leaders where I was invited to be their justice speaker, following in the footsteps of heroes like Shane Claiborne and Fr. Greg Boyle - their justice speakers over the past two years.

I’ll share my full main stage talk with you on The Justice of Jesus at some point but for now, I want to share with you what was undoubtedly a top ministry highlight for me from this (well, apart from reliving my teenage boy band days by belting out Delirious’ Rain Down right before I preached):

Cooking a Kerala-style Chicken Curry for 200+ UK teenagers + youth leaders while sharing about the heavy history of spices and colonization - in hospitable, invitational, non-shame inducing ways! Because the reality is that if you’re going to enjoy our delicious food, you need to understand the tragic history behind many of these spices that my ancestors cultivated, traded, and were colonized for.

To my encouragement, both the talk and the curry were a smashing hit for everyone! A 13 year old teenage boy said to me, “That was the coolest history lesson I’ve ever heard!”

This next generation of the Church gives me so much hope. I say this as a Priest myself - may we be worthy of this next generation with our pursuit of Jesus and his just & liberating Gospel. Because if we don’t prioritize justice as central to the work of the Church; there’s no way we’ll keep these young folks in the Church. And neither would we deserve to.

As is custom, I’ll share an excerpt from this talk and leave the full-ish transcript for Paid Subscribers - my inner circle of chai conversation and ministry partners. Here’s an excerpt from that talk:

I was born and raised in India – this beautiful, rich country that was 25% of the world’s GDP in the year 1700.

Many of us don’t know this but historically speaking, the country we call America today was an accident. Christopher Columbus was looking for a trade route to my ancestors in India. So you’re welcome, America!

But why would Christopher Columbus be looking for India? Because we were the richest people in the world – going all the way back to the Roman Empire.

In fact, there are historical records of Senators in the Roman Empire complaining about the trade deficit with the Malabar Coast / Kerala in India, the land of my ancestors. Because my ancestors were spice farmers and spice traders – introducing Black Pepper and Cinnamon to the world.

And people in Rome were crazy about Black Pepper back then. Black Pepper was like the iPhone of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire would send ships full of gold to India and my ancestors would take all their gold and send back…Pepper. True story!

In fact, in 2011, the Supreme Court in India ordered this one Hindu temple in Kerala to open up its secret vaults. And in that vault, they found hundreds of Roman gold coins - just in this one temple!

But that’s not really a big deal because historians have found thousands of Roman gold coins across this one Indian state. And all of them have holes in them. Why? Because it was common for these Roman Emperors to try to cheat my ancestors by mixing copper into their gold. So my ancestors would burn a hole in there for quality assurance. Because we didn’t care about the currency; we cared about the gold. Can’t trust those cheap Romans!

I mean we were so rich with Roman gold that we even made these necklaces of Roman gold coins that archaeologists have found all across Kerala!

Can you imagine? That’s like going to China today and finding little children running around with necklaces made of $100 bills. This is like Wakanda level stuff!

But that was just gold from one country. Because going back to that temple, they found gold from Napoleon-era France, the Dutch East Indies company, the British Empire, etc.

And they also found this – a 500 kilogram gold statue. Just for fun. Because that’s how rich this one state in modern day India was!

But from 1700, the British Empire proceeded to loot my country. Now most people don’t know this but the English word ‘loot’ comes from the exact same Hindi word ‘loot’, which literally means stolen wealth. So even the word “loot” was stolen from us!

Over the next two hundred and fifty years, The British Empire systemically extracted wealth and resources from India – including human resources by way of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Entire British political families (including the family of the British Prime Minister who would abolish slavery in partnership with William Wilberforce, William Pitt - famously played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Amazing Grace) built their estates off of stolen wealth from places like India, Africa, Asia, Turtle Island / North America, South America.

The British Empire would pat itself on the back by saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” And when the Brits left India in 1947, when my grandparents were in their twenties, India was reduced from 25% of the world’s GDP to just 1% of the world’s GDP. In just 250 years!

But here’s what really discourages me as an ordained Priest in the western church today: Colonialism wasn’t just a political project; it was also a theological project. Because the Western Church participated in the colonial project. And it wasn’t just the Church of England. The Dutch Reformed Church backed the Dutch Empire which had colonies in India, Asia, Africa, North America and South America. The Roman Catholic Church backed the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French Empires.

I say this throughout my book but colonization wasn’t just bad for the Global South Church; it was also bad for the Western Church that participated in these injustices. Because it shaped us to resist justice movements in our day too.

Now many of us have been conditioned by Empire to hear critiques of western imperialism and its religion and say, “But Father Joash, what about the missionaries? Didn’t we need people to take Jesus there? Weren’t there also some good things that came out of colonialism?” I hear this pushback from Indian uncles and aunties in the evangelical church with Empire-shaped imaginations too.

Here’s how I would respond to that:

Did some good things come about from colonization?