Conquest Narrative Revisited:
Interrogating our Legacy of
Conquest & Annihilation: How ancient narratives of violence continue to shape our bodies, minds, and society
CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM, DOMINIONISM, RELIGIOUS TRAUMA, GENERATIONAL TRAUMA, INDIGENOUS WISDOM
The Old Testament reading a few Sundays ago was from Numbers 21. As I sat listening, I felt that familiar shock—the kind that comes when you step back from something you've heard a thousand times and really see it for the first time. Let me give you a paraphrase, because the details matter:
The Canaanite king in the Negev heard the Israelites were coming near them. He ordered an unprovoked attack and captured some of them. (Whether he thought offense was the best strategy for self-protection so he attacked out of fear, or whether he attacked maliciously, we don't know.)
The Israelites responded by telling God: if God would let them win, they would give the Canaanites and their cities over to God by totally destroying them. Like genocide was a wonderful gift they were offering to God that would convince God to let them win. According to the narrative in Numbers, God thought this was a good idea and let the Israelites win. Afterwards, they named the place Destruction.
Scene change. The Israelites kept wandering through the wilderness. They complained about Moses and God, so God sent poisonous snakes to attack them and many died. The people said they had sinned and repented. Moses asked God for mercy, and God said if you make a bronze snake, they can look at that and be healed.
When Violence Becomes Sacred Language
Here's what stopped me cold: According to Bible Gateway's notes, "the Hebrew term [that they translated destroy] refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them."
There's a word that means that? It's so ingrained in the language and life of the people that there is a specific term for genocidal religious devotion?
What in the actual heck? I grew up reading this, hearing this, week in, week out. I am more removed from it now, and see it differently when I do encounter it. I feel like I'm pretty much shocked by everything I hear from the Bible and Christian songs these days.
I so appreciate Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg's work on the Conquest narrative in what we know as the Old Testament. Her scholarship reveals that most likely, the Israelites were originally, well, Canaanites, and that these conquest stories were likely written much later as justification narratives rather than historical accounts. Please take the time to read her groundbreaking analysis if you haven't already.
A Trauma Therapist's Perspective
As a trauma therapist and anti-conquest advocate, I can see how easily we could replace the first part of this story with modern language: The leaders of Nation A attacked, killed, raped, and captured people from Nation B. The Nation A government responded by attempting to totally destroy Nation B and its cities.
Based on Rabbi Ruttenberg's research, we don't know if this Canaanite attack actually happened or if it was written in later as part of a conquest narrative. Either way, it's deeply disturbing—not just as a story, but as a template that continues to shape how we understand conflict, power, and divine approval.
The Body Keeps the Score—Across Generations
In My Grandmother's Hands, psychotherapist Resmaa Menakem provides a crucial framework for understanding how trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society gets stored in our bodies and passed down through generations. He argues that until we learn to heal and overcome the generational anguish of white supremacy, we will all continue to bear its consequences.
Menakem traces how the legacy of torture, fear, and oppression that Europeans experienced in medieval times carried over to the torture, fear, and oppression that European colonizers brought to Turtle Island (North America) in their treatment of Native Americans and enslaved African Americans.
But I think this trauma legacy goes much further back than medieval Europe. This passage from Numbers is evidence of conquest trauma at a foundational level of Western consciousness. Genocide was considered a gift that God would be pleased with. The story of Cain and Abel—literally the first story of human-to-human interaction outside of Eden—is already "dog-eat-dog" or brother-kill-brother.
This is the legacy we have been given—in our cosmology, in our stories, and in our bones. Is it any wonder this rhetoric is pouring out of the lips of political and religious leaders today?
What Indigenous Wisdom Offers
What a radically different vision of human nature, the divine, conflict, and reconciliation we find in Indigenous cultures worldwide. Rather than conquest narratives that frame conflict as requiring total destruction of the "other," Indigenous traditions often emphasize:
Interdependence and reciprocity with all life
Circular rather than linear concepts of time and healing
Community accountability processes that focus on restoration rather than punishment
Recognition that harming others ultimately harms ourselves and the whole web of relationships
These frameworks have become personally guiding principles for me, and I believe they offer crucial alternatives to the conquest mentality embedded in dominant Western, patriarchal narratives.
The Path Forward: From Conquest to Healing
I think one of the only ways we are going to remove the trauma of oppression (both enacted and survived) is through a multifaceted healing approach:
1. Radical Honesty
Honest acknowledgment of what happened, and is happening. We cannot heal what we refuse to see. This includes confronting the ways conquest narratives continue to justify violence, extraction, and oppression today.
2. Collective Grieving
Both personal and communal grief processes. We need rituals, spaces, and public acknowledgment of the pain caused. We need ways to grieve collectively for what we've lost—and what we've done—instead of bypassing into false forgiveness or spiritual platitudes.
3. Embodied Healing Practices
New ways to heal and live differently in our bodies and in the world. This includes:
Somatic therapies that help us discharge trauma from our nervous systems
Somatic abolition work that recognizes how oppression lives in our bodies
4. Justice AND Care
Frameworks that provide both accountability and healing in society. This includes:
Restorative justice approaches that focus on repair rather than punishment
Truth and reconciliation processes that center those who have been harmed
Community accountability models that support both healing and behavior change
It shocks me that in the Numbers narrative, what the Israelites think they need to repent of is complaining, but not genocide. Genocide is God-sponsored and state-sponsored in this account. We desperately need different models of accountability.
5. New Stories, New Cosmologies
Alternative narratives that don't center conquest and domination. We need education that includes Indigenous wisdom, feminist theology, liberation spirituality, and other traditions that offer life-giving alternatives to conquest culture.
Building Healing Communities
The goal of my podcast Who We Are & What We Need is to explore these healing themes. You can listen to Episode 1: We Can Rest to get started on this journey. I will continue exploring how we frame what's happening and how we create spaces of healing, connection, and care in future episodes.
What else do you think we need? What other healing practices and frameworks have you encountered? I'd love to hear your thoughts and insights. Let's build a community of healing imagination and embodied experience of needs-honoring and reciprocity.
Additional Resources for the Journey
I highly recommend Prentis Hemphill's podcast Finding Our Way. All of the recent revisit episodes have been amazing. Prentis is "unearthing the connections between healing, community accountability and our most inspired visions for social transformation" as a therapist, somatics teacher, political organizer, and founder of The Embodiment Institute.
For those interested in exploring how we can befriend our inner critics and become our own best friends rather than waging war against parts of ourselves, my courses offer practical tools rooted in Internal Family Systems therapy.
Hi, I’m Catherine. I’m so happy to share this time and space with you.
I’m a counselor and self-trust coach living on the Emerald Coast of Florida, on the unceded land of the Muscogee. I am a creative, mystic, and neurodiverse adventurer. I love writing, creating, and connecting.
I love helping folx Befriend Your Inner Critic and Become Your Own Best Friend. I enjoy hearing from you and walking alongside you on your journey.
With a full heart,
Catherine
