As Michael Prior writes in The Bible and Colonialism, ‘The commandment that, ‘You shall devour all the peoples that Yahweh your God is giving over to you, showing them no pity’ (Deut. 7:6) is seen in a new light, when one recalls how such texts were used in support of colonialism in several regions and periods, in which the native peoples were the counterparts of the Hittites, the Girgashites and others’ (Prior 1999: 34). Arnold Toynbee continues this thought, when he says, ‘It was the same biblically recorded conviction of the Israelites that God had instigated them to exterminate the Canaanites that sanctioned the British conquest of North America, Ireland and Australia, the Dutch conquest of South Africa, the Prussian conquest of Poland and the Zionist conquest of Palestine’ (Prior 1999:39).

In addition, I would say these views of Prior and Toynbee are seen in our own United State's past history of conquest of the Native American peoples, our paternal protective and overseeing relationship with Puerto Rico, Guam and most recently our ‘conquest’ of Afghanistan and Iraq. In these one sided and biased relationships, power is uneven and out of balance. Goodness and godliness and righteousness are claimed – at the core – of the conquestor's rationale, yet are not necessarily present in godly, goodly action.