If the Land Was Stolen, Give It Back

 Recently, I was invited to attend a Sunday service at a Methodist church rather than my regular church.

The congregation was small, perhaps a few dozen people. Before the service began, the pastor introduced herself, shared her preferred pronouns, and then solemnly informed us that we were gathered on stolen land.

The land, she explained, once belonged to Native American tribes that lived in the area long before Denver existed.

I sat quietly and listened. Then a simple question occurred to me.

If the land was stolen, why are we still sitting on it? To my knowledge, the church owns the valuable piece of property in an upscale Denver neighborhood. 

If I knowingly occupy stolen property, I have a moral obligation to return it to its rightful owner. Merely acknowledging that it was stolen does not absolve me of responsibility.

Imagine explaining to the police that you know a car in your garage was stolen but you plan to keep driving it while periodically expressing regret. That defense would not get very far.

Yet this is precisely the logic behind the modern ritual of land acknowledgments.

Over the past several years, universities, churches, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and even sporting events have begun opening meetings with statements recognizing that they occupy land once inhabited by indigenous peoples. 

These declarations have become almost mandatory among progressive institutions. They are delivered with great solemnity, usually without anyone asking the obvious follow-up question.

When will you be giving the land back?

The answer, of course, is never.

The contradiction is difficult to miss.

If these institutions genuinely believe they are occupying stolen property, then the moral solution seems straightforward. Transfer the deed. Return the property. Relocate somewhere else.

A church could return its land.

A university could return its campus.

A presidential library could return its grounds.

Yet no one proposes doing so.

Instead, we get speeches.

At the recent opening of the Obama Presidential Center, former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett recognized the “original inhabitants” of the land and honored several Native nations associated with the region. 

But if the property truly belongs to those groups, why stop at acknowledgment?

Why not transfer ownership?

Why not place the land into a tribal trust?

Why not demonstrate sincerity through action rather than symbolism?

Everyone already knows the answer. The acknowledgment costs nothing. Returning the property would cost something.

That distinction matters.

The deeper problem is that the entire concept quickly collapses under scrutiny.

Who exactly are the rightful owners?

The history of North America did not begin in 1492. Tribes fought wars, displaced rivals, conquered territory, and pushed competing groups from valuable land long before Europeans arrived. The notion that every parcel of land belonged peacefully and permanently to a single tribe until settlers appeared is historically inaccurate.

Suppose a church in Denver decided tomorrow to return its property. To whom would it be returned?

Which tribe?

The one that occupied the area when American settlers arrived?

The tribe that occupied it before them?

The tribe they displaced?

The tribe before that?

How far back should we go?

History rarely provides clean answers. Yet land acknowledgments assume those answers are obvious.

Human history, unfortunately, is largely the history of migration, conquest, settlement, and changing borders. Nearly every nation on Earth occupies territory that was once controlled by someone else. The Romans conquered Europe. The Mongols conquered Asia. 

Take a historical tour of any major European city and learn that borders shifted constantly through wars and treaties. Native American tribes themselves expanded and contracted through conflict, alliances, and migration.

That reality does not justify conquest. It simply acknowledges history as it actually occurred rather than as modern activists wish it had occurred.

The same logical problem appears in discussions of reparations.

Who pays?

Who receives?

No one alive today owned slaves in America. No one alive today was enslaved in America. Yet we are increasingly asked to calculate debts across centuries as if historical responsibility can be transferred indefinitely through bloodlines.

If descendants can inherit grievances, can they also inherit guilt?

Most people instinctively reject that idea.

We do not hold modern Italians responsible for Roman conquests. We do not send invoices to contemporary Mongolians for the destruction wrought by Genghis Khan. We do not demand reparations from descendants of Vikings for their raids a thousand years ago.

At some point, history becomes history.

That does not mean we ignore it. It means we learn from it without pretending we can reverse it.

What strikes me most about modern land acknowledgments is how little courage they require.

Returning land would be bold.

Selling institutional assets and compensating descendants would be courageous.

Sacrificing something tangible would demonstrate conviction.

Reciting a prepared statement before a meeting demonstrates nothing except conformity.

In many cases, the acknowledgment functions less as a historical observation than as a public declaration of moral virtue. The speaker signals awareness. The audience signals agreement. Everyone feels enlightened. Then the meeting begins, and ownership remains exactly as it was before.

Nothing changes.

The irony is that these acknowledgments often reveal less about history than about the modern desire for symbolic absolution. They allow institutions to express guilt without accepting consequences, to display virtue without making sacrifices, and to claim moral seriousness without taking meaningful action.

That may explain their popularity.

Real restitution is expensive.

Symbolic restitution is free.

The next time I hear a land acknowledgment, I may be tempted to raise my hand and ask a simple question.

“When is the transfer scheduled?”

Not because I expect an answer.

But because the answer reveals everything.

If the land was truly stolen, then returning it would be the obvious moral response.

If returning it is unthinkable, impractical, or absurd, then perhaps we should stop pretending that reciting a disclaimer before a church service, university lecture, or ribbon-cutting ceremony constitutes an act of justice.

Churches traditionally teach that repentance involves more than words. It requires action.

If the land was stolen, give it back.

Otherwise, spare us the lecture.

 

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Colorado-based ophthalmologist who writes frequently about medicine, science, and public policy.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/07/if-the-land-was-stolen-give-it-back/