Christianity & Indigenous Peoples
The following books provide helpful perspectives in thinking about the relationship between Christianity and Indigenous peoples. Actually, not all of them address Christianity or are written from a Christian perspective, but they all address issues that Christians should be aware of in seeking reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Twiss, Richard. Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys (IVP, 2015).
When asked to review this book, I initially thought it would be a challenge as I am fond of “detective novels” that I can read and not necessarily have to retain. However, having some Indigenous blood (Cree) in my family tree, I found this book interesting right from the title onward.
Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys is a thoughtful, challenging book about what it means for Native Americans to follow Jesus while staying true to their own culture. Twiss states that for too long Christianity in North America has been tied to white, Western culture (e.g., Jesus always depicted as white), and this has often meant Native peoples were told to abandon their long-held traditions and ways of life in order to be “real” Christians. He calls out this harmful history (think, residential schools) and explains how Indigenous Christian believers are rediscovering ways of following Jesus that include their own languages, music, dances, and spiritual practices, in other words, their culture. This is similar to what has happened in Mexico with a blend of Christianity and their Indigenous culture.
The book isn’t a simple how-to guide—it digs into history, uses personal stories and big questions, about culture, identity, and faith. Twiss envisions a church where Native Christians don’t have to choose between their heritage and their faith. Instead, they can “contextualize” the gospel, meaning they express the good news of Jesus through the eyes of their own culture and their Indigenous practices and experiences. After all, they do believe in the one “Great Spirit” who created everything.
I found the book eye-opening and honest, and while some parts are quite academic (not usually “my thing”), the heart of the message invites Christians of all backgrounds to listen, learn, and rethink how faith and culture fit together.
(Submitted by Gary Stevenson)
See also, by the same author, One Church, Many Tribes (Regal, 2000).
This is a small but powerful book, written for settlers, to open us to the truth that we have a long way to go to redress wrongs that were/are part of our national history for generations before our own. Just because we didn’t participate in the historical wrongs doesn’t mean we are without sin in the matter of abuse of the First Nations peoples in the Americas. This book is well written and easy to read. It takes the parable of Zaccheus and Jesus’s calling him down from the tree, as a launching place to encourage us to look at our own place in the journey of reconciliation. And for me one of the powerful themes to consider is a mental and emotional moved away from a Theology of Scarcity to a worldview that embraces Abundance more completely—abundance of love, of resources, of forgiveness, of generosity … abundance in the earth and land and water, and in housing and the basics of good life.
Gerry and I knew Jodi when we lived in Vancouver and has been working throughout Canada toward true reconciliation for More than 30 years. I recommend reading this book to everyone.
(Submitted by Merry Carol Schoberg)
Written by a botanist and member of the Potawatomi Nation, this book weaves together botanical knowledge, Indigenous storytelling, and philosophy. In her chapter, The Three Sisters—a reference to corn, bean, and squash—Kimmerer writes: “The three sisters offer us a new metaphor for an emerging relationship between Indigenous knowledge and Western science, both of which are rooted in the earth. I think of the corn as traditional ecological knowledge, the physical and spiritual framework that can guide the curious bean of science, which twines like a double helix. The squash creates the ethical habitat for coexistence and mutual flourishing. I envision a time when the intellectual monoculture of science will be replaced with a polyculture of complementary knowledge.” World-renowned scientist Jane Goodall writes of the book: “Robin Wall Kimmerer shows how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the Indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty and I love the most—the images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page.”
Written for the non-Indigenous person seeking practical ways of pursuing reconciliation, this book offers 52, one-week, down-to-earth tasks designed to gain and appreciate an Indigenous perspective. Some of the ideas include: Research Indigenous Place Names; Write a Land Acknowledgement; Support and Indigenous Musician; Educate Yourself about the Sixties Scoop; Read Indigenous Comics; Attend a Demonstration or Gathering; Read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Final Report; Make Some Bannock. Robertson, a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner and a member of the Norway House Cree Nation in Winnipeg, describes his work: “What we’re trying to do, it’s building relationships, it’s building community. It’s doing that through mutual understanding and respect.”
This book explores how the 15th-century papal Doctrine of Discovery, that gave European explorers the right to claim for their home country territories they discovered in North America, in fact led to numerous forms of dysfunction among Indigenous peoples—traumatization, slavery, segregation, and dehumanization. Although American-based, the way the authors reveal unsettling historical truths—for example, they argue that “the full record of Abraham Lincoln reveals a president who directly contributed to the genocide of the Native community and perpetuated the dehumanization of the African-American community”—supports a reassessment of various aspects of history throughout North America. Historian Mark Noll writes: “Charles and Rah attack a pernicious principle (the Doctrine of Discovery), review an evil history (the United States’ treatment of Native peoples), challenge a persistent stereotype (American exceptionalism), and psychoanalyze white America (in denial about the nation’s history).” Charles is of Navajo and Dutch descent, lives in Washington, D.C., and is a regular speaker and writer on the complexities of history, race, culture, and faith; and Rah is a professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago.
Woodley, Randy W. Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (Eerdmans, 2012).
A Keetoowah Cherokee by birth and a Christian by profession, Woodley seeks to avoid romanticism but to reflect seriously on the interface between his faith and Indigenous traditions. Central to his understanding of scripture is that God’s covenant with Israel includes the charge to restore an abiding sense of well-being (or shalom) to the whole of creation—a perspective that relates well, Woodley argues, with the concern of Indigenous peoples that he calls “the Harmony Way.” Woodley argues that the problem with Christianity has been not so much with the tenets of its faith as with an uncritical acceptance of Enlightenment principles. To bring Christian thinking more into focus with the present-day ecological and social challenges, he offers an alternative to the imperial image of “the kingdom of God” in the New Testament: “I would like to see us move from a first-century military framework, of ‘king’ and ‘kingdom’ (with which Americans have no lived experience), to our present context of global awareness, pluralism, and holism…. I suggest that the greater context for primary consideration might be ‘Community of Creation.’”