Our lives are increasingly controlled, in every aspect, by economic and technological factors. Broadly speaking, culture is so infused with these considerations that it is difficult to see them clearly. For all but a few of our elders, our waking and sleeping are shaped by the dictates of a rather unforgiving pattern, crafted by an economically based technocracy. This is now the air that we breathe: it appears to be our life and death.
Though it’s hard to get an exact count, we suspect that a few hundred men and women serve as unpaid or non-stipended ministers in the Anglican Church of Canada. The majority of them are in rural and bush Canada in Indigenous communities, and most of them are Indigenous members of the communities they serve.
Many of us have been shaped by the norms of a way of being church that is under great stress: this is the idea that a church is, at a minimum, an academically credentialed priest with a stipend, presiding over a building and a staff (paid and/or volunteer) that is able to provide services and program.
And she called the Lord who spoke to her, “You are El-roi,” by which she meant, “Have I not gone on seeing after He saw me!”
-Genesis 16:13 (Jewish Publication Society)
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Last month, this column spoke of the institutional church’s captivity to the mindset of Western culture. We called it a kind of “hypnotism” whereby many of the assumptions of Christian faith were blunted or obscured by the powerful counterpoint of Western ideas. This is not to say that there weren’t many points of mutual agreement and benefit in this exchange. There were, however, many aspects of this mutuality that may be seen as negative, as in the way churches played an animating role in colonization.
Recently, I used the word “hypnotized” to describe the way the churches of a Western cultural framework have been impacted by their relationship with the cultures and governance of Euro-North American countries. A good friend asked, “What does that mean?” So, I will try to explain.
Repentance is a concept that isn’t very popular in contemporary society. You don’t hear about it in mainstream culture, at least not in a positive way.
Recently, I had a conversation with an Indigenous friend and theologian. We discussed the Indigenous experience of salvation in Christ, knowing that some folks are a bit nervous about such language. We agreed that the Indigenous experience of the Gospel has a particular character: salvation is almost always experienced as tangible and practical freedom from very present and oppressive forces.
The churches that have been a part of the European and North American cultural framework have played a unique and important role in the colonization of our planet over the past five centuries.
The hypocrisy and corruption associated with the Pharisees, as portrayed in the gospels, has made their name a potent insult. But Christian teaching, despite describing this corruption as extremely dangerous, often places the threat of the Pharisees’ attitude and actions far away from our present day context. This is a mistake.
Recently, I was talking with a friend who is, I think, a most important Indigenous theologian. As we discussed the church’s teaching on the Trinity, we observed that many non-Indigenous commentators assume that Indigenous people would have no interest or time for this foundational Christian doctrine.
In recent years, it has been more widely recognized that there are a number of not immediately recognized costs to participation in war. Post-traumatic stress disorder is the most well-known and understood psychological war wound, but a new category of psychological war injury has emerged: moral injury. This refers to the negative consequences of observing and participating in the massive and systemic moral breakdown associated, especially, with war.
Yesterday, I received this on Facebook from a friend. She says, in so few words, that which so many of us struggle to say with many:
Everyone of us has an interest in the future health of our church.
Years ago, we sat next to a father and his two young children-a boy and a girl, both probably between five and eight years old. As the food and beverage cart came by, each time the father would buy a beer; each time his children would beg for food. “We’re hungry, Daddy,” they cried. We were grieved that each time he responded, “We don’t have any money for food.”
For the past few years, it has been my practice to speak to indigenous youth about the critical role that they will play in our common future.
For this edition’s column, I wanted to, once again, share a poem from my friend, Fr. Ewan MacPherson
On April 23, 2014, near his home on Siksika First Nation, we laid torest my adopted brother and friend, the Rev. Mervin Natowohki (“HolyWater”) Wolfleg.
In the traditional way, before colonization, it seems that song was an essential element of every aspect of indigenous life. Songs were maps, histories and ceremonies.
Colonial governments and First Nations certainly saw the treaties from different cultural perspectives.
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