Indigenous Congress Seeks Role as Equal Partners in Life of the Church
Episcopal News Service. February 9, 1995 [95025]
(ENS) After several decades of seeking to empower Native American ministries in the Episcopal Church, Indian representatives from 26 dioceses gathered on the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma to discuss next steps in shaping their destiny.
"It is time to stretch our wings and see where we are going," Owanah Anderson, director of Indian ministries for the Episcopal Church said January 28 in welcoming the 53 participants from 22 distinct tribes and nations to the opening session of the six-day Winter Talk VII meeting at St. Crispin's Conference Center.
"The question now is where do we go next, how do we build stronger bridges and firmer foundations for our young people?" asked Bishop Steven Charleston of Alaska, who served as facilitator for the National Indigenous Peoples Congress. Arguing that the "time is long past when others will make decisions for us," he added, "We can't go backward -- the only way is forward into our future."
Ginny Doctor, a Mohawk who chairs the Episcopal Council on Indian Ministry (ECIM), sketched recent events in the move toward empowerment, including a recent visit to the indigenous Maori people in Aotearoa/New Zealand and a new covenant between Canada's indigenous Anglicans and the Anglican Church of Canada.
Doctor was one of the participants in a meeting of the Anglican Indigenous Network last March that took a closer look at the unique relationship the Maoris hammered out with the Anglican Church of New Zealand that gives the Maori full and equal stature. The agreement ended 160 years of misunderstanding and ensured the growth of the Maori church. "We came away feeling that somehow the Maori experience could be adapted for other indigenous churches around the world," she said.
Turning to several representatives of Canada's indigenous people who participated in Winter Talk, Doctor said she was "awestruck" by their move to a new covenant relationship with the their church. The covenant emerged from a meeting in Winnipeg last April and was endorsed, after some lively debate, by the church's National Executive Council. Charleston, who served as chaplain at the meeting, said that it was "an amazing, revolutionary moment, one clearly blessed by the Holy Spirit."
With the Maori and Canadian models in mind, and clearly nervous about the implications of recent restructure at the national level for the future of Indian ministry, participants in the Oklahoma meeting wrestled with similar ideas -- but ended the meeting without agreeing on any structural model that would express their vision.
In a stirring paper that drew on the deep well of tribal memory, the Rev. Martin Brokenleg of South Dakota reminded participants that the "legacy of the missionary period in the last century was one which said it cared for Native people but it also related to us as though we were -- somehow -- less." The result "has been a spiritual and emotional dependency on others, a passive spirit that comes from living with paternalism, however well-intentioned," he added. "Native Christians came to need others to think for them, develop energy and motivation for them, and needed others to approve and to fund all Native plans." He reminded them that Indian work has been a persistent attempt to break away from this missionary mentality "for the good of Native people and for the good of our spiritual health."
In 1993 ECIM pressed for specific steps to establish a Native Episcopal diocese and at Winter Talk last year participants explored "what would be philosophically necessary to develop a self-governing body within the Episcopal Church," Brokenleg said. "As a national congress of Indian people you have the power to design the structures....to serve your common destiny as Native Episcopalians."
Among the options discussed by ECIM were a Native diocese without geographical boundaries and a Native province, part of what Brokenleg described as "a growing spirit of self-determination...self-assertion and self-governance sweeping across all of Indian country." He urged participants to create a church that matched those aspirations and moved Native peoples "toward our true homeland."
While excited by Brokenleg's vision, participants in Winter Talk never found the wings for their dream. Despite powerful storytelling and worship, the time did not seem quite ripe to, in the words of the old hymn, "mount on the wings of eagles."
A Statement of Self-Determination (see Newsfeatures for full text) did emerge from small group discussion and was signed during closing worship services on the last day. Calling themselves "the sons and daughters of many proud and independent sovereign peoples... heirs of ancient heritages... stewards of a great tradition...survivors of a tragic history...keepers of a bright future for our children," participants proclaimed a "God-given right to determine our own destiny."
"We respect the spiritual traditions, values and customs of our many peoples, and we incorporate them as we celebrate the Gospel of Jesus Christ," the statement said in affirming "our rightful place within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion."
The statement proclaimed "our spiritual role as equal partners in the full life of the Body of Christ as we accept the obligations of leadership in this new vision of the church." It also extended the "hand of friendship to all people of faith who will journey with us in equality, dignity and devotion." It called on the church "to acknowledge the sovereignty of indigenous peoples and to support us as equal partners in the recreation of a new community."
Unlike the Canadians, however, the statement was not addressed to any policy-making council of the church but instead seemed to serve as an exercise in self-definition, drawing together in poetic expression the dreams and hopes of the participants.
A wide variety of worship services blended Christian liturgy with tribal ceremonial worship rituals, many of them unlawful as recently as 1934. Plains tribes used smoke in a cleansing ritual, while Paiute and Native Hawaiians used water ceremonies and Navajo used corn pollen for their blessing. After a traditional Seminole meal on the last evening, Creek dancers treated participants to a "shell-shaker" stomp dance.
"We are better than we have ever been," Charleston said during one plenary session, adding that most Native Episcopalians find a sense of "home" in the church "but they also suffer dashed hopes and false starts."
"We are creating the future every day," Charleston concluded. "We are going somewhere -- together." He said that, despite some confusion among participants about the implications of the statement they adopted, he regarded it as "a kind of declaration of independence. It calls for a new sense of equality -- and negotiation of a whole new relationship."
"We know we can't go back, even if the way forward is not yet clear," said the Rev. Carol Gallagher, a Cherokee from Pennsylvania who helped design Winter Talk. "We are facing nothing less than a whole new vision."
Bishop William Wantland of Eau Claire, a Seminole who was born and raised in the area, said that "people here are not afraid to face the future." That does not mean that they should be cut off from the past, he added. "We can know the past but follow where God leads into the future."
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