Posted 159 days ago

The Native American Question: What Do European Christians Give Up of Their Culture(s)?

By Terri LeBlanc, Executive Director of My People International and Chair of the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies

“What can Europeans not bring with them into their new life in Christ?” I naively asked a group of Euro-North American Christians. The accompanying silence spoke volumes—there would seem to be little that North American Christians of European origin scrutinize carefully in their culture today (vices excepted).

In contrast, North American Native peoples like me have historically been expected not just to scrutinize, but to relinquish all aspects of our indigenous culture. Are there reasons for this double standard? At least two points of view surface which might offer some perspective.

The first suggests that the dominant Euro-North American cultures need no adaptation to biblical values or worldview. Their political and economic systems, social structures and aesthetic values, their language of thought, worldview and spirituality are all okay as is. They are able to express God’s truth well and they structure life for God’s people in an acceptable way. In other words, Euro-North American culture is unquestionably biblical.

In contrast, the second viewpoint argues that the integrated nature of Native life and worldview makes it impossible to extricate that which is acceptably “spiritual” from the remainder of Native culture. All aspects of Native culture are therefore considered to be inherently fraught with sinful or anti-biblical elements, rendering them unsuitable for adaptation or redemption. The conclusion? Those elements are unable to be used to express biblical thought, worship or life. The argument is essentially the same for many Asian, African and other indigenous cultures.

Let me now rephrase my original question. “What makes the dominant Euro-North American cultures acceptably biblical or, at the very least, suitable to adaptation to biblical faith almost entirely, whereas Native or other cultures are not?” How is it, for example, that “top-down” control-oriented business management styles are welcomed, fully vested and sanctioned in the church, but consensus-based, organic management styles as found in indigenous communities are not?

Similarly, why is a leadership selection model acceptable in the church which is based in similar business management principles – often something more akin to the power and popularity pressures of American Idol – acceptable while Native consensus-based leadership has always been deemed unbiblical and inappropriate? Isn’t the former a dramatic difference from the “Seek ye out among yourselves…” or “Do your homework, pray and cast lots!” attitude evident in Acts and the latter a better approximation? Or, why was the potlatch, a giveaway which ensured all people of a community were provided for and assured of their social standing, outlawed by governments at the urging of the Christian church? Doesn’t 2 Corinthians 8 suggest this as a model of proper faith and life for Jesus’ followers?

Moreover, what has persuaded us that Western economics—a system that so contradicts the example of Jesus, the lives of the disciples and the experience of the early church—is simply tolerable but is in fact desirable? Why is justice pursued by confrontation and adversarial argument—where facts seem irrelevant and winning seems to be paramount—to be embraced over an approach of requisite truth, restoration, reconciliation and restitution?

Native cultures were (within each nation of people) historically cultures of sharing, consensus and restorative justice—cultures committed to caring and nurturing, respect and honor, family and community, Creator and creation. What makes this undesirable?

These and other questions haunt me. In part, it is because many Native Christians have come to believe that their own “culture” is unacceptable on the Jesus Way and in worship; in part, it is because the church is losing out on the rich diversity of those cultures.

Author Ron Sider included environmental awareness in a re-release of his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity some years back, also helping launch Green Cross, a ministry thrust in response to environmental issues. Discussing these developments with Sider at the time I was tempted to say, “Ask Native people! They know how to respect and honor God’s creation! This can be one of their culture’s contributions to the church.” Instead, I left the thought unspoken as we talked, reflecting on the fact that Native cultures are mistakenly seen by many as too creation-focused or animistic already. Yet another way in which we are unbiblical.

Is my original question unreasonable? When I stop to consider that Christian thought, its systematic theologies and its ministry methods in the past have shown clear evidence of “European only” bias; when I consider that inconsistent logic, closed thinking and ethnocentrism have informed historical and present-day “Christian” hermeneutics and practice, then, I think not. My question is not only reasonable, but necessary, and I encourage all followers of the Jesus Way to begin to ask it.

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