It has been my observation that the majority of American NDNs still view Christianity as the 'white man's religion'. I'm not completely certain that the statistic of less than 5% of American NDN are Christian (after over 500 years of attempted Christianizing). If that statistic is true, then the Church has failed miserably to bring the true gospel to the NDN Nations, IMHO. What do you think can be done to amend and reconcile this? Please share your thoughts.
NDNs and Christianity
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bsd31
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Interesting question.
I don't believe the issue is that the Church of Christ hasn't presented the true Gospel (granted there are those who don't, but overall), but rather that Natives haven't fully embraced it.
On the rez where I work I've met a few Christians but they aren't really fully committed to the idea. I'm not speaking of their salvation but they like to play games and mix their culture, their traditions, and Christianity and quite frankly they often seem to have something that is a mutation of all three.
I see it and I have to ask myself "Are they reading the same Bible I am?" because in my Bible God doesn't like when you try to have your feet on both sides of the fence. Like it says, gather or scatter.
Here's what I think the problem is. Those who preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Native cultures of the USA tend to mealy-mouth (they don't speak directly and boldly) it in order not to offend. But the Gospel is offensive! If you can preach Jesus Christ crucified and not offend your audience something is wrong! Desperately wrong.
In 1 Corinthians 2:4 Paul says:
Then these "missionaries" scratch their head, look about all bewildered and wonder why they didn't have more of an impact. That's easy, they had no impact because they compromised the Gospel in order not to offend people.
I don't believe the issue is that the Church of Christ hasn't presented the true Gospel (granted there are those who don't, but overall), but rather that Natives haven't fully embraced it.
On the rez where I work I've met a few Christians but they aren't really fully committed to the idea. I'm not speaking of their salvation but they like to play games and mix their culture, their traditions, and Christianity and quite frankly they often seem to have something that is a mutation of all three.
I see it and I have to ask myself "Are they reading the same Bible I am?" because in my Bible God doesn't like when you try to have your feet on both sides of the fence. Like it says, gather or scatter.
Here's what I think the problem is. Those who preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Native cultures of the USA tend to mealy-mouth (they don't speak directly and boldly) it in order not to offend. But the Gospel is offensive! If you can preach Jesus Christ crucified and not offend your audience something is wrong! Desperately wrong.
In 1 Corinthians 2:4 Paul says:
In 1 Corinthians 1:7 he says:
So rather than people bringing the true, unadulterated, and very offensive Gospel to native Americans they try to be eloquent and wise. The cross, for those who are hearing the message, is emptied of it's power and there is no demonstration of the Spirit's power.
Then these "missionaries" scratch their head, look about all bewildered and wonder why they didn't have more of an impact. That's easy, they had no impact because they compromised the Gospel in order not to offend people.
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jehoiakim
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I think it would be helpful to present the gospel from it's messianic jewish historical, middle eastern context. Christianity really isn't "white" although it has been prevalent and taught by Europeans for so long it seems "white." European culture has done much to distort the teachings of Christ, Paul and the apostles, it was unintentional ,but it happened
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bsd31
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If you just preach what the Bible says and leave all the rest out you'll be golden. Leave out your opinions, your interpretations, your "good ideas" and just preach the unadulterated Word it will be powerful and undeniable.
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jehoiakim
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This is true, but what I am saying is that we have warped and understood the bible through western eyes, it was unintentional but we still do it and when we try to preach what the bible says we do the same thing, even our modern translations are twisted to fit western theology because the interpreters had to determine what they original message was so the could translate it. And many elements are purely cultural and without an understanding of jewish culture it can become confusing or we can misunderstand
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I'm going to seem a bit biased here, as I'm a convert to Orthodoxy, but this is something that I noted is different about Orthodoxy compared to Catholicism and various Protestant churches. Look at how Orthodoxy entered Alaska and Western Canada. They didn't come in, demand the Native population speak their language, steal the land, kidnap the children and shove them into "schools", etc. They brought the Gospel, set up a ministry, adapted to the people, and showed tons of Grace. There is a book that has a segment on some letters passed between an Orthodox Priest and a Methodist Matron. The Methodists were using the courts to, literally, raid homes and take children away...claiming the parents were all "unfit". The Priest tried to fight this as he could. He wrote in opposition to what was happening (this Matron was one of the people at the crux of it all). He also begged to be permitted to still serve communion to the children at the boarding school. Eventually, I believe, they put a stop to that, claiming the children were now "Christian" *eyeroll*. A young girl died and the children's home kept it a secret until after they had buried her, refusing to send for her priest or releasing her body for an Orthodox burial...or even for a non-Orthodox one, should the family have wanted it that way. These are the same abuses of "making the red man white" as we've seen throughout the rest of North America.
Orthodoxy doesn't eliminate cultures. Western Christianity, in the past, has equated Christianity with Western European Culture and that has been at the crux of the problem for centuries. It's been done in Africa, in India, somewhat in South America, etc. This is not what Christianity is or supposed to do.
Even if one never wants to consider Orthodoxy (I'm not trying to promote it), I do believe one should look at the example and consider the differences...then we can start there.
(please forgive me if I have offended anyone. I am looking at this from a historical viewpoint, not a modern one)
Orthodoxy doesn't eliminate cultures. Western Christianity, in the past, has equated Christianity with Western European Culture and that has been at the crux of the problem for centuries. It's been done in Africa, in India, somewhat in South America, etc. This is not what Christianity is or supposed to do.
Even if one never wants to consider Orthodoxy (I'm not trying to promote it), I do believe one should look at the example and consider the differences...then we can start there.
(please forgive me if I have offended anyone. I am looking at this from a historical viewpoint, not a modern one)
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Thank you, Etsi, and all the others who have replied here. I appreciate you sharing your opinions on this. Does anyone else have something to share?
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The Christians, in my experience, are fixated with turning us into brown skinned white men.
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