wfn.org | EPISCOPALIANS APOLOGISE FOR TREATMENT OF NATIVE AMERICANS

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

Nov. 7, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.11.1.3]

USA: EPISCOPALIANS APOLOGISE FOR CHURCH'S TREATMENT OF NATIVE AMERICANS

(ENI) Almost 400 years after King James I asked the Church of England to
propagate Christianity in the New World, Native Americans and
descendants of English colonists have signed a new covenant of faith and
reconciliation to heal four centuries of misunderstanding and mistrust.

During an All Saints Day ceremony in Jamestown, Virginia, on 1 November,
Edmond Browning, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (the successor
in the United States to the Church of England), described the pain he
felt rereading the original charter from James I calling for the Church
of England to convert the New World's "infidels and savages". Another 
Episcopal Church leader said the church had at times aided and abetted
colonialism.

At the ceremony, Episcopal Church officials and representatives from
many of the surviving American Indian tribes agreed to a "new covenant
of faith" between the Episcopal Church and the indigenous people in the
United States.

They also launched a decade of  "remembrance, recognition, and
reconciliation" to fully integrate the experiences of Native Americans
into the life of the Episcopal Church in preparation for the 400th
anniversary in 2007 of the King's charter.

The covenant document commits Episcopalians to "strive for justice in
reconciling [the] history of colonisation and suffering"; to "work
together to find new solutions to social and political challenges";  to
"expand theological and spiritual dialogue"; and "stand together to
honour, protect, and nurture our home, the Earth."

Calling it "one of the most mature expressions of the church's
contemporary commitment to inter-racial relationships," Bishop Steven
Charleston, a member of the Oklahoma Choctaw Tribe, said the new
covenant was a "bold statement" that recognised the Church's past sins,
but remained firmly "forward-looking in inviting all cultures to
proclaim the gospel of Jesus".

The choice of Jamestown was no accident, as it was the first permanent
English settlement in the New World. The original Jamestown charter
granted colonial status to what became the state of Virginia and
commanded that the Church of England propagate Christianity among "the
infidels and savages" who "live in darkness and miserable ignorance of
true knowledge".

In his sermon, Edmond Browning said re-reading the first charter was
"painful ... it is not surprising that Christians who know this history
are outraged by it. It certainly is an outrage."

Still, the royal ordinance "carried within its sinfulness the seeds of
its redemption," Bishop Browning said. "James I and his advisers would
never in a million years have guessed that their descendants would be
led by the Gospel to pursue the radical equality of the human family,"
he said.

The ashes of injustice were many, and included "sins of both commission
and omission," Bishop Charleston said of the church, which was "the
chaplain to colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. Sometimes it was a
good  chaplain, at times standing with the oppressed. At other times, it
aided and abetted the system of colonialism."

Owanah Anderson, director of the Church's Native American Ministries
office, said the Church had been "a full partner in the cultural
genocide and annihilation" of Native communities at a time when European
settlers, emboldened by the belief in "manifest destiny", thought that
native Americans were "sub-humans and vicious savages".

Owanah Anderson, who is also a Choctaw, and Bishop Charleston said that
while they and other Native Americans appreciated the apologies offered
by Church officials at the Jamestown ceremony, apologies were not what
they were seeking.   "I wasn't looking for an apology. I don't  think
any of us were," said Anderson.

The service - punctuated by Native American music, prayers and dance -
was led by  bishops, priests and lay people of a number of Indian
tribes, including the Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw and Sioux. They were
joined by Church officials, including bishops whose dioceses have large
Indian ministries, such as the states of South Dakota, Minnesota, and
Arizona.