wfn.org | Native American Sees Link With Christianity

["Daphne Martin_Gnanadason" <Daphne.Martin_Gnanadason@warc.ch>]

Uniting General Council 2010                                    

>News Release 
>21 June 2010

>Native American Sees Link With Christianity
>By Jackie Macadam, UGC correspondent
>Mike Peters, pastor of 4Fires Ministry in Grand Rapids,
>Michiganand a member of the Odawa tribe, says the Bible is his
>plumb line.
>“When I consider the sacred ways of the Native American peoples,
>I can find many of them within its pages,” he says.
>Peters, who helped organize today’s Pow Wow in the park, sees
>parallels in his people’s spiritual traditions and Christianity.
>“For instance, Native Americans ‘smoke’ prayers in a sacred
>ceremony,” he says.“They use special blends of natural plant
>materials,which give off a beautiful perfume when burned, and the
>perfume takes the prayers to God.”He finds that an “incredibly
>similar image” to the reference inRevelation toan angel sending
>sweet-smelling incenseandprayers to God.
>Few Native Americans in the United States are Christian, he
>says, largely because missionaries refused to take native beliefs
>seriously.  “If you weren’t prepared to accept the full European
>picture, the clothes, the hair … then you were not even
>considered human.” 
>Peters has nonetheless became a Christian and works with Native
>American youth through his church.
>“I was an urban Indian, like 72 percent of Native Americans.
>When I was a kid I used to run to school. Not because I wanted to
>get there quickly, but because if I was caught by the other kids,
>I would be beaten, my clothes torn …”
>By the time he was 19, he says, he was an alcoholic and trying
>drugs. One night, he was about to smoke marijuana when he thought
>of his father, who was an alcoholic. 
>“I just realized I didn’t want a future like that… I just knew I
>had to begin praying for help… That very night I flushed my drugs
>and the desire to drink alcohol was taken away. I haven’t drunk
>since.  God set me free that night.”
>Soon after, he began studying Native American culture,
>fascinated by its spirituality, seeing many aspects in common
>with Christianity. 
>The Uniting General Council 2010 in Grand Rapids, United States
>(June 18-28) marks the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed
>Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the World
>Communion of Reformed Churches. 

Contact: Kristine Greenaway

UGC News Room – Calvin College - Hoogenboom Center Room HC 204
Cell phone: 1-616-826-5540 or 1-616-826-8636: News Room:
1-616-526-7885

UGC News Room – Calvin College - Hoogenboom Center Room HC 204 
Cell phone: 1-616-826-5540 or 1-616-826-8636
email: kgr@warc.ch
web: www.reformedchurches.org (
http://www.reformedchurches.org/#_blank )