wfn.org | “Rescue the Christian faith from the cowboys, ” Native American tells churches

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

Uniting General Council 2010                                    

>News Release 
>23 June 2010

“Rescue the Christian faith from the cowboys,” Native American
tells churches
By Dafne Sabanes Plou
“We have to rescue the Christian faith from the cowboys,” says
Native American educator Richard Twiss, a member of the Lakota
Sioux Rosebud Tribe. 
The Indigenous leader made his remarks yesterday in an address
to participants at the Uniting General Council of Reformed
churches in the Midwestern American city of Grand Rapids. Over
300 delegates from 108 countries have gathered for meetings to
mark the launch of a new global organization of Reformed
churches, the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
Twiss converted to Christianity as an adult after protesting the
system of discrimination against North American native peoples
for which he was imprisoned. He also acknowledged a period of
radical criticism and rejection of the church for its complicity
in discrimination and its silencing of information about serious
injustices committed against the Indigenous peoples of the United
States and Canada.
Twiss is still critical of the educational measures applied at
the end of the 19th century and which resulted in the forced
separation of Indigenous children from their families and
communities and their enrollment in boarding schools, many of
them managed by the churches themselves. In these schools
children were forbidden to speak their own language and were
stripped of all cultural and communal identity. There were also
cases of physical punishment and abuse.  
Twiss now works primarily with Native American teachers and
pastors so that through education they can help the new
generations feel proud of their race and overcome the stereotypes
and prejudices that make the North American First Nations peoples
look like second-class citizens. The objective is to help them
value their traditions, their own language and their native
culture.
The Lakota Sioux educator maintains that it is not necessary to
deny one’s own Indigenous identity or cultural values for one to
be a good Christian. In his theological reflection, he proposes a
new type of mission which restores relationships among God’s
people.  
Twiss says people must take into account that cultural diversity
is not a “deviation” from God’s original plans.  
“God expresses Himself in the singularity of the union of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” says Twiss. “Unity is only
possible in the midst of diversity. Where there is no diversity,
we only find conformity, uniformity, monotony. God calls humanity
and the creation to the abundant life of communion.”
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
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Communion of Reformed Churches

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