Is True Reconciliation Possible?

by Phil Duran

From time to time, there has been some discussion about reconciliation between White people and Native Americans. Any sincere efforts to reconcile are worthy. I, too, genuinely long for this reality to be actualized. However, I would like to offer a few constructive thoughts about why I believe true reconciliation will be difficult.

As background, I will begin by saying that in 1998 I moved to South Dakota with my wife to become the director of First Nations Institute, a post-secondary school for Native Christian believers, and I was there only 18 months because of the decision to close campus operations. I am a scientist and educator, not a missionary or a “minister” in the normal sense of that word. However, I am self-trained in Bible knowledge, having extensively studied systematic theology, eventually reviewing article manuscripts, served as part-time pastor and denominational representative, and for more than three decades served as deacon in two churches. I am very familiar with life in Indian country and the pressing issues that the tribes have been dealing with for hundreds of years. I do not depend on church funds or church approval for the full-time work that I do with the tribal communities, because I am paid by a Tribal college where I directed a program in environmental studies. My specific area is theoretical physics.

I do not want to be counted among the critical voices who do not offer solutions about how Indians have been treated and the problems that exist. Instead, along with expressing important historical realities supported by documented evidence, I do not believe that any meaningful discussion about reconciliation can occur until White people come to some fundamental understandings about the status and needs of Native America as a whole. I think it would be incorrect to suggest that there is a reconciliation movement among the tribes. To my knowledge, there are reconciliation efforts among Native believers, but the tribes themselves are not asking for an apology. I am aware of reconciliation efforts among the Anglicans in Canada, who have produced excellent videos, one of which I highly recommend, entitled “Dancing the Dream,” produced by the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples.

The tribes are consumed with pressing issues of survival:

· Management of their territories

· Securing the future welfare of their people

· Enormous socio-economic problems, including:

o Poverty

o Land thefts

o Identity crises

o Short life expectancy

o Loss of culture and language

o Diabetes

o Tuberculosis

o Unemployment (average 51%)

o Hazardous waste dumping on their lands

o Educational needs

o Inadequate housing

o Desecration of sacred sites

o Diminishing sovereignty and land thefts

o Assimilation

o Misappropriation of intellectual property by non-Indians for profit

o Religious freedom

o Broken treaties

o Child welfare and adoption issues

o Fetal alcohol syndrome

o Alcohol mortality

o Severe drug-related problems

o Youth suicides

o Post traumatic stress disorder

The above conditions have stemmed from national sins in which the churches collaborated with government to an extent. The churches and missionaries also preached the gospel, to be sure, but the gospel message was clothed in Western culture and corrupted with the ideals of Manifest Destiny: the doctrine that this Continent was providentially given to English immigrants in order to build a New Israel. Immigrant Americans have been scorning Indian ways and wisdom for hundreds of years. In my efforts in science and science education, I collaborate with Native scholars to bring traditional Indigenous knowledge in contact with Western science, hoping to build a bridge between the two paradigms. Of course, the Indian ceremonies, prayers and cultural practices are a reflection, and often an expression, of Indian knowledge.

If we accept the concept of national sin, how will vague apologies or paternalistic preaching create real solutions or true reconciliation? Telling Indians that “they need to learn the concept of forgiveness” reveals colossal ignorance about reality. As I said, the churches played a significant historical role in the conditions which now exist in Indian communities, yet they only offer, in a very limited way, through spokespersons, some gestures of “reconciliation” and vague, generic apologies, often accompanied by some form of backlash that accuses Indians of creating feelings of guilt, without assuming at least partial responsibility or genuinely attempting to design collaborative strategies with the tribes, such as helping rebuild and restore what the tribes have lost or lobbying Congress in behalf of the tribes. There are cases, such as when the Pueblos were in danger of losing their God-given water rights in the 1920s, in which powerful citizen groups successfully took up their cause and turned the matter into a national political agenda. It was also during that time that the United States passed the religious codes act, making it illegal for the Pueblos to perform any of their ceremonies.

Thanks to the tenacity of our tribal leaders-and I say this in honor of all the tribes and their leaders-the Pueblos have retained their way of life, despite the worst policies known to humankind intended to destroy them.

Within the Church, the conservative element is actually opposed to tribal needs, in stark contrast to Jesus’ warning and commands to help those in need. As I read the parable of Jesus about the future judgment of the nations in which he will separate the sheep from the goats, I am convinced that the United States and its collaborators will be among the goats. Where is the compassion and understanding that Jesus requires of us about the third-world conditions in Indian country (“you saw me hungry, you saw me thirsty, you saw me without clothing”)?

Below are some of the fundamental understandings that I believe are necessary before reconciliation within a Christian context can occur:

1. The churches and Christian workers need to understand and honor the formal and legal relationship between the tribes and the federal government.

Indians and tribes have a trust relationship with the federal government, governed by United States Code, Title 25. This relationship preempts relationships with other entities of society, such as American citizens, the churches, the States, and local governments. Tribal members were already citizens of their own sovereign nations long before they were granted U.S. citizenship in 1924. They were not allowed to vote until much later, even after fighting foreign wars to defend the U.S. Thus, Indians are not just individual citizens of the U.S., and the tribes as nations and tribal members as individuals both sustain a special relationship to the federal government. This relationship is described, for example, in the book entitled The Rights of Indians and Tribes by Stephen Pevar. All treaties between the US and the tribes were made even before the States were formed. But tribal sovereignty has always been under attack, especially as the States gain more and more power, and I consider this ongoing trend to be a continuous sin against the tribes whom the Creator lovingly placed on Mother Earth, giving them responsibilities as caretakers, and to whom He gave many teachings, long before immigrants came to this Continent.

2. The churches and Christian workers also need to know that, when Native people talk about devastation, destruction, genocide, pain, and so on, we are referring to the real, awful, nightmarish historical reality that will always abide in our memories. The past is an integral part of who we are; it is guarded, along with the stories, ceremonies, prayers, and language in order to secure the future survival of our people. What the tribes have experienced, and are still experiencing, is not fiction.

According to the best estimates (for example, Russell Thornton’s American Indian Holocaust and Survival, David Stannard’s American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World, and a lengthy article by Phil Lane, Jr. whose title I can’t remember), by 1900 more than 95 percent of the tribal population in North America was exterminated through wars, massacres, and disease. The massacre at Wounded Knee by the United States 7th Cavalry occurred four days after Christmas in 1890. These historical acts were not just “war crimes” but acts of genocide: the intent to destroy a people, along with their culture.

Descendents of the 3 to 5 percent who survived comprise today’s Indian (Indigenous) populations. It is no wonder that what actually happened on this land is called the “American Holocaust,” which the U.S. government has yet to acknowledge. Thus, comments such as “supposed emotional devastation” and “supposed hurt,” referring to Indians who are “supposedly” struggling with their pain, on the assumption and theory that such things are not really true, are not only highly inappropriate, disrespectful, and disgraceful; from a practical viewpoint they also reveal an attitude that will never foster reconciliation.

Based on what I’ve read, a large percentage of Native people suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They require a different kind of treatment than what Western medical practitioners can offer, one which requires the therapist to acknowledge the painful history and employs treatment that is compatible with the patient’s world view. An authentic source on PTSD treatment among Natives is Pueblo psychologist Dr. Eduardo Duran, whose book Postcolonial Psychology is an excellent reference. So-called “social seminars” conducted by White folks are paternalistic and based on Western psychology, which treats a Native person as a White person, causing him/her to further lose his/her identity. Retaining or restoring a Native identity is crucial to successful treatment.

3. The churches and Christian workers need to acknowledge that the acts committed against the tribal nations are NATIONAL sins; i.e. the sins of governments, the sins of America, sins of Americans, in which the Church was a tool of assimilation, language and culture loss, and loss of land.

Instead of applying the specific admonition by the apostle Paul to “become all things to all men,” the churches, ministers, and missionary societies forced Indians to assimilate, instead of themselves assimilating into Native culture, which is Paul’s admonition. Of course, the government also committed its own acts without help from the churches.

The matter of national sin notwithstanding, we fully acknowledge and are eternally thankful for the arrival of the Gospel to this land. My own encounter with Jesus occurred in 1958 because of the loving folks in a White church. At the same time, we must acknowledge that the tribes already knew the Creator. The prayers we hear today among the tribes confirm that this relationship began long, long ago. Many elders today talk about the need to “go back to the original teachings from the Creator.”

Instead of saying that Indians “need to understand the concept of forgiveness,” that they “want more than an apology,” that they “have not learned to forget or forgive their past,” it is White people who need to be enlightened. Having spent 40 years in large, research, mainstream universities, I would say that Americans are the ones who need to be reached more than anyone else. They need to know the Truth that will make them free-the truth about their own acts and attitudes, as well as the Truth of the liberating gospel. We Natives already know something about forgiveness, and the elders have said we must “forgive the unforgivable.”

It is others who need our help in coming to some fundamental understandings on spiritual matters. Unfortunately, instead of relying on the churches, Indian people are tackling problems on their own. The sobriety movement in Indian country is one example. And as part of the treatment, Indian individuals do learn to forgive, for there is a connection between addictive behavior and its various causes, including what the Church has done, as well as severe abuse by other members of the family.

What I have stated above should indicate that finding solutions will not be an easy task, because so much depends on White people who need to learn true history and openly accept responsibility. Church members and Christian workers among Indians need to do more than read the Bible and preach the gospel. They need to become involved in solving problems. I often dream of a movement from within the Church that focuses on strategies for restitution, such as collaborating with the tribes (and honoring their protocol), educating church members about hidden history (there are numerous resources), maintaining knowledge about current issues in Indian country, forming alliances among lawyers to help the tribes tackle numerous and difficult court cases, forming alliances among educators to end assimilation and help Indian students regain their culture and identity, and more. But I am not optimistic that this will happen, at least not on the scale that will make a difference, and not in my lifetime. The Church still appears to many Indians as a symbol of paternalism, superiority, arrogance, and a shallow understanding of spirituality. Our spirituality is tied to reciprocal relationships with the Creator and His Creation. The Church and society are also oblivious to the immense knowledge that the tribes have accumulated over thousands of years in relating to their environments. Some Native workers, like John and Gerri GrosVenor, who live in a tribal community and work among the people, are doing important and sensitive collaborative work, yet still face opposition and criticism by Christian groups. Their work, which matches the Indian way of being oriented to the community rather than the individual, is just as authentic as gathering in a building on Sunday morning for praise and worship, which is the non-Indian way.

When immigrants came to this Continent, Indians were the only ones who had rights, bestowed directly by The Only Sovereign One. They did not gain those original and inherent rights from any entity on Mother Earth, least of all the United States or any other human government. Thus, it should be noticed that every treaty made with the tribes granted rights FROM INDIANS TO NON-INDIANS, and those treaties became broken covenants. Each broken covenant represents a national sin-a spiritual act for which in my view this country cannot escape consequences.

So, before anyone can say that “they (the Indians) still want Whites to pay the price,” the Whites need to count their own blessings obtained at the tribes’ expense.