During November, the God’s Diversity Committee celebrates Native American Heritage Month. This year, we would like to briefly share some historical background and recent efforts of both our country and our church to work together to repair what has been broken in indigenous communities, to make amends, and to heal. Please join us each week in the special prayers provided.
November 24, 2024
Native American Heritage Month: For many years, the Office of Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church has celebrated the “longstanding presence and influence of Native Americans throughout the history of the Episcopal Church in the United States from its earliest days in the New World.” The Church’s website summaries its ongoing commitment to:
- Guarantee that Indigenous people are fully recognized and welcomed into congregational life through education, advocacy, and leadership development;
- Create influential leadership roles in the church for Indigenous people;
- Develop a national support system for continued remembrance, recognition and reconciliation of all Indigenous people withing the church and world;
- Develop a network of leadership and education resources to empower Indigenous people to prepare for mission and ministry in the Episcopal Church and the world;
- Provide resources, advocacy and support to Indigenous theology students, those in the ordination process and lay congregational leaders.
Most significant is the Church’s recognition of its own complicity in the harmful treatment of Native Americans and the need for repentance. This work began in earnest in 1997 when the Church proposed a new covenant of faith and reconciliation to atone for the sins of colonialization and has continued, through the repudiation of the “Doctrine of Discovery” in 2009, to Bishop Curry’s recent acknowledgement of the Church’s participation in the Indian Residential Schools and its commitment to further discussion and action to atone for the injustices of the 19th and 20th centuries. For information on Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church, please consult https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/indigenous-ministries/blog/
During this last week of November, the members of the God’s Diversity Committee invite you to pray with us:
O Great Spirit, God of all people and every tribe, through whom all people are related;
Call us to the kinship of all our people.
Grant us vision to see through the lens of our Baptismal Covenant, the brokenness of the past.
And give us courage, patience, and wisdom to work together for healing and hope with all your people, now and in the future.
Mend the hoop of our hearts and let us live in justice and peace through Jesus Christ, the One who comes to all people that we might live in dignity. Amen.
(Adapted from “Exposing the Doctrine of Discovery: A Call to Healing and Hope,” a Congregational Resource of the Episcopal Church.)
November 17, 2024
Native American Heritage Month: On July 12, 2021, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and President of the House of Deputies Gay Clark Jennings issued a statement condemning the role that Churches across North America have played in the devastating legacy of Indian Boarding Schools. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the United States, sought to assimilate Native American children into Euro-American culture through the establishment of American Indian Residential Schools, many of which were government or Church run. Many children were taken from their families, punished for speaking their native languages and observing tribal customs, often abused by their caretakers, and in many cases, never returned to their families. The recent discovery of mass graves of Indigenous children on the grounds of former boarding schools, has sparked a federal investigation and comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of boarding school policies. Under the leadership of Bishop Curry, the Episcopal Church has acknowledged its association with Indigenous schools during the 19th and 20th centuries and has committed the Church to the work of truth and reconciliation with Indigenous communities and to work with the leaders of other denominations to uncover the extent to which all Christian schools may have participated in similar acts of cultural genocide. The upcoming 80th General Convention in July 2022 will include further discussion and action about the shameful legacy of Indian Schools associated with the Episcopal Church and our path forward toward atonement and reconciliation.
Please join the members of the God’s Diversity Committee in the following prayer:
Dear Savior, forgive and heal us from our role in the Indian Residential Schools designed to eliminate the unique society, wisdom and beauty of the Indigenous peoples of the land. Give us strength to atone for our past sins and, with your help, to confront the racism that divides us as we confess the pain it has caused the human family. Call us to kinship and let us live in justice and peace, through Jesus Christ, the one who came that all people might live in dignity. Amen.
(Adapted from a liturgy prepared by the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia).
November 10, 2024
Native American Heritage Month: In May 2012, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori issued a pastoral letter repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, which was promulgated by European monarchies in the 15th century and later adopted by our founding Fathers, to legitimize the colonization of land inhabited by Indigenous Peoples. It was also used to justify the dehumanization, exploitation and subjugation of Indigenous Peoples and to dispossess them of their lands and their most basic rights. Bishop Schori reminds us that “repentance and amendment of life are the answer, and God asks us all – in this Church, our partners and neighbors, and the nations which were founded under the Doctrine of Discovery – to the challenging work of reconciliation.” In the spirit of this pastoral letter, the members of the God’s Diversity Committee request that you join us in a prayer of atonement and restoration as we observe Native American Heritage Month.
“O Great spirit, God of every people and every tribe,
We come to you as your many children, to ask for your forgiveness and guidance.
Forgive us for the colonialism that stains our past, the ignorance that allowed us to think
that we could claim another’s home for our own.
Heal us of this history.
Guide us through your wisdom to restore the truth of our heritage.
Help us to confront the racism that divides us as we confess the pain it has
Caused the human family.
Call us to kinship.
Mend the hoop of our hearts and let us live in justice and peace, through
Jesus Christ, the One who came that all people might live in dignity. Amen.
(From the Episcopal Church: Resources on the Doctrine of Discovery)
On October 9, 2021, President Biden issued the first presidential proclamation recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which has been similarly observed on the second Monday in October ever since. The purpose of this proclamation was to show appreciation of Native Peoples and their resilience, strength and the immeasurable positive impact that they have made over every aspect of American society. Acknowledging the many instances when we have failed to uphold the rights and dignity of the Indigenous people, who were the first Americans, President Biden wrote in this Proclamation: “It is a measure of our greatness as a Nation that we do not seek to bury these shameful episodes of our past – that we face them honestly; we bring them to the light and we do all we can to address them.” In prayer, help us to remember the exhortation in Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
O God of infinite mercy, we live in a land where the native peoples were moved, often by force, from the bountiful lands they inhabited to places of desolation. Help us to support them now as they seek to retain their rich native cultures. Open our eyes to the poverty and despair that so often accompany them through life, and give us the courage and will to change the systems that perpetuate injustice, for the sake of your Son our Lord. Amen