Crisis as Kairos: Our Samaria Right Next Door?
Acting on Crisis to Minister to Our Native Neighbors[1]
Dave Beine
Published in Global Missiology, www.globalmissiology.org, October 2020
Abstract
In June 2016, a wildfire swept through the Spokane Indian Reservation burning 18,000 acres, destroying many homes and knocking out power to the tribal headquarters town of Wellpinit. The power outage resulted in spoiled food at the only grocery store in town and a blown pump at the town’s only well. This was the second fire in two years to rock the community’s well-being, and the crisis created lingered on for months for members of the Spokane Tribe. Some still have not fully recovered. Meantime, less than 50 miles away, in the city of Spokane, which derives its name from the tribe, the smoke was a mere irritation to our eyes and lungs as the crisis garnered little attention beyond our health concerns (and spoiled vacations).
Beyond the fires, which are increasing in frequency and intensity because of global climate change, my neighbors, the Spokane Tribe, face a number of other crises, such as an environmental and health crisis (created by an abandoned open-pit uranium mine now actively leaking high-grade uranium into the Spokane River), an economic crisis (caused by high unemployment of 45.3%), a suicide epidemic, and a growing opioid addiction problem.
Missiologist Donald K. Smith has suggested that crisis creates opportunity to form opinions and even change them. And American-Korean missionary Michael Oh has contended that God is sovereign over crises and has “gracious gospel purposes” in them.
Tribal communities all around us are majority world cultures, some besieged by similar, structurally-created crises. Given the colonial history of the dominant culture church, the gospel has made little inroads into many of these communities and an understandable suspicion remains towards outsiders. Might crises, such as those listed above or others among our Native American neighbors, provide the opportunity for us to be good neighbors in the time of crisis, thus opening the door a bit further to effective ministry in our nearby “Samarias?”
In this article, I examine the opportunities, in a growing world of crisis, for Christians to be involved in reaching majority world cultures right in our own backyards.
Key Words: crisis; intercultural communication; missiology; reaching our marginalized neighbors; trauma
Introduction
Accompanying the shifting paradigm of missions from pioneer expatriate to national partner, there has been a shift in emphasis (or perhaps an addition of emphasis) from the overseas mission “field” to local mission opportunities. Famous mission passages such as Acts 1:8 have been recast to understand the mission call as to our neighbors (Jerusalem), AND our region (Judea), AND to the marginalized among us (Samaria) AND to the ends of the earth as has for so long been the emphasis of world missions. As one who has spent his career serving in and teaching about foreign mission, I do not mean to diminish the value of foreign mission. On the contrary, I hope to add to the equation by expressing opportunities that exist to reach unreached (or least-reached) and unengaged[2] populations that still reside right here within our national borders. Many of these groups fit the category of marginalized peoples as the Samaritans were once considered by the Jews.
Living right here in our own backyard, in the United States, are a plethora of unreached and unengaged (or nearly so) peoples: the large variety of Native American nations and communities. Richard Twiss (2006, 82) estimates that at present “only three to five percent of First Nations people have a vibrant, born-again relationship with Jesus Christ despite more than four-hundred years of being tiny islands surrounded by the ‘Sea of Christianity’.” More particularly, living within a one-hundred-mile radius of Spokane are nearly a dozen native nations whose statistics would place them missiologically among the world’s most “unreached” or “minimally reached” nations.
Historically, the dominant culture has viewed Native populations much the same way that Jews viewed Samaritans, as marginals at best. The dominant cultural view of indigenous peoples as inferior is well documented and led to one race taking advantage of another to the great detriment of the latter. This well-worn narrative of American history of that day, a result, in part of the scientific theories of social evolution popular during this period, was embraced by most persons of European descent. Early American Christian missionaries were not immune to assuming the same narrative. Native populations have, therefore, historically been (and remain so to this day) suspicious of the motives of white outsiders, particularly those identifying with the church. This problematic, strained relationship can make desired ministry to Native American peoples by dominant culture Christians problematic at best. Donald K. Smith (1992, 203) suggests, for instance, that “based on past treatment of native Americans by whites, Native Americans frequently reject the white missionary.” He quotes one native respondent as saying,
Christianity is a white man’s religion. Look at what has happened to the Native American in the name of Christ and Christianity. Christianity has contributed to the assimilation process, the removal process, the suppression of tribal religions, the dividing up of the reservations for various denominations, the allotment policy which resulted in a loss of millions of acres of Native American lands, the notion of inferiority of Native Americans- and so on. We want no part of Christ or Christianity (Smith 1992, 203).[3]
Is there any hope, therefore, of white Christians having a positive impact upon native communities?
Smith goes on to describe certain conditions that predispose societies to a change of opinion. He suggests that when a society is confronted by crisis (which he defines as a society that is “unstable and undergoing rapid change”), it is more open to outside involvement (Smith 1992, 209). More recently, Michael Oh, a Korean-American missionary working in Japan, a culture that has historically abused and negatively viewed Koreans, illustrated the same in his ministry. Describing Japan as the “largest unreached nation on earth,” he identified the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear radiation crisis as opportunities. He says, “we mourn the twenty thousand lives lost, most of whom did not know Christ. But we believe that God is both sovereign over such tragedies and has gracious gospel purposes that will be revealed” (Oh 2012, 96). While his statement is mainly in reference to the increased amount of wider public awareness (and resultant prayer for Japan and the gospel work there), I believe that increased prayer coupled with increased openness to help from outsiders during crisis, as noted by Smith, combine to increase overall mission effectiveness. In his treatise on missions in crisis, Kurtis Smith suggests that such thinking represents “best practices for these fertile mission fields that are often ‘ripe for the harvest’” because “disasters can transform entire institutional systems, economics, language and even the nature of mission work.” Smith suggests that “through trauma and travail, people learn new patterns for life,” and he proposes therefore that “Christians in mission can respond to crisis and help turn such events into ‘transformational’ moments” (Smith 2015, 1).
Today my neighbors, the Spokane Tribe, are facing a number of crises: a climate-change crisis which is making wildfires more common and more destructive (thus creating an associated economic crisis since timber is one of the few resources on the reservation), an environmental and health crisis created by an open-pit uranium mine actively leaking high-grade uranium into the Spokane River, and a plethora of other structurally-related societal crises such as poverty, drug addiction, and suicide that negatively impact the community.[4] In addition, there remain arenas of social injustice such as long-denied equitable compensation for the massive cultural and economic losses created by the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam (as I discuss below), which further breeds discouragement within the community. At the same time, each of these crises may be an opportunity for me to act as a good neighbor in a variety of ways.
The Fires
The Cayuse Mountain Fire that began in late August of 2016 burned over 18,000 acres of reservation land, destroyed 14 homes and left the tribal headquarters town of Wellpinit without power for five days, leading to spoiled food and creating the inability for firefighters to use the town’s well water (which depended upon electricity to pump the water) to fight the fire (Kramer 2018). A year earlier, the larger Carpenter Road Fire destroyed 64,000 acres, causing a “tremendous amount of damage to 18 primary residences, the natural resources and surrounding communities” and caused one death (Hill 2015). In a news article entitled, “Besieged by fire again, Wellpinit residents welcome help,” local residents shared the many ways that various local communities and other tribes came to their aid following the second fire, praising “the outpouring of support” they received from volunteers from surrounding communities who had “worked tirelessly to connect residents with donated goods.” The donations “made all the difference” (Sokol 2016). While it is wonderful to hear that many came to their aid, I am unaware of any churches in nearby Spokane that got immediately involved in the disaster relief efforts. Nor have I heard of churches being involved in the continuing efforts to help those impacted by the fire get back on their feet. It feels a bit like a natural, but missed, crisis opportunity.
Beyond
the immediate human cost of the fires, there is also the long-term economic
impact. The Spokane Tribe’s per capita annual income is $14,287, and timber is
one of the few resources available to the tribe on the reservation allotted to
them. The first reservation proposed for the Spokanes was a regional
reservation of approximately six million acres that would have included many
other local tribes sharing the territory — as they had always done. This
reservation, declared by executive order of President Ulysses S. Grant in April
1872, stretched from the Canadian border in the north, to the Spokane River in
the south, to the Pend Oreille and little Spokane Rivers to the east, and to
the Columbia River in the west. Less than three months later an amended
proposal for a smaller reservation, west of this original location, was made;
this smaller reservation was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on
July 2, 1872, and the original reservation land was returned to public domain.
This second reservation, further west than the original proposal, contained
less than three million acres of land stretching from the Okanagan River in
central Washington in the west, to the Columbia River serving as the southern
and eastern boundaries, and to the Canadian border in the north; it did not
include many of the Spokane Tribe’s most important fishing sites, as the
earlier proposal had. In 1873, a US Commission was sent to investigate
complaints coming from the Indians about these changes, and a new proposal for
a much larger regional reservation, that included both the original proposed
reservation plus even more land eastward was never officially established.
Instead, in 1873, a portion from this proposed reservation was carved off and
established as the Coeur d’Alene Reservation. Under growing pressure to open
more Indian land for white settlement, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison opened
the northern half of the Colville Reservation to public domain in 1877.[5]
In the meantime, some
bands of Spokane Indians settled within the Colville Reservation, others
settled within the Coeur d’Alene Reservation and others stayed camped around
the city of Spokan Falls.[6]
Growing tensions between these bands of Spokanes and white settlers in the new
city led to the proposal in 1877 of a Spokane Tribe Reservation (for the
remainder of the Spokanes who had not settled elsewhere), to be carved out from
the larger, earlier proposed regional reservation area. This proposal was
accepted by Chief Lot in 1880, but before it was signed into law by president
Rutherford Hayes in 1881, the northern boundary of the new Spokane Reservation
was reduced significantly (almost in half) when the president designated the 48th
parallel as the northern boundary, rather than the creeks that had been agreed
to by Chief Lot. The Spokane Reservation did not include the most important
site for the Spokanes, a salmon people: namely the Spokane Falls that now is at
the heart of the city. While this loss of access to salmon could have proven
economically disastrous for the tribe, it became a moot issue with the
completion of the Grand Coulee Dam in 1942. The dam stopped all salmon from
progressing upstream and was economically disastrous to all the local tribes.
From this point on, the Spokane Tribe was left to manage the meager resources
on their reservation land, including timber, much of which was lost during the
fires of 2016-2017. Prior to the fire the per capita payments to members of the
tribe, funds derived strictly from the tribe’s own resources generated from the
sale of timber and wood products, were $400 per year per capita (2014). With
limited resources and few employment opportunities, it should come as no
surprise that the tribe’s poverty rate is 37.6% and per capita yearly
income is only $14,287. In contrast, the unemployment rate in Washington state
is 4.9%, and the poverty rate is 12.2% (U.S. Census).
In
Washington state, the number of wildfires has more than doubled over the past
ten years (Gentzler 2019). In 2018, the state experienced the most wildfires on
record (Jackson 2019). Catastrophic wildfires are not only becoming more
frequent, they are becoming more intense (Jackson 2019). Changing climate
patterns are leading to earlier spring snowmelt as well as warmer and longer
summers, which decreases the ground moisture in many forests for longer
periods, thus drying out the trees and weakening their resistance to pests,
resulting in more diseased, dead and dying trees that produce great fodder for
future fires (UCS 2019; Gentzer 2019). Weather prognosticators are suggesting that
such climate patterns are now becoming the “new norm” (Gentzler 2019). If such
catastrophic wildfires are an apparent reality for our immediate future, how
might the church best prepare to help our neighbors living in these areas in
their predictable times of future crisis?
The Midnite Mine
Another contemporary crisis for the Spokane Tribe is the Midnite Mine, an open pit uranium mine actively leaking radiation into a creek on the reservation. In 1950, the mine was opened to produce uranium during the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race, but it closed after a drop in the price of uranium in 1981 and was abandoned, leaving exposed radioactive ore throughout the site. Locals attribute elevated cancer rates on the reservation to the open-pit mine that first garnered wider attention in the late 1990’s. By 2006, the mine had been designated an EPA Superfund cleanup site, but the cleanup plan did not get underway for another ten years and is not scheduled to be complete until 2025. Many tribal families face serious medical conditions on the reservation, perhaps a crisis that nearby Christian doctors and nurses could be involved in mitigating. One might wonder why this site has garnered so little attention over the years compared to the nearby Hanford Nuclear Superfund cleanup site. Perhaps it can be explained by the Midnite Mine’s non-proximity to modern cities and the remaining marginal status of Indians in the eyes of the wider culture. How might advocacy to speed cleanup help change attitudes of Spokane Indians toward their dominant culture neighbors?
Related Opportunities for Advocacy Against Injustice: The Grand Coulee Dam Settlement
This convoluted scenario bleeds into this article’s central point about crisis and opportunities among the Spokane Indians. There remain justice issues where dominant culture persons may be able to walk alongside our tribal neighbors and maybe even serve as advocates of influence within our own dominant culture circles to raise awareness of the Spokane Tribe’s plights. One such issue is an historical injustice created by the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. Constructed from 1933 to 1942, the dam effectively changed the Spokane Tribe’s way of life. With no mitigation made for migrating salmon, the dam blocked all salmon from moving upstream to the Spokanes’ historic fishing sites. Poverty and starvation resulted. Furthermore, tribal land was flooded by the creation of Lake Roosevelt behind the dam. While the Spokane Tribe was minimally compensated for the loss of this land ($4700), the Colville Tribe, who lost land on the other side of the river, were awarded 53 million dollars in 1994 in one-time compensation plus annual payments of 14-21 million dollars for hydropower revenues generated by the dam.
In
1941, the Spokane Tribe began raising the issue of losses incurred by the
construction of the dam. In 1994, after the federal settlement with the
Colville Tribe, the Spokanes began seeking equitable compensation for their
similar losses, but to no avail. Over the past 20 years, there has been
a volley of bills passed in the US Senate and the House of Representatives
seeking such an equitable settlement, but never at the same time. In 2013,
speaking in support of this equitable settlement before the Senate Committee on
Indian Affairs, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn, of the
Department of the Interior, testified that the passage of such a bill “would
provide a measure of justice for a historical wrong” and that the tribe’s claim
was an “equitable one” because, while the Colville Tribe had been compensated
fairly, the Spokane Tribe had not. Washburn claimed that “the Spokane Tribe
never received similar compensation because they were foreclosed from doing so”
and that “while this outcome can be explained legally, it is difficult to
justify morally.” He concluded in his testimony that “there is no dispute that
the Spokane Tribe suffered a loss arising out of the same set of actions by the
United States…,” that “it is partly an accident of history that the Colville
Tribes received compensation and the Spokane Tribe did not… that the
Administration supports equitably compensating the Spokane Tribe for the losses
it sustained as a result of the federal development of hydropower at Grand
Coulee Dam,” and that “the facts and history show that as a matter of equity
the Spokane Tribe has a moral claim to receive compensation for its loss”
(Washburn 2013). While this testimony served to support the passage of Senate
Bill 1448 back in 2013, the bill never moved past the introduction stage in the
Senate. A similar bill was reintroduced in the Senate in the 114th
Congress (2015-2016) and the 115th Congress where it passed the
Senate, and it is now in the 116th Congress (2019-2020) where it has
again been introduced in the Senate and is awaiting further action. If the bill
passes, a similar bill will need introduction in the House of Representatives.
In March 2018, just prior to this most recent Senate action, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke visited the Spokane Tribe on their reservation to discuss the pending legislation for reparations for the various losses associated with the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam (the legislation subsequently introduced by Senator Cantwell in the 116th Congress). Zinke opined his position on the issue when he concluded, “Clearly, the tribe, in my judgement, was wronged” (Wohlfeil 2018). In an email response reported in the same article, McMorris Rodgers (who will need to sponsor a similar bill in the House of Representatives again if the bill is ever to become law), said that “she also believes the Spokane Tribe was wronged, and that she has worked on legislation to identify a settlement with them and other property owners” (Wohlfeil 2018). McMorris Rodgers was the sponsor of a similar bill introduced in the House of Representatives during the 109th Congress (2005-2006). Since then, however, the tribe has felt that her original support for their cause has diminished. In 2016, the local media reported that “despite her initial support of a bill to compensate the tribe for the damage that Grand Coulee did to the Spokane Tribe, the tribe suggested that McMorris Rodgers had done little to move the proposal forward since then” (Walters 2016). And yet from her words in 2018 noted above, the Spokane would infer continued support for their settlement. Since any final bill would require a passed House-sponsored version of the law (passed as well by the Senate) in order to be enacted into federal law, only time will tell as to Rodgers’ true inclinations on this issue.[7]
How
do all of these historical and legal details relate to the topic at hand,
crisis and mission? Might advocacy on the part of the wider church for the
continuing injustices faced by our neighbors play a role in changing
their attitudes about us and our religious messages? During a recent immersion
experience designed to encourage reconciliation, a dominant culture member
listening to an indigenous speaker talk about dominant culture mistreatment and
abuse of Indians in the Indian Boarding Schools, broke into tears and
approached the speaker to offer words of sorrow and confession. The storyteller
of this event quips, “It was a beautiful moment as our indigenous speaker
hugged the man, and smiling compassionately said, ‘it is okay.’” Such
compassionate interactions, accompanied by concrete steps of advocacy on the
part of dominant culture Christians would go a long way towards bridging the
understandable remaining cultural divide.
Conclusions
In conclusion,
in thinking about this topic more deeply, the implications and applications are
endless. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, provide avenues for
involvement of Christians in meeting the need for rapid relief all around the
world. Weather-related disasters of every kind (whether natural, human-caused,
or human intensified) are increasing and intensifying around the globe. Beyond
these examples, healing for trauma resulting from disease, disaster or war is
increasingly needed throughout the nations. Other obvious “crisis” situations
are created by language and culture loss, economic strife, issues of injustice,
various addictions, suicide epidemics, crime, school shootings, and data
hijackings. The list could go on and on. Each of these traumatic events is
happening internationally and may represent a chance for us Christians to be good
neighbors in many places. These crises present us opportunities to be the hands
and feet of Jesus to a suffering world. Locally as well there are communities
all around us, some historically (understandably) resistant perhaps not to the
message, but to the messenger. One recent article focusing on crises in
the Middle East suggests, “When there is chaos, there are often kairos[8]
moments for the kingdom of God to spread. If you desire to see the kingdom
tangibly advancing, go to the place where people are suffering” (Bradwell
2015).
In light of the changing nature of missions today (from expatriate to national[9]), the growing crisis opportunities all around us, and the sociological realities that crisis can open opportunities for peoples once viewed with suspicion by others, it seems that the opportunities for mission are many, if we can recognize them as such. While this article has focused mainly upon crisis as kairos among the Spokane Indians, the topics covered are not necessarily specifically unique to the Spokane Indians. The Spokanes are just one of dozens of tribes within the region with similar stories. And our regional tribes represent but a few among hundreds of other tribal communities across the nation facing similar crises. Opportunity abounds if we will only open our eyes, be good neighbors as Jesus commanded and see that the fields are white for the harvest, overseas and just around the corner.
Finally, as indicated in the first footnote the article's use of pronouns may construct a white, dominant-culture (and sometimes Christian) United States “us” and a Native American “other.” Given the realities of our human nature, I see no way around this, from either direction. Humanly speaking, none of us can forget our past, and we cannot stop living (either group) with the results of the structural realities that our histories have created, whether that be of privilege or inequity. Humanly speaking, we cannot entirely stop viewing one another as cultural “others” through the present social lenses constructed by our own cultural pasts, no matter who is the “us” and who is the “them.” I strongly encourage “us” to use our structural privilege to advocate for personal repentance, public acknowledgement of past wrongs committed, and reparations to pay for the sins of our past. I believe these are minimal essential first steps toward reconciliation. While each of these would be a good start toward demonstrating our sincerity for the reconciliation process, I do not think these actions can completely make up for the past damage done. Humanly speaking, I don’t know how the recipients of such horrible loss could ever truly forgive and forget; I am not sure it is possible to “forget” and “move on,” or if it is truly profitable.[10] I say this as a member of the dominant American culture, and again, as one who strongly advocates for these actions to be taken both personally and corporately. Yet I understand my Native American friends who still view me first as a “white man” and evaluate my actions through their cultural lenses as Native Americans, as I view them as “Indians”[11] through mine. I am not sure if it is humanly possible for me to see them otherwise, for them to see me otherwise, or for me to expect them to.[12]
There is a higher-level spiritual calling, however, to which I wish to encourage any Native American believers in Jesus who may be reading this. I am a follower of my Master, Jesus. If you also follow Jesus as your Master, then we are, spiritually speaking, half-siblings; we have different mothers, but the same Father. And because of Paul’s pronouncement in Galatians 3:28, that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female,[13] as well as neither white nor Indian, we are fully adopted into the same family with God as our Father. He now considers us full siblings and we are expected to act toward one another with the same obligations and privileges we give and expect from our own full blood kin. It flows in both directions. I ask you to accept the heart behind my challenge. North American tribes historically accepted a variety of people, not their actual kin, into their midst, despite their tribal or ethnic affiliation. In Jesus, we are now one tribe. Yet we have different ethnic heritages. I seek to be a Christ-follower, who happens to be a white American working alongside a Christ-follower who happens to be Indian. I think the order in which we state our faith and ethnic heritage matters greatly (e.g. a Christian who happens to be a white, dominant-culture American vs. an American Christian, or a Christian Native American versus a Native American Christian).[14] I pray you will receive my plea for brotherly unity in the spirit in which it is intended, and that we can begin to give to, and receive from one another while sharing in ministry with one another (Beine 2019), as true full siblings in Christ.
References
_____ (2016). “A Continuing Role for Western Bible Translators?” in Rochelle Cathcart Scheumann and Edward L. Smither, eds., Controversies in Mission: Theology, People and Practice of Mission in the 21st Century. Evangelical Missiological Society Series number 24. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 165-185.
Evans, Carol (2019). “Statement For the Record of Carol Evans Chairwoman, Spokane Tribe of Indians.” House Natural Resources Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States. Available online at https://naturalresources.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Witness%20Testimony%20-%20Chairwoman%20Evans%20(Spokane).pdf (accessed October 8, 2020).
Hammer, Mitchell (2012). “The Intercultural Development Inventory: A new frontier in assessment and development of intercultural competence,” in M. Vande Berg, R. M. Paige, and K. H. Lou, eds., Student Learning Abroad. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 115-136.
Hill, Carolyn Eriksen (2002). “Changing Times in Composition Classes: Kairos, Resonance, and the Pythagorean Connection,” in Phillip Sipiora and James S. Baumlin, eds., Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in History, Theory, and Praxis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 211-225.
Hill, Kipp (2015). “Arsonist started Carpenter Road Fire, authorities say” Spokesman Review September 14. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/sep/14/arsonist-started-carpenter-road-fire-tribe-says/.
Kramer, Becky (2018). “Spokane Tribe launches ‘Children of the Sun’ solar initiative, with long-range plans for energy independence” Spokesman Review August 28. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/aug/28/spokane-tribe-launches-children-of-the-sun-solar-i/.
Oh, Michael (2012). “From Every Land to Every Land: The Lord’s Purposes and the Lord’s Provision in the Lord’s Prayer,” in John Piper and David Mathis, eds., Finish the Mission: Bringing the Gospel to the Unreached and Unengaged. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 83-109.
Smith, Donald (1992). Creating Understanding. Bend, OR: Books on Creating Understanding.
Smith, Kurtis (2015). “Mission in Crisis” Missio Apostolica 23 (2). https://www.lsfm.global/uploads/files/MA-Nov2015-Mission-in-Crisis.pdf.
Spokane Tribe (2017). “Spokane Tribe of Indian's 477 /TANF Annual Report to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 2016” March 31. https://www.bia.gov/sites/bia.gov/files/Spokane.AR_.2016%20to%202016.Nar%20%20508%20Comp.pdf.
Sokol, Chad (2016). “Besieged by fire again, Wellpinit residents welcome help” Spokesman Review August 25. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/aug/25/besieged-by-fire-again-wellpinit-residents-welcome/.
Wohlfeil, Samantha (2018). “Paying for Dam Damages” Inlander March 29. https://www.inlander.com/spokane/democrats-and-republicans-agree-that-something-should-be-done-to-compensate-the-spokane-tribe-plus-spokane-county-wants-a-kendall-yards-type/Content?oid=8994396.
[1] Implicit in my argument is that I am writing as a member of white majority American culture generally, and as a white majority American Christian specifically. My particular use of pronouns (e.g. my, we, our, us, etc.), therefore, reflects this vantage point throughout this article.
[2] “Unreached” and “least reached” are terms used synonymously by Joshua Project to mean “a people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group without outside assistance.” The original editorial board of Joshua Project, somewhat arbitrarily, set the percentage figure criteria for these terms as “less than or equal to 2% Evangelical Christian and less than or equal to 5% Professing Christians.” The term “unengaged,” likewise, has been defined by Joshua Project as a sub-set of an unreached people group that “has no known active church planting underway.” More about these definitions can be found at https://joshuaproject.net/help/definitions. By these definitions, the Spokane Tribe (as would many other tribes in the region and across the nation) might be considered unreached or nearly unreached and unengaged populations. For more about unreached and unengaged peoples see: https://www.imb.org/beliefs-key-terms/#Unreached.
[3] All of the various nations noted above within a 100-mile radius of Spokane have all faced all of these same pressures.
[4] A 2016 Spokane Tribal report concludes that “at present, there are several indicators that portray significant distress among tribal members and in the community. The tribal unemployment rate is 45.3%. The poverty rate is 37.6%, and per capita income is only $14,287. In contrast, the unemployment rate in Washington State is 4.9%, and the poverty rate is 12.2% (U.S. Census). These family stressors have deleterious effects on family functioning and cohesiveness, leading to increased rates of domestic violence, poor learning skills and school attendance among children, intensified use of drugs and alcohol, and increased incidence of crime” (Spokane Tribe 2017).
[5] The proposed larger reservation would have housed multiple regional tribes and allowed for the continued shared usage of historic resource-sharing sites such as the Spokane Falls (where salmon were abundant) and the camas fields. Both salmon and camas (a root-bulb plant) were significant in the diet of all Interior Salish people. Instead, reservations were developed that divided people geographically mainly along tribal lines. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is composed of several tribes and bands; Chelan, Chief Joseph Band of Nez Perce, Colville, Eniat, Lakes, Methow, Moses-Columbia, Nespelem, Okanogan, Palus, San Poil, and Wenatchi. The Coeur d’Alene Reservation housed mainly the Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai Indians. Both also contained some Spokane Indians since there was much intermarriage and transmigration between all Salish groups and the Spokane and Kalispel reservations had not been established yet.
[6] The city of Spokan Falls, Washington was incorporated on Nov. 29, 1881. The “e” was added to Spokane in 1883, and “Falls” was dropped from the name in 1891. See https://my.spokanecity.org/about/history/.
[7] It is noteworthy that the “Spokane Tribe of Indians Equitable Compensation Act” (s.216) was reaffirmed by the U.S. Senate, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, and signed into law by President Trump on December 27, 2019. While this may appear as a victory, the settlement stripped any one-time payment (such as the Colville received). The Spokanes lost roughly 40% of the land lost by the Colvilles, which would equate to a one-time payment of 21.2 million dollars. While the annual payments now promised to the Spokane Tribe by the new law (six million annually for ten years and eight million yearly thereafter) will be roughly equitable (percentage-wise) to those that the Colville receive, during her final statements before Congress Spokane Tribe Chairwoman Carol Evans noted that “critically, our Tribal membership made the difficult decision to forego back payments in hope that the Spokane Tribe can finally achieve a semblance of justice moving forward. As each year passes, we lose more Spokane elders who were alive to witness the initial flooding of our lands and complete loss of our salmon fishery. Only a handful remain. It is my great hope that Congress and this Administration will allow me to bring them home a bill signed into law” (Evans 2019, 2). While providing some “semblance of justice,” this certainly seems more of a “compromise compensation act” rather than a truly “equitable settlement.”
[8] Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning time, not in the chronological sense, but a conceptual sense as in “at just the right time,” a qualitative aspect of time rather than a quantitative one, "the circumstances that open moments of opportunity" (Hill 2002, 217).
[9] I have pointed out elsewhere, however, that I believe there is still room and need for all in missions today (Beine 2016).
[10] Harvard philosopher George Santayana is known to have said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Therefore, it would likely be counterproductive to forget this grievous past.
[11] While I recognize that this term may be considered pejorative when used by non-Natives in some geographic regions (e.g., Canada), the Coeur d’Alenes, Kalispel, Spokanes all use this descriptor of themselves in their tribal moniker. Likewise, my Native friends have told me they prefer me to use this designation when speaking of them.
[12] None of this is to say that attempts to develop an intercultural worldview are not profitable and that recognizing and appreciating cultural differences is completely impossible. Rather, I am simply acknowledging the human struggle inherent in the process and the difficulty of overcoming every obstacle completely. Through this argument I am not advocating what the Intercultural Development Inventory (Hammer 2012) would refer to as a monocultural minimization mindset (http://www.truenorthintercultural.com/blog/category/professional-development). We should certainly strive for what the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) calls “acceptance” and “adaptation” mindsets, stages that recognize, appreciate and value inherent cultural differences.
[13] Paul’s teaching here is not to suggest a neutralization of culture into a monochromatic homogenous Christian identity, rather a rich completeness that comes when we are able to embrace and celebrate the distinctives of each of our cultures, yet under the unity of the cross. This approach would reflect the “adaptation” mindset described by the IDI.
[14] Again, I want to be sure that I am not being read here as advocating a minimization mindset that would dismiss or diminish the importance of our cultural heritages. Rather, all of this is understood in the light of the acceptance and adaptation mindsets, recognizing, embracing and appreciating cultural differences, leading us together to a richer understanding of our world and of our Creator.