The Gospel of Genocide and the Good News of Jesus Christ:
From Victim to Victor in First Nations Ministry
Associate
Professor of Christian Theology and Theology of Culture at Multnomah Biblical
Seminary
Published
in Global Missiology, Contextualization, January 2004, www.globalmissiology.net
The Indigenous Problem in the Whitewashed
Church
Adherence to Moralistic Righteousness
Inroads into the Post-Modern Spirit Through Pre-Modern Channels
Introduction:
A Sleeping Giant—
Problems and Possibilities
“The Native American has been like a
sleeping giant. He is awakening. The original Americans could become the
evangelists who will help win America for Christ! Remember these forgotten people!”
—Billy Graham[1][1]
The purpose of this paper is to
articulate reasons why the Native American is both sleeping and a giant. In order to explain why the Native American
is sleeping, I will combat biblically and theologically some of the subtle and
not so subtle theological causes for imperialism or cultural genocide in
America’s history and missionary enterprise.
In order to explain why the Native American is a giant, I will argue
that pre-modern channels such as those found among the indigenous people of
North America, when redeemed by Christ, provide strategic inroads for the Good
News to penetrate the hearts and imaginations of post-modern culture.
The Indigenous Problem in the Whitewashed Church
The cry of Manifest Destiny was, “Kill
the Indian and save the soul.” The
unpacking of this statement goes a long way toward explaining why the Native
American has largely been asleep. Beyond cultural factors, the theological
underpinnings for this “Gospel of Genocide” involve whitewashing.
Now why, you may be asking, do I use
the term “whitewashed” to refer to the Church when discussing its encounter
with North America’s indigenous peoples?
It is because the North American Church has been “whitewashed” in at
least two ways: first, by denying the ethnic and cultural particularity of the
Good News in view of (in favor of?) an amorphous
spirituality; and second, by adhering to a form of moralistic righteousness.
Both items concern a theological rendition of cultural anthropology. We
will begin by considering amorphous spirituality.
In discussing amorphous
spirituality, we have in mind a statement by Uchimura
Kanzo, a leading Japanese Christian figure from the
Meiji era. Many Western missionaries are
skeptical of Kanzo to this day, in part because of
his skepticism of Western missionary endeavors, and the theological
anthropology that supports such practices.
In his essay, “Japanese Christianity,” he writes,
A Japanese
by becoming a Christian does not cease to be a Japanese. On the contrary, he becomes more Japanese by
becoming a Christian. A
Japanese who becomes an American or an Englishman, or an amorphous universal man, is neither a
true Japanese nor a true Christian.[2][2]
Kanzo then proceeds to argue that the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther
and John Knox “were not characterless universal men, but distinctly national,
therefore distinctly human and distinctly Christian,” adding that Japanese
saved as “‘universal Christians’ may turn out to be no more than denationalized
Japanese, whose universality is no more than Americanism or Anglicanism adopted
to cover up their lost nationality.”[3][3]
The same mind-set Kanzo struggled against in the Meiji era is still alive and
well today. Recently, I had the
privilege to participate in a discussion with a few missiologists. In the course of our discussion, one of them
said with great conviction something to the effect that the Church today must
regain a passion for God and souls.
While no Bible-believing Christian would disagree with what was said, a
Bible-believing Christian should raise a flag over what was left unsaid. So, I said in response, “What about
culture? Otherwise, you’re advocating a
form of Gnostic Christianity.” Upon
explanation, my friend assented, albeit slowly and hesitantly.
Now Gnosticism, simply defined, is
the ancient heresy claiming that the spirit is good and matter is evil. Gnosticism appears in a
Christological heresy known as Docetism, which
teaches that Jesus only appeared to be human.
My associate would in no way affirm such heresies. Nor does he lack appreciation for the need
for cultural sensitivity in missionary endeavors. In fact, just the opposite! But there was a “Freudian” theological slip,
expressing a sub-conscious roadblock in the back of his psyche that separates
souls from the cultures in which they are embodied, and placing higher
(eternal) value on souls than upon their cultural embodiment. Taken to an extreme along the line of such a
trajectory, it would suggest the disembodiment of the soul—a gnostic or docetic
anthropology.
“What’s the big deal?” you may be
asking. Is this not just another
instance of a theologian splitting hairs and speculating ad infinitum about how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin? Not at all. If Kanzo’s point is
to be taken on board (and I hope you do take it on board), one will be even
more sensitive to the danger of imposing one’s own cultural form on the people
of another culture. Without wishing to
embrace any possible nationalistic sentiment resident in Kanzo’s
claim, one must recognize the importance of the inseparable relation of soul to
culture. There is no such thing as an unenculturated soul, just as
there is no such thing, ultimately speaking, as a disembodied soul.
The theological problem does not end
there. In fact, the
cultural-anthropological underpinnings for this problem may themselves be
girded by larger systems of thought, namely, dispensational and covenant
theological programs respectively. The
reader need not fear that what he is about to encounter is an insert of ten
pages of highly detailed dispensational charts!
I will try to keep it simple.
In their book, Progressive Dispensationalism, Craig Blaising and Darrel Bock argue that more classic forms of Dispensationalism may have engendered cultural imperialism
in missionary practices by claiming that the Church is a totally new people,
neither Jewish nor Gentile, but a third entity.
Such lines of demarcation, when employed in missions,
leads to Kanzo’s amorphous Christianity, which
inadvertently leads to the imposing of one’s own not so innocuous or amorphous
Christianity upon that of another.
For what it is worth, the authors contend that what is required is a
dispensational model that sees greater continuity between Jewish believers of
the various dispensations, and by extension, Gentile believers, too.[4][4]
One might think such attention given
to Dispensationalism would suggest that Covenant
Theology is off the hook. Hardly. If the
problem for Dispensational theology historically is division, the problem for Covenant theology is displacement. In his book, Church and Israel After
Christendom: the Politics of Election, Scott Bader-Saye
speaks out against the supersessionist view of the
Church replacing Israel. I associate
this move with a particular Covenant theological orientation. In what follows, I will simply refer to it as
Israel’s displacement. Such displacement
has left its mark, not only in terms of Israel at the hands of the Nazis, but
also in terms of Native Americans at the hands of those who championed the
American version of Nazism—Manifest Destiny.[5][5]
Bader-Saye
proposes that the best way to guard against supersessionism
is to emphasize corporate election, which includes Israel.[6][6] While affirming the corporate aspect of election and Israel’s
place in it, I would go further and argue that the solution to the problem
surrounding division as well as displacement is ultimately Christological. Greater emphasis must be given to the particularity
of the Word made flesh as Jesus of Nazareth.
It is only as this man that He is Lord and King.
Now my claim might not appear to be
obvious at first sight. But when is the
last time you saw a picture of Jesus hanging on a wall, where he looked something
like a Taliban soldier instead of Brad Pitt in a toga with exceptionally long
hair? One of my friends believes that
Jesus looked a lot more like a Taliban soldier, missing a tooth or two. Over the past few years another friend of
mine has given my family Nativity sets as gifts for Christmas—one from Peru,
the other from Indonesia. I can hardly
wait to get the one from Haiti!
How does the preceding discussion
relate to the point I am making about viewing Jesus of Nazareth as Lord and
King? Only by viewing our Lord first as
a Jew (Mt. 1:1), and first for the Jews (Rom. 1:16), can we truly see him as
Lord of Gentiles—all Gentiles (Rom. 1:14).
However, because we have not done so, we tend to equate the Christ with
our own cultural form, and in turn impose that form on other peoples. What kind of Nativity set will you put up
next Christmas?
The Good News is always to be viewed
as first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles.
Otherwise, we turn the Good News of Jesus Christ into the Gospel of
Genocide. The Good News is not simply for all peoples. It is also the Good News of each people. Seeing the
fundamental cultural particularity of the Good News from its inception helps
guard against universalizing it in some amorphous manner and imposing our own
cultural form in view of the resulting cultural vacuum.
The universal—the eternal Word of
John’s Gospel—always takes particular form (See Jn. 1:1, 14). However, such an emphasis on Christ’s
particularity should not be taken to suggest that only Jewish particularity is
kosher. Because the Word became
particular in one culture through the Spirit, as expressed in the virgin birth
(Lk. 1:35), He can become particular in any culture
through the same Spirit, as the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2
suggests. “Utterly amazed, they asked:
‘Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in
his own native language?” (Ac. 2:7-8).
Through the Spirit at Pentecost, God revokes the curse imposed at
Babel.
The Spirit particularizes Christ’s
universality. Nonetheless, we must
always see Jesus as first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles, and because of
the Jews, then for the Gentiles—all Gentiles.
If we do not see matters in this way, but rather promote the Gospel of
amorphous spirituality, there is a greater likelihood that white Anglo-Saxon
Protestant males such as myself will continue to impose our own particular
Gentile versions of the Good News on the originally chosen people of our
country—the First Nations people.
Adherence to Moralistic
Righteousness
In addition to the problem of
amorphous spirituality, another key factor to consider in the oppressing of
First Nations people—suppressing them to sleep—is the dominant Christian
culture’s adherence to moralistic righteousness. Moralistic righteousness is behavioral in
scope, emphasizing external conduct according to prescribed forms rather than
the transformation of the heart.
The problem of moralistic
righteousness is endemic to Judaizers throughout the
centuries. One need only think of the
Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 where certain Jews sought to impose circumcision
on Gentile believers as the seal of salvation (Ac. 15:1). Certainly such a move would have gone far
beyond the theological splitting of hairs!
Think, too, of Acts 10 where the kosher Peter is told to eat a ham
sandwich. Peter refuses to obey God due
to his desire to be a good Jew (Ac. 10:14).
While affirming the Jewishness of Jesus, we
must guard against the Judaizing impulse to impose a
cultural form of righteousness upon people rather than highlight the
circumcision of the heart. It is the
circumcision of the heart, not the flesh, that makes one truly Jewish, and
truly a believer (Rom. 2:28-29).
Peter had been a religious and
cultural bigot (See Ac. 10:9-17). And we
are told in Galatians that he would struggle with this problem at least once
more (Gal. 2:11-12). Such religious and
cultural bigotry is still very much present today. While wishing to guard against syncretism, we
must also guard against separatism.
Richard Twiss argues against such separatism
in his book, One Church, Many Tribes:
Following Jesus the Way God Made You.
He writes,
Because we are all so prone to be culturally egocentric, the
temptation is to consider our worldview the biblical and correct one, shunning
all others as unbiblical and wrong.
Worse yet is our habit of judging cultural ways—songs, dances, rituals,
etc.—to be sinful when there is no clear violation of Scripture.[7][7]
Native drum songs filled with new
meaning and intent not only can but do bring glory to
God. “Because music is flexible and able
to be reinterpreted, old Indian music styles can become sacred, or Christian,
not by reason of form but through context and meaning.”[8][8]
Certainly this was the view of
Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, who borrowed from a
popular secular musical form known as a bar tune to write “A Mighty Fortress is
our God.” On another occasion, he
commandeered a dance tune used for tavern celebrations at Christmas time for
the hymn, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.”
No doubt it was related in some way to how he perceived theological
anthropology. Behaviors do not shape the
heart. The heart shapes behaviors.[9][9]
In view of the preceding remarks, I
can only wonder if some of the consternation expressed by certain First Nations
Christian groups regarding the use of drums in Christian worship is the result
of cultural conditioning at the hands of past missionaries rather than the
result of the Holy Spirit’s convicting work in the hearts of indigenous people
in the present. Regardless though of how
First Nations people view such matters as the use of Native drums in Christian
worship, pre-modern channels such as those found among the indigenous people of
this country are of strategic importance in reaching post-modern Americans for Christ.
This leads us to the next section.
Inroads into the Post-Modern Spirit Through
Pre-Modern Channels
Having spoken of reasons why the
Native American is sleeping, it is now time to consider why he is a giant,
reflecting upon the importance of the indigenous perspective for present day
culture. As stated at the outset of the
article, here I will contend that pre-modern thought forms such as those found
among the indigenous people of North America, when redeemed by Christ, provide
strategic inroads for the Good News to penetrate the hearts and imaginations of
post-modern culture. I will consider
three such inroads.
First, the pre-modern channel of
First Nations people provides an inroad into post-modern culture through its
triumph on the trail of tears. A
characteristic trait of post-modern culture is suspicion of the established
Church—Christendom. Christendom abused
power. Those abused by Christendom or “Churchianity”—and now redeemed by Christ— offer the
greatest apologetic for the power of Christ’s transforming love in an age of
suspicion by responding to victimization and hate with the victorious love of
Christ. Moreover, those victimized yet
victorious give us a window into Christ’s own triumphant life.
It would be so much easier to face
the past if those guilty of genocide in the West did not include
believers. Regretfully, Christians did
take part. Countering the claim that those
guilty of genocide against indigenous people were not Christians, Vine Deloria, Jr. argues,
They really were Christians.
In their day they enjoyed all the benefits and prestige Christendom
could confer. They were cheered as
heroes of the faith, enduring hardships that a Christian society might be built
on the ruins of pagan villages. They
were featured in Sunday school lessons as saints of the Christian church. Cities, rivers, mountains, and seas were
named after them.[10][10]
Is it any wonder then that Deloria perceives the cross—that ancient symbol of
liberation—in the following way? “Where
the cross goes, there is never life more abundantly—only death, destruction,
and ultimately betrayal.”[11][11]
While not wishing to evade
responsibility and foster passivity and fatalism—all characteristics of
Christendom[12][12]—it is an amazing thing to find those victimized by the
Church responding in a spirit of forgiveness, reflecting the true power of the
cross: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34). This
Spirit, modeled by Jesus Christ (who, by the way, was also victimized by the
religious authorities of His day[13][13]) and His followers in the First Nations community, can only
come from the Spirit of Christ, bearing witness to Him.
Going further, the Spirit must also
be evident among Anglo Christians if we are to avoid passivity and fatalism in
the present. How so? Not only is the Spirit one of grace and forgiveness,
but also the Spirit is one of truth and courage. Anglo Christians must side with their
indigenous brothers in fighting against global capitalism and
exploitation. For as Deloria
argues, “At this point in the clash between Western industrialism and the
planet’s aboriginal peoples we find little or no voice coming from the true
Christians to prevent continued exploitation.”[14][14] Anglo believers must stand up and partner with indigenous people
in the face of Manifest Destiny’s current advance if our own cries for
forgiveness are to move beyond sheer rhetoric.
We now turn to consider the next strategic inroad.
Second, the pre-modern channel of
First Nations people provides an inroad into post-modern culture by way of
being woven into the tapestry of Christ’s Church. Another characteristic trait of
post-modernism is an eclectic emphasis on beauty and creativity. According to the Bible, culture is a gift
from God to bear witness to God, expressing God’s creativity and manifold
glory. What is required is a multitude
of cultures to reflect its radiance (See Rev. 4-5).
In contrast to the Church Growth
movement’s modern, pragmatic emphasis on homogeneity as key to the
multiplication of members—which Ray Bakke refers to
as the Churchly equivalent of Apartheid—what is needed today are multi-ethnic
ministries imaging the mosaic of God’s multi-faceted beauty. The emergence of the indigenous people
movement worldwide in the Church enhances such multi-cultural radiance as a
reflection of the Kingdom.
Moreover, the First Nations people’s
affirmation of multi-generational relations serves as a corrective to focusing
exclusively on particular generations such as Gen-X and Gen-Y (a carry-over
from the Church Growth movement’s emphasis on the Boomer generation). Multi-generational convictions as well as
multi-culturalism will assist the Church in
deconstructing the compartmentalization of life, which so many post-moderns
disdain. This leads us to the last
point.
Third, the pre-modern channel of
First Nations people provides an inroad into post-modern culture through its
holistic approach to life. Yet another
characteristic trait of post-modernity is its distaste for modernity’s
compartmentalization of the sacred and secular spheres. The Gnostic fragmentation of our
culture—modernity’s offspring— expresses itself in many forms. Many post-moderns are longing for
wholeness—to live in community, to be one with the cosmos, and to reconnect the
sacred and secular within culture.
Evangelicalism offers little hope
for a bridge between these respective spheres.
For as Twiss claims, “Most
Evangelical Christians, whether they realize it or not, have compartmentalized
worldviews, whereas most Indian people have integrated
worldviews.” He goes on to say,
“Western culture tends to compartmentalize life. Religious activity is often kept separate
from all other areas, making religion just one segment of life. For Native people religion is a way of life.”[15][15] This Native perspective is much closer to the biblical or Hebrew
concept of religion.
First Nations perspectives on the
integration of spirituality and the secular sphere can serve as a catalyst for
the Evangelical Western Church to reexamine its worldview and reigning
presuppositions against the backdrop of the Hebrew Scriptures. Such reflection is vital for missions, that
is, if the Church is as desperate as it claims to be about breaking down
barriers to the post-modern world, if it is as desperate as post-moderns are in
their longing to move beyond compartmentalization in all areas of life. The holistic, Hebraic conception of life,
which pre-modern indigenous people more readily share, when redeemed by Christ,
addresses this post-modern longing in a Christ-honoring way.
Due to Christendom’s
failures—including genocide—and the resulting cynicism, suspicion and fragmentation,
the Anglo has lost his voice to speak, even at times to his own. He can no longer go forward alone, but must
go forth by networking. The Anglo
Christian and his community must enter into covenant with the tribes in order
to survive in the wasteland of religion in the current social milieu. To engage a post-modern world sickened by the
whitewashed Church but sensitive to the words and ways of those so long
suppressed—indigenous people, the Anglo Christian and his community must make a
new treaty. This time, if he breaks it,
he will be the one who dies.
Far from seeing First Nations
witnesses to Christ to be in need of my help, I am burdened by the sense that I
as an Anglo follower of Christ am in need of their help in speaking out to
other Anglos who are suspicious of Christianity. When redeemed and transformed by Christ from
the inside out, pre-modern cultures such as those of First Nations people can
provide access into the imaginations and hearts of post-modern lives. Indeed, the Native American is a sleeping
giant.
[1][1]Billy Graham, “A Message from the Rev. Billy
Graham,”
[2][2]Kanzo Uchimura, “Japanese
Christianity,” in Sources of Japanese
Tradition, vol. 2, ed. Ryusaku Tsunoda, Wm. Theodore de Bary,
and Donald Keene (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958); reprint, H. Byron
Earhart, ed. Religion in the Japanese
Experience: Sources and Interpretations, The Religious Life of Man Series,
ed. Frederick J. Streng (Belmont: Wadsworth
Publishing Company, 1974), 113 (italics added).
[3][3]Ibid., 113-114.
[4][4]Craig
A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism (Wheaton: A
BridgePoint Book, 1993), 50-51.
[5][5]See
Scott Bader-Saye, Church
and Israel After Christendom: the Politics of Election,
Radical Traditions: Theology in a Postcritical Key
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), 67, 74, 76.
[6][6]Ibid., 75-76.
[7][7]Richard
Twiss, One
Church, Many Tribes: Following Jesus the Way God Made You (Ventura: Regal
Books, 2000), 113.
[8][8]Ibid., 125.
[9][9]In
his work, Disputation Against
Scholastic Theology, Luther maintains that “We do not become righteous by
doing righteous deeds but, having been made righteous, we do righteous
deeds. This in
opposition to the philosophers.”
Martin Luther, Disputation Against
Scholastic Theology, in Martin
Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull, foreword by Jaroslav Pelikan (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1989), 16. For Luther,
“having been made righteous” is primarily participational
and secondarily positional. Such
participation results from the love of God being poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit. See no. 84 of
the Disputation on page 19.
[10][10]Vine Deloria, Jr., God Is Red (Golden: Fulcrum Publishing, 1994), 261-262.
[11][11]Ibid., 261.
[12][12]See Deloria’s discussion of Christianity on
p. 262.
[13][13]In view of Deloria’s claim, it is important
to distinguish followers of Christ from Christians. Indeed, Deloria is
correct to assert that Christians, those deemed to be orthodox at the time of
colonial expansion, were guilty of genocide.
But they still were not true followers of Christ. As Dostoyevsky portrays so vividly in the
tale of “The Grand Inquisitor” in The
Brothers Karamazov, the Christian Church was itself guilty of victimizing
Christ at the time of the Spanish Inquisition, a time when both Muslim and Jew
were tortured and killed in His name.
Fyodor Dostoyevksy, “The Grand Inquisitor,” in
The Brothers Karamazov: a Novel in Four Parts
with Epilogue (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 252-260.
[14][14]Deloria, 262.
[15][15]Twiss, 92.