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by Thom White Wolf Fassett* Those of us who come from Native American communities in the United
States are well aware of the general invisibility of Native people in the life
of our nation. One might argue that with a population of fewer than ten million
it is difficult for Native people to have a noticeable presence in numbers that
would command “air-time” as citizens or participants in the  body politic. While
some Americans have a warm and sometimes romantic feeling about Native
Americans and their wisdom stories or what they know of their spirituality or
their artistic accomplishments, most have little knowledge of Native history or
the struggles currently faced by Native people to stave off disease, hunger,
unemployment and poverty. In fact, large numbers of Americans still believe
that Native peoples have long vanished. That perception continues to be
reinforced as our education systems neglect teaching about the role of
America’s first people in the history of the United States.
Fortunately,
in recent years, The United Methodist Church has been doing its homework
regarding Native Americans and worldwide indigenous peoples. Schools of
Mission have raised consciousness around critical issues. Studies have been
written commanding attention to justice issues. General Conference
legislation along with resolutions related to the survival of Native Americans
have been adopted and incorporated into our Book of Discipline and Book
of Resolutions. Attempts have also been made by the church to recognize its
role in the painful and destructive history of Native Americans resulting in
their present condition.
However, in all of this there has been no apology that has powerfully and
effectively entered the consciousness of the United Methodist Church.
There has been no repentance prompting the church to change it relationship
with Native people and become partners in healing the destructive forces of
history. There has been little acknowledgement of the church’s complicity
in the historic physical and cultural extermination policies of the United
States directed at its first people.
The Act
of Repentance scheduled for the General Conference of 2012, in Tampa, Florida,
was created to change all of this. Some members in the Native United
Methodist communities believe the act is premature. They believe the church has
not sufficiently prepared itself to understand the profound nature of this act,
nor has it planned programs and actions that would carry it out. Others who
love the church are skeptical. Too many promises have been made that never
materialized. Once the Act of Repentance service is over, what happens when
everybody goes home? What difference will it make to the Native American tribes,
communities and families who still suffer historic trauma that is as real and
fresh to them as this morning’s coffee? How will the high expectations of
repentance, forgiveness and atonement rest upon the shoulders of a great church
that finds itself in the middle of restless change itself? And what impact will
all of this have on other indigenous peoples around the earth in Asian,
African, and Nordic nations who also have also been the inheritors of this
history?
The Act
of Repentance not only addresses the communities and tribal nations of Native
Americans in the United States. It encompasses the indigenous communities and
tribal/nation entities of the various countries around the world where The
United Methodist Church has spread its blanket. Taken together, the
similarities are real and palpable. They reflect issues of self-determination,
sovereignty, cultural integrity and how Native and indigenous peoples embrace
The United Methodist Church as truth carriers of the Good News, declaring the
Gospel of Jesus Christ with no other allegiances.
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*Fassett
is a member of the Seneca Nation and General Secretary Emeritus of the United
Methodist General Board Of Church and Society. He has also served as a chair of
the 2012 Act of Repentance General Secretary’s Advisory Council of the General
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns |
