Rocky backstory to 2023 ‘International Week of Prayer for Christian Unity’

Last year, Rev. Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy and two colleagues traveled to the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss the liturgy, weekly reflextions, and Bible Study they had been asked to create for the 2023 International Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. “They wanted the perspective of Black and Indigenous people,” said Sherman-Conroy, who is Lakota.

What should have been positive experience was traumatic, as Sherman-Conroy’s Christianity was called into question.

Events: This Land is not Empty; Rethinking Thanksgiving; and PolyMet hearing before MN Supreme Court

In this post:

• This Land is not Empty, Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery, Nov. 16
• Rethinking Thanksgiving: From Land Acknowledgement to LANDBACK, Nov. 20
• MN Supreme Court hears oral arguments on PolyMet mining permit, Nov. 30

Events: Learn about Christian Nationalism, Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery, and more

Upcoming events:

• Christian Nationalism: Its history and resurgence, University of St. Thomas, Nov. 3
• White Church Truths, Westminster Presbyterian, Nov. 5
• Water is Life, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Nov. 11-12
• This land is not empty: Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery, Calvary Baptist Church, Nov. 16

Pine Ridge youth spark temporary ban on Christian missions in response to insulting evangelism

Pine Ridge youth led the charge against the latest manifestation of white supremacy on their lands.

Matt Monfore, a non-Native man from the fundamentalist group Jesus is King Mission, was distributing pamphlets to Lakota youth calling Jesus “the one true God of Native Americans.” It referred to Tunkasila, the Lakota name for “Creator,” as “a demon idol.”

Lakota youth alerted elders to the pamphlets and urged the tribal council “to ‘decolonize’ the reservation by shutting down new evangelical outreach programs and creating stronger tribal oversight of existing missions,” according to an article in America: The Jesuit Review.

Bolstered by court victory, Standing Rock held talks today with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about DAPL’s future

Other important Indigenous victories from around the country and the world

From the Southwest United States, to Australia, to Mexico, to the Dakotas, Indigenous people have had significant victories this year. The State of Minnesota should pay notice.

Haiti, its historical and ongoing trauma, the latest call for U.S. intervention, and the brutal backstory on zombies

Back in 2017, I had a fascinating conversation about zombies with author and Professor Zara Zimbardo, who was leading an equity workshop I attended. She shared an article she wrote on zombies. I saved it in my “things-I-should-write-about” file.

I was recently reminded of that conversation while reading an editorial in the Washington Post headlined: Haiti descends into chaos, yet the world continues to look away. It spoke to the latest in a litany of the island’s tragic stories.

And it got me reading articles on Haiti’s history and rereading the article on zombies, spirits which grew out of Haiti and the African slave trade.

The Covenant Church is the first evangelical church to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery

The Evangelical Covenant Church’s Christian Action Committee, the church’s annual conference, met Friday in Minneapolis and passed a resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery.

The Covenant Church joins several Protestant denominations in taking this important step, but is the first evangelical church to do so. The resolution passed with 84 percent of the vote, according to one of the participants.

Church wrestles with name change, latest example of the Doctrine of Discovery, and Line 3 updates

In this blog:

• Colonial Church wrestles with name change
• UC-Berkley removes name from campus building of controversial professor who helped steal Native lands
• Oak Flat: The latest example of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery
• Charges dropped against treaty protectors opposing Trump’s July 4 Mount Rushmore visit
• Lheidli T’enneh rejects Enbridge settlement offer on 2018 pipeline explosion
• Wisc. residents question Enbridge’s slow response to pipeline spill
• Banks continue to fund fossil fuels, climate chaos, including Line 3

Screening and panel discussion on Doctrine of Discovery film Sunday and other news

In this blog:

• Free online screening and panel discussion of the “Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code,” Sunday
• Exxon writes off Canadian tar sands oil reserves, one more reason to Stop Line 3
• Call senators Klobuchar and Smith and ask them to Stop Line

How the U.S. stole the sacred Pipestone quarry from the Ihanktonwan

In researching the history of Indian Boarding Schools in Minnesota, I came across the story of how the U.S. government stole the sacred Pipestone quarry from the Ihanktonwan people. (The federal government calls them the Yankton Sioux Tribe.)

In Dakota, Ihanktonwan means “People of the End Village People,” according to the Ihanktonwan Community College. “The Ihanktonwan are also known as the ‘Land of the Friendly People of the Seven Council Fires,'” known in Dakota as the Oceti Sakowin.

Historically, the Ihanktonwan’s role included protecting the sacred Pipestone Quarry, Wikipedia says,

The U.S. government took away that sacred duty.