June 23, 2010
By Dafne Sabanes Plou

"We have to rescue the Christian faith from the cowboys," says Native American educator Richard Twiss, a member of the Lakota Sioux Rosebud Tribe.

The Indigenous leader made his remarks yesterday in an address to participants at the Uniting General Council of Reformed churches in the Midwestern American city of Grand Rapids. Over 300 delegates from 108 countries have gathered for meetings to mark the launch of a new global organization of Reformed churches, the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

Twiss converted to Christianity as an adult after protesting the system of discrimination against North American native peoples for which he was imprisoned. He also acknowledged a period of radical criticism and rejection of the church for its complicity in discrimination and its silencing of information about serious injustices committed against the Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada.

Twiss is still critical of the educational measures applied at the end of the 19th century and which resulted in the forced separation of Indigenous children from their families and communities and their enrollment in boarding schools, many of them managed by the churches themselves. In these schools children were forbidden to speak their own language and were stripped of all cultural and communal identity. There were also cases of physical punishment and abuse.

Twiss now works primarily with Native American teachers and pastors so that through education they can help the new generations feel proud of their race and overcome the stereotypes and prejudices that make the North American First Nations peoples look like second-class citizens. The objective is to help them value their traditions, their own language and their native culture.

The Lakota Sioux educator maintains that it is not necessary to deny one's own Indigenous identity or cultural values for one to be a good Christian. In his theological reflection, he proposes a new type of mission which restores relationships among God's people.

Twiss says people must take into account that cultural diversity is not a "deviation" from God's original plans.

"God expresses Himself in the singularity of the union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," says Twiss. "Unity is only possible in the midst of diversity. Where there is no diversity, we only find conformity, uniformity, monotony. God calls humanity and the creation to the abundant life of communion."

The Uniting General Council 2010 in Grand Rapids, United States (June 18-28) marks the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

Uniting General Council 2010