Yakama Christian Mission, the Doctrine of Discovery, and a GA2017 Resolution For Universily Chrislian Church's Assembly Meeting, .Janua,y 31, 201 7 Prepared by Tyler Hes/on, Assistant Minister/or Middle School Last updated /11912017.
Yakama Christian Mission is a Disciples-supported organization located on the Yakama Nation Reservation in Washington State. They have been working for over 90 years to "help folk learn, understand, and advocate accountable justice for" Native American people. Their programs and services demonstrate how people, particularly Christians, can better listen to the voice of and care for Native Americans (specifically the Yakama people) and how to work against structures and trends that hold Native Americans outside and as "other." They work with a variety of Christian and interfaith groups to educate and deepen public awareness of injustice done to Native American peoples and provide a space for people to discuss and organize for justice. 1 Our congregation has a direct relationship with Yakama Christian Mission. For the past 7 years, they have been one of our four trips in our high school mission trip rotation. Every four years, our high schoolers fly into Portland, OR, and travel up to Yakama Christian Mission to spend a week learning about the history ofYakama people and their relationship with the U.S. government, serving with local community outreach organizations, and learning about humanity's relationship with the land while tending an organic farm. The leadership of Yakama Christian Mission often voice concern over something called the "Doctrine of Discovery" (or the "Christian Doctrine of Discovery"). This concept is both a religious and political notion that has functioned as justification for governments to claim legitimacy and power over lands and territories that belonged to Native Americans. Yakama's website describes how this isn't a particular document, "but rather a series of papal bulls, edicts, Supreme Court decisions, newspaper articles, International government policies, U.S. government policy-legislation-laws, and even [church] resolutions." Most trace the Doctrine of Discovery back to Christopher Columbus' return to Spain in 1493, and this notion still influences church policies in America, decision-making of the U.S. government, and the everyday lives of many Native Americans. 2 Yakama Christian Mission is familiar with the ways this doctrine has motivated the historical action of our own denomination in their part of the country. For example, in the early 1900s, the Disciples of Christ set up a boarding school aimed at teaching and converting children to Christianity and "civilizing Indian youth." In order to do this. leadership felt that the boarding school, "should remove children from the influence of their parents and elders," so that they "would better hold onto the new Christian values they would acquire from the 3 [boarding school]." The local Fort Simcoe Historical Park describes the school as a gift of education and faith to the Yakama people; many Yakama converts did indeed love their faith, the Disciples, and the Mission. However, at the Yakama Nation Cultural Heritage Center the school is described as a place all the community's young people were sent after being forcibly removed from their families, and that they returned as unrecognizable adults who no longer identified with their tribal community and culture. The 2017 General Assembly, the biannual gathering of the entire Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada, will take place in Indianapolis this July. Yakama Christian Mission authored a proposed resolution to bring to General Assembly that speaks out against the Doctrine of Discovery and presents a '"call to education. action. and support for indigenous voice in the structure of the Christian Church 4 ( Disciples of Christ)." This resolution encourages education surrounding the role of the Doctrine of Discovery in our own denomination and resolves that we as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will work against the effects of this doctrine and will seek to [ICtively support Native American voices within our denomination.
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https://yakamamission.org/ https://ya kamam iss ion.org/bent-grass-a-bric f-hi story -concern ing-docs-rc lat ion sh ip-w ith-the-doctrinc-of-d iscovery/ J Ibid. 4 https://yakamamission.org/drafl-ga2017-rcsolution/ 2
.-. 1 will share from some of the key statements in the resolution are as follows: I .Whereas, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is fundamentally opposed to genocide, oppression, dehumanization, and the removal of Peoples from ancestral lands; and 4.Whereas, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (DOC) has historically and consistently claimed an identity of a westward movement church on the North American Landscape; and 8.Whcrcas, governmental and economic institutions lack the will to dismantle the CDoD, and the Church is the one institution who can clearly speak against this unjust CDoD system, as it has in the past against slavery and apartheid; and 6.Whcrcas, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) engaged in programmatic assimilation, civilization, and Christianization of Indigenous American Tribes and Bands (e.g., American Tepee Christian Mission- a/so known as Yakama Christian Mission); 6.Be it resolved, that Regions and their Congregation are urged to develop and nurture relationships with the American Indian, Alaska Natives, or First Nation people of the place where they reside; and 7.Bc it further resolved, that Congregations are encouraged to act and urge their State to offer a free curriculum about the history, culture, and government of federally recognized Indian Tribes within State boundaries to State school districts, and require districts to incorporate the curricula of their nearest Tribe(s) into their schools curriculum.
Yakama Christian Mission is seeking co-signers to support this resolution. This resolution speaks to our denomination's mission as "a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world." our church's mission to "live the good news of Jesus Christ with open minds and loving hearts," and our faith's inherent bend toward those that society has treated as "the least of these.'ยท The Doctrine of Discovery has been at the foundation of actions that promote closemindedness, fragmentation, and dehumanization. Considering the values of this resolution and our church's own partnership with Yakama Christian Mission, this opportunity to be a co-signing congregation of this resolution would be a simple way to use our voice as a church and to live out our own values. Thank you.
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