Eastern Pennsylvania’s Committee on Native American Ministries (CoNAM) hosted two opportunities to learn more of the grim history of the brutal oppression and exploitation of Indigenous Americans last November. Members were hosts of one informative lecture event, and guests at another.
Your gifts on Native American Ministries Sunday helps support the ministries of the Committee on Native American Ministries in their annual conferences. This offering serves to remind United Methodists of the gifts and contributions made by Native Americans to our society.
CoNAM members first hosted a lecture titled “The Doctrine of Discovery: Enabling Oppression and Exploitation,” given by Ron Williams (Southern Ute and Apache). A CoNAM member, Williams is on the board of the Circle Legacy Center, which supports Native Americans cultural events, community projects and entrepreneurship. And he heads Reflections of Turtle Island, a human relief and cultural preservation organization for Native/Indigenous people.
He spoke to members and guests about the 15th century Catholic Church’s Doctrine of Discovery that was used to support European claims to indigenous land and resources in the Americas, as well as the United States’ western expansion. It provided spiritual, political and legal rationalization for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians, an egregious rationalization that has echoed in unjust policies and practices throughout U.S. history.
Three CoNAM members then became guests and contributors to a “Dine & Discuss” gathering that served dinner—featuring corn, beans and squash, the “three sisters” of Indigenous food—but also disturbing revelations in a lecture titled “Debunking Thanksgiving.” They were hosted by the Open Door Christian Community, a UM campus ministry of the Wesley Student Foundation of Philadelphia, partnering with another campus organization, Drexel Indigenous Students of the Americas (DISA).
The multiracial gathering explored the actual, sordid history behind the Thanksgiving holiday tradition. It began in the 1600s when European settlers and Native people gathered for a meal quite unlike the sumptuous feasts spread on tables of American families today. But what eventually ensued were brutal wars, treachery, ethnic cleansing, exploitation, disease epidemics, land theft and other horrors that still cause harm to Indigenous people today.
The Rev. Diana Esposito, UM campus minister, directs the Open Door, which provides free meals to 50 to 100 students weekly with support from churches and community organizations. She and Open Door student leaders joined Sky Harper (Diné), student leader of DISA, in leading the event, which took place at Drexel’s James E. Marks Intercultural Center. About 50 students came for the dinner, and about half of them stayed for the discussion.
Their discourse also covered issues facing Indigenous peoples today, including the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law that seeks to keep Indian children with Indian families. Enacted in 1978 because of the high number of Indian children being removed from their families by public and private agencies and placed in non-Indian families, the law’s constitutionality is now being reconsidered by the U. S. Supreme Court.
While stressing the need for more people to be made aware of such concerns, Harper also focused on signs of progress, like U. S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) being the first Native American Native American to serve as a White House cabinet secretary. Esposito highlighted the Rev. David Wilson (Choctaw) elected this month as the UMC’s first Native American bishop, who will preside as leader of the Great Plains Conference.
CoNAM accepted the invitation to participate and provide financial support for the first-time collective gathering, in its desire to develop a relationship with the Indigenous campus group. CoNAM’s mission is “to foster awareness and appreciation of the history and gifts of the Indigenous people of the Americas.”
Sky Harper, who attended Native American schools in Arizona, won prizes for his science projects and a full scholarship to Drexel. He hopes to do his co-op education in clinical research and eventually complete a MD-Ph.D program, leading to a career in public health care in an Indigenous community. He has led DISA to host several notable events this fall, including Drexel’s first Indigenous Peoples Day celebration.
CoNAM hopes to partner again with the Open Door, with DISA and other Indigenous groups as it grows in its awareness and outreach, said Colliver. “Such relationships and connections are important today when Indigenous communities continue to deal with historical and intergenerational trauma and isolation.”
NOTE: We thank Verna Colliver for providing much of the content for this article. Learn more about Native American Ministries and CONAM on our website.
excerpt from a story by John W. Coleman, Communicator, Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference
One of six churchwide Special Sundays with offerings of The United Methodist Church, Native American Ministries Sunday serves to remind United Methodists of the gifts and contributions made by Native Americans to our society. The special offering supports Native American outreach within annual conferences and across the United States and provides seminary scholarships for Native Americans.
When you give generously on Native American Ministries Sunday, you equip seminary students who will honor and celebrate Native American culture in their ministries. You empower congregations to find fresh, new ways to minister to their communities with Christ’s love. Give now.
