Elona Street-Stewart Executive Synod of Lakes and Prairies Address to 222nd General Assembly Creator God and Ruler of all nations, we welcome your presence every day. In times of joy and times of need, you are our strength and inspiration. Lead us at this 222nd General Assembly as we make decisions that affect so many people, nearby and around the world. We are thankful when the way forward is clear, and yet when we misunderstand or have been misunderstood, help us to seek a peaceful and just reconciliation to offer what is best for all peoples in your KINdom. Boozhoo, Good Afternoon, I am Elona Street-Stewart, ruling elder and Synod Executive of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies. I thank you for the invitation to lift up the Confessions of Belhar and 1967 as we resume the plenary session this afternoon. And I am Delaware-Nanticoke and ask as we begin that recognition be given to the native nations, the original people here, to be honored in our traditional way as the indigenous hosts of this 222nd General Assembly. The Chinook, Clatskanie, Tillamook and Siletz, Kalapuya, Tualatin, Klamath, Wasco, and others that may never be known, tribes whose presence is commemorative and valued in the northwest corner of the state. I also want to recognize the nine federally recognized tribes in Oregon today: Burns Paiute; Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Suislaw Indians; Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde; Confederated Tribes of Siletz, Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of Warms Springs, Coquille Indian Tribe and Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians. Both the Confessions of Belhar and C67 speak to and affirm that we are called to overcome racism and oppression in our ministries of reconciliation in the church and the world. The church s work is obstructed when it is proclaimed in a land which professes to be Christian, but in which the enforced separation of people on a racial basis promotes and perpetuates alienation, hatred and enmity. We have some heavy lifting to do. I have known the heavy weight of racism all my life. As a child I didn t have all the words to articulate what oppression was, but I felt it in the derogatory insults we endured, in the segregated rules we experienced that restricted where we could live, work, shop, and swim, in the inevitable and painful denial that American Indians
could even be alive and still living on the east coast. Listen to the inquisition: What are you? I am American Indian. No, you can t be Indian, they re all dead around here. You must be black, Puerto Rican, Creole, Oh are you from India? No, I am Delaware Nanticoke, No, You can t be American Indian- you don t live in a teepee, you live in a house. Where are you from? What are you, really? Even though my people were the first here because this is where the creator placed us to live, we are invisible in plain sight. You don t want to see us. Although you took our words to name your cities, rivers, mountains and states, we aren t real. We have always been spiritual people and heard the Good News of the gospel. Christianity appeared very early among eastern woodland Indians, and the beginning of the Presbyterian Church in the New World was established in the homeland of my people. But by 1600, history was already reset and from that point on, now starts with a colonial time period and the voice of the first people vanishes. Very little is taught in schools about native people, especially in present vs past tense or in congregations, seminaries and assemblies about the church s role in the destruction of our cultures, about genocide, loss of languages and land or how tremendous and ongoing those injustices are still felt in our daily life. While we welcomed the gospel as spiritual people, it came at great cost. The means to convert native peoples was generally evangelism, but historically the ends were more than spiritual. Our life and identity are related to the land, and that was taken away upon contact by other dominant power. Conversion was done by both missionaries and the military, and ensured the involuntary assimilation of native resistance to a total upheaval of their world. Our church roots and the history of this country, from colonial settlement to the present day are mixture of religion and politics steeped in racism and white dominance. In fact from the beginning of the age of exploration, established in the Doctrine of Discovery of 1453, the displacement, genocide and enslavement of indigenous natives and Africans, became an inextricable part of this nation and Christendom. What is our theological response to social injustice and oppression in a hierarchy where some people are given less value than others and those with white privilege at the top become the personification of government, the economy, religion, politics and land domain. Reinhold Niebuhr expressed, The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world. Paradoxically, the same powers that maintained order in the world also introduced injustice into the order by governing through that power. It s time now to confess that the enforced separation of people and erasing their identities perpetuates a myth that people from a great diversity of
ethnic and political histories have enjoyed the same relationship to the church, its institutions and resources. When you choose not to see racism, the inequities and oppression experienced by others become invisible to you, especially when they are out of synch with stereotyped images or assumptions that you ve been taught are normal. The temptation to be colorblind is so strong but it dismisses race as a significant factor in creating the walls that fracture our individual and community relationships. In fact, as I described earlier, sincere and well-intended people routinely silence, suppress our voices and deny our own first person accounts of how we as Native people experience racism. Here is a very recent example of something we all heard this past week: In the wake of the Orlando attack, the worst mass shooting in American history we must do everything in our power to end this terror of violence, hate and bullets killing people nearly every day. Every time that sentence about this horror is repeated, our American Indian experience vanishes again. Truly we DO know that trauma. Occasionally, someone else does notice; here is a recent letter to editor: The unspeakable horror in Orlando has been described as the worst mass shooting in American History by numerous news sources, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Star Tribune s own editorial staff. At places named Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Blue Water Creek, Conestoga and others, hundreds of innocents were slaughtered. That, too, is American history. Rick Beddow, St Paul We need to stand where God stands and see what God sees. Where do we find healing and restoration? Where can we hear our voices and see ourselves become whole and visible again? Just this week on Tuesday night I attended the NACC dinner with several dozen colleagues and friends, a gathering that happens for many years. Reaching back to the 1970 s, NACC became the listening circle for truth telling, a place where American Indians and Alaska Natives could redefine the role of native leadership and validate our contributions to the church. Organized around native representation from synods, it produced the Native American Policy Statement, researched environmental and social injustice, advocated for selfdetermination, initiated multiple education partnerships around the country and grew a generation of youth to become highly competent leaders for all levels of the church and communities. We need each other. We are thankful to build one another up here as we serve in the love of Christ.
Can we live out our call to be faithful and engaged in real acts of reconciliation and forgiveness? What does Belhar say about the church in a land where some are systematically denied their rights and oppressed because of racism? Belhar is a theological response to injustice and oppression and apologizes for the enforced separation of people based on race perpetuates hatred. Belhar lifts up reconciliation among people in obedience to Jesus Christ. Let us confess a portion of the Confession of Belhar: We believe that God has entrusted the church with the message of reconciliation in and through Jesus Christ; that the church is called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, that the church is called blessed because it is a peacemaker, that the church is witness both by word and by deed to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. that God s lifegiving Word and Spirit has conquered the powers of sin and death, and therefore also of irreconciliation and hatred, bitterness and enmity, that God s lifegiving Word and Spirit will enable the church to live in a new obedience which can open new possibilities of life for society and the world; that the credibility of this message is seriously affected and its beneficial work obstructed when it is proclaimed in a land which professes to be Christian, but in which the enforced separation of people on a racial basis promotes and perpetuates alienation, hatred and enmity; that any teaching which attempts to legitimate such forced separation by appeal to the gospel, and is not prepared to venture on the road of obedience and reconciliation, but rather, out of prejudice, fear, selfishness and unbelief, denies in advance the reconciling power of the gospel, must be considered ideology and false doctrine. Therefore, we reject any doctrine which, in such a situation sanctions in the name of the gospel or of the will of God the forced separation of people on the grounds of race and color and thereby in advance obstructs and weakens the ministry and experience of reconciliation in Christ. Let us pray together,
Creator God, in wholeness and unity you called creation into being. You called us to live in harmony with one another and all creation. Forgive us for creating systems of separation, alienation, and oppression. Teach us to live in ways that creates harmonious relationships with one another and all of creation. Teach us to season the earth with your justice and reflect your light of righteousness in this world. In the Name of our Elder Brother Jesus the Christ we pray. AMEN.