Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Northwestern Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Spurred by Bemidji Conference
At the Northwestern Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Assembly 2017 on Friday and Saturday, June 9-10, the theme was "Risky Business: Always Reforming." And indeed reform was on the agenda as nearly 500 delegates approved repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery only four votes shy of unanimous. The 2017 Synod Assembly took place at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN.
The genesis of resolution began with Mark Olson a Lutheran pastor working with the Episcopal church and involved with Cass Lake Indian ministries. Olson from Walker, serves the Episcopal churches St. John's in Onigum and St. Peter's in Cass Lake, but is Lutheran. This is possible according to Olson as Episcopalians and Lutheran are in "full communion."
The Episcopal Church adopted a resolution officially repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery in 2009," said Olson,."and there has been a national movement in that direction ever since."
According to Olson, major discussions began about a year ago, partly due to the actions of Pope Francis. Although Francis has yet to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, the Latin American pope, who has often strongly defended indigenous rights since his election in 2013, made comments on protection of native lands to representative of tribes attending the Indigenous Peoples Forum in Rome.
In regard to Standing Rock and the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, Pope Francis used strong and clear language applicable to the conflict, saying development had to be reconciled with "the protection of the particular characteristics of indigenous peoples and their territories." He continued by saying indigenous cultures have a right to defend "their ancestral relationship to the Earth."
Olson, assigned to the Episcopalian Church from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), said he took advantage of his position and "carried the water from Episcopal to Lutheran and began bridge building a task force that lives on the bridge between cultures. It is a powerful statement," said Olson referring to the resolution adopted June 10.
Another strong advocate from the Bemidji area was Michael Naylor pastor of the Debs/Puposky Lutheran Parish. On March 31, 2017, I got a message from Naylor. "I thought you might be interested in this. This resolution (repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery) will be offered from the floor by the Bemidji Conference, Conference Four, at our Synod Convention in June at Moorhead."
According to Naylor there are "28 Lutheran churches in our conference stretching from Akeley and Park Rapids to Waskish and Clearbrook. We are confident that this resolution will be adopted. This document passed without dissent at the Bemidji Conference Assembly."
Naylor wrote again on June 5, 2017, "The seventeen Pastors in the Bemidji Conference (Conf. 4) are presenting this resolution that was unanimous on the first vote in our conference meeting. We have already been in dialogue with representative in the other seven conferences of the Northwester Minnesota ELCA Synod and the feeling is very good concerning the responses that we have received. I feel that it is "a go," but lets wait to let people know until the vote."
Then on June 10, 2017 Naylor wrote; "I have just returned this evening from the Synod Assembly and am quite pleased to give you the good news that Resolution #4 Regarding Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery and Commitment to Partner with our Ojibwe Neighbors PASSED! There were almost 500 people that voted YES!!! You are now free to share."
"There were four votes against out of nearly 500 votes," said Naylor. "The votes against were not because of the motion's main core but because of concern of regarding the court decision of 1823 reaffirming the Doctrine commenting that if it is still the law, it needs to be rescinded as well."
About The Northwestern Minnesota Synod
The Northwestern Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a synod, or diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The synod consists of all the congregations within its territory which includes 21 counties in northwestern Minnesota. The synod is headed by an elected bishop with offices located at Concordia College in Moorhead.
The Northwestern Minnesota Synod has eight Conferences. They include Roseau, Thief River Falls, Crookston, Moorhead, Detroit Lakes, Fergus Falls, Alexandria and Bemidji. They claim 90,346 baptized members, 230 congregations, and 346 rostered ministers.
Bemidji is Conference #4. It includes Calvary of Park Rapids, Nevis, Akeley, and Laporte, Malvik Lutheran of Guthrie, New Salem Turtle River, Zion Lutheran of Blackduck, Our Saviors of Kelliher, Bethleham of Waskish, Our Redeemers in Puposky, Trinity in Debs, Our Saviors in Leonard, Good Shepard in Clearbrook, Bethel/3 in Bagley, and Peoples Church, Calvary Lutheran, First Lutheran, and Aardahl Lutheran of Bemidji
The Doctrine of Discovery, 1493
The Papal Bull (public decree) "Inter Caetera," issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the " ew World." The document supported Spain's strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands discovered by Columbus the previous year.
The Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be "discovered," claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that "the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself." This "Doctrine of Discovery" became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States' western expansion.
The Doctrine of Discovery was promulgated by European monarchies in order to legitimize the colonization of lands outside of Europe. Between the mid-fifteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, this idea allowed European entities to seize lands inhabited by indigenous peoples under the guise of discovery. In 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas declared that only non-Christian lands could be colonized under the Discovery Doctrine.
In 1792, US Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson declared that the Doctrine of the Discovery would extend from Europe to the infant US government. The Doctrine and its legacy continue to influence American imperialism and treatment of indigenous peoples.
The Discovery Doctrine
The Discovery Doctrine is a concept of public international law expounded by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions, most notably Johnson v. McIntosh in 1823.
In this Supreme Court case, Chief Justice John Marshall's opinion in the unanimous decision held "that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands." In essence, American Indians had only a right of occupancy, which could be abolished.
Contemporary Advocacy Efforts to Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery
Discovery doctrine has been severely condemned as socially unjust, racist, and in violation of basic and fundamental human rights. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues noted Discovery doctrine "as the foundation of the violation of their (Indigenous people) human rights".
In 2012, the United Nations Economic and Social Council Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called for a mechanism to investigate historical land claims.
In August 2009, during the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the bishops of the church adopted a resolution officially repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery.
In 2012, The Unitarian Universalist Association followed suit and passed a resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery and called on Unitarian Universalists to study the Doctrine and eliminate its presence from the current-day policies, programs, theologies, and structures of Unitarian Universalism.
In 2013, at its 29th General Synod, the United Church of Christ also followed suit in repudiating the doctrine in a near-unanimous vote.
At the 2016 Synod, 10-17 June in Grand Rapids, MI, delegates to the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church rejected the Doctrine of Discovery as heresy in response to a study report on the topic.
Other religious groups - the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the World Council of Churches, New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, the United Methodist church, to name a few - have also repudiated it.
Also in 2016, on November 3, a group of 500 clergy members publicly denounced the Doctrine of Discovery at the Standing Rock pipeline protests.
The Northeastern Minnesota Synod passed a similar resolution April 17, 2017, followed by the Northwestern Minnesota Synod passing the resolution on June 10, 2017. The two synods cover territory of the ancestral lands of all seven Ojibwe Reservations in Minnesota.
For more than five centuries, the Doctrine of Discovery and the laws based upon it, have legalized the theft of land, labor and resources from Indigenous Peoples across the world. Because this Doctrine originated with the Christian church in the 15th century, it is now the church's responsibility to dismantle it.
Through this long, violent period of consolidation of control over much of Europe, Africa and the Americas, the rationale for conquest slowly secularized. At first, people were attacked because they were not Christian. Then, they were attacked because they were not reasonable, because any reasonable person would be a Christian. Finally, they were attacked because they were not civilized, because any civilized society would embrace Christianity and Christians' attempt to civilize them.
Native peoples in the Americas are still fighting to resist western colonialism and reclaim their land and sovereignty. The Doctrine of Discovery still stands in their way.
Northwestern Minnesota Synod Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery And Commitment to Partner with our Ojibwe Neighbors
Resolution #4 June 10, 2017 Concordia College
Submitted by the Bemidji Conference
Regarding Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery and Commitment to Partner with our Ojibwe Neighbors
1 WHEREAS, we confess with our Native sisters and brothers that the whole of Creation is God's
2 work, that God declares it all as good, and that God's Spirit dwells within it; and
3
4 WHEREAS, we confess that Jesus Christ became incarnate in human form to show God's love
5 and mercy to all humanity, in all its variety, and to every race and people on every continent of
6 the earth; and
7
8 WHEREAS, we acknowledge with pain and regret the damage done to the indigenous
9 inhabitants of the Americas by the European conquest and migration to what Europeans called a
10 "new world," but which was in reality already the homeland of many peoples; and
11
12 WHEREAS, we recognize that Christian churches were and remain complicit in that conquest,
13 migration and dispossession: and
14
15 WHEREAS, Christian churches helped develop conceptions of Native peoples that blamed them
16 for their own ills and that continue to perpetuate prejudice and injustice against them and their
17 descendants; and
18
19 WHEREAS, we deplore and reject the so-called "doctrine of discovery": the legal principle,
20 originating with Pope Alexander VI in 1493 and further entrenched in U.S. federal law in
21 Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), that Native inhabitants have no property or any other rights which
22 colonizing European nations and their sovereigns are bound to respect. This principle promotes
23 the myth that the Americas were a largely empty land that European conquerors and migrants
24 had a right to claim, occupy, and possess simply by virtue of their Christianity and their
25 European civilization; and
26
27 WHEREAS, we realize that our culpability in the ongoing influence of the Doctrine of
28 Discovery is a shared reality within geographic boundaries of the Northwestern MN Synod,
29 which we share with our neighbors; three federally recognized tribes: The Leech Lake Band of
30 Ojibwe, The Red Lake Band of Chippewa, and The White Earth Nation; and
31
32 WHEREAS, Luke 10:25-37 reminds us that we are to "love the Lord your God with all your
33 heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your
34 neighbor as yourself"; therefore be it
35
36 RESOLVED, that the 2017 Northwestern Minnesota Synod in assembly, joining with the
37 Churchwide expression of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Evangelical
38 Lutheran Church in Canada, The Episcopal Church, The United Church of Christ, The United
39 Methodist Church, and The Moravian Church, explicitly and clearly repudiates the European
40 Christian-derived "doctrine of discovery;" as fundamentally opposed to the gospel of Jesus
41 Christ and as a violation of the inherent rights that all individuals and peoples have received from
42 God, with its continuing impact upon tribal governments and individual tribal members to this
43 day, and acknowledges and repents of its complicity in the evils of colonialism in the Americas;
44 and be it further
45
46 RESOLVED, that the 2017 Northwestern Minnesota Synod in assembly offers herewith a
47 statement of repentance and reconciliation to Native nations on its territory for damage done in
48 the name of Christianity and "civilization," and supports the ongoing effort to identify an
49 appropriate ELCA synodical ceremony of repentance and reconciliation with tribal leaders, and
50 provide resources for similar congregational observances with local tribal leaders, at all such
51 times and places as are appropriate; and be it further
52
53 RESOLVED, that the Northwestern Minnesota Synod in assembly, along with the ELCA, and
54 with the help of Native communities, also commits itself to the development of resources, in the
55 next triennium, to help its congregations and people understand and reduce the negative impact
56 of the "doctrine of discovery" and its consequences for Native people in Northern Minnesota;
57 and be it further
58
59 RESOLVED, that the Northwestern Minnesota Synod in assembly supports a renewed strategy
60 for ministry and partnership with Native communities within the synod territory, with a
61 particular commitment to long-term, stable funding of ELCA American Indian and Alaska
62 Native ministries, reflected in the 2019 Budget of the Northwestern MN Synod and beyond,
63 increasing partnerships with congregations, and promoting efforts with the Native communities
64 within which our congregations reside, and
65
66 RESOLVED, that the Northwestern Minnesota Synod in assembly, direct the Synod Council to
67 form a Bridge Building Committee that will meet regularly, reporting to the Synod Council
68 regularly, and the Synod Assembly annually, regarding the committee's efforts to build upon the
69 above commitments to identify intercultural resources, educational opportunities, and strategic
70 initiatives so that the Northwestern MN Synod might join in the work to bridge cultural divides
71 between native and nonnative residents in our congregations and communities.
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