The Reflector/Rector’s Cupboard Crew is en route to record some material around Calgary, AB later this week. Today we were in Kamloops, BC and visited the Tk'emlúps Indian Residential School which is on the grounds where up to 215 unmarked graves of children who were forced into the school between 1893 and 1977 when the school closed were discovered in 2021.
Today is also the second day of the Papal visit to Canada. Pope Francis is currently in Edmonton, AB and yesterday issued an apology for the evils done in the residential school system. There is much discussion about the apology. Most saw it as heartfelt and many were clearly moved emotionally and spiritually. Some also noted that it did not reference the sins of the Catholic Church, but rather those of individual leaders, teachers, clergy and administrators. There is a doctrine in Catholic theology that outlines that the church, as descendent of that which Christ promised in speaking with Peter, cannot sin. It is people who sin. This may be a reason for the Pope’s parsing of the language. There may be other reasons as well.
Indigenous survivors and leaders are varied in their response. This makes great sense. It is a complicated issue.
Former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, expressed a hope that forgiveness would be granted, but he also said that he understood that such action cannot be forced or coerced.
The words that struck me from Pope Francis’ apology yesterday were when he identified the system of residential schools as “disastrous” and “catastrophic” and “not compatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. In other words, Christians perpetrated terrible evil contrary to the teaching of Jesus.
Recently I have been reading Brian McLaren’s newest book, “Do I Stay Christian?” The first ten chapters of the book present an unflinching assessment as to why someone should not stay Christian. The section includes an admission that horrific acts in history, hateful and terrible policies and violent, evil actions, have been committed by Christians. He mentions that, in his upbringing, he was taught about William Wilberforce fighting against the slave trade in Britain. What he was not taught, he says, is that many many more Christians “owned” slaves and fought with everything they had to uphold the institution of slavery. McLaren cites other similar examples:
“I was taught that devout Christians like Sir Isaac Newton were responsible for many of humanity’s greatest scientific breakthroughs. I wasn’t taught how their fellow Christians mocked, persecuted and opposed many brilliant thinkers from Copernicus and Galileo to Charles Darwin and Rachel Carson.
I was taught that Christians like George Mueller and Mother Teresa had been champions of orphans and widows, the downtrodden and poor, the sick and the destitute. I wasn’t taught that their fellow Christians, including many of their major donors, created, profited from and defended the systems that produced so many orphans, widows, downtrodden, sick, destitute and poor.”
In the early chapters of the Bible, after the Cain kills Abel, God says that the blood of the murdered brother cries out from the ground. Today standing on the grounds of the Residential School I found myself praying that Christians would be honest, would be open enough to hear the cries from the ground which cries out after evil perpetrated in the name of God.
The photos in this post are from today, from the grounds. The last one is taken from the car, just before we left. Not in the photo is a grove of trees between the school behind us and the water ahead of us. As I prayed I thought about what happened in that very spot, separated only by time, by a matter of decades. Did a child try to escape from the institution through those trees? Did those same trees hear the cries of children in the school at night, children who had been forcibly taken from their own families
We ought to admit a truth that is obvious to many people in the world. A Christianity that depends on coercion, on forcing others to believe what we believe, on seeing other faiths or other cultures as a threat, a Christianity like that is a primitive religion. Such a religion should be rejected. Such a religion is arguably the furthest thing from Christ-like.
We have such a long way to go.
There is hope. Grace and love are also all around, even amidst the pain.
McLaren quotes, in the context of the civil rights struggle in the United States, African American activist and author, James Baldwin, who notes that it took slaves to redeem the religion of their enslavers.
We can be reminded, that we are not as advanced as we think that we are and that we need always to listen, for the cries of the blood in the ground and the cries of the living who have been hurt by our blindness and hubris.