Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. The day was declared by then Governor General Roméo Leblanc in 1996. The purpose of the day, as stated in the proclamation, is to “mark and celebrate these contributions and to recognize the different cultures of the Aboriginal (Originally the day was called “Aboriginal Peoples Day) peoples of Canada.”
Yesterday I was listening to a podcast called “Kuper Island.” The series looks at one particular residential school in BC and the generational damage and trauma that it inflicted. In the series, in total contrast to the 1996 declaration, there is reflection upon the religious and patriotic indoctrination which was central to the official Canadian approach to Indigenous culture.
Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott, in making residential schools compulsory in 1920, said, “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and no Indian department.”
The statement by the then deputy minister is political, but it took the Christian church at the time, with religious interest, to establish and run the schools.
In evangelical circles, there is often a lament about how culture and society has become less religious, less Christian. Was society more Christian in the early 20th Century in Canada? If so, do the residential schools count as being more religious and less secular? Kids had to pray in school back then.
Hopeful Christian theology is unafraid to admit that secularization can be a gift to society and a gift to the Christian church. Of course, this is not always the case, but the evil perpetrated in the residential school systems, under the banner of Christianity, shows that there are examples of things that pose as Christian faith which turn out to be opposite to the love and grace of Jesus.
One of the stories featured in the podcast is of a man who was a young boy in residence at the Kuper Island school. Here are some of his words:
“Gettin’ up early in the morning, kneeling down to pray. Giving thanks to the Lord for another day. Kneelin’ down every morning to pray and then going to the rec room for about five minutes and then praying to go into the dining room and then sit down and pray again to be thankful to receive your meal. We were forever praying. We’d line up and go to say allegiance to the Canadian flag. Pray again.”
Some of the people directing these children to pray were the same ones who were sexually and physically abusing them.
So, was this more Christian, less secular, than our culture today?
One of disturbing truths about the residential school system is that there were people who thought that they were serving God in the system. They had largely adopted a theological worldview that said that anyone who believed differently than them was spiritually, culturally, and religiously deficient. This was a theological parallel to the doctrine of discovery. In other words, an Indigenous child was seen by such people to be missing something, something essential, something that the teachers and leaders at the residential schools could give them, or force upon them.
This theology of deficiency is one that is still very present today. It can show up in much more benign ways than it did in residential schools.
For example, the concept of “handing down faith” from one generation to the next often depends upon this deficiency concept. Many parents in evangelical culture know what it means to hope that your child or children pray the prayer, as mark of coming to faith. This can be a positive hope. However, too often we can treat our own children as if some deficiency needs to be addressed, as if the most prescient matter is that something is missing.
Hopeful Christian theology helps us to see that true faith comes from an awareness of what is present more than from an awareness of what is missing. The children who were forced to attend residential schools were abused in many ways. One of the less thought about ways is that the leaders failed to see that the children were made in the image of God as they were, not as the leaders and politicians wanted them to be. The very humanity of the children (and their parents) was often denied. This theological distortion set a context for terrible abuse and evil.
Too much that has posed as Christian theology works from this deficiency approach. Think about how it may have been present in your own church, your own ways of seeing. If your child or other family member has not claimed and lived out faith like you would have hoped or desired, an anxiety can arise. This can be coupled with the fear of judgment of others.
I think that it is time to let go of the deficiency model for speaking faith. True faith is spoken and found in what is present. Imagine that you are the parent of a young adult who has not followed in your way of faith. Now, think prayerfully about your child. Think about what is present, not about what is absent. How are they made in God’s image? How are they a reflection of God’s image? What are some of the many things about them that are life-giving and beautiful and a mark of God’s presence in the world? Know that as you more and more mark these things and even pray prayers of gratitude for your child there is space for hopeful faith. True faith is found in these hopeful spaces, not fearful places.
You do not compromise your Christian faith by moving away from the deficiency model. Rather, you trust in a faith that is hopeful and compelling and patient.
In Christian faith we owe the world an example of hope and love, not an example of fear and judgment. If we cannot see God’s presence and blessing in the lives of others, all others, including those who believe differently than we do, then how do we ever think that our faith will be compelling? Eventually the fearful and coercive artifices will all come down.
Some things need to come apart.