2023 9 26
Introduction
In June of 2023 a recent teacher from Columbia Bible College asked if I would be willing to speak on the given topic on Truth and Reconciliation Sunday in his home congregation in Abbotsford, B.C. He stated that he had come across some of my writing on my background. He also knew I have been on the Mennonite Church of British Columbia [Canada] Indigenous Relations Task Force (since its formation in 2019) and had been on a previous committee dealing with indigenous relations (for eight years prior to that). He thought it would be helpful for me to tell of my childhood experiences and how my views have evolved over the years. He saw one of the objectives of such a presentation to be why Christians (Mennonites in particular) should recognize this day as part of worship on the newly declared Truth and Reconciliation Sunday. This Sunday designation was the result of a call to action from the truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) that crossed our country between 2011 and 2015. Some of the material included below comes from material prepared for some presentations to the congregation of which I am a member prior to the TRC’s being held in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2013. What follows is an adaptation of the text of that message, originally intended for a congregational audience, to the wider audience of this blog.
My story part 1
The reason that these affairs are close to my heart is that I grew up in Northern Manitoba as the eldest missionary child of Edwin and Margie (nee Enns) Brandt, who worked among our indigenous people. Father taught from 1943 - 1945 in in United Church run Indian day school at Garden Hill, Manitoba, to fulfil his alternative service requirements as a Conscientious Objector to taking part in World War II military service. After his marrying Margaret Enns in 1945, the newlyweds returned to the north, Oxford House, Manitoba, to serve for two years as a minister to a United Church congregation there.
I was born in the middle of my parents' service at Oxford house. After two years there, my parents moved via a short spell at Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan, covering for one of the founding couples of Northern Canada Evangelical Mission (NCEM), to Grand Rapids, Manitoba. Here we spent the next nine years under NCEM. Given their Mennonite background, in 1957 my parents accepted a call to serve a congregation at Loon Straits, Manitoba, that had looked to what was then known as Mennonite Pioneer Mission, for pastoral help. We lived there for five years before we moved to Winnipeg.
Thus, I spent the first sixteen years of my life with indigenous children as my playmates, school mates and fellow members of Sunday School classes, boys and youth clubs, and even summer camps; they and their parents were my “neighbours”. I have remained friends with them. Many are my Facebook friends. We even invited them to come to our family reunion in Winnipeg in 2018. We were also a part of a Loon Straits reunion weekend that took place in 2000.
During this time, I have to give my parents great credit, for I never heard them say anything negative about our indigenous neighbours and friends. Indeed, I only heard about their positive traits, for example, how they shared, for example fresh moose meat, newly caught fish and more when they went out to hunt and gather. They were very generous to us.
Having grown up in such circumstances, my siblings and I have felt that we were so immersed in this environment that we really were not aware that, as whites, we might have been part of of the discriminations faced by our indigenous friends and neighbours. Indeed, some of our friends from that period of time, now getting on in years like ourselves, have affirmed that they neither saw us as different nor that our family made any differences between themselves and us.
The Topic
The topic given me is one which I know some readers struggle with: Why should we care to commemorate Truth and Reconciliation Sunday. A short and perhaps slightly cynical response to that might be because the TRC asked us to do this. Even in that answer you can see two components. A request was made, and a response is expected.
Truth
We need to start with the Truth part of Truth and Reconciliation. It has been said there can be no true reconciliation apart from the truth being made known. Sometimes the truth is hard to face and accept. That element can be an initial obstacle that needs to be dealt with before we can proceed to reconciliation.
Some of us might think we had nothing to do with the negative things, like abuse in residential schools, that the TRC further exposed. Therefore, we have nothing to contribute here. For Christian readers, let me bring in a little biblical language and the gospel here in response to that. When the Bible says ‘you’, in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, that was often understood as a plural. In the Old Testament then, that meant the whole people of God, the children of Israel. In the New Testament, it meant the whole of the new community of God, the capital ‘C' Church, as we sometimes say.
1. We Are The Church
If we are Christians then, we are a part of the whole church, which, in Canada, includes everything from Roman Catholic to Anglican, to United and Presbyterian Churches, all of which we tend to point fingers at when it comes to running residential schools and what happened there. To non-Christians, which would include many indigenous people, these differences between us as denominations are our own internal matter. They see all of us lumped together as Christianity, the Church. In their minds, we are all guilty. Indeed, as I just alluded to, if we accept the biblical language, we are all part of the offending party. Therefore, we also have a responsibility to look at what has happened with our relationship to indigenous people and what we might need to be doing about it now.
As some of you who are Mennonites probably know though, this story does come closer to us than we might care to admit. Mennonite missions ran residential and day schools in Canada as well, in Ontario. The Mennonite Central Committee also played a part, placing volunteers in some of these institutions that were involved in the care of indigenous children, including the Montreal Lake Children's Home in Saskatchewan and tuberculosis sanatoriums.
2. We are Canada
There is another way in which we might not be able to excuse ourselves in this way. Most of you who read this are likely Canadians, citizens of Canada, descendants of people who settled here from other lands. Therefore, in the same way that indigenous people might see Christians all as guilty as part of the larger church, they see Canadians all as guilty as citizens of the country whose government has caused them so much grief.
My story part 2
Those two items are large-scale truths. Are their truths closer to home for us as Mennonites (the denominational audience to whom this was originally presented) that we need to deal with? Personally, my Mennonite ancestors came to Manitoba in the 1870s. They had been farmers in what was then known as South Russia, now Ukraine. The government at the time was clearly interested in having the land settled by farmers who would boost the economy of the country by their output. They really did not care much about the indigenous people who were getting pushed off their land into smaller and smaller reserves. These were too often on the most undesirable land, but many of them have had to live there subsequently, where we would not wish for ourselves to reside. I don't believe that my ancestors were given much information on what was going on in this area, nor, I must admit, does it appear that they looked into the matter to any extent. They were simply happy to settle on the land that the Canadian government was making available for them by, in reality, pushing the indigenous occupants further out of the way of colonization.
Meanwhile, the land that my ancestors were practically given, was some of the most productive farmland on the prairies and my ancestors did very well. They never even suffered that much in the 1930s, compared to those living in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The gains they made, from living in sod houses to now having descendants like myself, who have moved beyond farming to being professionals and running businesses and factories etc., bear no comparison to the lack of similar progress experienced by our indigenous neighbours over the same period of time. We have prospered greatly, but we know the same is not true for too many of our indigenous neighbours. If we look at what our indigenous neighbours have, we would have to admit that, in many respects, it is a lot less than what we are privileged to enjoy.
My story part 3 - my people
Some of our Mennonite ancestors came to Canada in the 1920s or even after World War II. What about their truths? We know how traumatized some of them and their families were by the losses experienced in the Ukraine. The turmoil experienced in the Ukraine did not even last a century though. The troubles indigenous neighbours have experienced since our arrivals as white Europeans have been going on for over 500 years!
Thinking about that should give us more understanding and compassion towards the losses our indigenous neighbours have suffered ever since we white people arrived on these shores. Our peoples’ grandparents, great uncles and aunts, perhaps parents, didn’t even want to talk about it - in an environment that was not opposed to them doing so. No one was telling them not to share their stories. Again, how different is that from the trauma experienced by our indigenous neighbours? No one around them wanted to hear about it. With the government lead loss of their language and culture, they were even less equipped to remember and tell their stories. Is it any wonder we really did not begin to hear their stories until less than 40 years ago?
Our leaders were able to negotiate conditions with the government when they came to Canada, such as the freedom to practice our religion, to not have to send our young men to war, and have our own schools in what was then our language, German. How different that is from what was happening to the indigenous people at the same time. Things were going in very much the opposite direction for them. Why?
The doctrine of discovery
Some of you have heard about something called the doctrine of discovery. This was an understanding that arose out of the time in Europe when the church and state were united as The Holy Roman empire. These ideas were written down in decrees from the Vatican that formed the basis of European explorations, settlements, policies and even laws that are still used today in legal judgements when it comes to indigenous affairs. The underlying principle was that non-Christian occupants of any land did not count, that lands that were not organized into cities and productive estates, farmlands, by European standards, were considered ‘empty’ - the infamous Latin phrase, terrus nullius. The Europeans saw themselves as entitled to, go in to whatever lands they encountered and help themselves. For example, referring to the Spanish royalty in one off these so-called ‘papal bulls’ we read:
“Among other works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty (referring here to the King of Castile, in Spain)…
We, of our own accord… by tenor of these presents, should any of said islands have been found by your envoys and captains, give, grant, and assign to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, forever, together with all their dominions, cities, camps, places, and villages, and all rights, jurisdictions, and appurtenances, all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered towards the west and south…”
Or Pope Nicholas in 1455, granting Portugal the power:
“…to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens [Muslims] and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit.”
France and England were only to happy to adopt these sentiments as their own when they too began exploring and settling North America.
That was five hundred years ago. When our country's and our churches' mistreatment of our indigenous neighbours has continued that long, are you surprised that they gave up trying to talk about or do anything about it? The situation seemed hopeless and many simply withdrew; some turned to alcohol to drown their pain and sorrow. Then we judged and criticize them for that. It wasn't until our government began to change its attitude somewhat after World War II, and our indigenous neighbours, gradually, by 1969, all getting the ability to vote in our elections, felt empowered enough to begin to organize and share their stories in the 1980s. At that point, it was still another decade before the residential schools, which we have now heard so much about, were closed, in 1996.
For most Mennonites, the trauma I wrote of is past, it’s history. Not so for our indigenous neighbours - just think of the phenomenon of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirited. The trauma of those losses, possibly as high as 4,000 since 1980, is still very much present for thousands.
3. We are Christians
We have talked about the inclusive biblical language of our being a people, the Church, and where that places us in the eyes of our indigenous neighbours. Let me come then to the real reason why we those to whom this message was originally addressed should respect this Sunday for what it has been named, consider where that comes from, and how we should conduct ourselves in response to that. This is where Truth meets Reconciliation.
We are Christians, so this is where we bring in the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Let me read the words of the Apostle Paul from scripture on this:
“I Corinthians 5:18 …all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 5:19 In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation. 5:20 Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea through us.”
Christ has given us Christians the ministry of reconciliation. That ministry extends to everyone and everything. When the writer of the Gospel of John wrote that "God so loved the world” (ch. 3, vs. 16), he meant that. He did not just mean individual souls being called to be ‘born again’ in response to that love. God created the whole world good. He wanted to share his abundance and love with as many people as he could. He wanted to show his beauty in his creation. His calling creation good meant he appreciated and enjoyed it, including us.
The apostle Paul wrote about this wider view of reconciliation and redemption in Romans 8:
“8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will willingly but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 8:21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 8:22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now.”
We who are Mennonites, Anabaptists, have had our attention re-focussed on the ministry of reconciliation in recent decades. Therefore, we have all the more reason to take the above seriously. Some of us might be familiar with Palmer Becker, whose 2017 book, Anabaptist Essentials, was published. It has since become somewhat of a staple for study by Mennonite congregational groups as well as being translated into a number of languages for use in congregations in the global Anabaptist church. He identified three core values of Anabaptism:
- Jesus being the centre of our faith,
- Community being the centre of our life, and
- Reconciliation being the centre of our work…
devoting three chapters to each of those. If you have not read or studied this book I would encourage you to do so.
4. Indigenous people are our neighbours
If we who claim to be Christians truly want to live out our Christian faith, there are a couple of basic things we need to recognize and accept before we can even delve into this ministry of reconciliation. We know Jesus came to bring us new life. We know the Gospel of Matthew (ch. 23 vss. 34-40) story of the lawyer who came to Jesus and asked him what the greatest commandment was. We know what Jesus’ two-part answer was:
1. love the Lord your God with all you heart and soul and mind and
2. love your neighbour as yourself.
We also know from Jesus' parable in the Gospel of Luke (ch. 10 vss. 25-40), which we refer to as "The Good Samaritan”, a little more about being a neighbour. Thieves had set upon a traveler and left him for dead on the roadside. Those whom we would expect to have known and followed this two-part law - it was already there in the Old Testament for them - the priest and Levite, Jews, who ‘passed by on the other side (of the road)’ were not good neighbours. Then a Samaritan traveller came upon the man and took good care of him.
Since their early prophet and lawgiver Moses’ time the Jews had come up with many more rules including some about what was ‘unclean’, which could well have included a bloody and possibly dead stranger on the road. Samaritans as a group, almost a nation at the time, were considered unclean. But Jesus was holding them up to the Jews as those who really knew what being a neighbour meant.
Some of us may have sometimes regarded some of our indigenous neighbours as unclean. We here in the Lower Mainland of BC are familiar with stories about Vancouver's Down Town East Side. We likely think there are many poor, homeless indigenous people here, addicted to alcohol and drugs. There are some, but not as many as we imagine. We see whites, blacks and Asians too. Are they our neighbours? Too often we think they are unclean.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
- The first thing we need to do is grasp what we as a nation and church have done to our neighbours and lament that. We need to ask God and them for forgiveness, apologizing for what we have done. We need to repent. We know that is the first step on this path from our understanding of Christian reconciliation, our reconciliation to God. It is the same with our relationship with our indigenous neighbours.
- We must acknowledge that we live on lands that first belonged to people now identifying themselves in that regard as the first nations of those lands. You might think, oh, but I paid for my property with money I earned. Indeed, but where did that property come from? We have to be honest and acknowledge that much of the land that we live on and make use of was stolen. To be sure, some of the land was dealt with, as far as the government and settlers were concerned, by treaties arranged with the first nations. Then we have to remember how many of those treaties were broken. Even with that, what gave us the right as a nation to force people who had lived freely across the wide expenses of our country into tiny and, again because of our national injustice, ever shrinking reserves?
3. We can acknowledge that first nations world views and traditions have something to
teach us when it comes to looking after the world that God, our Creator, made. It’s like the situation between God and the children of Israel when they moved into their
Promised Land. It was understood that God owned the land. That is the biblical view. Our indigenous neighbours understand that they do not own the land either. It is a gift from Creator to use well. How differently we have, at least historically, treated this land.
Along with this, our indigenous neighbours have a deep knowledge of plants and the environment that we could learn from. Sure, some of that has been lost over time, largely because of what we settlers have done. Subsequently, the changes brought on by our collective actions have too often negatively affected their culture, language and family relationships too.
4. Many of us are very keen to read stories about our histories. They help us
understand where we come from and who we are. To the contrary, the policies of our
governments robbed first nations of their abilities to remember their stories as we
have been free to. In our school systems we have all been taught to hear only settler
versions of the stories of this country. The First Nations’ stories have been ignored. if
we want to respect our neighbours, understand what they have experienced, we need to listen to their stories. Nowadays, there is no shortage of them on the Internet and in many published books. We can seek out opportunities to meet with our indigenous neighbours and give them an opportunity to share their stories.
5. Yes, according to the gospel as we heard, what is the second commandment according to Jesus? Love your neighbour as yourself.
Lorne Brandt
The original delivery of this message September 24, 2023, in Emmanuel Mennonite Church, Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/@emmanuelmennonite/videos
The actual message delivery is from minutes 24 to 55, but there are some good introductory remarks in the first couple of minutes, an indigenous-written song at 18, followed by the worship leader’s introduction of me at minute 23. The music team leader also has a good reflection right after the message.
