“There are various names for this ‘Spirit of Life’ because there are various life experiences.” –Jurgen Moltmann, on the Holy Spirit
Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, when Christians mark the birthday of the Church. The Nicene Creed states that we Christians, “believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life..” This “Spirit of Life” as Jurgen Moltmann reminds us, carries various names because life is multi-faceted and peoples expression and understanding of God is diverse. The great sin of the first Anglicans (and all the other denominations) who came to these shores of Vancouver Island was to assume as Gandhi once said (about the first European missionaries to travel to India) was that they thought they were “carrying God on their backs.” One of the elders from Kingcome Inlet keeps reminding me that Jesus was already here before the Europeans arrived. His teaching (and I’ve heard this from a number of other elders) is that God’s Spirit was fully alive in their culture and values. This is good news. As Kwok Pui Lan (a Hong Kong-born feminist Anglican theologian) writes in her book “Post-Colonial Imagination and Feminist Theology”:
Without the power of imagination we cannot envision a different past, present and future… What we cannot imagine, we cannot live into and struggle for.
Thinking about the relationship between Christianity and Indigenous Spirituality here on Vancouver Island, I can’t help but wonder how things could have looked differently if the missionaries and church officials came here in humility, respect and openness, wanting to learn from and exchange spiritual knowledge and wisdom. Instead they came in the spirit of domination, paternalism, and conquest, eventually outlawing cultural practices like the Potlatch. I wonder and often despair that these attitudes continue to be alive and well, not only in the church but across Canadian society. I’m really drawn to Pui Lan’s call towards imagination and wondering what the role of our parish and diocese is towards engaging with Indigenous communities towards envisioning a relationship centred on mutual respect, humility and openness. Where I see the Holy Spirit active is the fact that elders from various Indigenous communities tell me that in spite of the church’s horrific treatment of their people, that they wanted and still want to the church to be in relationship and partnership together. To me this is a great miracle.
1 comment
Thanks for sharing, Alastair! I appreciate the question you brought up of how things could have been different if missionaries came here with “humility, respect, and openness” and the ways that you are pursuing those values in your church’s relationship with the Indigenous communities in your area. That is beautiful to imagine what could have been in the past and then do the work to bring about a better future in light of that.