Real Change News | Rev. Lang: God in Indian country

August 26, 2009
Vol: 16 No: 38

Rev. Rich Lang

Rev. Lang: God in Indian country

by: Rev. Rich Lang

"There is, as far as I can imagine, no realistic hope for the resurrection of the Native peoples."

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This summer my family drove to South Dakota. The drive took us through several Native Indian reservations. For the most part all we could observe was the reality of desolated, isolated rural poverty. The ethnic cleansing and land theft policy of our American history has taken its toll and moves the heart beyond sorrow. There is, as far as I can imagine, no realistic hope for the resurrection of the Native peoples. Although there are small pockets of optimism and an occasional success story, Native culture and a Native contribution to a reconciled and restored future, barring an act of God, seems to be historically, and humanly, impossible. Theologically speaking it appears that the Great Spirit has abandoned Native Americans.

When I talked with family members, admittedly all white folk, mostly farmers, what I heard was a resigned refrain that if Native Indians were to have any hope of a future they would have to create that hope for themselves. No amount of government funding would create new pathways.

Indeed, according to my family members, government money was now part of the problem. They insisted that a welfare mentality had eroded Native motivation to work and produce. They were quite vocal that government funds rarely funneled down into the budgets of actual persons in need. Instead, the money disappeared into bureaucratic corruption, and within the territorialism of the tribal council itself.

I don’t know. All I know was that the areas looked forlorn and desolate. All I know is that gang culture is sweeping the Pine Ridge reservation. All I know is that here in Seattle, alcoholism, homelessness and chronic financial dysfunction are characteristic of a way of life that discourages all of us who want to see a restoration of Native accomplishment. Indeed, relationally speaking, few churches have any real connection to Native persons. And those that do are not able to assist the renewal that is needed and the revival that must come if Native peoples are to experience a resurrection from death.

I am haunted by the notion of God’s apparent abandonment of Native peoples. Five hundred years of relentless oppression have not generated new light for Native peoples. How long until the darkness passes? How long do we have to wait until an authentic saving movement of liberation and restoration is created? Is such a hope too much to ask of the God who boasts that Pharaoh is nothing, and that even the dead can be raised? Is such a yearning for justice beyond the capacity of God to inspire and to empower?

Of course Native Americans are not alone in this theological conundrum. One could look at the Palestinian people and ask the same questions. One could examine the long misery of the Congo and despair equally. Where is God, when God alone is the only hope? The question unnerves me.

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Comments

Editor,

With all due respect I think that Rev Rich Lang should take a few weeks off. I know that he works hard in the community and that his writings come from a place of good wishes and compassion for his fellow human beings, but sometimes it just seems like he lives in a bubble of some.

Case in point: in the current issue of Real Change Lang talks about Indian Country. In his column he makes the following mind numbing statement: “Where is God, when God alone is the only hope?” I hate to be the bearer of bad memories but, until the coming of the Christians the native peoples were quite happy with their own spiritual definitions. The missions were built on slave labor, the genocidal boarding school system was rabidly Christian. I was told years ago, in Lakota country, that the two worst things that happened were the bottle and the bible. Get a grip.

Also, Lang says “Five hundred years of relentless oppression have not generated new light for Native peoples.” What? No, Mister Lang, oppression does not generate light. “How long until the darkness passes? How long do we have to wait until an authentic saving movement of liberation and restoration is created? Is such a hope too much to ask of the God who boasts that Pharaoh is nothing, and that even the dead can be raised? Is such a yearning for justice beyond the capacity of God to inspire and to empower?”

I don’t know what to say except please keep this drivel out of the paper. Mister Lang has obviously never read any of the several good native newspapers out there these days, or visited the web sites. He has never heard of Winona LaDuke and the White Earth reclamation project, or read any of Sherman Alexie’s wonderful books. If that isn’t light I don’t know what is. My guess is that he only spoke with his “family members, admittedly all white folk” and never hung out to find out what people are actually doing. Too bad, it would have been a good article.

Jim Page

Jim Page | submitted on 09/02/2009, 9:19pm

Hey Jim,

One can never say enough bad about what Christianity did to the native population. There is really nothing but penance. However, let us not be overly romantic about Native history before the white man and his technology. Native folks might have been “happy with their spiritual definitions” but that did not keep them from tribal violence anymore than European tribal violence. Nevertheless I was speaking aloud about the current despair and plight and sheer hopelessness of reservation life—- which, as you lifted up, is indeed chronicled over tears in any reading of Sherman Alexie’s books, and indeed throughout Winona LaDuke’s heroic activism. The fact of an occasional success does not equate with a revival of spirit. My article was a lamentation, and a way to provoke a conversation that might lead to what people are “actually doing” with, for example, the Native homeless of this City.

Rich Lang

Rich Lang | submitted on 09/03/2009, 1:01pm

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