Shownotes
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Have you ever wondered how the history of the Canadian church intersects with Indigenous perspectives and the journey toward reconciliation?
Melvina Guiboche and Wendi Park are joined by guest, Dr. James Robertson, a church historian and author of "Overlooked," delve into the complex narrative of these interactions. Dr. Robertson shares insights from his experiences and research, highlighting historical injustices, systemic racism cloaked in theology, and the evolving dynamics between Europeans and Indigenous peoples.
The conversation also explores the role of humility and learning from Indigenous spirituality, emphasizing that true reconciliation requires deep personal relationships and a genuine acknowledgement of past harms. With reflections on Canadian church history, secularization, and the overlooked contributions of Indigenous Christians, the dialogue offers listeners a nuanced understanding of faith, history, and community.
Time Stamps
[08:05] Indigenous perspective: today’s church crisis is marketing.
[14:45] White Christianity must learn from indigenous spirituality humbly.
[16:50] Recognize past wrongs for meaningful change now.
[21:43] Indigenous perceived paternalistically during Canadian industrialization.
[30:00] Reflecting on relationship dynamics and mutual understanding.
[33:50] Reconciliation is essential for living God's kingdom.
[40:06] Teaching at Tyndale: sharing diverse Christian histories.
[44:00] Connecting and equipping church for indigenous reconciliation.
[50:08] Indigenous responses to missionaries varied widely, not victimized.
[58:32] Preparing book tour; criticizing own work's messiness.
Guest Resources
Overlooked Book: canadaoverlooked.ca
An intro to a class by Dr. James Robertson: vimeo.com/689132330
The episode with Jim Thunder: https://journey-with-care.captivate.fm/episode/jim-thunder-making-a-ruckus-with-pope-francis
Book mentioned: The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America
Other Links
Reach out to us! https://journeywithcare.ca/podcast
Email: podcast@careimpact.ca
Listen To Journey With Prayer - A prayer journey corresponding to this episode: https://journeywithprayer.captivate.fm/listen
or get both podcasts on the same RSS feed! https://feeds.captivate.fm/n/careimpact-podcast
CareImpact: careimpact.ca
About the CarePortal: careimpact.ca/careportal
DONATE! Help connect and equip more churches across Canada to effectively journey well in community with children and families: careimpact.ca/donate
Editing and production by Johan Heinrichs: arkpodcasts.ca
Transcripts
Please leave a message after the tone. I have
Speaker:always loved indigenous singing and drumming
Speaker:and just the voice that they bring in. So I just wanna pray
Speaker:in Canada just that their voice would be heard. They have
Speaker:a unique voice. It is a powerful voice.
Speaker:And, yeah, I just wanna pray blessing and freedom
Speaker:and just release and a venue for those voices
Speaker:to be heard. Reconciliation.
Speaker:What does this mean to you?
Speaker:This is the Journey with Care podcast, where we navigate honest
Speaker:conversations about faith, culture, and loving our neighbors.
Speaker:I am the host, Melvina Gabosch, and I am an indigenous
Speaker:lover of Jesus.
Speaker:Welcome back to another episode of Journey with Care. In
Speaker:studio today, around the table, we have doctor James Robertson,
Speaker:a professor at Tyndall Seminary in Toronto, a
Speaker:Canadian church historian, an author of a new
Speaker:book Overlooked. I am excited to have him with us
Speaker:today. Welcome. Thank you very much. I'm
Speaker:very humbled and honored to be here. Wendy met him when she
Speaker:was at an event in Hamilton. And yeah. Yeah. This is Wendy. I'm
Speaker:I'm here joining in the studio. It was so good to meet
Speaker:you, James. We met at a conference that was
Speaker:held at the McMaster's University in Hamilton
Speaker:back in May of 2022. And, you were
Speaker:speaking there on the history of the Canadian church, and I'm like,
Speaker:it's about time because it it I was so relieved to to
Speaker:hear about things on a very Canadian level on the
Speaker:history and the church. So, I'm so glad that we can
Speaker:keep this conversation flowing. Excellent. Thank you very much, and
Speaker:I I completely agree. It's important to get that Canadian perspective in
Speaker:there. James, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker:Oh, okay. Sure. As you mentioned, I'm a professor at Tyndale.
Speaker:I'm an author. I'm gonna try my best not to repeat what you just said
Speaker:because that doesn't make for for good podcasting. Yeah. I'm I'm a
Speaker:part time minister. I minister in a couple,
Speaker:CBOQ, churches, which is a convention baptists of Ontario
Speaker:and Quebec. I'm a father of 2 boys, and,
Speaker:yeah, that's it. And, very excited to be chatting about the the
Speaker:book and everything that you're doing here. It's a it's a wonderful and very, very
Speaker:important series of conversations. So, again, let me reiterate, very humbled and honored to
Speaker:be here. We are glad you're with us today. Tell us, what led
Speaker:you on this path to becoming a Canadian church historian?
Speaker:Well, I have to give all credit to my doctoral adviser, doctor Gordon Heath at
Speaker:McMaster. He's, an expert in church and war, which was definitely something that we got
Speaker:into the background. That was my background. So we're trying to figure
Speaker:out how do we bring in the ideas of religion and conflict and whatnot. Of
Speaker:course, sadly, the world is is full of examples. And I was in
Speaker:Ireland many years ago, and I was just as one does one on when a
Speaker:historian's on vacation, we tend to go to archives. And I was just
Speaker:flipping through a newspaper, and there was a big headline there. It says,
Speaker:The Irish Invade Canada, and I was like, what was this? And I learned
Speaker:all about the Fenian invasion of 1866, and that sort of brought my
Speaker:two worlds together, wanting to be a Canadian historian, And then I did my
Speaker:doctoral work on, Christianity and the War of 18 12
Speaker:and just found absolutely I think most Canadians, we get the sort of sense
Speaker:that Canadian history is a big snooze fest, and I was pleasantly shown
Speaker:that this is, this is not the case. A lot of interesting ideas. Well, I
Speaker:think there's two forms of Canadians. Those that love history, the
Speaker:history buffs, and then those that would think of it as a big snooze fest,
Speaker:and they would rather turn on the television and watch the people to the south
Speaker:and be entertained. But what I found as I was I was reading
Speaker:your book, and we'll we'll talk more about it later, what I found about it
Speaker:is I tended to grow up being on this news fest
Speaker:team and thinking history, do I really wanna learn it? I wanna hear that I'm
Speaker:a visionary. I like to look to the future. But what I found, you
Speaker:you ignited some more interest for me to learn my history better.
Speaker:I sort of thought as, like, you're kind of like a psychologist of the past.
Speaker:Like, you you unpack the stories to really get into the brains of Canadians,
Speaker:and that's a very nuanced field. So I realized this is no
Speaker:snooze fest to dig into Canadian history. There's actually a
Speaker:lot of overlooked, hence your the title of your book,
Speaker:overlooked ideas and stories and themes here that
Speaker:really help us understand my future. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. Thank you thank you for saying that because that's exactly why the type the
Speaker:book is titled, Overlooked is, like, the Snooze Fest boat,
Speaker:if there are 2 different, size boats. The Snooze Fest boat would be like
Speaker:a Carnival Cruise Line, and, those who see the the relevance
Speaker:of Canadian yeah. Oh, good. So you're you're in the
Speaker:dinghy with the rest of us. That's good. Thank you. Welcome aboard. I'm gonna have
Speaker:to admit that I'm still on the boat. I'm on the Snooze Fest boat.
Speaker:Fair enough. So convince her otherwise. No. But your book your
Speaker:book, you know, had me looking overboard. Nice.
Speaker:Nice. Had me looking like maybe I'm gonna jump ship. I'm not sure yet. And
Speaker:you know what? Maybe that's the the point of this podcast here today,
Speaker:of just helping people look over the edge of the boat, and maybe we can
Speaker:come to some middle ground here. Between the dinghy and the the cruise, I
Speaker:don't know what would it be. Like, a canoe maybe would be very Canadian. That's
Speaker:true. So we're gonna canoe down this lane today. I'm
Speaker:looking forward to this conversation. We've been talking about your book that you recently
Speaker:wrote, Overlooked, the forgotten origin stories
Speaker:of the Canadian Christianity. What inspired you to write
Speaker:this? Well, I was with a group, called New Leaf, a Nash
Speaker:Canadian National Group, looking at, basically exactly what you've been talking about,
Speaker:the, what's what's going on in Canada? What how can we address this? How can
Speaker:we bring more Canadian voices to to the forefront? And, we
Speaker:did a conference a few years back and just sort of realized, like, I looked
Speaker:at it. We were looking specifically at the nones and the dones, so not Catholic
Speaker:nun, not n u n, but n o n e s, like those who
Speaker:signed on to their recent, status update that they're a part of no
Speaker:religion. And then the Duns, which is another group that you can monitor, those who
Speaker:probably grew up in the church but are now done with institutional Christianity,
Speaker:organized religion, that sort of stuff. Mhmm. So just on the topic
Speaker:of those who have served and been the Duns and Duns in the
Speaker:Canadian story, And, that was sort of the the seed that grew into this book
Speaker:was just taking the time to sort of write down and coming up with more
Speaker:concise sort of look at it, a deeper look. Because I'm only speaking for an
Speaker:hour, so you can't really get into a lot of the detail. And what I
Speaker:came to discover was, which is fascinating for me after all the years of
Speaker:studying this stuff, is, like, these concerns around so called secularization
Speaker:are actually nothing new. Canada has been here before. It doesn't matter what time you're
Speaker:talking about, what period in time you're talking about. You're hearing very similar arguments, so
Speaker:I found that to be really interesting for me. That that intrigued
Speaker:me. You you mentioned that at the conference when you were speaking, and that
Speaker:gripped me because so often the the narrative that we hear in the story
Speaker:of the Canadian church is that we need to go back to our roots and
Speaker:become Christian again, and and that will push back against secularization.
Speaker:And and what I found and what I was just discovering in this this conversation
Speaker:in my head was, like, actually, the current church is maybe
Speaker:more secular than we realized, and maybe we're we're
Speaker:fighting the same narrative that they were fighting way back then. And, was
Speaker:it hard to find the the history of Canadian stories of within
Speaker:the church? How hard was that to to bring all of these stories
Speaker:together into to a book? I mean, for me, it's pretty easy. It's more like,
Speaker:what are the stories I'm not gonna tell and why? Like, that's Yeah. And, I
Speaker:mean, I'm I'm a professor. I'm a historian, and I'm also a pastor.
Speaker:So finding words has never been a weakness. If anything, it's it's shut
Speaker:it's shutting me up. So it was more about, okay, what are the major points
Speaker:behind this? And there's some big epochs in the Canadian history. And especially since I've
Speaker:been listening to this podcast, this is another piece of the research I've been doing
Speaker:in the past year and a half. You know, the book's been written for a
Speaker:while. We're going through the editing, but you you start to move on to other
Speaker:projects. Is this Canadian story, of course, from
Speaker:an indigenous perspective is a much different story. And that had to be a
Speaker:major part of the book as well. So we're sort of looking at it from
Speaker:this perspective and with the idea of sort of addressing those
Speaker:in Canada now that are concerned about numbers in the
Speaker:church. And, unfortunately, that tends to be the majority and the inspiration behind these
Speaker:conversations. So what I was trying to show is that in the early days
Speaker:when, like, when we talk about the 19 fifties sixties, whenever we went to church,
Speaker:but also into the, like, the 1800, into the 1700 and whatnot
Speaker:when, like, Christianity was the dominant interpretive paradigm for the
Speaker:Western world. We have very similar situations
Speaker:happening. So the point, one of the major sort of conclusions I'm
Speaker:hoping the reader can draw is that what we're actually talking about now actually
Speaker:is much more influenced by marketing than the Bible, and
Speaker:it's more of a well, we're we're framing it as a spiritual crisis.
Speaker:We actually have to look at it the words we're using, the the things that
Speaker:are concerning us, It actually seems to be we're communicating more of a market share
Speaker:crisis. Wow. We don't have as much influence as we used
Speaker:to, and that's a completely different thing. We're we're
Speaker:framing it all. We're putting it all in good Christian rhetoric, but the issue's at
Speaker:heart here is, like, how come not as many people are coming to church? Well,
Speaker:that not necessarily a spiritual crisis, but it's definitely, like I
Speaker:said, a market share crisis. Wow. Your book, who is your target
Speaker:audience when you decide to write this book? Who do you want to read this
Speaker:book? Well, it's it's it's a book on Canadian Christianity,
Speaker:so I could probably name the target audience by name, and we'll still have lots
Speaker:of time to talk. It's it's not gonna reach a broad audience. But broadly
Speaker:speaking, again, probably those who are somewhat concerned,
Speaker:those who are interested, the other inhabitants of the dinghy that are interested in
Speaker:Canadian history. And we have to acknowledge the fact that Christianity, as far
Speaker:as a social influence, Christianity is the
Speaker:religious voice, of Canada. Because Canada's young.
Speaker:What we call Canada now, it's young. It's you know, really, we can sort of
Speaker:start talking about it depending if you wanna look on the French Catholic side. You
Speaker:know, we definitely got from about the 1500 to the 1700. But then, really,
Speaker:the English speaking side is is a child of the American Revolution just as
Speaker:much as America is. And and so we have, like, the 17 100, and then
Speaker:it sorta kinda grows through that. What I found interesting in
Speaker:what you were talking about throughout the book, that interwoven
Speaker:story of the indigenous people and then with settlers coming in
Speaker:that so often we can think that the genesis of Christianity for
Speaker:North America happened when the boat arrived on the the shores of
Speaker:of North America, Turtle Island, and yet you've brought
Speaker:story to why that isn't true, that,
Speaker:faith was here, God was here, prior, and that
Speaker:the origins of theologians of Christianity actually
Speaker:came far before, with indigenous people, like, 500 years
Speaker:before. I'm not the historian here. I'm I'm just clinging on to the dinghy
Speaker:here to to learn from you. But can you tell us a little bit more
Speaker:about that, the sort of the origins of Christianity
Speaker:not being so young? Right. Yeah. Well, I think
Speaker:the major part for something for especially for people who look like me and
Speaker:would rightfully become from a a settler Christian, heritage, the
Speaker:theologies, the the practice, the doctrines, and and I definitely
Speaker:I was raised in the church, left for a while, came back to faith in
Speaker:my twenties, but, you know, the stories were all similar. The narratives were
Speaker:all similar. Everything I've been raised in is a transplanted,
Speaker:version of Christianity. The only faith
Speaker:that is indigenous to Canada is indigenous faith and
Speaker:indigenous Christianity. And I think one of the concerning elements of the present
Speaker:day, for the attention that, of course, we look at the evils of residential
Speaker:schools, we look at the ongoing colonial language, we look at these ongoing tensions
Speaker:between settler, First Nations, Metis. One of
Speaker:the major points we have to sort of acknowledge the fact is that, you know,
Speaker:there are, obviously, this I'm not speaking to anybody who doesn't know
Speaker:this, but there are many indigenous brothers and sisters who self
Speaker:identify as Christian, and yet the world views
Speaker:of of indigenous Christians are not considered with any
Speaker:seriousness. I know a lot of churches that invite indigenous people in to speak
Speaker:about experiences, for example, in residential schools. And, I mean, that these are important
Speaker:and necessary conversations for us to have. But, also,
Speaker:we're very comfortable, especially as Canada. We're very comfortable
Speaker:borrowing from other places, like we've cited at the be at the top of this
Speaker:podcast. There's not as many Canadian voices on a whole variety of issues. We're very
Speaker:comfortable, like you said, look looking south of the border, which
Speaker:is problematic for a number of reasons. But we're also comfortable looking to England,
Speaker:which makes sense, you know, Ireland, Australia, Europe, etcetera,
Speaker:etcetera. But, again, these become, in a sense, transplanted
Speaker:thinking. It's thinking that grew up in another place that we're bringing over here and
Speaker:sort of hammering out rough edges, all the while ignoring the fact that we do
Speaker:have faith that is from here, that is rooted in this land,
Speaker:and somehow still is not receiving the attention that I
Speaker:think for the rest of us is absolutely necessary, but definitely
Speaker:is is well deserved. And there's a dissonance there too.
Speaker:Melvina, you have talked about this on numerous occasions.
Speaker:It's it's struck us even as we bring people onto this podcast
Speaker:how there's generations of faith within the indigenous culture and
Speaker:churches that are well established and prominent and spirit led
Speaker:doing amazing things for many generations, and yet
Speaker:it's insular to the rest of the broader church. We don't
Speaker:know about each other, and that's what we love doing here on the podcast. You
Speaker:wanna speak to that? It's almost like we're a little island, us indigenous Christian
Speaker:believers. We're a little island put over there, and yet
Speaker:there's a big population of indigenous believers. You know,
Speaker:I was raised in a Christian home. My children will be the 4th
Speaker:generation. So my grandfather was a minister. My grandmother was
Speaker:a minister. She was a prophetess, an awesome singer,
Speaker:a worshiper. You know, my mother's line, my
Speaker:aunties, my uncles all played instruments and sang and preached, and then
Speaker:there's me. And I'm the 3rd generation, and I'm a preacher. I'm a
Speaker:pastor. I love the Lord. And so when God moved me out
Speaker:of what I've known my whole life and put me into, I guess, the
Speaker:bigger church, the wider church, the, you know, capital c type thing
Speaker:environment, I noticed that not many people had that
Speaker:connection to indigenous people or indigenous believers. Not many
Speaker:churches had that connection and yet there's just a big population of us.
Speaker:Like, that's all that I've known my whole life. But that group of people
Speaker:and this group of people don't intermingle. They don't know each other. They
Speaker:don't fellowship with one another. And Right. You know, I think that's the heart
Speaker:of the podcast. Right? And if we look closely, there's
Speaker:a layer here within I I can just speak from
Speaker:the the white Christianity that I've come from
Speaker:of spiritual cloak that we have for this systemic
Speaker:racism almost or prejudice of we want
Speaker:to discern to make sure that spirituality is the way, the
Speaker:truth, like, the theology is okay. We wanna make sure that doctrine is
Speaker:so important, all that cognitive stuff, not to just, like, diminish
Speaker:the the value of theology. I believe in good theology. I believe the church should
Speaker:be literate, but it's almost through our own lens we can judge
Speaker:if this spirituality fits the bill. Yeah.
Speaker:Rather than the other way of saying teach us in in a
Speaker:posture of learning, what do we have to learn as transplanted Christians
Speaker:here on Turtle Island? What do we have to learn from our indigenous brothers and
Speaker:sisters who have been walking with creator, who have been walking with God,
Speaker:and who have been doing amazing movements for years
Speaker:before we ever arrived? It it requires a a
Speaker:significant amount of spiritual humility for us as
Speaker:church to to be able to discern that, to be okay with that
Speaker:discomfort of those having those conversations of of differences. And,
Speaker:Oh, absolutely. Couldn't like, as from my perspective, we
Speaker:could end this podcast on that note right there because I think that became one
Speaker:of the major sort of elements within this. Because, again, to go back to your
Speaker:earlier question about, like, who's the book for and whatnot, it is hopefully revealing some
Speaker:of these structures that have brought us to these certain places. Like, whether you believe
Speaker:that, you know, businesses should be closed on Sunday
Speaker:or, whether the you have to use the word inerrancy as it applies to bible.
Speaker:All of these are cultural trends, and I try to reveal specifically some of those
Speaker:ideas that have have grown up throughout Canada. And I and I think that's important
Speaker:to do so. But to return to the first episode of this podcast, and I
Speaker:I remember listening to this on the road, and, Melbina, you were sharing your story.
Speaker:And it was such a powerful story, and it's sadly one I've
Speaker:heard from my smaller collection of of Metis and
Speaker:First Nations students, of this almost sort of
Speaker:cultural shame, I believe is the word, or pain. And and this is
Speaker:where uncovering the systemic things that brought us to and
Speaker:whatever your perspective is, uncovering, like, how you got here, I think, is just
Speaker:a good way that history can actually help. But it's also, I would say, it's
Speaker:absolutely incumbent upon Canadian Christians right now to recognize
Speaker:the truth in what has become, sadly, a controversial idea is
Speaker:that we have institutions. We have worldviews. We have
Speaker:a construction of a nation that consciously, repeatedly,
Speaker:and was not even subtle about it, actually wrote it out, disenfranchised
Speaker:indigenous people in the name of Christ. Mhmm. And and that is an
Speaker:important thing for us to recognize because while we may be using better words
Speaker:now, while we're much more aware of it than, for example, our our
Speaker:settler ancestors in this nation, if we're not addressing these
Speaker:structures, there's gonna be no real change. And any historian
Speaker:writes in the hopes that education will bring change. And then to wrap this
Speaker:up, in the last, the conclusion of the book, I
Speaker:think James Baldwin, the amazing African American scholar
Speaker:from middle of 20th century, his point about history
Speaker:is absolutely apt. It is it's not a study of the past. It's it's a
Speaker:revealing of the fact that history is alive in us. It, in
Speaker:large ways, shapes our destiny. It definitely influences our biases, our
Speaker:prejudices, our world views, our passions. So what I like to
Speaker:say to my students is what we're doing in these courses is naming the voices
Speaker:in your head. You believe in this. Well, let's look at the history of,
Speaker:like, who said that? Why do you hold on to it? And sometimes, and this
Speaker:can be uncomfortable for people, sometimes they find theologies,
Speaker:practices, whatnot that's been harming them for years, and
Speaker:they have now the permission and the ability to jettison that and actually pick something
Speaker:up that'll serve them better. And that's your point. This is not about bad
Speaker:theology. This is not about backsliding, deconstructing,
Speaker:all the words that the church has used to keep people in line in history.
Speaker:This is about having a genuine experience of God. And if we know
Speaker:one thing about God is that he is really comfortable knocking down our human made
Speaker:walls. And that's fun for me because I do occupy
Speaker:a position of of influence, authority, power, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker:It's absolutely essential as if we hope to go forward with any kind of actual
Speaker:reconciliation is to recognize, just like you said,
Speaker:that there is indigenous Christianity here that is powerful, that has
Speaker:been overlooked, and in many ways can actually show us arguably
Speaker:the only path forward if we want them to have a future
Speaker:focused lens. We also talk about trauma a lot in Care
Speaker:Impact. And what you just said about it's not just in the
Speaker:past. It's actually what you're living out in the present. You're experiencing trauma
Speaker:today. And so I think across our line, if we want healing in our land,
Speaker:we have to go historical. Yeah. Right? If that is an
Speaker:invitation to to get into the dinghy, I don't know what is. Because if we
Speaker:wanna heal, if we're serious about instead of just kinda giving
Speaker:the, yeah, we want truth and reconciliation and we wear the orange shirt, we
Speaker:can really quickly go into virtue signaling as even as a church that's trying
Speaker:hard. But if we don't dig into those stories, we are
Speaker:actually not really willing to do the the
Speaker:hard healing. And the unfortunate the the unfair
Speaker:thing for me, Melvina, is I get a choice to. You don't
Speaker:get to choose. And I think that is a
Speaker:profound thing that something that we as the white
Speaker:believers need to sit with. We get to choose reconciliation,
Speaker:but you you have to work out the past. And I like to frame
Speaker:it too. If we wanna go biblical, we get we get the ability to play
Speaker:the role of Cornelius. Yes. And what what a
Speaker:gift. And Cornelius becomes absolutely a catalyst in
Speaker:the shift in the book of Acts that sees the Gentiles brought back
Speaker:into the Christian faith. But never forget, he occupies a place of power. He's literally
Speaker:a crucifier, and it's incumbent upon protestant
Speaker:and Catholic. And, again, that your episode with, is it Jim Thunder?
Speaker:Yeah. On the oh my goodness. But so for both
Speaker:Catholic and protestant, there is this invitation of, like, there is a
Speaker:biblical path here. There is a Christian path here. But one of the
Speaker:trajectories I see that concerns me about the conversations around
Speaker:reconciliation today and, again, I cannot say this strongly enough. Historians
Speaker:never predict the future. That is not our game, and humans are complex, and life
Speaker:is very weird. And so it's a it's a fool's errand. But one of the
Speaker:trajectories I see is in the early days so we're talking like the Cartier days,
Speaker:like 1500, 1600, where the various indigenous communities
Speaker:outpopulated the French, the European. There was there was fear, but there's
Speaker:also a necessary mutual reliance on each
Speaker:other because the Europeans were going to starve to death, get
Speaker:disease, etcetera, etcetera. Some of the history of this has been been sort of
Speaker:brushed over because we know how the story is gonna unfold. And then
Speaker:European superiority and weapons, of course, germs and etcetera,
Speaker:etcetera happens. Then as we get into about the 1800, as,
Speaker:again, as as Canada, as we call it, is industrializing, getting
Speaker:stronger, more stable, has more money, there's more people, there's this
Speaker:weird shift in about the early 1800 where indigenous people
Speaker:are almost viewed, and I say this, and and this will come off offensive, and
Speaker:it's it's intended to be so, but not these are not my words. But it's
Speaker:almost like looking at the indigenous people almost as pets. Of course, in the background
Speaker:of that is all very much at that point, the idea, like, there's that
Speaker:Eurocentric. There's the whole idea of race. Like, different races have different strengths and
Speaker:whatnot, like, what we would rightfully call racism now. But this is sign quote, unquote
Speaker:scientific at the time. And so the different races have different ranks.
Speaker:And, of course, at the top of that is is obviously the Anglo Saxons and
Speaker:white, etcetera. So there's almost a sense because indigenous people are less
Speaker:and less of a threat, they're pets. And they're called, like, the children in nature.
Speaker:And they're like, oh, aren't they they're whimsical and wonderful. And, I mean, these are
Speaker:ideas that are still alive today. And that is what actually gives permission,
Speaker:and not only just permission, but almost a Christian obligation
Speaker:to institute the residential schools because we're gonna we're gonna educate and civilize
Speaker:these people. Where this concern's been, of course and then we see that for over
Speaker:a 100 years of just absolute and I don't throw this word around
Speaker:lightly. Evil. Yeah. Absolute evil, abuse,
Speaker:trauma, murder, sexual assault, ongoing, ongoing.
Speaker:And and the residential schools become the first in a whole bunch of degradations. In
Speaker:World War 1 and World War 2, any indigenous person on Turtle Island
Speaker:that wanted to enlist had to give up their, what they called, aboriginal citizenship
Speaker:at the time. So then they come back from fighting in a war,
Speaker:which is already traumatic enough, and have nowhere to go because they don't
Speaker:belong in settler Canada and they're no longer allowed on their reserves.
Speaker:So you have this trauma that goes on and on. And what concerns me about
Speaker:today is, again, while the rhetoric is better, while the issues
Speaker:are definitely coming to the forefront, there is this I mean, Thomas
Speaker:King's inconvenient Indian nails this right on that. Like,
Speaker:it's so funny. We'll put the book in the show notes so people can follow-up
Speaker:with that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he is he is Mark Twain in his wit and
Speaker:his humor and his insight, and it's brilliant. But this idea of of co
Speaker:opting again various indigenous cultures to, like you said perfectly,
Speaker:to virtual signal, to see, look how progressive I am, etcetera,
Speaker:etcetera. But what I feel like is the trajectory, we're back to the
Speaker:pet. And that concerns me because it's not like we're it's not like we're going
Speaker:on a hill and coming back down now, and we're gonna finally get back to
Speaker:a more equitable relationship. I think the damage to reconciliation now is,
Speaker:1, it'll become trendy. And like all trends, it'll go away, and then this cannot
Speaker:go away. Right. And 2, the words are better. But as
Speaker:Melvina beautifully pointed out, there's no sense of
Speaker:community. There's no actual respect for indigenous perspectives
Speaker:in a way that will actually facilitate change. And, of course, the word
Speaker:for, which I think is a great word for it, both biblically and realistically, the
Speaker:word reconciliation, that's what concerns me about the trajectory of
Speaker:settler and indigenous relations in the history of
Speaker:Canada.
Speaker:I actually wanna ask you, on a more interpersonal level,
Speaker:what does reconciliation mean to you? Okay. So brief
Speaker:preamble. I warned you that I was wordy. I'm so sorry. Brief preamble
Speaker:is how I was trained is you divorce your feelings from the research. And I
Speaker:think there's there's merit in that because this the chapter on reconciliation in my
Speaker:book was the hardest to write, and I went back It was hard to read
Speaker:too. I was It's it's brutal. It was it was actually to my stomach.
Speaker:Yeah. Many, many times. I I snapped on somebody who made an
Speaker:a a tone deaf comment, and it was at a child's birthday party. And I
Speaker:snapped at them from across a room, and I was like, woah. This I'm carrying
Speaker:this very much on the surface because there's a lot of emotion in this.
Speaker:So, okay, we've been talking on the macro level. Let's bring it down to the
Speaker:macro level. So Molvina and I have this have a relationship, which is,
Speaker:you know, in the words of the great movie, I hope this is the beginning
Speaker:of a beautiful friendship. But let's say we've had a we've had a friendship for
Speaker:years. And if I have been perpetually
Speaker:and constantly doing something that harms you, maybe not intentionally, maybe
Speaker:not physical, but I'm using insensitive language. We can put it right down
Speaker:to to a baseline. Like, I'm just saying something about you or to you,
Speaker:that you don't appreciate. You know, you're like, okay. At first, well, you know, this
Speaker:is James. I'm gonna let this go. But, eventually, because we have a relationship, you
Speaker:bring it to my attention. Like, listen. This is how it's going. Well, now I
Speaker:have a choice. You know, I can be like, what do you mean like that?
Speaker:And we can have all those fake sort of, I'm sorry that you feel that
Speaker:way, those terrible apology, apologies that are just reiterated.
Speaker:For me, if I'm going to follow that
Speaker:Nazarene Carpenter, that super cool god
Speaker:of mine human that lived 2000 years ago. I
Speaker:don't have an option other than to be like, I
Speaker:hear you. You're right. It is now my choice to
Speaker:value our friendship or my desires.
Speaker:And what Christ has taught me is that our friendship matters more in the
Speaker:economy of God, and therefore, my rights, my desires, which we've
Speaker:heard so much of in in the past few years and people reacting to
Speaker:that. And what what saddens me is, of course, a lot of
Speaker:Christian voices are hopping on that as well. But if we are
Speaker:followers of Christ, I mean, it's right in Philippians 2. Like, he didn't consider
Speaker:equality of God something that we grasped, but he humbled himself to the point of
Speaker:death, death on a cross. At the very least, I can look
Speaker:at my sister in Christ and say, you know what? I'm sorry. You're
Speaker:right. I will do better going forward. Please forgive me. Yes.
Speaker:And then that gives you the chance to say, I do forgive you, and lo
Speaker:and behold, reconciliation and a new path forward.
Speaker:That's on the micro scale. And in some ways, it's more personal, so thank you
Speaker:for bringing the person the interpersonal into it. And in that way, it's easier. So
Speaker:we can all model that. Obviously, when we get to the macro national
Speaker:scale, there's a lot more complexities in it, but the theme and the story is
Speaker:the same. And then to close, I would argue this. I think probably the
Speaker:complexity of the macro scale is why Jesus and Paul and
Speaker:Peter and all those new testament writers constantly,
Speaker:constantly, constantly warned us against
Speaker:chasing after worldly principalities and powers. It gets too
Speaker:big and cripples the faith, a genuine faith.
Speaker:So, really, reconciliation is and I I say this in the book. This
Speaker:is the most basic level of human interaction as as
Speaker:Christ wants to demonstrate it to us. So why we're fighting
Speaker:against it just shows me how far from the gospel we've actually wandered.
Speaker:And for a passive aggressive Canadian, it would be
Speaker:easier in the pursuit of and I and I say this broadly
Speaker:because I think we can broadly understand that term
Speaker:because we we have tendencies. Sorry. Sorry. Not sorry.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we're talking about reconciliation, I think
Speaker:we can go back to what that danger you were talking about before
Speaker:in in that sort of pet type phase coming back to
Speaker:that. We can almost avoid any conflicting
Speaker:conversations or anything that would be hard to have those
Speaker:difficult conversations. We can quickly bow out,
Speaker:sorry ourselves, and excuse ourselves out of that conversation
Speaker:rather than apologize and correct and move on.
Speaker:And so I think that is a challenge that we don't tiptoe
Speaker:around our brothers and sisters. We have deep conversations,
Speaker:go deep in a respectful and honoring way Mhmm. That
Speaker:Melvina one thing I love about discussing things with Melvina that she can call
Speaker:me out on things and and rightly so. But I need to sit with that.
Speaker:I need to receive that and not just,
Speaker:like, tiptoe around her because she's indigenous,
Speaker:but that how do we do this? How do we do reconciliation? How do we
Speaker:lead together in an honor? We've spent a lot of time on that because we
Speaker:don't wanna just have the short cute way of almost tokenizing
Speaker:this relationship. She's so much more valuable than that.
Speaker:Mhmm. And I think that's a a call to the church that we need to
Speaker:go deep and have those deep conversations at a deep
Speaker:relational level that we're really brothers and sisters. We are the body of
Speaker:Christ. Absolutely. Right? Not prosthetics.
Speaker:Yeah. Me and me and Wendy, since our relationship
Speaker:began and since partnership began and, you know, we're in fellowship together and
Speaker:are working walking out this journey together with this podcast, We've come to
Speaker:things that not just as, you know, a a white
Speaker:woman and an indigenous woman, but we we've both had to, you
Speaker:know, sit with what is going on. What is what what what is the root
Speaker:here? For me as an indigenous person, I don't feel that I just have the
Speaker:right to feel away or to be offensive or it's my right or
Speaker:you should do this for me and do that for me because I'm tokenizing myself
Speaker:if I think like that. Right? So I have to do the work. I have
Speaker:to do the work and say, okay. So why is it that I'm feeling this?
Speaker:Why did this trigger me? Why is this not sitting well with me? And then
Speaker:I have to go to God in prayer about it. And he has to reveal
Speaker:that to me so I can be able to approach Wendy in a way that
Speaker:I don't feel that I'm deserving of something. And that's where
Speaker:I feel like our relationship has has walked. We walked through
Speaker:those things. And in reconciliation and anything in reconciliation,
Speaker:I think when you have 2 people in a relationship together willing
Speaker:to walk out her route and my route and figure it
Speaker:out together. I don't know. That's that's the future of reconciliation. That's
Speaker:right. We don't tiptoe. We go right deep into conversation,
Speaker:and I think that's what creates authenticity in the relationship
Speaker:rather than sort of a folklorama Yeah. Of Mhmm.
Speaker:Christianities. And, we have to be careful not to go there
Speaker:because that would be more comfortable. It would be celebrated.
Speaker:But when we get into deep conversation, some might say, oh,
Speaker:like, Wendy, you shouldn't talk. But but we're going deep. We're
Speaker:going at an authentic level, and we're pursuing it
Speaker:not for show. Mhmm. Right? And so sometimes and we can have
Speaker:those difficult conversations knowing that we honor each other at the end. And and
Speaker:we're I I certainly haven't arrived. I've been learning in this journey,
Speaker:but I think the only way to to learn is to
Speaker:jump into the student seat, and to throw ourselves into
Speaker:uncomfortable situations where we don't have the answers and other people
Speaker:do. And I think we don't have to be afraid
Speaker:of making faux pas. We just have to go in humility. And I
Speaker:think that in in anything in reconciliation, it's it's
Speaker:partnership. It's it's equality. It's we're both equal in this
Speaker:relationship. Mhmm. We're both equal in this. And I think that's
Speaker:my hope that indigenous people would come to a relationship feeling
Speaker:that with, you know, a non indigenous person is that they are
Speaker:equal, but they also have to treat the other person as an equal partnership
Speaker:in that relationship as well. Powerful. I had, a professor by the
Speaker:name of doctor Joyce Bellows, and she introduced this to me years ago when I
Speaker:was in graduate school, and I've never forgotten this. And she's like, anytime 2
Speaker:people in an interaction, if you just look at a math formula, it's 1 plus
Speaker:1 equals 2. It's like now it will always equal 2.
Speaker:What we've learned in our society is that some people have more
Speaker:value. So, you know, this person is, because of
Speaker:whatever, is a 1.25. Just like now the answer is always gonna be 2.
Speaker:That forces the other person to become a 0.75. Wow.
Speaker:Well, the queen just recently passed away. So the queen goes into any
Speaker:situation. She's a 1.8. And so everybody around her is a
Speaker:0.2, varying scales. You know, obviously, I'm just picking numbers out of out of the
Speaker:air here. But she's like, here's what the power of what Jesus did. He treated
Speaker:everybody as a one. Now not more, not less. He was never
Speaker:less than a one, and he never treated anybody else less than a one. So
Speaker:for those people, like the tax collectors, women, the
Speaker:marginalized, they're used to being 0.5, 0.25. So he
Speaker:elevated them to 1. The Pharisees, the religious leaders, the politicians
Speaker:were used to being 1.5, and he brought them down to a 1. So from
Speaker:their perspective, he was a troublemaker. Other people's perspectives,
Speaker:he was a redeemer. And it's just like it was just them.
Speaker:He treated everybody like a 1, and I think you're absolutely right. And,
Speaker:again, we have as as followers of God, we have
Speaker:this biblical story. We have these examples. Reconciliation
Speaker:is absolutely a part of our lexicon. It's part of our lived experience.
Speaker:And the problem is is when we disconnect it and just turn it into, like,
Speaker:a theology on the paper as opposed to living
Speaker:out literally the kingdom of God, which exactly is what you've been
Speaker:saying is what the church is called to be. Jews and
Speaker:Gentiles had all sorts of issues that are very similar to
Speaker:indigenous and settler Christians and actually been fighting for a lot longer.
Speaker:And yet the early Christian communities found a way for
Speaker:everybody to be united at God's table together, so
Speaker:we can too. Part of the way to actually practically do that is know what
Speaker:got us here. And that's when it brings us back to the dinghy. You know,
Speaker:you guys were both mentioning about, the chapter in the book of
Speaker:reconciliation. I believe it's chapter 7. You had mentioned
Speaker:that it was very difficult for you to write this
Speaker:chapter. I just want you to share a little bit about your experience and why
Speaker:it was difficult and why why was it hard for you? Oh,
Speaker:so many good things. So the great thing about being a historian is you always
Speaker:begin with, like, okay. What are my biases? What are my prejudices? What are the
Speaker:stories I'm including? What are the stories I'm excluding? Why? So it's a
Speaker:very self evaluative process. So I started off
Speaker:oh, you too. I was so woke. I was so on the right
Speaker:side of history when I started this thing off. I'm
Speaker:I was so like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna nuance this whole
Speaker:thing. I'm gonna find a really good way, and then, thankfully, I have some wonderful
Speaker:friends and scholars that know this better than I could. Because, again, the book's
Speaker:the book's a survey, so there's some areas that I really know well, and there's
Speaker:some areas that I needed help to sort of unpack. And I had a whole
Speaker:list of people that I thank at the beginning for doing that. And one of
Speaker:the greatest comments was from a professor named Evan Haberk. He's like, yeah. I get
Speaker:what you're trying to do. Here's the 20 different places you went wrong. I was
Speaker:like, thank you. And and so he's like, you're trying to nuance
Speaker:something, and what's been happening through the great majority
Speaker:of Christian history in Canada is we've all been nuancing it, and
Speaker:it needs to be stated. The nuance is not the problem here. The the
Speaker:nuance sorry. The nuance is the problem here. He's like you in order to
Speaker:balance this thing out, you're overlooking a whole bunch of stuff that needs to
Speaker:be told. So I basically scrapped that whole wonderful,
Speaker:very virtue signaling chapter of mine and dug into it. And that's why it
Speaker:took over a year to write just that chapter. Wow. As many
Speaker:resources as I could, as many historical items as I could. He
Speaker:sent me on a journey that slapped me in the face with how
Speaker:absolutely unambiguous this was
Speaker:that from, like, the Baggett report through, like, all these
Speaker:different reports from the 18 thirties to 18 fifties, it they just basically stated
Speaker:again and again, in order to bring, quote, these people up,
Speaker:we need to sever the relationship between the child and the parent. Take the
Speaker:kids. Don't let the parents know where they are. Make sure that they learn English.
Speaker:Ignore their pagan religions, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And,
Speaker:again, what concerns me about today is a lot of people doing that were doing
Speaker:it for what they believe were the right reasons. They really thought they were
Speaker:saving indigenous people. And that's it that doesn't find a lot
Speaker:of breadth in today's narrative about it. But I think that's the big
Speaker:secret is there's still a lot of people now that think they're doing the right
Speaker:thing that are just reiterating in new form these old harmful
Speaker:ideas. We have genuine villains. We have people who
Speaker:signed up for these obscure remote places. They were
Speaker:championed as missionary zeal, as being, like, these champions for Christ. Like,
Speaker:look at them going to to save these poor children in these remote
Speaker:places. That's a pedophile. That's a person with a lack of
Speaker:accountability. That's a monster in human form. And so we have genuine
Speaker:villains, and and so that that story needs to be told as well.
Speaker:But for those like myself who starts this chapter off
Speaker:in a very self righteous the more I
Speaker:wrote, the more I didn't wanna write. The more I've I've read about this
Speaker:stuff, the more I I wanna shut up and listen, which makes it very tricky
Speaker:when you're both a professor and on a podcast. I don't
Speaker:maybe it would be better if I just, like, no. You just tell me, but,
Speaker:obviously, I gotta say some stuff. But I felt you did listen. You were you
Speaker:were the author, but I felt you were listening into these
Speaker:conversations, these historical facts. What I appreciated about that
Speaker:chapter, very difficult to to read as well because you just brought
Speaker:facts together and some different nuance ideas
Speaker:to the surface that we just don't have articulation for. But
Speaker:at the end, you didn't wrap it in a pretty bow. You didn't redeem the
Speaker:story because it is yet to be worked through. Yeah.
Speaker:You presented it in, I think, in a very honest way
Speaker:that you shared your discomfort with me in a in a rightful
Speaker:way. I think it it wasn't meant to to
Speaker:ease my discomfort. Well, you know what? Actually,
Speaker:that that's a very high compliment, and for that, I really do thank you. I
Speaker:hear that and I received that. And, I mean, it goes back to episode 1
Speaker:of this podcast, Milvina, when you sort of you speak about this trauma, this this
Speaker:inherited stuff. And, again, I've heard this from my students. Sadly,
Speaker:I I hear you. That makes sense. That is definitely the the sense I got
Speaker:from the the horrible research, that had to do that this
Speaker:stuff actually happened. It's as bad as and, frankly, and
Speaker:this is the part I hate saying and this is where people think historians are
Speaker:doomsayers. I mean, we know about the unmarked graves.
Speaker:And back when we found the first ones, I was I was speaking
Speaker:to someone I know who is who in his adult life, I discovered he was
Speaker:actually indigenous. He was adopted Mhmm. And and whatnot. So he was walking through being
Speaker:raised as a settler and now embracing his indigenous identity. And so we're, of
Speaker:course, talking about this, And I said, I know how many
Speaker:residential schools are operating. I know where they're operating. This number is gonna get massive.
Speaker:And that I don't say that lightly. Like, the number of unmarked graves is
Speaker:going to be massive. It's gonna be well into the 1,000, tens of 1,000.
Speaker:And, like, there's a moment of I hear I hope you hear the voice
Speaker:choking me. It's like, I I don't actually know what to do with that. Mhmm.
Speaker:And the the part that we need to wrestle with now is, like, that was
Speaker:done in the name of Christ. And that
Speaker:for those of us who come from traditions that were involved in that, that's what
Speaker:we need to own. And I guess the last sort of part is, you know,
Speaker:teaching at Tyndale. I have a lot of students who did not grow up here
Speaker:that came from all around the world, and so they're wrestling
Speaker:with, well, as a Christian, I'm like, they don't even know this story. I'm like,
Speaker:yeah, this actually isn't a part of your church history, but it's a part of
Speaker:mine, and it's a part of a Catholic. So it needs to be
Speaker:addressed, and I think we have a really
Speaker:wonderful opportunity right now to literally embody what
Speaker:is a core theological doctrine in ways that people in and
Speaker:outside of the church will hopefully see and recognize. Like, I don't those
Speaker:Christians are nuts, but I'll I'll give it to them on that. That was that
Speaker:was a good move. So if we're still worried about evangelism and that sort of
Speaker:stuff, then why isn't this at the absolute forefront of what we're
Speaker:doing? Let's talk about white man's burden.
Speaker:What do you mean by that? Well, that's from the famous Rudyard
Speaker:Kipling poem. But I I mean, I guess that in three words, that
Speaker:is colonialism, privilege, that sort of stuff.
Speaker:This idea during the colonial era, you need to take this into consideration when
Speaker:Canada was born. It comes into age in the age of empires and
Speaker:rebellions. I said this before. I mean this. English speaking
Speaker:Canada is as much a child of the American Revolution as the United States.
Speaker:Mhmm. It was it was populated by people who stayed loyal to the British crown,
Speaker:and then after the revolution couldn't stay there anymore, so they marched north. And
Speaker:that's the birth of upper Canada, which would eventually become Ontario.
Speaker:But prior to that and what the Americans accomplished in in
Speaker:17 seventies there, it wasn't a question of empire, yes or no.
Speaker:It was which one. That's just the sort of the de facto
Speaker:understanding of the world. Rudyard Kipling is writing in the later 19th century. He's
Speaker:still sort of advancing this idea that
Speaker:the British Empire was called and appointed
Speaker:by God to civilize and Christianize the world. When that was
Speaker:accomplished literally looking at the great commission, you know, when you taught every tribe and
Speaker:tongue, you know, then baptized them, then the great and powerful and
Speaker:awesome day of the Lord would appear.
Speaker:So there's an eschatological element to the British empire as well. So what he's trying
Speaker:to do is inspire America to take up that mantle. And he's like, and don't
Speaker:worry. The the people in the lands that you're about to conquer, and at this
Speaker:for this case, specifically, it was the Philippines, he's like, they'll hate you for it.
Speaker:But anybody that you're trying to better is gonna hate you for it, but they'll
Speaker:thank you in the end. And that's the white man's burden. It's up to us
Speaker:white people to make sure that the rest of the world comes up to our
Speaker:standard. And that that becomes an important part for us to as we,
Speaker:again, deconstruct these institutions. Make no
Speaker:mistake. They are built on these are the de facto understandings, not just of white
Speaker:people, but, of course, of many of the various cultures and races
Speaker:and ethnicities, is is a better word for it, that they conquered. Like, this was
Speaker:indoctrinated into them. It's like, this is this is the standard you want to get
Speaker:to. And the more you can assimilate into that, the better your life is gonna
Speaker:be. And Jesus was all wrapped up into it, which is why we can laugh
Speaker:at it. But have we ever stopped to really look at it? It's like, why
Speaker:are there so many white Jesuses?
Speaker:White man's burden is sort of like an insight into why that is. And
Speaker:that's where you get the saying and there's a book written about it when helping
Speaker:hurts. Right? When we we think we are doing things for
Speaker:altruistic reasons and maybe just uninformed. We don't know
Speaker:what we don't know, and we we want to do things with good
Speaker:intentions, but that doesn't mean that it's always without collateral damage,
Speaker:along the way. And I think we can learn from that history. I
Speaker:think it's still alive and well, and we have to check our
Speaker:motives and be be honest with ourselves on why are we doing
Speaker:this. And we haven't talked too much about Cure Impact
Speaker:and, our organization, but that's a part of it's a
Speaker:good segue into why we do what we do at Cure
Speaker:Impact. We're focused on the Canadian church, and that's why we got
Speaker:excited when there's a historian talking about the Canadian church history. And I'm
Speaker:like, yes. It's not cut and paste from the US. I love my US brothers
Speaker:and sisters, but there's something nuance that we need to articulate
Speaker:here that I think your book helped me understand better what
Speaker:nuances we're working with. But we exist to connect and
Speaker:equip the church to journey well with children and families
Speaker:in hard places, and and we know that those that are most
Speaker:affected, those that are most disempowered or marginalized
Speaker:are disproportionately the indigenous people due to the residential
Speaker:schools to years years, centuries of decades decades
Speaker:of oppression. And so we can
Speaker:understand that, but we're we're trying to find a way forward.
Speaker:It's one thing that the Canadian church has had their hands slapped,
Speaker:and rightly so, and and we we can read about it in
Speaker:even in your your work here. But what do we do with that? How do
Speaker:we move forward in a in a constructive way that we don't just
Speaker:go sing Kumbaya in our little quarters and
Speaker:and, beyond with our own life and not discomforted
Speaker:by the realities of our past and the present. But how do we
Speaker:actually help the church journey in a good way
Speaker:to love our neighbor with respect so that it's not
Speaker:a white man's burden, but that it's almost in a student
Speaker:humble seat of how do we walk together in a good way. And
Speaker:so so that's the passion that we have as Care Impact. The
Speaker:academy doing training for the church, and the church isn't quite frankly
Speaker:used to being in the student seat. They're usually taking the pulpit. And that's
Speaker:a very big paradigm shift to be in a posture
Speaker:of learning. Yes. We want you to help that youth aging out of care, and
Speaker:we're gonna help connect you into the community because we build relationships
Speaker:with agencies and organizations and indigenous groups. But,
Speaker:yes, we want you to be out there, but let's posture
Speaker:ourselves in a learning position. That that youth aging
Speaker:out is actually your professor, that that mom that is struggling to keep her
Speaker:children or to be reunified is actually somebody we
Speaker:need to learn from because her story is somehow woven into our
Speaker:church history as well. And if we don't do that work,
Speaker:we are those white saviors. We are those people, whatever your color
Speaker:is, we are those people trying to be Jesus to the world instead of
Speaker:seeing Jesus in the people right around us, especially those that have
Speaker:lived here long before us. So I think this history,
Speaker:whether you're on the dinghy or you're still on the cruise boat, we we
Speaker:still have to go and learn this history if we want to
Speaker:actually journey in a good way forward. Because chances are, if
Speaker:we're gonna just close our ears and go out there and and
Speaker:make sandwiches and feed the homeless, we could be likely
Speaker:hurting and not helping in an a long
Speaker:term way. There, that's my soapbox. What do you have to say, Melvina?
Speaker:I I'm gonna go back to your book. I'm gonna go back to the chapter
Speaker:that that you wrote here. And for me, it wasn't hard for
Speaker:me to read it. I feel like I was
Speaker:reading what I felt, what I've experienced.
Speaker:That's what I've it was, like, on paper, and I was reading it from you
Speaker:know, my words were on paper, if if that makes sense.
Speaker:And so, there was a few things in your book that, like,
Speaker:I feel like I've known because, like I shared, I come from generations
Speaker:of believers, generations of, you know, people that love
Speaker:the Lord. That, you know, I know Jesus because of
Speaker:the encounter I experienced with him. I don't know him
Speaker:because of, you know, going to school and being told this and being told that,
Speaker:and I know him because of what he's done in my life. And
Speaker:so a portion in your chapter there, you talk about I
Speaker:believe you said native preachers played a prominent
Speaker:role in Christianity and teaching the brothers and sisters.
Speaker:Like, in your research, I want you to kinda just touch a little bit about
Speaker:that, about what you what you found in that research.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean and this becomes a touchy subject with, with the
Speaker:narrative that is dominant today. But, yeah, there's there's a lot of historical evidence.
Speaker:We have a variety. And, I mean, just just for this conversation right
Speaker:now, I love that you talk about being a follower of Jesus, 4th generation.
Speaker:I don't do that. I was like, yeah. I'm a Christian. And, of course, I
Speaker:have multiple generations, and I have no excuse because both of my grandmothers, my maternal
Speaker:and paternal grandmother, were historians of the family. I've seen a family tree that goes
Speaker:back to the 1400 that ends with my sister and I, and,
Speaker:and that's powerful. So that's just sort of one of those those disconnects
Speaker:that I think I can learn a lot from you, Novina, specifically.
Speaker:So it's very nuanced, and I probably can't get into the full breadth
Speaker:of it. But, again, this this sort of notion that
Speaker:Europeans came over, they conquered, they destroyed,
Speaker:they systematized, racialized, ghettoized, indigenous peoples
Speaker:throughout Canada. It doesn't take a trajectory into
Speaker:consideration, and it doesn't take a lot of things into consideration, which
Speaker:I I think are really important nowadays when especially specifically when I think about you,
Speaker:Melbina, or someone else I greatly admire, doctor Terry LeBlanc Mhmm. And the
Speaker:various indigenous Christians that I know, is I think that sort of
Speaker:dominant narrative of today does not take
Speaker:into consideration or literally overlooks the
Speaker:indigenous Christians that have existed for numerous
Speaker:generations. And in a well meaning fashion, kind of reiterates one
Speaker:of the sort of tropes that Thomas King brings up beautifully in his
Speaker:book of sort of putting all indigenous
Speaker:experiences into one category. Yes. And that's and
Speaker:that's how the Canadian government did it, and that's how the Canadian churches did it.
Speaker:We did it under the one word, Indian. And once you have
Speaker:everybody, this whole diversity of people under one category,
Speaker:I find it still present within myself even as I'm speaking to you right
Speaker:now. I have to do an extra mental step to to recognize that
Speaker:indigenous doesn't doesn't incorporate every single
Speaker:person in on Turtle Island or in the place that we now call
Speaker:Canada. There's a profound variety, but I don't think that about
Speaker:myself. I don't think I speak for all white people. And so I'm like, oh,
Speaker:wow. That is still very much alive in me. So
Speaker:for the the indigenous people that, interacted with the
Speaker:missionaries throughout the late 1700, early 1800 as an example, there's a
Speaker:whole variety of of responses. Some were absolutely they
Speaker:they were amazed and and had no problem calling Jesus their own. Some
Speaker:added Jesus into, how they were understanding the world.
Speaker:Some did it for purely political and commercial gain. What
Speaker:I found that makes me laugh so much and wish I had more time to
Speaker:put this in the book was this idea that indigenous people were to
Speaker:sort of taken over again reiterates this this
Speaker:trope that somehow an indigenous person is not autonomous, is
Speaker:not able to make these decisions for themselves, that look at them, they're just
Speaker:victims, the poor. And, of course, we do know there were many victims. But to,
Speaker:again, put all indigenous people into the victim basket does the
Speaker:same thing again. And this is one of those sort of subtle tropes that's still
Speaker:alive because we have these wonderful and hilarious
Speaker:examples, especially when the British and the French were here, of various indigenous
Speaker:communities playing them against each other, recognizing, oh, these 2 hate each
Speaker:other. So if we can do this, we can get this from the French. And
Speaker:if we do this, we'll get this from the British. And for a huge chunk
Speaker:of it, they did really well. They loved the Europeans because they were so caught
Speaker:up in their own feuds that the many indigenous communities just
Speaker:used it to their own advantage. Some had genuine faith. Some were
Speaker:tricked, and many, many were coerced and forced, especially. But that is
Speaker:definitely that is definitely the later 19th
Speaker:century. It's all there. But, basically, the railroad,
Speaker:the economy being stabilized, the industrialization of Canada makes
Speaker:most leaders no longer willing to be patient with indigenous people. And, I
Speaker:mean, specifically, we can look at that with Louis Riel, and the Metis in in
Speaker:the prairie provinces and stuff. He was very successful in 18 seventies, but by
Speaker:18/84, 18/85, he isn't able to do it as much because there's a
Speaker:lot more military strength behind Canada. So rather than negotiating with
Speaker:him, they just set him up and and executed him. So there
Speaker:were indigenous people within these communities that saw the benefit of it,
Speaker:educated. And and this, I wanna say very carefully, and I write
Speaker:this very intentionally in my book, so I wanna reiterate it, but I wanna
Speaker:say it very, very carefully. There are indigenous people who
Speaker:saw the benefit of white education. They were
Speaker:not they were not talking about residential schools. They were not talking about
Speaker:boarding schools. The closest we've got as a comparison
Speaker:is to when parents nowadays, English speaking parents put their kids in French
Speaker:immersion. They saw the benefit of being educated in this other culture, but
Speaker:in no way, shape, or form was that a denigration of their own culture. And
Speaker:in your chapter, you you really articulate that well because I'm like, wow,
Speaker:he's going there. But I I think it's really well. It it pays
Speaker:to pay attention, and and this is another,
Speaker:shout out to the audience to to read the book because it helps
Speaker:you understand that nuance. Right. I I just I'm hoping, like, I
Speaker:know this is a wordy answer. So I'm hoping that's coming across because I don't
Speaker:want to oversell the fact. It's like, oh, no. No. The the indigenous were
Speaker:the architects of their own destruction. Not at all. But I do wanna capture the
Speaker:fact that just like any other, quote, unquote, people group,
Speaker:there is a multiplicity of of responses. And indigenous
Speaker:Christianity is not a monolithic structure. There's indigenous
Speaker:Catholics. There's indigenous Pentecostals. There's indigenous Baptists. There's
Speaker:indigenous United. There's etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And all of them have different
Speaker:ways of doing things. And that's an important understanding because whatever
Speaker:branch of the faith they hold to, it's still a version of the
Speaker:faith that is native to this soil, that
Speaker:is is rooted in this ground. And the problem became when
Speaker:indigenous Christians were, quote, unquote, forced to look like the rest of us,
Speaker:forced to look like us, in the words of Terry LeBlanc. And so I'm not
Speaker:gonna buy wingtip shoes and a 3 piece suit. He's like, I'm gonna be
Speaker:fully indigenous me. And, oh, lo and behold, Christ is here, and
Speaker:he's showing me a version of himself that I can actually communicate not only to
Speaker:my brothers and sisters, but I think will actually help a lot of settler Christians
Speaker:as well. I I think it's easy for non indigenous
Speaker:and indigenous alike to make it too
Speaker:simple, to not look at the nuances of and the
Speaker:complexity of faith, and you can't judge people's motives and their
Speaker:relationship with Christ necessarily. And and sometimes it's it's easier
Speaker:just to reject Christianity as not being indigenous
Speaker:enough. And and I wonder, and and this is more of a question to
Speaker:Melvina, what it's been like as an indigenous
Speaker:believer, being fully indigenous and a follower of Christ,
Speaker:raised in generations of faith with being indigenous, did
Speaker:you feel like a one with indigenous people, 1 +1 equals 2,
Speaker:that analogy? I love that. Or is there is there something
Speaker:that has almost played against you
Speaker:because of some of the negative Christianity, the talk of, like, white man's
Speaker:religion and all of that coming here after? Well, I think I'm,
Speaker:I'm very honest with that with that part of my life. Like, so
Speaker:in in the indigenous communities, there's either you're traditional or or
Speaker:you're a believer. And so I was raised in a Christian home.
Speaker:So I was taught that that stuff was wrong. This is wrong. That
Speaker:identity is wrong. That culture is wrong. You know? Like, all of that is
Speaker:wrong. And so when god reconciled me back
Speaker:to him, he was the one that started to teach me
Speaker:that he doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't make mistakes. He created
Speaker:me in the image of who he is. He created me the way that I
Speaker:am. He created me with my brown skin. He created me a beautiful
Speaker:indigenous woman. He created me to be bold and to you know, he
Speaker:created me this way. If he did this and he made me indigenous and
Speaker:he made me, you know, the color of the skin that I am
Speaker:and he made me this culture, then how is that wrong?
Speaker:Because he doesn't make mistakes. So when I was reconciled
Speaker:back to Christ, he had to show me that
Speaker:I was the one. I hold the one
Speaker:number. You know, I I I don't hold a a 0.5 or I am
Speaker:1. And so when I was brought to that, to that realization
Speaker:that I'm equal in this, that I I have a right to be here, that
Speaker:I have a right to love Jesus, I have a right to be indigenous,
Speaker:when I was brought to that revelation, that's when I
Speaker:was able to be reconciled back to my brothers and my sisters.
Speaker:So meaning that is when I was able to see them as an equal,
Speaker:as an equal to me as well. If that makes sense.
Speaker:Wow. Yes. It does. Yeah. So I'm just on that journey. I'm on that journey
Speaker:figuring it out. Figuring out who I am, who God has created me
Speaker:to be, and not to be ashamed not to be ashamed of of the color
Speaker:of my skin or the color of my And you're bringing other people in your
Speaker:influence even on the podcast, but also in your your ministry effort in
Speaker:the north end and stuff. You are bringing other people into that awareness and that
Speaker:freedom, to find their own identity. My heart
Speaker:is just to I don't know. I just want more of my
Speaker:indigenous brothers and sisters to know Jesus for who he is. You
Speaker:know, the love and what he did on the cross for us. Like, that
Speaker:selfless act that he did for us, that's what
Speaker:I want them to experience. That's what I want them to encounter. And not
Speaker:the one that came in the name of residential schools and of of the
Speaker:church, but the one that has loved me for who
Speaker:I am and taught me to love myself. As
Speaker:an indigenous person reading your book, but also reading this chapter,
Speaker:chapter 7 on reconciliation, talks about residential schools, talks about
Speaker:all different kinds of topics. I truly feel that that one
Speaker:chapter can be a book. Oh, yeah. I really hope that
Speaker:one day you write that chapter into a book because I would read
Speaker:it. I would read it. So Bless. Thank you. Gonna have to do one of
Speaker:those chapters in that book. Well, if if you want the
Speaker:big reveal on the book, I'm already working on it. Alright. Yeah. Awesome. So
Speaker:that is fantastic. That's great. Like, I I truly feel that, you
Speaker:know, God brought you on a journey Yeah. In this, and he's given
Speaker:you the wisdom and the knowledge and the history to to
Speaker:write it. I'm, and I I'm I'm not saying this with any sort of
Speaker:false humidity humidity. It's a little warm here today.
Speaker:Humility. That that that was a perfect that was a perfect club. There's
Speaker:there's nothing very wise or knowledgeable about me. So
Speaker:I feel very humble, very I'm very thankful, that I know this is gonna be
Speaker:a very weird, strange, bumpy, painful, exciting road.
Speaker:Mhmm. This is genuinely we're preparing to tour the book, and I'm
Speaker:getting ready to do the show. And so the opening of the show is, like,
Speaker:let me tell you why this book sucks, why this why why my book is
Speaker:terrible. Because I've got the historian's vantage point, and the
Speaker:historian's vantage point is always to see how messy things are because
Speaker:90% of my work is just in archives and sort of putting things into a
Speaker:somewhat semblance of an order without hopefully sacrificing
Speaker:too much truth. So even reading history doesn't give this profound
Speaker:gift that, again, I am so thankful to have received, and I
Speaker:feel like there's no sort of better way forward. In all honesty, and I mean
Speaker:this not just as a as as a Christian, but as a historian, there's no
Speaker:reason why Canadian Christianity should go forward
Speaker:unless it is in this vein. And the wonderful gift about being
Speaker:in Canada in the 21st century is that we have all
Speaker:the tools we already need. Mhmm. We have all the cultural approval
Speaker:we could ever desire if we desire to such a thing, and that cultural approval
Speaker:comes from the fact that nobody cares what we're doing. Katie,
Speaker:it's not divisive like south of the border. It it we are very
Speaker:wide open to kinda do whatever we want, so let's start
Speaker:doing this. And if we totally flub it up and if
Speaker:we completely make the mistakes, as Wendy, as you pointed out, as I will continue
Speaker:to do, the good news is no one in Canada is watching.
Speaker:No one will care. All we can really do right now is pleasantly surprise them.
Speaker:Unfortunately, there are some who are trying to chase that
Speaker:that powerful influence and, like, oh, can't you see how that's gone
Speaker:awry? Yeah. We'd we'd have yeah. We don't need it. Like, it's never been the
Speaker:part of the Canadian story. It really hasn't unless, of course
Speaker:and this is where Melvina becomes this, if I can use this, you you
Speaker:almost become the prototype or the or the face of who I think
Speaker:is the most valuable Christians in Canada right now because there's power
Speaker:in being overlooked. And this is what I wrap up the book with. There's power
Speaker:in this. There's spiritual truth. There is a forced
Speaker:rejection of carnal power. And so what is and this is not a silver
Speaker:linings kind of analogy, but Melvina's experience
Speaker:is unique and powerful. You have found Christ
Speaker:in a historically disenfranchised
Speaker:posture within your larger culture and community. That is not something I
Speaker:have any access to. I am free. In fact, I'm actually rewarded
Speaker:every time I build a soapbox. That's not even something I have to pause
Speaker:to think about. My only question is where do I get the wood and how
Speaker:many nails do I have. Mhmm. And so that has given me
Speaker:profound blind spots. That history is could because it's
Speaker:what I love so much, that's been a great teacher. That's given me
Speaker:a a wisdom from experiences that did not happen to me. And I think that's
Speaker:the great gift of history. And then I I need to carry that with one
Speaker:hand because that that is something I can do. But more importantly for the present
Speaker:day is with my other hand is to listen to Melvina, is to listen to
Speaker:doctor Terry LeBlanc, is to listen to my numerous indigenous brothers and sisters,
Speaker:not just about your experiences, but I need you to
Speaker:teach me the way of our Lord, because I have lost a plot,
Speaker:and I inherited a plot that was already lost. And in you,
Speaker:I hear and see something I haven't experienced and I'm
Speaker:hungry for. So that's that sort of tension going forward that I'm very,
Speaker:very excited to be on this journey, and I give all thanks to god that
Speaker:this is the crazy adventure of of this life.
Speaker:Boom. Mic drop. I think we could end it
Speaker:there. You know? Well, we just wanna thank you for for
Speaker:joining Journey with Care you. For coming on and just, you know, sitting around the
Speaker:table with us and having this conversation. Both of us really
Speaker:enjoyed your book. Where can our listeners find your
Speaker:book? Oh, great. Okay. So Amazon. The the
Speaker:great the great necessary evil of this age, you can find it on Amazon.
Speaker:Overlooked, I usually put overlooked book, James Robertson, which goes
Speaker:back to the dinghy thing. There will be a book on Amazon all overlooked, and
Speaker:it has a topless gentleman on the cover. That is not me. It's
Speaker:it's the it's the one below itself. White one. Yes. It's it's
Speaker:the white one. Yeah. And more importantly, probably, for anybody because
Speaker:it's got a bunch of other stuff that's going on, and there's a
Speaker:website, canadaoverlooked.ca. You can buy the book there just directly, and and it it it
Speaker:goes to where it needs to go. But there's information about the audiobook coming up,
Speaker:the tour coming out. We put some fun videos up there. We're just trying to
Speaker:keep that page populated as it goes. So I'd say go to canadaoverlook.ca.
Speaker:And then unlike Amazon, they should be able to sign a copy for you, so
Speaker:I can I'm happy to do that. Well, there you have it, audience. If you
Speaker:don't have the book on your shelf yet, we will put this link into the
Speaker:show notes, and we want to invite you to read about our
Speaker:history, come up with those questions, and interact
Speaker:with our history here in the the country we know as Canada.
Speaker:Thank you so much, James, for continuing this conversation. I hope we
Speaker:can continue to have this dialogue as we learn more and more
Speaker:about our roots. Oh, nothing would please me more. Thank you to both of you.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to the journey with care podcast where paths connect over real
Speaker:life stories and honest conversations. We hope you continue to
Speaker:join us on this journey of faith, reconciliation, and loving our
Speaker:neighbor. Be sure to like, follow, and share. Special thanks to
Speaker:host Melvina Gabosch, our podcast engineer, Johan Heinrichs,
Speaker:and donors who help make this show possible. Journey with Care is an
Speaker:initiative of Care Impact, a Canadian charity dedicated to connecting
Speaker:and equipping the whole church across Canada to effectively journey
Speaker:in community with children and families in hard places. Learn how Care
Speaker:Impact is transforming the way churches engage with child welfare with our
Speaker:care portal technology and academy training. To support this podcast
Speaker:or to learn more about us, go to careimpact.ca or click the
Speaker:link in the show notes. We're so glad you are part of this journey with
Speaker:us as we journey with care even in the Until next
Speaker:time.
