The sacred fire burned on the campus of the University of the South May 27-31 as indigenous clergy, laity, and bishops whose ministry includes native peoples gathered for the Oklahoma IV 2010 Consultation.

The consultation met to consider the present and future of indigenous leadership in the Episcopal Church and was hosted by Sewanee's School of Theology. Among the topics participants considered were the 76th General Convention's repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, ways to encourage indigenous people to enter the ordination process and the Anglican Church of Canada's model of an indigenous bishop whose jurisdiction reaches beyond diocesan boundaries.

"There was a lot of pain and frustration in the room," wrote Diocese of Nevada Bishop Dan Thomas on his blog. "The human lot involves a share of that -- but these folks had more than their share and the form it took for them was a specific brand of oppression called conquest, colonialism, or 'the doctrine of discovery.'"

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who joined the conversation at Sewanee, told ENS after the gathering that "the diversity was impressive -- tribal, generational, and in terms of priorities."

"It's also clear that there is some healthy leadership within the community, beginning to insist that the church continue to work on priorities that have already been established -- in previous Oklahoma consultations and in the Jamestown Covenant and its renewal."

House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson, who also attended the gathering,  told ENS she was reminded that "many, many Native American Episcopalians are also 'cradle' Episcopalians" and that "there is great wisdom about our church, about our call as the people of God and about relationship."

"I challenge the Episcopal Church first to listen, really listen, to our indigenous brothers and sisters," Anderson said.

Some of the Doctrine of Discovery's early roots are traced to 1455 when Pope Nicholas V, by way of his order "Romanus Pontifex," gave Portugal's King Alfonso V permission to "invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens 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."

Advocates of Resolution D035, which General Convention passed in July 2009, argue that the Doctrine of Discovery has served as the foundation of U.S. Indian law since at least 1823, when the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government held title to Indian lands as the inheritor of European colonization. It said that indigenous people had a right to occupy the land but not to own it.

As Thomas noted in his blog, the Sewanee gathering considered how to move forward with the implications of the church's rejection of the doctrine.

"There were a lot of ideas -- including institutional solutions like separation from the Episcopal Church, a non-geographic diocese for indigenous peoples, an indigenous bishop, etc.," Thomas said of the Sewanee conversations. "There was also a major focus on ordination -- not so much on ministry of all baptized. I sometimes had the sense that some wanted to be ordained as a way to be healed and validated. Heaven knows we all need healing and validation, but speaking as one who has been ordained three times now, I'm pretty sure it doesn't work for those purposes."

In remarks to the gathering, Anderson said, "You have talked about your concerns regarding the ordination process. You have talked about your hopes and dreams for the expression of indigenous episcopal identity that is not related to colonial boundaries. As your self-determination directs your actions, I pledge to help you in any way I can. I pledge to bring to bear all the authority of my office to help you. I stand ready to do so."

Jefferts Schori preached at the Trinity Sunday Eucharist, which fell on the gathering's last day. "Wisdom dwells in this body gathered here, speaking forth words of truth, calling us into healing," she said during her sermon. 

"Sometimes that reality of God as community, God as trinity, is spoken of as dance -- the holy three whirling with and through each other's reality," she said. "Native communities have long known the sacrament of dance as healing, able to draw many persons into one community. At times of great struggle and loss, the dance emerges yet again, like the ghost dance Wovoka called forth. Wisdom has planted in us that urge toward healing, reconciliation, oneness -- even in the face of human sin and evil."

Recalling for the congregation environmental disasters including the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Jefferts Schori said that "Native communities know what it is to live deeply rooted in that holy wisdom of oneness with all that is."

"It is a wisdom that needs speaking, for words need to take on flesh and form in a world that has forgotten much about the truth: that we share one creator, that we are all brothers and sisters, we are siblings to all the rest of creation, that if one part of God's body of creation suffers, all do," she said, adding that "the greed of some, the belief that one group can dance alone, lies behind much of the suffering that native communities know:  lands stolen, herds destroyed, lifeways prevented, spiritualities forbidden, hope too often crumbled and crushed."

The Oklahoma IV Consultation follows on 25 years of work in the Episcopal Church and three previous gatherings, according to Sarah Eagle Heart, the church's missioner for Native American and indigenous ministries. "It is one of the ways the Episcopal Church continues to build bridges of leadership and action with indigenous people, continuing a relationship begun 400 years ago," she said prior to the gathering.

Oklahoma IV was developed and planned by the Indigenous Theological Training Institute, with support from the Executive Council Committee on Indigenous Ministries and the Episcopal Church's Office of Native American/Indigenous Ministries.

"We honor the past and the struggle of those who came before us, listening to wisdom of our elders as we walk hand in hand in faith today," Eagle Heart told ENS after the gathering. "Native American leaders respond to their baptismal ministry with innovative training and outreach ministries such as returning church models of holding services at pow-wows in North Dakota, multi-congregational partnership serving healthy food to the poor at First Nations Kitchen in Minneapolis, and 'Mutton Stew for the Soul' sponsored by the Hooghan Learning Circle focusing on education and wellness in Navajoland."

Eagle Heart said that her office "renews the commitment to the seven directives from Oklahoma II, continues to lift up leadership, holds mutual accountability as core, and responds to the call to action through our baptismal covenant."

Article from: ENS by The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg