Craig White's Literature Courses Critical Sources Treat, James, ed.   Native and Christian: Indigenous Voices on Religious Identity in the United States and Canada.  NY: Routledge, 1996.

Treat, James, ed.  Native and Christian: Indigenous Voices on Religious Identity in the United States and Canada.  New York: Routledge, 1996.

Treat, James.  "Introduction: Native Christian Narrative Discourse." 1-26

13 Oral cultures typically preserve worldview and tradition in stories, which teach through example rather than by catechism.  [so questions may be cross-cultural?]

West, James. L.  "Indian Spirituality: Another Vision." 29-37.

33 Christian theology has often been expressed in symbols that are very personal.  The personal acceptance of the Christian faith transcends the history and culture of the human being that is converted or changed.  This conversion ethic has been expressed in a political, social, economic, and spiritual theory called "manifest destiny" in regards to the discovery or the conquest of the "new world."  This theory, imply put, states that God has destined the Christian world to conquer the rest of creation in His name.  This has not been an expression of an inevitable fate, but rather a purpose or justification for historic events.  The universality of Christ is the positive potential behind this more negative concept of manifest destiny.

            Within this context, spiritual conversion is related to social, economic, and political conversion. . . .  Christian mission assumes that, whatever spiritual understandings non-Christian peoples have, they are, at least, inadequate, if not wrong or evil.

36 We must begin to share our faith, not as a tool of conversion, but as a means of mutual spiritual growth in which learning becomes as important as teaching.

McKay, Stan.  "An Aboriginal Christian Perspective on the Integrity of Creation." 51-55.

52 For those who come out of the Judeo-Christian background it might be helpful to view us as an "Old Testament People."  We, like them, come out of an oral tradition which is rooted in the Creator and the creation.  We, like Moses, know about the sacredness of the earth and the promise of land.  Our creation stories also emphasize the power of the creator and the goodness of creation.  We can relate to the vision of Abraham and the laughter of Sarah.  We have dreams like Ezekiel and have know people like the Pharaoh.  We call ourselves "the people" to reflect our sense of being chosen.

54 The situation will be one of sharing stories instead of dogmatic statements and involves listening as well as talking.

Schultz, Paul, and George Tinker.  "Rivers of Life: Native Spirituality for Native Churches."  56-67.

58-59  Before the missionaries came, the Native Peoples had little theoretical sense of sin, no sense of fallen humanity, and no sense of basic inclination in every human being to do evil.  To the contrary, the primary sense that our people had of themselves in those early days was not a sense of individual fallenness, but the sense of community belonging as a whole group who were in relationship to God as Creator, who together participated in and / celebrated the balance and harmony of creation.  God created harmony and balance.  The people's response was to participate with the Creator in maintaining the harmony and balance of all things.

62-63  For many Native People a story is important in itself because it is a source of truth.  For the Western world, history and historical facts give the story its ultimate importance.   Hence, modern scholars must ask questions like, What can we really know about the actual Jesus?

            This is a strange question for any Native Person to begin with, because Native Peoples tend to think of the world not in temporal terms but in spatial terms.

Charleston, Steve.  "The Old Testament of Native America."  68-80

69 Christianity as a faith that emerges from Native America. . . .  The Place I stand is in the original covenant God gave to Native America.  I believe with all my heart that God's revelation to Native People is second to none.

70 Native America's Old Testament

73 Since the first Western missionary or anthropologist walked into a Native community, the Tradition of Native America has been called everything but an Old Testament.  It has been named by others.  It has been named by the West, not the People themselves.  It has been called "superstition," "tribal religion," "nature worship," "animism," "shamanism," "primitive," "Stone Age," "savage," "spirituality," anything and everything, but never an Old Testament. . . .  the names attached to the Old Testament of Native America have consigned that Tradition to the backwaters of serious Christian scholarship.  Native American spiritual tradition has been considered the proper study of historians, ethnologists, anthropologists, or even the gourmet writers of the New Age, but not for most Christian theologians. There is a big difference for Western theologians between a "spirituality" and a "theology.," just as there is between a "tradition" and the "Old Testament."  By claiming the right to name the Tradition an Old Testament, Native America would be walking into the private club of Christian theology, even if that means coming uninvited.

77  As Christians, we're going to have to make some elbow room at the table for other "old testaments."  Not only from Native America, but from Africa, Asia, and Latin America as well.

Baldridge, William.  "Reclaiming Our Histories." 83-92

84 From a Native American's perspective, one way to describe the spiritual significance of 1492 is to realize that for the last half-millennium columbus and his spiritual children have usurped the role of God and imposed their definitions of reality onto this continent.  People now go through life believing that trees went unidentified until Europeans came to name them, that places could not be distinguished and directions could not be given until Europeans arrived to designate one place New York and another Los Angeles.  People in the United States accept as self-evident that this continent could not produce food until row cropping was introduced, that water was not pure before filtration plants were introduced, and that conservation is a concept introduced by the U. S. Forestry Service.  It is believed without question that this land was godless until the arrival of Christianity.

85 We are often dismissed as trying to change the past or trying to return to the past.  Having our intelligence questioned is a familiar experience.  But being underestimated is one of our most effective and constant weapons.  We are not denying history or the weight of the forces pushing us down.  We are also not willing to forsake our spiritual birthright as children of God.  Colonial Christian definitions to the contrary, we will not label our ancestors nor teach our children that they are spiritually illegitimate.

85 Most missionaries taught us to hate anything Native American and that of necessity included hating our friends, our families, and ourselves.  Most refused to speak to us in any language but their own.

86 In the 500-year war against Christian colonialism we have had our successes.  If on no more than a few occasions of hit-and-run skirmishes, we have hat our moments.  For me, the sense of camaraderie with brothers and sisters has become a lasting satisfaction.  Yet the spoils of our small victories have faded into an ironic lesson: the very act of fighting the missionary system concedes too much to colonialism.  it concedes too much because it accepts the premise that our dignity must be granted to us rather than be recognized in us.  It accepts the premise  that God loves one people more than God loves all people.

87 Fighting the oppression of the missionary system is a struggle for justice that unavoidably becomes a struggle for power.  Power lies at the core of Christian colonialism.  Refusing the terms of the struggle is an essential first step in regaining the spiritual perspective of Native America.

Warrior, Robert Allen.  "Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians: Deliverance, Conquest, and Liberation Theology Today."  93-100.

[Warrior, Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions (U of Minnesota, 1995)]

95 Most of the liberation theologies that have emerged in the last twenty years are preoccupied with the Exodus story, using it as the fundamental model for liberation.  I believe that the story of the Exodus is an inappropriate way for Native Americans to think about liberation.

95 Yahweh the deliverer became Yahweh the conqueror.

            The obvious characters in the story for Native Americans to identify with are the Canaanites, the people who already lived in the promised land.  As a member of the Osage Nation of American Indians who stands in solidarity with other tribal people around the world, I read the Exodus stories with Canaanite eyes.

96 People who read the narratives read them as they are, not as scholars and experts would like them to be read and interpreted.  History is no longer with us.  The narrative remains.

97 prohibition on social relations with Canaanites or participation in their religion.

97 In fact, the indigenes are to be destroyed.

97  Thus the narrative tells us that the Canaanites have status only as the people Yahweh removes from the land in order to bring the chosen people in.  They are not to be trusted, nor are they to be allowed to enter into social relationships with the people of Israel.  They are wicked, and their religion is to be avoided at all costs.  The laws put forth regarding strangers and sojourners may have stopped the people of Yahweh from wanton oppression, but presumably only after the land was safely in the hands of Israel.  The covenant of Yahweh depends on this.

98 the Canaanites should be at the center of Christian theological reflection and political action.  They are the last remaining ignored voice in the text, except perhaps for the land itself.

100 We will perhaps do better to look elsewhere for our vision of justice, peace, and political sanity--a vision through which we escape not only our oppressors, but our oppression as well.

Baldridge, William. "Native American theology: A Biblical Basis" 100-101

100 another Bible story with a Canaanite as a central character.

101 The Son of Yahweh is set free.  The son of the god of Canaanite oppression repents.  Jesus not only changes his mind, he changes his heart.  He sees her as a human being and answers her as such.

^{Matthew 15:21} Then Jesus went thence and departed into the region of Tyre and Sidon.

²² And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same region and cried unto Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David! My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.”

²³ But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying, “Send her away, for she crieth after us.”

²⁴ But He answered and said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

²⁵ Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord help me.”

²⁶ But He answered and said, “It is not meet to take children’s bread and cast it to dogs.”

²⁷ And she said, “Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

²⁸ Then Jesus answered and said unto her, “O woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

"Robert Allen Warrior Responds" 101-103

102 If political theologies are going to be more than ideological subjectivism, biblical interpretation must admit the oppression present in even the narratives of the god who seemingly stands with the oppressed.  Too many liberation theologians interpret everything in the Hebrew Bible through overly optimistic christological lenses, obscuring the deep and abiding problems of racism, bigotry, and sexism in both Testaments.

102  I think it is important to note that in the story the woman does not become a follower of Jesus. . . .  Yes, she changes Jesus, but she does not become a disciple.

Weaver, Jace.  "A Biblical Paradigm for Native Liberation." 103-104.

103 my own people, the Cherokees, who were subjected to a genocidal reverse Exodus from a country that was for them, literally, the "the Promised Land."

Tinker, George.  "Spirituality,  Native American Personhood, Sovereignty, and Solidarity."  115-131.

118 Native American peoples resist categorization in terms of class structure.  Instead, we insist on being recognized as "peoples," even nations with a claim to national sovereignty based on ancient title to their land.

118 it was the church's failure to recognize the personhood of Native Americans that proved to be the most devastating, from Mendieta to Eliot.

118 the missionaries consistently confused the gospel of Jesus Christ with the gospel of European cultural values and social structures.  As a result, they engaged in what can only be called the cultural genocide of Indian peoples, all in the service of conquest and the expansion of capitalist economies.

119  God reveals God's self in creation, in space or place and not in time [or history].  The Western (nineteenth-century European sense of history as a linear temporal process means that those who heard the gospel first have and always maintain a critical advantage over those who hear it later and have to rely on those who heard it first to give us a full interpretation.  In a historical structure of existence, certain people carry the message and hold all the wisdom.  They know better and more than later converts.

121 Of course Native Americans have a temporal awareness, but it is subordinate to our sense of spatiality.  Likewise, the Western tradition has a spatial awareness, but that lacks the priority of the temporal.  Hence, progress, history, development, evolution and process become key notions that invade all academic discourse in the West, from science and economics to philosophy and theology.

125 As a world of discourse that is primarily spatial, a Native American Christian theology must begin with the native American traditional praxis of a spirituality that is rooted first of all in creation.

128 If we believe we are all relatives in this world, then we must  live together differently than we have.  Justice and peace, in this context, emerge almost naturally out of a self-imaging that sees the self only as part of the whole, as a part of an ever-expanding community that begins with family and tribe but is finally inclusive of all human beings and of all creation.

129 [Indians] are actually audacious enough to think that their stories and their ways of reverencing creation will some day win over the immigrant conquerors and transform them.

[ ]

—