Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
56. Do Indigenous People Have Churches?
Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
Pamela E. Klassen [+]
University of Toronto
Pamela E. Klassen is a Professor in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. She is the author of The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary’s Journey on Indigenous Land (University of Chicago Press, 2018) and the co-creator of Kiinawin Kawindomowin Story Nations, found at www.storynations.utoronto.ca. She is a settler scholar whose research focuses on religion, public memory, and Indigenous-settler relations, with specific attention to treaties and questions of land and jurisdiction.
Roxanne L. Korpan [+]
University of Toronto, PhD candidate
Roxanne L. Korpan is a settler scholar and doctoral candidate in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto whose research focuses on intersections of Christianity, colonialism, media, and Indigenous sovereignty in nineteenth-century Canada. Her dissertation analyzes the Anishinaabemowin bible translations of Kahkewaquonaby (Peter Jones), Methodist minister and a chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit. She is the author of the article “Scriptural Relations: Colonial Formations of Anishinaabemowin Bibles in Nineteenth-Century Canada,” Material Religion 17, no. 2 (2021): 147-176.
Description
Indigenous people on Turtle Island are leaders and members in Christian churches across a wide range of denominations; Indigenous Christians have worshipped, preached, and prophesied for more than four centuries. Some of the most powerful Indigenous advocates and public intellectuals have been Christian clergy or theologians. At the same time, many Indigenous people are sharply critical of Christianity as an ideological support for colonialism and white supremacy.