Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
57. What is the Native American Church?
Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
Lisa Poirier [+]
DePaul University
Lisa Poirier is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. She lives and works on the traditional lands of the Council of the Three Fires - the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. At DePaul, she teaches classes about Native American religions, theory and method in the study of religion, new religious movements, and gender and sexuality in religion.
Description
The Native American Church is a religious organization that was first officially incorporated in Oklahoma in 1918. The church’s charter documents were drafted in response to the United States federal government’s opposition to the spread of the medicinal and religious use of the buttons of the peyote cactus. Seeking protection for their ceremonial use of this sacred plant, they formed the Native American Church.