Going to Heaven in a Residential School bus

Left Behind but on the Bus

Left Behind - the eschatology of the 20th century, kick-started by promoting a disembodied view of what man really is, has had its profound Displacement effect upon us as Christians.  For so long we have thought and were taught that we were going to go to heaven, that our bodies weren't important, that earth wasn't important and that whether it was important or not, the point is to get us to heaven, because that is what we love, need and want.

We should not want this world, to renew this world, to care for the physical needs of others to appreciate what humanism offers in spite of its anti-God point of view.  What if humanism is just an extreme of a much more foundational view of how we are designed to view our own humanity - a design given by God?  N.T. Wright discusses this in his latest lecture at Wheaton's theological lecture from last week.

Depending upon God too much?

What if humanism is actually a pendulum swing that swung far enough in the opposite direction of an extreme Theism that had us depending upon God too much and ignoring the role that our humanity has always been set to play in this grand drama of redemption.  We are meant to, in our humanity, do a lot more, be a lot more and accomplish a lot more than we actually think possible.  This is best taught from the book of Ephesians.  Does this push God out of the picture - no but it pulls us into a picture that we were always supposed to be in.  We are the puzzle piece that we have tried to fit with God - yes the puzzle is about God and is full of pieces of God, but what if his design is that we are actually a bigger part of the puzzle than we initially thought possible?  I think we are and to dislocate our telos - the goal of redemption to a place up in the sky away from the good earth and the good bodies and the good creation that God has created and wants to restore is much the same experience that the First Nation children and their families experienced over 50 years ago through the Residential School system.

Civilizing our Way

In the 1900's all over Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia, Indigenous people groups had their children literally kidnapped from them systematically by the acting governments and the Anglican and Catholic church (a meager attempt but destructive attempt at ecumenism).  The idea was that the only way to have the Indigenous people's of these westernizing nations "catch up" with civilization was to educate them.  Education is a great idea, if you remove the kidnapping, strategic displacement, sexual abuse, physical abuse, imperialistic religious instruction, beatings for speaking one's own language, and spiritual figures who don't give a $@#! about your identity unless you took on a "Christian" identity, spoke their language, wore their clothes, and haircuts and acted with "propriety" according to their customs and culture.  Becoming civilized sure could lose a lot its baggage - or as it should be called - pure evil.

If I sound angry it is because I am.  Some of my longest known friends and adopted family had to endure the most atrocious of these acts in their lifetimes and today find it very difficult to look with any sense of favor on anything to do with church, Christianity, the Bible or faith - a faith that I embrace and a church that I love by people I embrace and families that I love.

Tamar tells All

The fulcrum effect of this has left First Nation communities with layer and layers of shame, pain and disdain for their pain by those who caused it.  It is much like the story of Tamar - the daughter of David in the Bible.  She was "loved" by her half brother who couldn't control his raging lust so he raped her.  Afterward, she told him that he would have to marry her to compensate for the wrong (which was understood to be the way that this could be solved - wow) and care for her but instead he rejected her and the Bible said he hated her after more than he had loved her.  A nations abuse and rape of another's causes the offender's cultural sensitivities to be fully deadened and they begin to hate that which they were enamored by or at the least humored by.  There are many ways to deal with this growing and self-inflicted disdain - our nation chose the worst option - a second displacement - the displacement of our concern, guilt, our own shame and the people themselves.  Not only did we rape them of their culture, identity and family, but in order to deal with the guilt we hid from them and became indifferent toward the aftermath of their plight and we continue to do so today.  Like Tamar's offender, we have offended twice and the second offence is worse than the first.

The Second Cut is the Deepest

To know that one has offended the "other" and to be aware of the offended "other" right in front of your eyes and then to act as if the offense never took place - to attempt to normalize an obvious act of evil with the person whom you have wronged so deeply - is a greater and deeper offense than the first.  It is not even an act of deception because both parties are fully aware but only the offender has the power to do something about it but chooses to do nothing and moves to normalization and as soon as possible - to act as if it the offense had not even happened.  This is evil destroys oneself and the "other" at a level that is almost irreversible. 


 Resurrection on the 'Rez'


This description can mirror what we've done to ourselves through our previous eschatology - we have disdained our own identity - our embodied selves and have sought a gnostic emancipation from this "body of death" that only brings pain, suffering and loss.  In so doing we have split our identity and deemed that which God called good, evil or at the least - we have become indifferent that which God has given great attention and focus to.  We have displaced our embodied identity, dismissed its place in the good creation and the ever looming eschaton and have dreamed of a world where we won't have bodies, our earth, the good creation anymore.  We have displaced our identity?  The second evil - the evil of indifference towards our first offense can still be reversed, still be unlayered with the shame that we have piled onto our eschatological selves.

Guess who might be the best to lead us there?  That's right - our First Nations Brothers and Sisters.  They have travailed, torn away from the power of oppression, from the demise of identity, from the loss and are beginning to stand again, with pride, wisdom and forgiveness.  This forgiveness will be what heals us, what restores us.  God didn't intend for Tamar's offender to just come to Him, God, and ask for forgiveness, he was supposed to ask for forgiveness from her and to do whatever he could to restore to her what he had taken, as difficult as that may be.  As David so readily judged the wealthy neighbor who stole the only sheep from his poor neighbor to feed his guests, we too can so easily judge David's son who raped Tamar.  But where are we in that story?  We may need to begin asking.  This is not only for the sake of those we have offended but for ours too.  Mutual restoration is at hand.  Let's quit the one way benefits and pray that we don't colonialize our efforts.  This can't be done unless we ask, unless we know, unless we become aware.  The peace we desire, the shame we want to shed and holistic healing we need will need to be given and one cannot be given what they need until they are ready to ask and receive.