Latest / Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community / Dr. James Robertson | Uncovering the History of the Canadian Church

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Dr. James Robertson | Uncovering the History of the Canadian Church · Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community

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  Please leave a message after the tone. I have
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  always loved indigenous singing and drumming
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  and just the voice that they bring in. So I just wanna pray
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  in Canada just that their voice would be heard. They have
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  a unique voice. It is a powerful voice.
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  And, yeah, I just wanna pray blessing and freedom
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  and just release and a venue for those voices
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  to be heard. Reconciliation.
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  What does this mean to you?
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  This is the Journey with Care podcast, where we navigate honest
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  conversations about faith, culture, and loving our neighbors.
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  I am the host, Melvina Gabosch, and I am an indigenous
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  lover of Jesus.
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  Welcome back to another episode of Journey with Care. In
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  studio today, around the table, we have doctor James Robertson,
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  a professor at Tyndall Seminary in Toronto, a
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  Canadian church historian, an author of a new
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  book Overlooked. I am excited to have him with us
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  today. Welcome. Thank you very much. I'm
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  very humbled and honored to be here. Wendy met him when she
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  was at an event in Hamilton. And yeah. Yeah. This is Wendy. I'm
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  I'm here joining in the studio. It was so good to meet
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  you, James. We met at a conference that was
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  held at the McMaster's University in Hamilton
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  back in May of 2022. And, you were
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  speaking there on the history of the Canadian church, and I'm like,
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  it's about time because it it I was so relieved to to
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  hear about things on a very Canadian level on the
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  history and the church. So, I'm so glad that we can
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  keep this conversation flowing. Excellent. Thank you very much, and
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  I I completely agree. It's important to get that Canadian perspective in
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  there. James, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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  Oh, okay. Sure. As you mentioned, I'm a professor at Tyndale.
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  I'm an author. I'm gonna try my best not to repeat what you just said
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  because that doesn't make for for good podcasting. Yeah. I'm I'm a
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  part time minister. I minister in a couple,
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  CBOQ, churches, which is a convention baptists of Ontario
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  and Quebec. I'm a father of 2 boys, and,
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  yeah, that's it. And, very excited to be chatting about the the
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  book and everything that you're doing here. It's a it's a wonderful and very, very
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  important series of conversations. So, again, let me reiterate, very humbled and honored to
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  be here. We are glad you're with us today. Tell us, what led
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  you on this path to becoming a Canadian church historian?
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  Well, I have to give all credit to my doctoral adviser, doctor Gordon Heath at
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  McMaster. He's, an expert in church and war, which was definitely something that we got
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  into the background. That was my background. So we're trying to figure
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  out how do we bring in the ideas of religion and conflict and whatnot. Of
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  course, sadly, the world is is full of examples. And I was in
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  Ireland many years ago, and I was just as one does one on when a
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  historian's on vacation, we tend to go to archives. And I was just
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  flipping through a newspaper, and there was a big headline there. It says,
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  The Irish Invade Canada, and I was like, what was this? And I learned
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  all about the Fenian invasion of 1866, and that sort of brought my
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  two worlds together, wanting to be a Canadian historian, And then I did my
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  doctoral work on, Christianity and the War of 18 12
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  and just found absolutely I think most Canadians, we get the sort of sense
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  that Canadian history is a big snooze fest, and I was pleasantly shown
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  that this is, this is not the case. A lot of interesting ideas. Well, I
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  think there's two forms of Canadians. Those that love history, the
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  history buffs, and then those that would think of it as a big snooze fest,
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  and they would rather turn on the television and watch the people to the south
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  and be entertained. But what I found as I was I was reading
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  your book, and we'll we'll talk more about it later, what I found about it
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  is I tended to grow up being on this news fest
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  team and thinking history, do I really wanna learn it? I wanna hear that I'm
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  a visionary. I like to look to the future. But what I found, you
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  you ignited some more interest for me to learn my history better.
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  I sort of thought as, like, you're kind of like a psychologist of the past.
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  Like, you you unpack the stories to really get into the brains of Canadians,
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  and that's a very nuanced field. So I realized this is no
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  snooze fest to dig into Canadian history. There's actually a
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  lot of overlooked, hence your the title of your book,
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  overlooked ideas and stories and themes here that
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  really help us understand my future. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Thank you thank you for saying that because that's exactly why the type the
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  book is titled, Overlooked is, like, the Snooze Fest boat,
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  if there are 2 different, size boats. The Snooze Fest boat would be like
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  a Carnival Cruise Line, and, those who see the the relevance
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  of Canadian yeah. Oh, good. So you're you're in the
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  dinghy with the rest of us. That's good. Thank you. Welcome aboard. I'm gonna have
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  to admit that I'm still on the boat. I'm on the Snooze Fest boat.
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  Fair enough. So convince her otherwise. No. But your book your
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  book, you know, had me looking overboard. Nice.
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  Nice. Had me looking like maybe I'm gonna jump ship. I'm not sure yet. And
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  you know what? Maybe that's the the point of this podcast here today,
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  of just helping people look over the edge of the boat, and maybe we can
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  come to some middle ground here. Between the dinghy and the the cruise, I
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  don't know what would it be. Like, a canoe maybe would be very Canadian. That's
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  true. So we're gonna canoe down this lane today. I'm
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  looking forward to this conversation. We've been talking about your book that you recently
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  wrote, Overlooked, the forgotten origin stories
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  of the Canadian Christianity. What inspired you to write
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  this? Well, I was with a group, called New Leaf, a Nash
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  Canadian National Group, looking at, basically exactly what you've been talking about,
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  the, what's what's going on in Canada? What how can we address this? How can
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  we bring more Canadian voices to to the forefront? And, we
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  did a conference a few years back and just sort of realized, like, I looked
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  at it. We were looking specifically at the nones and the dones, so not Catholic
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  nun, not n u n, but n o n e s, like those who
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  signed on to their recent, status update that they're a part of no
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  religion. And then the Duns, which is another group that you can monitor, those who
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  probably grew up in the church but are now done with institutional Christianity,
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  organized religion, that sort of stuff. Mhmm. So just on the topic
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  of those who have served and been the Duns and Duns in the
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  Canadian story, And, that was sort of the the seed that grew into this book
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  was just taking the time to sort of write down and coming up with more
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  concise sort of look at it, a deeper look. Because I'm only speaking for an
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  hour, so you can't really get into a lot of the detail. And what I
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  came to discover was, which is fascinating for me after all the years of
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  studying this stuff, is, like, these concerns around so called secularization
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  are actually nothing new. Canada has been here before. It doesn't matter what time you're
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  talking about, what period in time you're talking about. You're hearing very similar arguments, so
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  I found that to be really interesting for me. That that intrigued
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  me. You you mentioned that at the conference when you were speaking, and that
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  gripped me because so often the the narrative that we hear in the story
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  of the Canadian church is that we need to go back to our roots and
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  become Christian again, and and that will push back against secularization.
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  And and what I found and what I was just discovering in this this conversation
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  in my head was, like, actually, the current church is maybe
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  more secular than we realized, and maybe we're we're
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  fighting the same narrative that they were fighting way back then. And, was
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  it hard to find the the history of Canadian stories of within
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  the church? How hard was that to to bring all of these stories
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  together into to a book? I mean, for me, it's pretty easy. It's more like,
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  what are the stories I'm not gonna tell and why? Like, that's Yeah. And, I
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  mean, I'm I'm a professor. I'm a historian, and I'm also a pastor.
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  So finding words has never been a weakness. If anything, it's it's shut
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  it's shutting me up. So it was more about, okay, what are the major points
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  behind this? And there's some big epochs in the Canadian history. And especially since I've
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  been listening to this podcast, this is another piece of the research I've been doing
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  in the past year and a half. You know, the book's been written for a
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  while. We're going through the editing, but you you start to move on to other
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  projects. Is this Canadian story, of course, from
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  an indigenous perspective is a much different story. And that had to be a
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  major part of the book as well. So we're sort of looking at it from
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  this perspective and with the idea of sort of addressing those
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  in Canada now that are concerned about numbers in the
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  church. And, unfortunately, that tends to be the majority and the inspiration behind these
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  conversations. So what I was trying to show is that in the early days
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  when, like, when we talk about the 19 fifties sixties, whenever we went to church,
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  but also into the, like, the 1800, into the 1700 and whatnot
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  when, like, Christianity was the dominant interpretive paradigm for the
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  Western world. We have very similar situations
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  happening. So the point, one of the major sort of conclusions I'm
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  hoping the reader can draw is that what we're actually talking about now actually
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  is much more influenced by marketing than the Bible, and
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  it's more of a well, we're we're framing it as a spiritual crisis.
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  We actually have to look at it the words we're using, the the things that
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  are concerning us, It actually seems to be we're communicating more of a market share
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  crisis. Wow. We don't have as much influence as we used
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  to, and that's a completely different thing. We're we're
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  framing it all. We're putting it all in good Christian rhetoric, but the issue's at
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  heart here is, like, how come not as many people are coming to church? Well,
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  that not necessarily a spiritual crisis, but it's definitely, like I
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  said, a market share crisis. Wow. Your book, who is your target
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  audience when you decide to write this book? Who do you want to read this
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  book? Well, it's it's it's a book on Canadian Christianity,
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  so I could probably name the target audience by name, and we'll still have lots
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  of time to talk. It's it's not gonna reach a broad audience. But broadly
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  speaking, again, probably those who are somewhat concerned,
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  those who are interested, the other inhabitants of the dinghy that are interested in
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  Canadian history. And we have to acknowledge the fact that Christianity, as far
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  as a social influence, Christianity is the
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  religious voice, of Canada. Because Canada's young.
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  What we call Canada now, it's young. It's you know, really, we can sort of
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  start talking about it depending if you wanna look on the French Catholic side. You
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  know, we definitely got from about the 1500 to the 1700. But then, really,
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  the English speaking side is is a child of the American Revolution just as
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  much as America is. And and so we have, like, the 17 100, and then
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  it sorta kinda grows through that. What I found interesting in
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  what you were talking about throughout the book, that interwoven
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  story of the indigenous people and then with settlers coming in
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  that so often we can think that the genesis of Christianity for
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  North America happened when the boat arrived on the the shores of
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  of North America, Turtle Island, and yet you've brought
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  story to why that isn't true, that,
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  faith was here, God was here, prior, and that
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  the origins of theologians of Christianity actually
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  came far before, with indigenous people, like, 500 years
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  before. I'm not the historian here. I'm I'm just clinging on to the dinghy
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  here to to learn from you. But can you tell us a little bit more
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  about that, the sort of the origins of Christianity
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  not being so young? Right. Yeah. Well, I think
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  the major part for something for especially for people who look like me and
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  would rightfully become from a a settler Christian, heritage, the
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  theologies, the the practice, the doctrines, and and I definitely
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  I was raised in the church, left for a while, came back to faith in
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  my twenties, but, you know, the stories were all similar. The narratives were
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  all similar. Everything I've been raised in is a transplanted,
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  version of Christianity. The only faith
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  that is indigenous to Canada is indigenous faith and
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  indigenous Christianity. And I think one of the concerning elements of the present
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  day, for the attention that, of course, we look at the evils of residential
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  schools, we look at the ongoing colonial language, we look at these ongoing tensions
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  between settler, First Nations, Metis. One of
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  the major points we have to sort of acknowledge the fact is that, you know,
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  there are, obviously, this I'm not speaking to anybody who doesn't know
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  this, but there are many indigenous brothers and sisters who self
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  identify as Christian, and yet the world views
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  of of indigenous Christians are not considered with any
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  seriousness. I know a lot of churches that invite indigenous people in to speak
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  about experiences, for example, in residential schools. And, I mean, that these are important
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  and necessary conversations for us to have. But, also,
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  we're very comfortable, especially as Canada. We're very comfortable
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  borrowing from other places, like we've cited at the be at the top of this
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  podcast. There's not as many Canadian voices on a whole variety of issues. We're very
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  comfortable, like you said, look looking south of the border, which
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  is problematic for a number of reasons. But we're also comfortable looking to England,
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  which makes sense, you know, Ireland, Australia, Europe, etcetera,
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  etcetera. But, again, these become, in a sense, transplanted
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  thinking. It's thinking that grew up in another place that we're bringing over here and
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  sort of hammering out rough edges, all the while ignoring the fact that we do
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  have faith that is from here, that is rooted in this land,
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  and somehow still is not receiving the attention that I
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  think for the rest of us is absolutely necessary, but definitely
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  is is well deserved. And there's a dissonance there too.
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  Melvina, you have talked about this on numerous occasions.
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  It's it's struck us even as we bring people onto this podcast
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  how there's generations of faith within the indigenous culture and
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  churches that are well established and prominent and spirit led
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  doing amazing things for many generations, and yet
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  it's insular to the rest of the broader church. We don't
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  know about each other, and that's what we love doing here on the podcast. You
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  wanna speak to that? It's almost like we're a little island, us indigenous Christian
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  believers. We're a little island put over there, and yet
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  there's a big population of indigenous believers. You know,
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  I was raised in a Christian home. My children will be the 4th
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  generation. So my grandfather was a minister. My grandmother was
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  a minister. She was a prophetess, an awesome singer,
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  a worshiper. You know, my mother's line, my
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  aunties, my uncles all played instruments and sang and preached, and then
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  there's me. And I'm the 3rd generation, and I'm a preacher. I'm a
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  pastor. I love the Lord. And so when God moved me out
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  of what I've known my whole life and put me into, I guess, the
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  bigger church, the wider church, the, you know, capital c type thing
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  environment, I noticed that not many people had that
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  connection to indigenous people or indigenous believers. Not many
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  churches had that connection and yet there's just a big population of us.
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  Like, that's all that I've known my whole life. But that group of people
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  and this group of people don't intermingle. They don't know each other. They
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  don't fellowship with one another. And Right. You know, I think that's the heart
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  of the podcast. Right? And if we look closely, there's
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  a layer here within I I can just speak from
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  the the white Christianity that I've come from
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  of spiritual cloak that we have for this systemic
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  racism almost or prejudice of we want
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  to discern to make sure that spirituality is the way, the
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  truth, like, the theology is okay. We wanna make sure that doctrine is
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  so important, all that cognitive stuff, not to just, like, diminish
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  the the value of theology. I believe in good theology. I believe the church should
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  be literate, but it's almost through our own lens we can judge
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  if this spirituality fits the bill. Yeah.
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  Rather than the other way of saying teach us in in a
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  posture of learning, what do we have to learn as transplanted Christians
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  here on Turtle Island? What do we have to learn from our indigenous brothers and
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  sisters who have been walking with creator, who have been walking with God,
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  and who have been doing amazing movements for years
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  before we ever arrived? It it requires a a
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  significant amount of spiritual humility for us as
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  church to to be able to discern that, to be okay with that
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  discomfort of those having those conversations of of differences. And,
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  Oh, absolutely. Couldn't like, as from my perspective, we
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  could end this podcast on that note right there because I think that became one
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  of the major sort of elements within this. Because, again, to go back to your
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  earlier question about, like, who's the book for and whatnot, it is hopefully revealing some
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  of these structures that have brought us to these certain places. Like, whether you believe
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  that, you know, businesses should be closed on Sunday
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  or, whether the you have to use the word inerrancy as it applies to bible.
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  All of these are cultural trends, and I try to reveal specifically some of those
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  ideas that have have grown up throughout Canada. And I and I think that's important
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  to do so. But to return to the first episode of this podcast, and I
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  I remember listening to this on the road, and, Melbina, you were sharing your story.
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  And it was such a powerful story, and it's sadly one I've
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  heard from my smaller collection of of Metis and
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  First Nations students, of this almost sort of
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  cultural shame, I believe is the word, or pain. And and this is
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  where uncovering the systemic things that brought us to and
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  whatever your perspective is, uncovering, like, how you got here, I think, is just
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  a good way that history can actually help. But it's also, I would say, it's
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  absolutely incumbent upon Canadian Christians right now to recognize
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  the truth in what has become, sadly, a controversial idea is
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  that we have institutions. We have worldviews. We have
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  a construction of a nation that consciously, repeatedly,
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  and was not even subtle about it, actually wrote it out, disenfranchised
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  indigenous people in the name of Christ. Mhmm. And and that is an
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  important thing for us to recognize because while we may be using better words
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  now, while we're much more aware of it than, for example, our our
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  settler ancestors in this nation, if we're not addressing these
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  structures, there's gonna be no real change. And any historian
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  writes in the hopes that education will bring change. And then to wrap this
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  up, in the last, the conclusion of the book, I
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  think James Baldwin, the amazing African American scholar
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  from middle of 20th century, his point about history
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  is absolutely apt. It is it's not a study of the past. It's it's a
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  revealing of the fact that history is alive in us. It, in
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  large ways, shapes our destiny. It definitely influences our biases, our
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  prejudices, our world views, our passions. So what I like to
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  say to my students is what we're doing in these courses is naming the voices
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  in your head. You believe in this. Well, let's look at the history of,
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  like, who said that? Why do you hold on to it? And sometimes, and this
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  can be uncomfortable for people, sometimes they find theologies,
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  practices, whatnot that's been harming them for years, and
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  they have now the permission and the ability to jettison that and actually pick something
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  up that'll serve them better. And that's your point. This is not about bad
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  theology. This is not about backsliding, deconstructing,
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  all the words that the church has used to keep people in line in history.
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  This is about having a genuine experience of God. And if we know
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  one thing about God is that he is really comfortable knocking down our human made
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  walls. And that's fun for me because I do occupy
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  a position of of influence, authority, power, etcetera, etcetera.
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  It's absolutely essential as if we hope to go forward with any kind of actual
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  reconciliation is to recognize, just like you said,
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  that there is indigenous Christianity here that is powerful, that has
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  been overlooked, and in many ways can actually show us arguably
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  the only path forward if we want them to have a future
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  focused lens. We also talk about trauma a lot in Care
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  Impact. And what you just said about it's not just in the
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  past. It's actually what you're living out in the present. You're experiencing trauma
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  today. And so I think across our line, if we want healing in our land,
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  we have to go historical. Yeah. Right? If that is an
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  invitation to to get into the dinghy, I don't know what is. Because if we
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  wanna heal, if we're serious about instead of just kinda giving
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  the, yeah, we want truth and reconciliation and we wear the orange shirt, we
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  can really quickly go into virtue signaling as even as a church that's trying
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  hard. But if we don't dig into those stories, we are
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  actually not really willing to do the the
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  hard healing. And the unfortunate the the unfair
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  thing for me, Melvina, is I get a choice to. You don't
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  get to choose. And I think that is a
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  profound thing that something that we as the white
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  believers need to sit with. We get to choose reconciliation,
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  but you you have to work out the past. And I like to frame
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  it too. If we wanna go biblical, we get we get the ability to play
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  the role of Cornelius. Yes. And what what a
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  gift. And Cornelius becomes absolutely a catalyst in
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  the shift in the book of Acts that sees the Gentiles brought back
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  into the Christian faith. But never forget, he occupies a place of power. He's literally
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  a crucifier, and it's incumbent upon protestant
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  and Catholic. And, again, that your episode with, is it Jim Thunder?
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  Yeah. On the oh my goodness. But so for both
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  Catholic and protestant, there is this invitation of, like, there is a
• 20:53
  biblical path here. There is a Christian path here. But one of the
• 20:57
  trajectories I see that concerns me about the conversations around
• 21:01
  reconciliation today and, again, I cannot say this strongly enough. Historians
• 21:04
  never predict the future. That is not our game, and humans are complex, and life
• 21:08
  is very weird. And so it's a it's a fool's errand. But one of the
• 21:11
  trajectories I see is in the early days so we're talking like the Cartier days,
• 21:15
  like 1500, 1600, where the various indigenous communities
• 21:19
  outpopulated the French, the European. There was there was fear, but there's
• 21:23
  also a necessary mutual reliance on each
• 21:26
  other because the Europeans were going to starve to death, get
• 21:30
  disease, etcetera, etcetera. Some of the history of this has been been sort of
• 21:34
  brushed over because we know how the story is gonna unfold. And then
• 21:38
  European superiority and weapons, of course, germs and etcetera,
• 21:42
  etcetera happens. Then as we get into about the 1800, as,
• 21:45
  again, as as Canada, as we call it, is industrializing, getting
• 21:49
  stronger, more stable, has more money, there's more people, there's this
• 21:53
  weird shift in about the early 1800 where indigenous people
• 21:57
  are almost viewed, and I say this, and and this will come off offensive, and
• 22:00
  it's it's intended to be so, but not these are not my words. But it's
• 22:03
  almost like looking at the indigenous people almost as pets. Of course, in the background
• 22:07
  of that is all very much at that point, the idea, like, there's that
• 22:11
  Eurocentric. There's the whole idea of race. Like, different races have different strengths and
• 22:14
  whatnot, like, what we would rightfully call racism now. But this is sign quote, unquote
• 22:18
  scientific at the time. And so the different races have different ranks.
• 22:22
  And, of course, at the top of that is is obviously the Anglo Saxons and
• 22:25
  white, etcetera. So there's almost a sense because indigenous people are less
• 22:29
  and less of a threat, they're pets. And they're called, like, the children in nature.
• 22:32
  And they're like, oh, aren't they they're whimsical and wonderful. And, I mean, these are
• 22:35
  ideas that are still alive today. And that is what actually gives permission,
• 22:39
  and not only just permission, but almost a Christian obligation
• 22:43
  to institute the residential schools because we're gonna we're gonna educate and civilize
• 22:47
  these people. Where this concern's been, of course and then we see that for over
• 22:50
  a 100 years of just absolute and I don't throw this word around
• 22:54
  lightly. Evil. Yeah. Absolute evil, abuse,
• 22:58
  trauma, murder, sexual assault, ongoing, ongoing.
• 23:02
  And and the residential schools become the first in a whole bunch of degradations. In
• 23:05
  World War 1 and World War 2, any indigenous person on Turtle Island
• 23:09
  that wanted to enlist had to give up their, what they called, aboriginal citizenship
• 23:13
  at the time. So then they come back from fighting in a war,
• 23:17
  which is already traumatic enough, and have nowhere to go because they don't
• 23:20
  belong in settler Canada and they're no longer allowed on their reserves.
• 23:24
  So you have this trauma that goes on and on. And what concerns me about
• 23:28
  today is, again, while the rhetoric is better, while the issues
• 23:31
  are definitely coming to the forefront, there is this I mean, Thomas
• 23:35
  King's inconvenient Indian nails this right on that. Like,
• 23:39
  it's so funny. We'll put the book in the show notes so people can follow-up
• 23:43
  with that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he is he is Mark Twain in his wit and
• 23:47
  his humor and his insight, and it's brilliant. But this idea of of co
• 23:50
  opting again various indigenous cultures to, like you said perfectly,
• 23:54
  to virtual signal, to see, look how progressive I am, etcetera,
• 23:57
  etcetera. But what I feel like is the trajectory, we're back to the
• 24:01
  pet. And that concerns me because it's not like we're it's not like we're going
• 24:04
  on a hill and coming back down now, and we're gonna finally get back to
• 24:06
  a more equitable relationship. I think the damage to reconciliation now is,
• 24:10
  1, it'll become trendy. And like all trends, it'll go away, and then this cannot
• 24:14
  go away. Right. And 2, the words are better. But as
• 24:17
  Melvina beautifully pointed out, there's no sense of
• 24:21
  community. There's no actual respect for indigenous perspectives
• 24:25
  in a way that will actually facilitate change. And, of course, the word
• 24:29
  for, which I think is a great word for it, both biblically and realistically, the
• 24:32
  word reconciliation, that's what concerns me about the trajectory of
• 24:36
  settler and indigenous relations in the history of
• 24:42
  Canada.
• 24:54
  I actually wanna ask you, on a more interpersonal level,
• 24:58
  what does reconciliation mean to you? Okay. So brief
• 25:02
  preamble. I warned you that I was wordy. I'm so sorry. Brief preamble
• 25:05
  is how I was trained is you divorce your feelings from the research. And I
• 25:09
  think there's there's merit in that because this the chapter on reconciliation in my
• 25:13
  book was the hardest to write, and I went back It was hard to read
• 25:17
  too. I was It's it's brutal. It was it was actually to my stomach.
• 25:21
  Yeah. Many, many times. I I snapped on somebody who made an
• 25:25
  a a tone deaf comment, and it was at a child's birthday party. And I
• 25:28
  snapped at them from across a room, and I was like, woah. This I'm carrying
• 25:31
  this very much on the surface because there's a lot of emotion in this.
• 25:35
  So, okay, we've been talking on the macro level. Let's bring it down to the
• 25:38
  macro level. So Molvina and I have this have a relationship, which is,
• 25:42
  you know, in the words of the great movie, I hope this is the beginning
• 25:44
  of a beautiful friendship. But let's say we've had a we've had a friendship for
• 25:47
  years. And if I have been perpetually
• 25:51
  and constantly doing something that harms you, maybe not intentionally, maybe
• 25:55
  not physical, but I'm using insensitive language. We can put it right down
• 25:59
  to to a baseline. Like, I'm just saying something about you or to you,
• 26:03
  that you don't appreciate. You know, you're like, okay. At first, well, you know, this
• 26:07
  is James. I'm gonna let this go. But, eventually, because we have a relationship, you
• 26:10
  bring it to my attention. Like, listen. This is how it's going. Well, now I
• 26:12
  have a choice. You know, I can be like, what do you mean like that?
• 26:15
  And we can have all those fake sort of, I'm sorry that you feel that
• 26:17
  way, those terrible apology, apologies that are just reiterated.
• 26:21
  For me, if I'm going to follow that
• 26:25
  Nazarene Carpenter, that super cool god
• 26:28
  of mine human that lived 2000 years ago. I
• 26:32
  don't have an option other than to be like, I
• 26:36
  hear you. You're right. It is now my choice to
• 26:39
  value our friendship or my desires.
• 26:44
  And what Christ has taught me is that our friendship matters more in the
• 26:48
  economy of God, and therefore, my rights, my desires, which we've
• 26:51
  heard so much of in in the past few years and people reacting to
• 26:55
  that. And what what saddens me is, of course, a lot of
• 26:59
  Christian voices are hopping on that as well. But if we are
• 27:02
  followers of Christ, I mean, it's right in Philippians 2. Like, he didn't consider
• 27:06
  equality of God something that we grasped, but he humbled himself to the point of
• 27:09
  death, death on a cross. At the very least, I can look
• 27:13
  at my sister in Christ and say, you know what? I'm sorry. You're
• 27:17
  right. I will do better going forward. Please forgive me. Yes.
• 27:21
  And then that gives you the chance to say, I do forgive you, and lo
• 27:24
  and behold, reconciliation and a new path forward.
• 27:28
  That's on the micro scale. And in some ways, it's more personal, so thank you
• 27:31
  for bringing the person the interpersonal into it. And in that way, it's easier. So
• 27:35
  we can all model that. Obviously, when we get to the macro national
• 27:38
  scale, there's a lot more complexities in it, but the theme and the story is
• 27:42
  the same. And then to close, I would argue this. I think probably the
• 27:45
  complexity of the macro scale is why Jesus and Paul and
• 27:49
  Peter and all those new testament writers constantly,
• 27:53
  constantly, constantly warned us against
• 27:56
  chasing after worldly principalities and powers. It gets too
• 28:00
  big and cripples the faith, a genuine faith.
• 28:03
  So, really, reconciliation is and I I say this in the book. This
• 28:07
  is the most basic level of human interaction as as
• 28:10
  Christ wants to demonstrate it to us. So why we're fighting
• 28:14
  against it just shows me how far from the gospel we've actually wandered.
• 28:18
  And for a passive aggressive Canadian, it would be
• 28:22
  easier in the pursuit of and I and I say this broadly
• 28:25
  because I think we can broadly understand that term
• 28:29
  because we we have tendencies. Sorry. Sorry. Not sorry.
• 28:33
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we're talking about reconciliation, I think
• 28:37
  we can go back to what that danger you were talking about before
• 28:41
  in in that sort of pet type phase coming back to
• 28:45
  that. We can almost avoid any conflicting
• 28:48
  conversations or anything that would be hard to have those
• 28:52
  difficult conversations. We can quickly bow out,
• 28:56
  sorry ourselves, and excuse ourselves out of that conversation
• 29:00
  rather than apologize and correct and move on.
• 29:04
  And so I think that is a challenge that we don't tiptoe
• 29:08
  around our brothers and sisters. We have deep conversations,
• 29:12
  go deep in a respectful and honoring way Mhmm. That
• 29:16
  Melvina one thing I love about discussing things with Melvina that she can call
• 29:19
  me out on things and and rightly so. But I need to sit with that.
• 29:23
  I need to receive that and not just,
• 29:26
  like, tiptoe around her because she's indigenous,
• 29:30
  but that how do we do this? How do we do reconciliation? How do we
• 29:34
  lead together in an honor? We've spent a lot of time on that because we
• 29:37
  don't wanna just have the short cute way of almost tokenizing
• 29:41
  this relationship. She's so much more valuable than that.
• 29:45
  Mhmm. And I think that's a a call to the church that we need to
• 29:48
  go deep and have those deep conversations at a deep
• 29:52
  relational level that we're really brothers and sisters. We are the body of
• 29:56
  Christ. Absolutely. Right? Not prosthetics.
• 30:00
  Yeah. Me and me and Wendy, since our relationship
• 30:03
  began and since partnership began and, you know, we're in fellowship together and
• 30:07
  are working walking out this journey together with this podcast, We've come to
• 30:11
  things that not just as, you know, a a white
• 30:15
  woman and an indigenous woman, but we we've both had to, you
• 30:18
  know, sit with what is going on. What is what what what is the root
• 30:22
  here? For me as an indigenous person, I don't feel that I just have the
• 30:25
  right to feel away or to be offensive or it's my right or
• 30:29
  you should do this for me and do that for me because I'm tokenizing myself
• 30:32
  if I think like that. Right? So I have to do the work. I have
• 30:36
  to do the work and say, okay. So why is it that I'm feeling this?
• 30:40
  Why did this trigger me? Why is this not sitting well with me? And then
• 30:43
  I have to go to God in prayer about it. And he has to reveal
• 30:47
  that to me so I can be able to approach Wendy in a way that
• 30:50
  I don't feel that I'm deserving of something. And that's where
• 30:54
  I feel like our relationship has has walked. We walked through
• 30:58
  those things. And in reconciliation and anything in reconciliation,
• 31:02
  I think when you have 2 people in a relationship together willing
• 31:05
  to walk out her route and my route and figure it
• 31:09
  out together. I don't know. That's that's the future of reconciliation. That's
• 31:13
  right. We don't tiptoe. We go right deep into conversation,
• 31:17
  and I think that's what creates authenticity in the relationship
• 31:21
  rather than sort of a folklorama Yeah. Of Mhmm.
• 31:25
  Christianities. And, we have to be careful not to go there
• 31:28
  because that would be more comfortable. It would be celebrated.
• 31:32
  But when we get into deep conversation, some might say, oh,
• 31:36
  like, Wendy, you shouldn't talk. But but we're going deep. We're
• 31:40
  going at an authentic level, and we're pursuing it
• 31:43
  not for show. Mhmm. Right? And so sometimes and we can have
• 31:47
  those difficult conversations knowing that we honor each other at the end. And and
• 31:51
  we're I I certainly haven't arrived. I've been learning in this journey,
• 31:55
  but I think the only way to to learn is to
• 31:58
  jump into the student seat, and to throw ourselves into
• 32:02
  uncomfortable situations where we don't have the answers and other people
• 32:05
  do. And I think we don't have to be afraid
• 32:09
  of making faux pas. We just have to go in humility. And I
• 32:13
  think that in in anything in reconciliation, it's it's
• 32:16
  partnership. It's it's equality. It's we're both equal in this
• 32:20
  relationship. Mhmm. We're both equal in this. And I think that's
• 32:23
  my hope that indigenous people would come to a relationship feeling
• 32:27
  that with, you know, a non indigenous person is that they are
• 32:30
  equal, but they also have to treat the other person as an equal partnership
• 32:34
  in that relationship as well. Powerful. I had, a professor by the
• 32:38
  name of doctor Joyce Bellows, and she introduced this to me years ago when I
• 32:41
  was in graduate school, and I've never forgotten this. And she's like, anytime 2
• 32:45
  people in an interaction, if you just look at a math formula, it's 1 plus
• 32:49
  1 equals 2. It's like now it will always equal 2.
• 32:53
  What we've learned in our society is that some people have more
• 32:56
  value. So, you know, this person is, because of
• 33:00
  whatever, is a 1.25. Just like now the answer is always gonna be 2.
• 33:04
  That forces the other person to become a 0.75. Wow.
• 33:07
  Well, the queen just recently passed away. So the queen goes into any
• 33:11
  situation. She's a 1.8. And so everybody around her is a
• 33:15
  0.2, varying scales. You know, obviously, I'm just picking numbers out of out of the
• 33:18
  air here. But she's like, here's what the power of what Jesus did. He treated
• 33:21
  everybody as a one. Now not more, not less. He was never
• 33:25
  less than a one, and he never treated anybody else less than a one. So
• 33:28
  for those people, like the tax collectors, women, the
• 33:31
  marginalized, they're used to being 0.5, 0.25. So he
• 33:35
  elevated them to 1. The Pharisees, the religious leaders, the politicians
• 33:39
  were used to being 1.5, and he brought them down to a 1. So from
• 33:42
  their perspective, he was a troublemaker. Other people's perspectives,
• 33:46
  he was a redeemer. And it's just like it was just them.
• 33:50
  He treated everybody like a 1, and I think you're absolutely right. And,
• 33:54
  again, we have as as followers of God, we have
• 33:58
  this biblical story. We have these examples. Reconciliation
• 34:02
  is absolutely a part of our lexicon. It's part of our lived experience.
• 34:06
  And the problem is is when we disconnect it and just turn it into, like,
• 34:08
  a theology on the paper as opposed to living
• 34:12
  out literally the kingdom of God, which exactly is what you've been
• 34:15
  saying is what the church is called to be. Jews and
• 34:19
  Gentiles had all sorts of issues that are very similar to
• 34:22
  indigenous and settler Christians and actually been fighting for a lot longer.
• 34:26
  And yet the early Christian communities found a way for
• 34:29
  everybody to be united at God's table together, so
• 34:33
  we can too. Part of the way to actually practically do that is know what
• 34:37
  got us here. And that's when it brings us back to the dinghy. You know,
• 34:41
  you guys were both mentioning about, the chapter in the book of
• 34:45
  reconciliation. I believe it's chapter 7. You had mentioned
• 34:48
  that it was very difficult for you to write this
• 34:52
  chapter. I just want you to share a little bit about your experience and why
• 34:55
  it was difficult and why why was it hard for you? Oh,
• 34:59
  so many good things. So the great thing about being a historian is you always
• 35:02
  begin with, like, okay. What are my biases? What are my prejudices? What are the
• 35:06
  stories I'm including? What are the stories I'm excluding? Why? So it's a
• 35:09
  very self evaluative process. So I started off
• 35:13
  oh, you too. I was so woke. I was so on the right
• 35:17
  side of history when I started this thing off. I'm
• 35:20
  I was so like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna nuance this whole
• 35:23
  thing. I'm gonna find a really good way, and then, thankfully, I have some wonderful
• 35:27
  friends and scholars that know this better than I could. Because, again, the book's
• 35:31
  the book's a survey, so there's some areas that I really know well, and there's
• 35:34
  some areas that I needed help to sort of unpack. And I had a whole
• 35:37
  list of people that I thank at the beginning for doing that. And one of
• 35:41
  the greatest comments was from a professor named Evan Haberk. He's like, yeah. I get
• 35:44
  what you're trying to do. Here's the 20 different places you went wrong. I was
• 35:47
  like, thank you. And and so he's like, you're trying to nuance
• 35:51
  something, and what's been happening through the great majority
• 35:55
  of Christian history in Canada is we've all been nuancing it, and
• 35:59
  it needs to be stated. The nuance is not the problem here. The the
• 36:02
  nuance sorry. The nuance is the problem here. He's like you in order to
• 36:06
  balance this thing out, you're overlooking a whole bunch of stuff that needs to
• 36:10
  be told. So I basically scrapped that whole wonderful,
• 36:14
  very virtue signaling chapter of mine and dug into it. And that's why it
• 36:17
  took over a year to write just that chapter. Wow. As many
• 36:21
  resources as I could, as many historical items as I could. He
• 36:25
  sent me on a journey that slapped me in the face with how
• 36:29
  absolutely unambiguous this was
• 36:32
  that from, like, the Baggett report through, like, all these
• 36:36
  different reports from the 18 thirties to 18 fifties, it they just basically stated
• 36:40
  again and again, in order to bring, quote, these people up,
• 36:43
  we need to sever the relationship between the child and the parent. Take the
• 36:47
  kids. Don't let the parents know where they are. Make sure that they learn English.
• 36:51
  Ignore their pagan religions, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And,
• 36:54
  again, what concerns me about today is a lot of people doing that were doing
• 36:58
  it for what they believe were the right reasons. They really thought they were
• 37:01
  saving indigenous people. And that's it that doesn't find a lot
• 37:05
  of breadth in today's narrative about it. But I think that's the big
• 37:09
  secret is there's still a lot of people now that think they're doing the right
• 37:12
  thing that are just reiterating in new form these old harmful
• 37:16
  ideas. We have genuine villains. We have people who
• 37:20
  signed up for these obscure remote places. They were
• 37:23
  championed as missionary zeal, as being, like, these champions for Christ. Like,
• 37:27
  look at them going to to save these poor children in these remote
• 37:30
  places. That's a pedophile. That's a person with a lack of
• 37:34
  accountability. That's a monster in human form. And so we have genuine
• 37:38
  villains, and and so that that story needs to be told as well.
• 37:42
  But for those like myself who starts this chapter off
• 37:46
  in a very self righteous the more I
• 37:49
  wrote, the more I didn't wanna write. The more I've I've read about this
• 37:53
  stuff, the more I I wanna shut up and listen, which makes it very tricky
• 37:55
  when you're both a professor and on a podcast. I don't
• 37:59
  maybe it would be better if I just, like, no. You just tell me, but,
• 38:02
  obviously, I gotta say some stuff. But I felt you did listen. You were you
• 38:05
  were the author, but I felt you were listening into these
• 38:09
  conversations, these historical facts. What I appreciated about that
• 38:13
  chapter, very difficult to to read as well because you just brought
• 38:16
  facts together and some different nuance ideas
• 38:20
  to the surface that we just don't have articulation for. But
• 38:24
  at the end, you didn't wrap it in a pretty bow. You didn't redeem the
• 38:28
  story because it is yet to be worked through. Yeah.
• 38:32
  You presented it in, I think, in a very honest way
• 38:35
  that you shared your discomfort with me in a in a rightful
• 38:39
  way. I think it it wasn't meant to to
• 38:42
  ease my discomfort. Well, you know what? Actually,
• 38:46
  that that's a very high compliment, and for that, I really do thank you. I
• 38:49
  hear that and I received that. And, I mean, it goes back to episode 1
• 38:53
  of this podcast, Milvina, when you sort of you speak about this trauma, this this
• 38:57
  inherited stuff. And, again, I've heard this from my students. Sadly,
• 39:01
  I I hear you. That makes sense. That is definitely the the sense I got
• 39:05
  from the the horrible research, that had to do that this
• 39:08
  stuff actually happened. It's as bad as and, frankly, and
• 39:12
  this is the part I hate saying and this is where people think historians are
• 39:15
  doomsayers. I mean, we know about the unmarked graves.
• 39:18
  And back when we found the first ones, I was I was speaking
• 39:22
  to someone I know who is who in his adult life, I discovered he was
• 39:26
  actually indigenous. He was adopted Mhmm. And and whatnot. So he was walking through being
• 39:29
  raised as a settler and now embracing his indigenous identity. And so we're, of
• 39:33
  course, talking about this, And I said, I know how many
• 39:36
  residential schools are operating. I know where they're operating. This number is gonna get massive.
• 39:40
  And that I don't say that lightly. Like, the number of unmarked graves is
• 39:44
  going to be massive. It's gonna be well into the 1,000, tens of 1,000.
• 39:48
  And, like, there's a moment of I hear I hope you hear the voice
• 39:51
  choking me. It's like, I I don't actually know what to do with that. Mhmm.
• 39:55
  And the the part that we need to wrestle with now is, like, that was
• 39:59
  done in the name of Christ. And that
• 40:02
  for those of us who come from traditions that were involved in that, that's what
• 40:05
  we need to own. And I guess the last sort of part is, you know,
• 40:08
  teaching at Tyndale. I have a lot of students who did not grow up here
• 40:12
  that came from all around the world, and so they're wrestling
• 40:15
  with, well, as a Christian, I'm like, they don't even know this story. I'm like,
• 40:18
  yeah, this actually isn't a part of your church history, but it's a part of
• 40:21
  mine, and it's a part of a Catholic. So it needs to be
• 40:25
  addressed, and I think we have a really
• 40:29
  wonderful opportunity right now to literally embody what
• 40:32
  is a core theological doctrine in ways that people in and
• 40:36
  outside of the church will hopefully see and recognize. Like, I don't those
• 40:40
  Christians are nuts, but I'll I'll give it to them on that. That was that
• 40:42
  was a good move. So if we're still worried about evangelism and that sort of
• 40:46
  stuff, then why isn't this at the absolute forefront of what we're
• 40:50
  doing? Let's talk about white man's burden.
• 40:54
  What do you mean by that? Well, that's from the famous Rudyard
• 40:57
  Kipling poem. But I I mean, I guess that in three words, that
• 41:01
  is colonialism, privilege, that sort of stuff.
• 41:05
  This idea during the colonial era, you need to take this into consideration when
• 41:08
  Canada was born. It comes into age in the age of empires and
• 41:12
  rebellions. I said this before. I mean this. English speaking
• 41:15
  Canada is as much a child of the American Revolution as the United States.
• 41:19
  Mhmm. It was it was populated by people who stayed loyal to the British crown,
• 41:23
  and then after the revolution couldn't stay there anymore, so they marched north. And
• 41:26
  that's the birth of upper Canada, which would eventually become Ontario.
• 41:31
  But prior to that and what the Americans accomplished in in
• 41:34
  17 seventies there, it wasn't a question of empire, yes or no.
• 41:38
  It was which one. That's just the sort of the de facto
• 41:42
  understanding of the world. Rudyard Kipling is writing in the later 19th century. He's
• 41:45
  still sort of advancing this idea that
• 41:49
  the British Empire was called and appointed
• 41:53
  by God to civilize and Christianize the world. When that was
• 41:57
  accomplished literally looking at the great commission, you know, when you taught every tribe and
• 42:00
  tongue, you know, then baptized them, then the great and powerful and
• 42:04
  awesome day of the Lord would appear.
• 42:10
  So there's an eschatological element to the British empire as well. So what he's trying
• 42:10
  to do is inspire America to take up that mantle. And he's like, and don't
• 42:14
  worry. The the people in the lands that you're about to conquer, and at this
• 42:17
  for this case, specifically, it was the Philippines, he's like, they'll hate you for it.
• 42:21
  But anybody that you're trying to better is gonna hate you for it, but they'll
• 42:25
  thank you in the end. And that's the white man's burden. It's up to us
• 42:28
  white people to make sure that the rest of the world comes up to our
• 42:31
  standard. And that that becomes an important part for us to as we,
• 42:35
  again, deconstruct these institutions. Make no
• 42:39
  mistake. They are built on these are the de facto understandings, not just of white
• 42:43
  people, but, of course, of many of the various cultures and races
• 42:47
  and ethnicities, is is a better word for it, that they conquered. Like, this was
• 42:50
  indoctrinated into them. It's like, this is this is the standard you want to get
• 42:54
  to. And the more you can assimilate into that, the better your life is gonna
• 42:57
  be. And Jesus was all wrapped up into it, which is why we can laugh
• 43:00
  at it. But have we ever stopped to really look at it? It's like, why
• 43:03
  are there so many white Jesuses?
• 43:07
  White man's burden is sort of like an insight into why that is. And
• 43:11
  that's where you get the saying and there's a book written about it when helping
• 43:14
  hurts. Right? When we we think we are doing things for
• 43:17
  altruistic reasons and maybe just uninformed. We don't know
• 43:21
  what we don't know, and we we want to do things with good
• 43:25
  intentions, but that doesn't mean that it's always without collateral damage,
• 43:29
  along the way. And I think we can learn from that history. I
• 43:33
  think it's still alive and well, and we have to check our
• 43:37
  motives and be be honest with ourselves on why are we doing
• 43:40
  this. And we haven't talked too much about Cure Impact
• 43:44
  and, our organization, but that's a part of it's a
• 43:48
  good segue into why we do what we do at Cure
• 43:51
  Impact. We're focused on the Canadian church, and that's why we got
• 43:55
  excited when there's a historian talking about the Canadian church history. And I'm
• 43:59
  like, yes. It's not cut and paste from the US. I love my US brothers
• 44:03
  and sisters, but there's something nuance that we need to articulate
• 44:06
  here that I think your book helped me understand better what
• 44:09
  nuances we're working with. But we exist to connect and
• 44:13
  equip the church to journey well with children and families
• 44:17
  in hard places, and and we know that those that are most
• 44:20
  affected, those that are most disempowered or marginalized
• 44:25
  are disproportionately the indigenous people due to the residential
• 44:28
  schools to years years, centuries of decades decades
• 44:32
  of oppression. And so we can
• 44:36
  understand that, but we're we're trying to find a way forward.
• 44:40
  It's one thing that the Canadian church has had their hands slapped,
• 44:44
  and rightly so, and and we we can read about it in
• 44:47
  even in your your work here. But what do we do with that? How do
• 44:51
  we move forward in a in a constructive way that we don't just
• 44:54
  go sing Kumbaya in our little quarters and
• 44:58
  and, beyond with our own life and not discomforted
• 45:02
  by the realities of our past and the present. But how do we
• 45:06
  actually help the church journey in a good way
• 45:10
  to love our neighbor with respect so that it's not
• 45:13
  a white man's burden, but that it's almost in a student
• 45:17
  humble seat of how do we walk together in a good way. And
• 45:21
  so so that's the passion that we have as Care Impact. The
• 45:25
  academy doing training for the church, and the church isn't quite frankly
• 45:29
  used to being in the student seat. They're usually taking the pulpit. And that's
• 45:32
  a very big paradigm shift to be in a posture
• 45:36
  of learning. Yes. We want you to help that youth aging out of care, and
• 45:40
  we're gonna help connect you into the community because we build relationships
• 45:44
  with agencies and organizations and indigenous groups. But,
• 45:48
  yes, we want you to be out there, but let's posture
• 45:51
  ourselves in a learning position. That that youth aging
• 45:55
  out is actually your professor, that that mom that is struggling to keep her
• 45:58
  children or to be reunified is actually somebody we
• 46:02
  need to learn from because her story is somehow woven into our
• 46:06
  church history as well. And if we don't do that work,
• 46:10
  we are those white saviors. We are those people, whatever your color
• 46:14
  is, we are those people trying to be Jesus to the world instead of
• 46:18
  seeing Jesus in the people right around us, especially those that have
• 46:21
  lived here long before us. So I think this history,
• 46:26
  whether you're on the dinghy or you're still on the cruise boat, we we
• 46:30
  still have to go and learn this history if we want to
• 46:33
  actually journey in a good way forward. Because chances are, if
• 46:37
  we're gonna just close our ears and go out there and and
• 46:40
  make sandwiches and feed the homeless, we could be likely
• 46:44
  hurting and not helping in an a long
• 46:47
  term way. There, that's my soapbox. What do you have to say, Melvina?
• 46:53
  I I'm gonna go back to your book. I'm gonna go back to the chapter
• 46:55
  that that you wrote here. And for me, it wasn't hard for
• 46:59
  me to read it. I feel like I was
• 47:02
  reading what I felt, what I've experienced.
• 47:06
  That's what I've it was, like, on paper, and I was reading it from you
• 47:10
  know, my words were on paper, if if that makes sense.
• 47:13
  And so, there was a few things in your book that, like,
• 47:17
  I feel like I've known because, like I shared, I come from generations
• 47:21
  of believers, generations of, you know, people that love
• 47:25
  the Lord. That, you know, I know Jesus because of
• 47:29
  the encounter I experienced with him. I don't know him
• 47:32
  because of, you know, going to school and being told this and being told that,
• 47:36
  and I know him because of what he's done in my life. And
• 47:39
  so a portion in your chapter there, you talk about I
• 47:43
  believe you said native preachers played a prominent
• 47:46
  role in Christianity and teaching the brothers and sisters.
• 47:50
  Like, in your research, I want you to kinda just touch a little bit about
• 47:53
  that, about what you what you found in that research.
• 47:57
  Yeah. I mean and this becomes a touchy subject with, with the
• 48:00
  narrative that is dominant today. But, yeah, there's there's a lot of historical evidence.
• 48:04
  We have a variety. And, I mean, just just for this conversation right
• 48:08
  now, I love that you talk about being a follower of Jesus, 4th generation.
• 48:12
  I don't do that. I was like, yeah. I'm a Christian. And, of course, I
• 48:15
  have multiple generations, and I have no excuse because both of my grandmothers, my maternal
• 48:19
  and paternal grandmother, were historians of the family. I've seen a family tree that goes
• 48:22
  back to the 1400 that ends with my sister and I, and,
• 48:26
  and that's powerful. So that's just sort of one of those those disconnects
• 48:30
  that I think I can learn a lot from you, Novina, specifically.
• 48:34
  So it's very nuanced, and I probably can't get into the full breadth
• 48:37
  of it. But, again, this this sort of notion that
• 48:41
  Europeans came over, they conquered, they destroyed,
• 48:45
  they systematized, racialized, ghettoized, indigenous peoples
• 48:49
  throughout Canada. It doesn't take a trajectory into
• 48:52
  consideration, and it doesn't take a lot of things into consideration, which
• 48:56
  I I think are really important nowadays when especially specifically when I think about you,
• 48:59
  Melbina, or someone else I greatly admire, doctor Terry LeBlanc Mhmm. And the
• 49:03
  various indigenous Christians that I know, is I think that sort of
• 49:07
  dominant narrative of today does not take
• 49:11
  into consideration or literally overlooks the
• 49:14
  indigenous Christians that have existed for numerous
• 49:18
  generations. And in a well meaning fashion, kind of reiterates one
• 49:22
  of the sort of tropes that Thomas King brings up beautifully in his
• 49:25
  book of sort of putting all indigenous
• 49:29
  experiences into one category. Yes. And that's and
• 49:32
  that's how the Canadian government did it, and that's how the Canadian churches did it.
• 49:36
  We did it under the one word, Indian. And once you have
• 49:39
  everybody, this whole diversity of people under one category,
• 49:43
  I find it still present within myself even as I'm speaking to you right
• 49:47
  now. I have to do an extra mental step to to recognize that
• 49:50
  indigenous doesn't doesn't incorporate every single
• 49:54
  person in on Turtle Island or in the place that we now call
• 49:57
  Canada. There's a profound variety, but I don't think that about
• 50:01
  myself. I don't think I speak for all white people. And so I'm like, oh,
• 50:05
  wow. That is still very much alive in me. So
• 50:08
  for the the indigenous people that, interacted with the
• 50:12
  missionaries throughout the late 1700, early 1800 as an example, there's a
• 50:16
  whole variety of of responses. Some were absolutely they
• 50:20
  they were amazed and and had no problem calling Jesus their own. Some
• 50:23
  added Jesus into, how they were understanding the world.
• 50:27
  Some did it for purely political and commercial gain. What
• 50:31
  I found that makes me laugh so much and wish I had more time to
• 50:34
  put this in the book was this idea that indigenous people were to
• 50:38
  sort of taken over again reiterates this this
• 50:41
  trope that somehow an indigenous person is not autonomous, is
• 50:45
  not able to make these decisions for themselves, that look at them, they're just
• 50:48
  victims, the poor. And, of course, we do know there were many victims. But to,
• 50:52
  again, put all indigenous people into the victim basket does the
• 50:55
  same thing again. And this is one of those sort of subtle tropes that's still
• 50:59
  alive because we have these wonderful and hilarious
• 51:03
  examples, especially when the British and the French were here, of various indigenous
• 51:07
  communities playing them against each other, recognizing, oh, these 2 hate each
• 51:10
  other. So if we can do this, we can get this from the French. And
• 51:14
  if we do this, we'll get this from the British. And for a huge chunk
• 51:17
  of it, they did really well. They loved the Europeans because they were so caught
• 51:21
  up in their own feuds that the many indigenous communities just
• 51:25
  used it to their own advantage. Some had genuine faith. Some were
• 51:28
  tricked, and many, many were coerced and forced, especially. But that is
• 51:31
  definitely that is definitely the later 19th
• 51:35
  century. It's all there. But, basically, the railroad,
• 51:39
  the economy being stabilized, the industrialization of Canada makes
• 51:43
  most leaders no longer willing to be patient with indigenous people. And, I
• 51:46
  mean, specifically, we can look at that with Louis Riel, and the Metis in in
• 51:50
  the prairie provinces and stuff. He was very successful in 18 seventies, but by
• 51:53
  18/84, 18/85, he isn't able to do it as much because there's a
• 51:57
  lot more military strength behind Canada. So rather than negotiating with
• 52:01
  him, they just set him up and and executed him. So there
• 52:04
  were indigenous people within these communities that saw the benefit of it,
• 52:09
  educated. And and this, I wanna say very carefully, and I write
• 52:12
  this very intentionally in my book, so I wanna reiterate it, but I wanna
• 52:16
  say it very, very carefully. There are indigenous people who
• 52:20
  saw the benefit of white education. They were
• 52:23
  not they were not talking about residential schools. They were not talking about
• 52:27
  boarding schools. The closest we've got as a comparison
• 52:31
  is to when parents nowadays, English speaking parents put their kids in French
• 52:34
  immersion. They saw the benefit of being educated in this other culture, but
• 52:38
  in no way, shape, or form was that a denigration of their own culture. And
• 52:42
  in your chapter, you you really articulate that well because I'm like, wow,
• 52:46
  he's going there. But I I think it's really well. It it pays
• 52:49
  to pay attention, and and this is another,
• 52:53
  shout out to the audience to to read the book because it helps
• 52:57
  you understand that nuance. Right. I I just I'm hoping, like, I
• 53:01
  know this is a wordy answer. So I'm hoping that's coming across because I don't
• 53:04
  want to oversell the fact. It's like, oh, no. No. The the indigenous were
• 53:08
  the architects of their own destruction. Not at all. But I do wanna capture the
• 53:12
  fact that just like any other, quote, unquote, people group,
• 53:16
  there is a multiplicity of of responses. And indigenous
• 53:19
  Christianity is not a monolithic structure. There's indigenous
• 53:23
  Catholics. There's indigenous Pentecostals. There's indigenous Baptists. There's
• 53:26
  indigenous United. There's etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And all of them have different
• 53:30
  ways of doing things. And that's an important understanding because whatever
• 53:34
  branch of the faith they hold to, it's still a version of the
• 53:38
  faith that is native to this soil, that
• 53:41
  is is rooted in this ground. And the problem became when
• 53:45
  indigenous Christians were, quote, unquote, forced to look like the rest of us,
• 53:49
  forced to look like us, in the words of Terry LeBlanc. And so I'm not
• 53:52
  gonna buy wingtip shoes and a 3 piece suit. He's like, I'm gonna be
• 53:56
  fully indigenous me. And, oh, lo and behold, Christ is here, and
• 53:59
  he's showing me a version of himself that I can actually communicate not only to
• 54:03
  my brothers and sisters, but I think will actually help a lot of settler Christians
• 54:06
  as well. I I think it's easy for non indigenous
• 54:10
  and indigenous alike to make it too
• 54:13
  simple, to not look at the nuances of and the
• 54:17
  complexity of faith, and you can't judge people's motives and their
• 54:21
  relationship with Christ necessarily. And and sometimes it's it's easier
• 54:24
  just to reject Christianity as not being indigenous
• 54:28
  enough. And and I wonder, and and this is more of a question to
• 54:32
  Melvina, what it's been like as an indigenous
• 54:36
  believer, being fully indigenous and a follower of Christ,
• 54:39
  raised in generations of faith with being indigenous, did
• 54:43
  you feel like a one with indigenous people, 1 +1 equals 2,
• 54:47
  that analogy? I love that. Or is there is there something
• 54:50
  that has almost played against you
• 54:54
  because of some of the negative Christianity, the talk of, like, white man's
• 54:58
  religion and all of that coming here after? Well, I think I'm,
• 55:02
  I'm very honest with that with that part of my life. Like, so
• 55:06
  in in the indigenous communities, there's either you're traditional or or
• 55:10
  you're a believer. And so I was raised in a Christian home.
• 55:13
  So I was taught that that stuff was wrong. This is wrong. That
• 55:17
  identity is wrong. That culture is wrong. You know? Like, all of that is
• 55:20
  wrong. And so when god reconciled me back
• 55:24
  to him, he was the one that started to teach me
• 55:28
  that he doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't make mistakes. He created
• 55:32
  me in the image of who he is. He created me the way that I
• 55:35
  am. He created me with my brown skin. He created me a beautiful
• 55:39
  indigenous woman. He created me to be bold and to you know, he
• 55:43
  created me this way. If he did this and he made me indigenous and
• 55:46
  he made me, you know, the color of the skin that I am
• 55:50
  and he made me this culture, then how is that wrong?
• 55:54
  Because he doesn't make mistakes. So when I was reconciled
• 55:58
  back to Christ, he had to show me that
• 56:01
  I was the one. I hold the one
• 56:05
  number. You know, I I I don't hold a a 0.5 or I am
• 56:09
  1. And so when I was brought to that, to that realization
• 56:12
  that I'm equal in this, that I I have a right to be here, that
• 56:16
  I have a right to love Jesus, I have a right to be indigenous,
• 56:20
  when I was brought to that revelation, that's when I
• 56:24
  was able to be reconciled back to my brothers and my sisters.
• 56:27
  So meaning that is when I was able to see them as an equal,
• 56:31
  as an equal to me as well. If that makes sense.
• 56:35
  Wow. Yes. It does. Yeah. So I'm just on that journey. I'm on that journey
• 56:39
  figuring it out. Figuring out who I am, who God has created me
• 56:42
  to be, and not to be ashamed not to be ashamed of of the color
• 56:46
  of my skin or the color of my And you're bringing other people in your
• 56:48
  influence even on the podcast, but also in your your ministry effort in
• 56:52
  the north end and stuff. You are bringing other people into that awareness and that
• 56:56
  freedom, to find their own identity. My heart
• 57:00
  is just to I don't know. I just want more of my
• 57:03
  indigenous brothers and sisters to know Jesus for who he is. You
• 57:07
  know, the love and what he did on the cross for us. Like, that
• 57:10
  selfless act that he did for us, that's what
• 57:14
  I want them to experience. That's what I want them to encounter. And not
• 57:18
  the one that came in the name of residential schools and of of the
• 57:22
  church, but the one that has loved me for who
• 57:25
  I am and taught me to love myself. As
• 57:29
  an indigenous person reading your book, but also reading this chapter,
• 57:33
  chapter 7 on reconciliation, talks about residential schools, talks about
• 57:37
  all different kinds of topics. I truly feel that that one
• 57:40
  chapter can be a book. Oh, yeah. I really hope that
• 57:44
  one day you write that chapter into a book because I would read
• 57:48
  it. I would read it. So Bless. Thank you. Gonna have to do one of
• 57:52
  those chapters in that book. Well, if if you want the
• 57:55
  big reveal on the book, I'm already working on it. Alright. Yeah. Awesome. So
• 57:59
  that is fantastic. That's great. Like, I I truly feel that, you
• 58:03
  know, God brought you on a journey Yeah. In this, and he's given
• 58:06
  you the wisdom and the knowledge and the history to to
• 58:10
  write it. I'm, and I I'm I'm not saying this with any sort of
• 58:14
  false humidity humidity. It's a little warm here today.
• 58:17
  Humility. That that that was a perfect that was a perfect club. There's
• 58:21
  there's nothing very wise or knowledgeable about me. So
• 58:25
  I feel very humble, very I'm very thankful, that I know this is gonna be
• 58:28
  a very weird, strange, bumpy, painful, exciting road.
• 58:32
  Mhmm. This is genuinely we're preparing to tour the book, and I'm
• 58:36
  getting ready to do the show. And so the opening of the show is, like,
• 58:39
  let me tell you why this book sucks, why this why why my book is
• 58:43
  terrible. Because I've got the historian's vantage point, and the
• 58:47
  historian's vantage point is always to see how messy things are because
• 58:50
  90% of my work is just in archives and sort of putting things into a
• 58:54
  somewhat semblance of an order without hopefully sacrificing
• 58:58
  too much truth. So even reading history doesn't give this profound
• 59:02
  gift that, again, I am so thankful to have received, and I
• 59:06
  feel like there's no sort of better way forward. In all honesty, and I mean
• 59:10
  this not just as a as as a Christian, but as a historian, there's no
• 59:13
  reason why Canadian Christianity should go forward
• 59:17
  unless it is in this vein. And the wonderful gift about being
• 59:21
  in Canada in the 21st century is that we have all
• 59:25
  the tools we already need. Mhmm. We have all the cultural approval
• 59:28
  we could ever desire if we desire to such a thing, and that cultural approval
• 59:32
  comes from the fact that nobody cares what we're doing. Katie,
• 59:36
  it's not divisive like south of the border. It it we are very
• 59:40
  wide open to kinda do whatever we want, so let's start
• 59:44
  doing this. And if we totally flub it up and if
• 59:47
  we completely make the mistakes, as Wendy, as you pointed out, as I will continue
• 59:50
  to do, the good news is no one in Canada is watching.
• 59:54
  No one will care. All we can really do right now is pleasantly surprise them.
• 59:58
  Unfortunately, there are some who are trying to chase that
• 1:00:02
  that powerful influence and, like, oh, can't you see how that's gone
• 1:00:05
  awry? Yeah. We'd we'd have yeah. We don't need it. Like, it's never been the
• 1:00:09
  part of the Canadian story. It really hasn't unless, of course
• 1:00:13
  and this is where Melvina becomes this, if I can use this, you you
• 1:00:16
  almost become the prototype or the or the face of who I think
• 1:00:20
  is the most valuable Christians in Canada right now because there's power
• 1:00:24
  in being overlooked. And this is what I wrap up the book with. There's power
• 1:00:27
  in this. There's spiritual truth. There is a forced
• 1:00:30
  rejection of carnal power. And so what is and this is not a silver
• 1:00:34
  linings kind of analogy, but Melvina's experience
• 1:00:38
  is unique and powerful. You have found Christ
• 1:00:42
  in a historically disenfranchised
• 1:00:46
  posture within your larger culture and community. That is not something I
• 1:00:50
  have any access to. I am free. In fact, I'm actually rewarded
• 1:00:54
  every time I build a soapbox. That's not even something I have to pause
• 1:00:58
  to think about. My only question is where do I get the wood and how
• 1:01:00
  many nails do I have. Mhmm. And so that has given me
• 1:01:04
  profound blind spots. That history is could because it's
• 1:01:08
  what I love so much, that's been a great teacher. That's given me
• 1:01:12
  a a wisdom from experiences that did not happen to me. And I think that's
• 1:01:15
  the great gift of history. And then I I need to carry that with one
• 1:01:19
  hand because that that is something I can do. But more importantly for the present
• 1:01:22
  day is with my other hand is to listen to Melvina, is to listen to
• 1:01:25
  doctor Terry LeBlanc, is to listen to my numerous indigenous brothers and sisters,
• 1:01:29
  not just about your experiences, but I need you to
• 1:01:33
  teach me the way of our Lord, because I have lost a plot,
• 1:01:37
  and I inherited a plot that was already lost. And in you,
• 1:01:40
  I hear and see something I haven't experienced and I'm
• 1:01:44
  hungry for. So that's that sort of tension going forward that I'm very,
• 1:01:48
  very excited to be on this journey, and I give all thanks to god that
• 1:01:51
  this is the crazy adventure of of this life.
• 1:01:54
  Boom. Mic drop. I think we could end it
• 1:01:58
  there. You know? Well, we just wanna thank you for for
• 1:02:02
  joining Journey with Care you. For coming on and just, you know, sitting around the
• 1:02:06
  table with us and having this conversation. Both of us really
• 1:02:10
  enjoyed your book. Where can our listeners find your
• 1:02:13
  book? Oh, great. Okay. So Amazon. The the
• 1:02:17
  great the great necessary evil of this age, you can find it on Amazon.
• 1:02:20
  Overlooked, I usually put overlooked book, James Robertson, which goes
• 1:02:24
  back to the dinghy thing. There will be a book on Amazon all overlooked, and
• 1:02:28
  it has a topless gentleman on the cover. That is not me. It's
• 1:02:31
  it's the it's the one below itself. White one. Yes. It's it's
• 1:02:35
  the white one. Yeah. And more importantly, probably, for anybody because
• 1:02:39
  it's got a bunch of other stuff that's going on, and there's a
• 1:02:42
  website, canadaoverlooked.ca. You can buy the book there just directly, and and it it it
• 1:02:46
  goes to where it needs to go. But there's information about the audiobook coming up,
• 1:02:49
  the tour coming out. We put some fun videos up there. We're just trying to
• 1:02:52
  keep that page populated as it goes. So I'd say go to canadaoverlook.ca.
• 1:02:56
  And then unlike Amazon, they should be able to sign a copy for you, so
• 1:03:00
  I can I'm happy to do that. Well, there you have it, audience. If you
• 1:03:03
  don't have the book on your shelf yet, we will put this link into the
• 1:03:07
  show notes, and we want to invite you to read about our
• 1:03:10
  history, come up with those questions, and interact
• 1:03:14
  with our history here in the the country we know as Canada.
• 1:03:18
  Thank you so much, James, for continuing this conversation. I hope we
• 1:03:21
  can continue to have this dialogue as we learn more and more
• 1:03:25
  about our roots. Oh, nothing would please me more. Thank you to both of you.
• 1:03:29
  Thanks for listening to the journey with care podcast where paths connect over real
• 1:03:33
  life stories and honest conversations. We hope you continue to
• 1:03:37
  join us on this journey of faith, reconciliation, and loving our
• 1:03:40
  neighbor. Be sure to like, follow, and share. Special thanks to
• 1:03:44
  host Melvina Gabosch, our podcast engineer, Johan Heinrichs,
• 1:03:48
  and donors who help make this show possible. Journey with Care is an
• 1:03:52
  initiative of Care Impact, a Canadian charity dedicated to connecting
• 1:03:55
  and equipping the whole church across Canada to effectively journey
• 1:03:59
  in community with children and families in hard places. Learn how Care
• 1:04:03
  Impact is transforming the way churches engage with child welfare with our
• 1:04:07
  care portal technology and academy training. To support this podcast
• 1:04:11
  or to learn more about us, go to careimpact.ca or click the
• 1:04:14
  link in the show notes. We're so glad you are part of this journey with
• 1:04:18
  us as we journey with care even in the Until next
• 1:04:29
  time.