In Trust Center
The In Trust Center podcast is hosted by Matt Hufman. Walk alongside theological school leaders and innovators as they explore issues relevant to North American seminaries, all while helping institutions live out their missions more intentionally. Find more at intrust.org/podcast.
In Trust Center
Ep. 70: New approaches to decolonizing theology and Indigenous healing
NAIITS, an Indigenous Learning Community, is using Pathways for Tomorrow grants to explore ways to decolonize theology and provide trauma-informed education for the Indigenous community. Shari Russell, the director of NAIITS, and Mike Hogeterp, lead facilitator, discuss the project and the ways they're approaching the work ahead.
Hello, and welcome to the Intra Center Podcast, where we connect with experts and innovators in theological education around topics important to theological school leaders. Thank you for joining us. Hi everyone, welcome to the Good Governance Podcast. I'm Matt Huffman. In November 2023, I had the privilege of talking with several leaders at schools that received Pathways for Tomorrow grants from Lily and Dowman. During a gathering for grantees in Indianapolis, I invited several people to record a conversation for this podcast to discuss their projects because what they're learning affects the wider field of theological education.org/slash podcast. We cover a wide range of issues, subjects, and topics. I hope you'll enjoy the conversation. I'm excited now to be joined by uh Sherry Russell, the director of Nates. Um Sherry, welcome to the program.
SPEAKER_00:It's wonderful to be here. It's my first time in this area and at uh ATS Pathways for Tomorrow conference, so I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Well, glad to have you with you is uh Mike Hogaterp, who is also with Nates. Mike, welcome to the program.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you, Matt. Um, I'm brand new uh as a Lily3 uh project uh staffer, uh just here six weeks, uh feeling green behind the ears, but really excited about uh what's what's possible in this project.
SPEAKER_02:We're glad to have you. Sherry, we've talked before, of course, with uh with Nates, and Nates is doing some really innovative projects. Um you've got a phase two grant that is uh titled Asset-Based Trauma Informed Spiritual Care for Indigenous People. And then the phase three is Canadian learning uh Canadian Learning Community for Decolonization and Innovation in Theological Education. Uh these are great big ideas and wonderful things. Why don't we start with phase two? Talk to me a little bit about uh what it's about and and what your hopes for it are.
SPEAKER_00:So the phase two is focusing in on our MDiv program and from an asset-based perspective. And so much of our history as Indigenous peoples has been from a problem-centric viewpoint. We uh we are the problem and need to be fixed. And um, Terry LeBlanc, our founding director for NATS, um, for many, many years integrated his indigenous perspectives with asset-based appreciative inquiry. And within many of our cultures as indigenous people, that is actually foundational to who we are. Um and our perspectives never saw us as a problem to begin with, and to be able to go back and to reclaim the the assets and uh who we are as indigenous people, and being able to bring that forward within ministry, but also as a as a model of what it looks like to be in pastoral relationship with people from a different foundation. So even how we look at theology has often been centered on the problem, you know, the problem of sin, which we need to fix. Um, and so going back to um our creation story, Genesis 1, God created and it was very good. And he created us, and we are very good. And so going back to those early foundations and and resetting that whole program and all the curriculum from that perspective, I think is really important and foundational.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, theologically, there's this the one of the issues I think with the problem-centered approach is that it's God who solves the problem, according to Christian theology. Um, but one of the things we haven't taken, I say we as the church, the universal church, particularly when it comes to indigenous people, is the amount of trauma that's been inflicted.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And and generational trauma. So I appreciate the approach to this, and there's a a sense of spiritual formation uh that is part of there is that that may be blocked, shaped, whatever with trauma. So talk to me a little bit about talk about how um trauma-informed spiritual care helps in the formation process, which is a key, which is a key part of the master divinity.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is. And uh, I mean, not just indigenous communities have been impacted by trauma, but for us it has been intergenerational. And it uh the church has been part of the issue in this, or in many times the perpetrator of that. And so working through that multiple levels of trauma, especially as it comes to our faith, um, has been really important and foundational in who we are as followers of Jesus. And the perspective, even in our course development, needs to be not just trauma-informed, but also asset-based. And so we're developing um two parts to one course called Living in a Good Way, which is our trauma-informed perspective on spiritual care. And how do we live in a good way? How do we live in right relations, not only with ourselves and with others, but all creation? And so, what does that look like? And so there's been course development on that, but also our acid-based theology course, um, looking at theology from an acid-based perspective. Um, and Terry LeBlanc once again teaches that. Um, we're hoping he'll actually birth a book out of this. Uh, it's already there. He teaches it. Um, I think it's just investing that time in writing it. And so um, you know, we're grateful for those foundations and that perspective that he's brought, and that is integrating not in just our MDIF program, but throughout all our curriculum. And since I've come on, one of the focus we've had is to actually have all our faculty um learn and become more immersed in what it means to have acid-based um perspectives in all that we do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, as you mentioned, Terry is is a foundational figure, obviously, and has done such great work in theological education and particularly in reaching indigenous peoples. Um and the trauma informed practice. Um I want to turn a little uh quickly to the phase three grant, which is uh the decolonization and innovation in um theological education. And and Sherry, I know you're the project director for that. Talk to me a little bit about what you're seeing in that, what the plan for that is, and understanding, you know, there's a lot of a lot of schools are early in this process. So tell me about what you're expecting for this.
SPEAKER_00:So we are early in this process, and this is where Mike has come in. We've just hired him as a lead facilitator, and we have a program coordinator who is Metis, Nicole Forbes, who has joined the team as well, couldn't be here for this gathering, but um will be with us in Acadia. We're all meeting. Um we have three other partner schools that we're working with in the Canadian context. So we have Acadia, we have Tyndale and Ambrose. And it is exciting to see um those partnerships develop and some of the educationalists that they've chosen within their organizations to work on this. And so one of the first things we want to make sure that we're well versed in is the appreciative inquiry. So that in and not just appreciative inquiry, but indigenous appreciative inquiry, um, which adds another level of depth to this whole process. And so uh we will have that training as such. I'm not sure if it's a training, a process, a gathering, um, a time together where we'll we'll walk through that. And from that process, as we come together collectively, and that's the important part of this, is it's not just um indigenous people doing their thing, but when it comes to uh the health and well-being of future of theological education and of our churches, I think we all need to come together. And so it's us bringing who we are as Indigenous people with our partner institutions and collaborating together and envisioning the next steps forward. And so, as much as we would like to say, oh yeah, these are our plans and our goals, part of the process of the appreciative inquiry is that we have to be patient and let those things emerge from the stories, from the narratives that we share, of when theological education has been at its best for indigenous people, but also just for those that have encountered uh the church in various formats.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I know in in the Canadian context, uh you mentioned earlier in the church has been a perpetrator of trauma, and and one of the difficulties, of course, is that. So tell me about what you just mentioned, when the theological education has been the best for indigenous people. When would you say that was, or what would you say that is that is a really good question.
SPEAKER_00:I think one that we're gonna talk about. Um, and I think for different people it will be um different depending on their experience. But I would say long before the missionaries came um into contact with us, God was already working in many of our nations and in many of our people and preparing us for. And so um when I think of that, I think, you know, God, God works already in amongst us and prepares us and teaches us, and so s finding some of those deep roots and traditional ways of connecting with God are important. And so uh when I think of, you know, when it has been at its best, it may be going back to ceremony, it's going back to land, it's going back to walking in relate right relations um with all creation. And so um that's kind of from my perspective, but it will be interesting to hear um in the conversations that we have in the stories what that has looked like and what that has been.
SPEAKER_02:Mike, I know you're new. Yep. But as a facilitator of this and is coming, you described yourself in introductions as a settler. Yes. Okay, talk to me about what that means and what what how when you come to theological education donates, what that looks like for you. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:So Matt, in the in the last 40 years of of Canadian history, there's been some major um national dialogues uh around indigenous rights uh and inclusion in in the national community. And each time those national dialogues happen uh under the auspices first of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People, uh, which followed uh the OCA crisis in Canada, and then again uh recently in the Truth and Reconciliation Process in the mid-2000s into the 2010s. In both cases, those commissions, Indigenous-led, uh, recognized that the place of the church uh in reconciliation and the settler-led church has a significant uh, if not pivotal, role in right relationship. So it's critical, I think, for churches across the spectrum, both those who participated in the delivery of residential schools and those who didn't, but also benefit from the realities of uh the colonization and its legacy, that they wrestle with responsibility and uh developing relationships of accountability and healing uh with indigenous peoples. So theologically, uh the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was actually quite specific in its mandates to the church, saying in its calls to action 59 and 60 that the church has a significant responsibility to educate uh church leaders about the legacy of residential schools, and then also to wrestle with theological education that respects indigenity and indigenous spirituality as uh what's the what's the vocabulary, Sherry?
SPEAKER_00:In and of its own right, too.
SPEAKER_01:In and of its own right, that's that's right. So uh this process that we're engaging with in these in this partnership in Lilly 3 is to draw our communities together to recognize okay, in an indigenous appreciative inquiry process, each of us come together and wrestle with our stories, recognize the good gifts that are happening in belonging, inclusion, relationships, and leverage in those stories some practices that say to us as educators, okay, here's here's what's working well. How do we maximize that? And that's an exciting uh process, but it's also something where Sherry mentioned, we have to trust the process. Allow the stories to evolve and develop and change us as communities. And doing that in a national context like we are is critically important. But then recognizing also that these four institutions that are represented in this partnership have a responsibility to drive that out and nurture stories in in local worshiping and ministering communities, and then to draw those stories back to the institutional and national communities so that we're learning from this uh pulpoury of amazing stories of good things that are happening uh in in right relationship.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it would seem to me, I mean, Nate's is well positioned, and this project is well positioned, as you say, to be part of this the truth and reconciliation and the discussion about how you move a church and not only a church, but a country and and groups of people forward. Um Sherry, when all this was kind of designed and percolating, did you think you'd be in that kind of a role?
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, I don't ever think sometimes of my future and where I'm going to be. Um it's never been kind of my focus, uh, which might be part of who I am as an Indigenous woman, um, but to know where I've come from and how we've gotten to this point. And I think that's that's really critical um in this is you know, indigenous people have continually come and said we need to work on right relations. Um and with the church, we've continually come. And so this Center uh for decolonization and innovation, I think, is is critical, it's pivotal, um, and it has the potential to free not just indigenous people, but all those that are connected uh with the name of Jesus, to experience that freedom and to move from you know old ways and patterns which have held, I think, us captive even within the church. And to to move from those and to create something new that is respectful and that is centered in who God has created us to be.
SPEAKER_02:So tell me about the old ways, because I know sometimes when I hear these discussions, it's very much an us against them. And and one of the things I think when we've previously talked, what I hear is us, not us against them, it's it's people working together, facing the realities, facing the past, but trying to move forward together. Am I getting that right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, I would say, you know, one of the things I've often said is colonization has impacted us all, no matter what side we're on. And um the wounds of colonization impact us all differently. And I think there's a part where, you know, people are afraid of that word decolonization. Um you know, it can be very unsettling. Um and because they don't know what lies ahead. And I think because we don't know what the future looks like, um, you know, we there's this anxiousness, I think. But um decolonization, and that's part of this project, is we're gonna have to figure out the definition and what it means for us. And so I think that's exciting as we begin to, you know, really unwrap and put into um words, but also um meaning and and tangible expressions of what it means to decolonize within the church and to decolonize our faith and our theology and our practices, our mystiology. So all these things are impacted by that. Um, but I think as we begin to let go of some of those old patterns that we get stuck in, that God will bring such freedom and growth and and holistic expressions, I think, of what he wants his body to be in the world.
SPEAKER_02:How is do you think one of the interesting things to me about your project is you're looking at you know, from trauma and trauma-informed spiritual care. And then you're moving into decolonization. And in some ways it would seem to me you've got to do that almost in order. If you don't do the trauma-informed you really can't, it would it would seem you might I might you might be able to make the case that you could to do decolonization or the de the work of of what that looks like. Yeah, you have to be trauma informed.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I would say there, you know, even recognizing the trauma has existed, you know, and and for um many constituents in our churches, they're still learning the history, they're still learning the story of what has happened on this land. And I say This land, including the United States. You know, we reference Turtle Island, which is all of North America. And so recognizing the trauma that has happened and the wounds that have occurred as a result. And I think that's that's an important part of decolonization.
SPEAKER_01:Dear friend of mine who used to work with in a in a church reconciliation and advocacy context, the Saisi Dene, and she, when she first started working with us, went to her elders in the community and asked them, look, you know, I'm working with the settler church. What do I tell them about reconciliation? And the elders sat with her for quite some time, and ultimately what she received in that conversation was the hearts of settlers need to be broken in order for reconciliation to happen. And that breaking of the hearts is about being sensitive to these stories and histories and realities of intergenerational trauma and spiritual violence. That's you know well documented in the in the proceedings of the truth and reconciliation and indeed the Royal Commission before it. That process of coming to a broken hearts uh position, uh, I would call it a spiritual discipline of being unsettled. And in that unsettlement, uh particularly settler churches, in the case of Canada, I'm talking about white folks who've uh experienced uh the full benefits of colonization. Um I think the the conversation is different uh in diasporic communities who are also settlers but of a different character. Um so that legacy needs to be wrestled with in different ways. And that's part of uh the the Lily Three project, you know, recognizing that the path of decolonization and reconciliation is is a it's a church-wide conversation. Um I'll stop there.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you can't be reconciled until you realize there's a problem.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right? And and biblically, there has to be the recognition before there can be reconciliation. So so as I said, I see that as a as a huge uh potential for uh what you're working on in Canada, particularly in truth and reconciliation. Sherry, to your point, that's not just a Canada thing. So as we as we wrap up our time here, um, you know, Sherry, you've been with the project. Are there any lessons you're learning or things that you say, wish we'd known that before? Or things that you're pulling out of this pathways project that might help some other folks?
SPEAKER_00:That's a good question. I'm not sure we're quite at that stage to be able to analyze and assess that and say, hey, you know, this would have been helpful to know. Um in many ways, we're still um collaborating, still um setting some good foundation and framework um in both the projects. Uh I think one of the exciting pieces, and you know, there's always this might be one of the the things I look back and say, oh, I wish we had done it slightly differently. Um but I think the pulling together people and the the consultation process that we're engaging with so that it's not just from our perspective. And so um Chris Hocklotubby, who's um kind of overseeing the phase two, is a great networker and has really um drawn on some great indigenous scholars and academics uh and practitioners, both in the Canadian context um and the United States, and pulling them together and saying, okay, what um what do we bring together and how do we collaborate and work towards this? And what are some of the things that you've learned in your ministry and practice that we want to keep in mind? And so I think um, you know, it's a it's a growing process in that. Um and I get excited when I see that collaboration and those partnerships and that wisdom coming from especially our elders that have gone before. And so um, you know, we might say, oh, we could have done it slightly differently. Sure. Um, but I think it is a a good framework that we're working from in the beginning.
SPEAKER_02:So let me let me ask you one more question that rises in that. I think, you know, certainly in the United States, there's been for the last several years very difficult conversations, some of which just haven't been had about race and reconciliation from the past, uh, particularly with America's history with slavery. Canada's gone through this truth and reconciliation with the indigenous people. And and I think as we've talked about already, sometimes even when you bring the subject up, you can feel the defensive posture in people, right? You can it's like the temperature in the room rises. Um what would you say to a school that's trying to engage in some of these issues? How do you start that conversation or have that conversation? Would you have any advice for them?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, lots of things I can miss.
SPEAKER_02:Other than call you, which we'll put we'll put the Nate's website at intrust.org slash podcast. Yeah. But a couple of tips.
SPEAKER_00:So I think one of the the pieces I would say is don't try and do it alone. There are people that are good allies that have come alongside, but also the our elders. Um, we have so much wisdom from our elders. Our elders, you know, they in the Canadian context um had the concept of treaty relations, you know, um, wanting to set and frame right relations with one another. And how are we going to share this land together? And so I would say, you know, from learn from our elders, invite elders in, speak to them, sit with them, don't ask them a whole pile of questions, but provide opportunity for them to share. And as you do, listen to their wisdom and just receive. I mean, we get such gifts from our elders, but also, you know, uh find allies that are doing the work already. And um, you know, it's kind of a bit of a support group, maybe, but also what have you learned in that process, and what are some of the things that would be helpful? And um, you know, one of the pieces I do say is um sometimes in making the first steps, you will mess up. Um, don't let that stop you. You know, there might be correction that comes your way, you might um feel a bit sh gun chai after that, you know, and not want to make another step, but keep going. And as Indigenous people, I would say we tend to be very gracious. Uh we see your heart, and you know, if you keep um working at it and coming humbly and with respect, I think that's an important part. And we we might um help you along the way with a little bit of humor, we might tease you. Um so be prepared for that. But in that process, we do want right relations.
SPEAKER_02:When I think the term that you both used is right relations, is really where it comes when people want to have that, you know, in the other traditions they talk about people of goodwill.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Of being people of goodwill.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And there has been a shift, and we use that uh right relations versus reconciliation. And it's been part of our process because sometimes reconciliation has been seen as an event. You know, once it's done, that's it. Whereas right relations is a constant process and growing.
SPEAKER_02:And that's a great point. We're gonna end on that. Grateful for my guests from Nate. Sherry, thank you so much. And Mike, thank you for your time. Thank you, Matt.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for listening to the Intrust Center's Good Governance Podcast. For more information about this podcast, other episodes, and additional resources, visit intrust.org.