June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada, an opportunity to honour Indigenous peoples, listen to and learn from them, and renew our commitment to walk in truth and reconciliation.
For this episode of the podcast, we talk with Danny Zacharias and Chris Hoklotubbe, two Indigenous scholars and followers of Jesus who study theology from an Indigenous perspective. Danny is also one of the presenters at The Salvation Army’s INSPIRE Conference and Congress this month.
In this episode, Danny and Chris share some of their personal journeys, what it means to read the Bible from an Indigenous lens, and how we can take practical steps towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada, an opportunity to honour Indigenous peoples, listen to and learn from them, and renew our commitment to walk in truth and reconciliation.
For this episode of the podcast, we talk with Danny Zacharias and Chris Hoklotubbe, two Indigenous scholars and followers of Jesus who study theology from an Indigenous perspective. Danny is also one of the presenters at The Salvation Army’s INSPIRE Conference and Congress this month.
In this episode, Danny and Chris share some of their personal journeys, what it means to read the Bible from an Indigenous lens, and how we can take practical steps towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Kristin Ostensen
This is the Salvationist podcast. I’m Kristin Ostensen. June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada, an opportunity to honour Indigenous peoples, listen to and learn from them, and renew our commitment to walk in truth and reconciliation.
For this episode of the podcast, I had the privilege to sit down with Danny Zacharias and Chris Hoklotubbe, two Indigenous scholars and followers of Jesus who study theology from an Indigenous perspective. Danny is also one of the presenters at The Salvation Army’s INSPIRE Conference and Congress this month.
In this episode, Danny and Chris share some of their personal journeys, what it means to read the Bible from an Indigenous lens, and how we can take practical steps towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Danny and Chris, thank you so much for sharing your time and your knowledge with us.
Hi, Danny. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Salvationist podcast. It's wonderful to have you today.
Danny Zacharias
Great to be here. Thanks for inviting us.
Chris Hoklotubbe
Halito. Thank you for having us.
Kristin Ostensen
Just to get us started, can you tell us a bit about yourselves and your journey as an indigenous Christian?
Danny Zacharias
So I'm currently living in Mi’kma’ki, which is the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. I'm a professor at Acadia, but I'm originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba. So I grew up there all my life—that's Treaty 1 territory. But I have ancestors in Treaty 1, 2, 3 and 5. And so I say all of that in recognition that I've just learned a lot of these things because my Indigenous heritage was not really something that we talked about as a family. And that's due to the, you know, assimilationist policies of Canada that took many shapes and forms. And so, the way that it affected my family was through, you know, assimilation by removing of treaty rights. That happened kind of a couple generations back, as well as just discrimination. So that was especially prevalent in my, both from my grandmother's generation and then my mother's generation. And so, our Indigenous heritage wasn't really something that we talked a lot about until later years. And for myself, as an Indigenous follower of Jesus, it wasn't really something I had thought a lot about until kind of the past decade, 12 years or so, as I began to meet other Indigenous followers of Jesus that weren't Indigenous in skin tone only, but in all other instances were like every other Christian, but people like Terry LeBlanc and Cheryl Bear and Shari Russell and others who thought consciously about what it means to encounter Christ and to follow him as an Indigenous person, and how that is expected to look different. We should embrace our diversity as the wide peoples of God. So that's me, a little bit of it anyway. And I have a wife and four children and two cats. And I have been living in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, since 2003. So we've been here for 20 years. We're pretty much Nova Scotians now.
Kristin Ostensen
Honorary Nova Scotians.
Danny Zacharias
Yeah, that's right. All our children were born here. I am ordained with the Canadian Baptists, so the Baptists of Atlantic Canada. And I received my PhD a couple of years back, and I'm the professor of New Testament studies and the associate dean here at Acadia Divinity College.
Kristin Ostensen
Awesome. Thanks so much, Danny. And, Chris, how about you? Can you give us a little insight into yourself in your journey?
Chris Hoklotubbe
Yeah, I'm presently living in ancestral territory of the Báxoje, or the Ioway people, as well as land that was ancestral territory to the Sioux and the Meskwaki. I'm coming from Iowa, in the States. And I presently am an assistant professor of classics at Cornell College. My background and training is in New Testament and early Christian studies. And I've written on the pastoral epistles in early Christianity, as well as works by myself and now presently co-authoring with Danny here on Indigenous interpretations of the Bible. I'm a member of the Choctaw Nation down in Oklahoma. Originally, though, I'm from Southern California. And my story really lines up with Danny’s, so I won't repeat actually a whole lot because our journeys are very similar in so far that I grew up in a family—you know, although my dad was intentional about helping us to appreciate our Indigenous Choctaw background, we didn't grow up in an Indigenous community. It was a suburb of Southern California. There are a number of Choctaws in Southern California, and some of that was because of the Dust Bowl and other migratory pressures of go from Oklahoma to the west. But largely, we weren't in a community, and so much about one's Indigenous identity, I think, is about participating in a community, being connected with those, and learning and observing from your elders and others. So, my own process into this was largely due to an invitation to write on Indigenous interpretations of the Bible. And this would be something that I had been curious about, had sought to actually do a little bit in my general examinations as a doctoral student—there just wasn't a lot there on it. And so that put a real itch in me to continue to pursue that. And as I was working on this project, I thought the way I need to do this is in community and in conversation with others who are working on, you know, Indigenous theology. And that's how I came about finding NAIITS. And it was through Casey Church that I got connected to Terry LeBlanc. And this has been a long process for me of thinking about what it means to be Indigenous and Christian over these past few years. And it's just been a real pleasure to write and work and think alongside Danny and within the NAIITS community, as I think about that tightrope, or that really beautiful invitation to take seriously the dignity and the beauty of my Indigenous heritage, and thinking alongside of that as a full participant discussion partner with Christianity and my Christian church mission and heritage I come from. Especially this is poignant, as I am a father of two daughters, Claire and Emily, they're young, with my wife, Stephanie. You know, so much of one's culture, one's family, you know, what do you do as a family really comes up as you're raising children, right? And so now I'm having to make decisions of what am I taking my children to? Are we going to local powwows? Are we going to teach them how to be, right? How am I going to make and materialize our Choctaw heritage in a meaningful way for my daughters?
Kristin Ostensen
Yeah, that's very interesting. Who we are affects everything we do, right? And all the more so perhaps, when you're a scholar. And you've talked a little bit about some of your academic specialties, but maybe you can take turns just giving us a quick overview of what you study and teach at your respective colleges?
Chris Hoklotubbe
I forgot to mention, I'm also the director of graduate studies for NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, for which Danny and I are both a part of, and a community that has some very well-respected Salvation Army representation—probably why we're here.
Kristin Ostensen
Including our own Shari Russell, Major Shari Russell.
Chris Hoklotubbe
Shari Russell, who's probably rolling her eyes right now, why I didn't lead with me being the director of graduate studies. And so my apologies, Shari. But we will be talking a lot about NAIITS this podcast. But Danny, I'm going to throw the ball back to you to talk about your work.
Danny Zacharias
My PhD is in New Testament studies, and so my area of research for dissertation and ongoing has been the Gospel of Matthew, has been my one of my primary areas. I also have done some writing and other publications just in terms of learning Greek. And then I also engage more recently with eco-theology, readings of Scripture from ecological lens, as well as, obviously, just the hermeneutics of reading the text from your own social location—in this case, from Indigenous perspective. So those are some of the areas that I that I teach in, and some of my areas of expertise.
Kristin Ostensen
Wonderful. And that's something I wanted to get into with both of you because I know that you are doing work on Indigenous hermeneutics and approaching theology and the Bible as an Indigenous person. So, I'm wondering if you can talk us through what that is exactly. What does it mean to approach theology as an Indigenous person? What are Indigenous hermeneutics?
Danny Zacharias
Well, just to start off with, you know, what does it mean? So, you know, what does it mean that I, you know, my maternal heritage is Cree and Anishinaabe. So, what does that mean? is really the same question that everyone should be asking, you know, because we all bring ourselves to the engagement with the Scripture. And when we think that we don't, really is when we can stumble, and is when we can assume that we have the right and authoritative interpretation of a text and this results in all sorts of bad postures towards others who may have differing opinions as they encounter the text. And so, first and foremost, it's really just recognizing who you are as a follower, and how you are engaging the texts. And so, this is true of every single person. And again, so for me, then, in the context of being someone with Indigenous heritage and approaching the Scripture and theology, is rooting myself firmly in my social location. And that involves a lot of things for everyone. For me, it is both my heritage, which is in the middle of Turtle Island, in Winnipeg, as well as saying, what's the importance of how I root myself here, as a guest in lands from different people? And it's also, again, the Indigeneity part of belonging to the wider community of creation, recognizing it's not humans above the rest of creation, but rather, we are within creation. What are those things, then, once we once we establish all of those, and we keep those in our mind, when we approach theology and the Bible, what does that illuminate? Because very often, we have been taught in church or in seminary, we've been taught to try and recognize all of those things so that you can put them aside and then encounter the text without all of these preconceived notions or pre-understandings or whatever it might be, as if anyone can actually do that. But so, we've held up this ideal that no one can actually hold to, nor are we called to hold to it. And so, it's instead just realizing that we bring ourselves to a text with all of our histories, the education that's been brought to us, our traumas, our joys—all of those things, we bring to the text. So, in my particular case, what I bring to the text is a particular heritage. And those are good things, just like your heritage is good. And so, what are those assets that then we bring to the text as we encounter the text, as we think through theology from our particular social location. And so that's a little bit of, when we talk about approaching theology and Bible as Indigenous people, it's recognizing that we all encounter the text and we all think of theology through our particular lenses. What do you want to add to that, Chris?
Chris Hoklotubbe
To that points, our identities shape the questions that we bring to the text. And as a New Testament scholar, right, most New Testament scholars are, as we, as they take their class on the historical Jesus, we're always, you know, introduced the story of Albert Schweitzer, who in the early 1900s is writing on the quest for the historical Jesus—maybe even late 1800s, but just at that turning point. And he's looking at the scope of decades of work of scholars who have written on the historical Jesus. And he compares writing the historical Jesus of looking down into a dark well and seeing a reflection of yourself. So, surprise, surprise—Jesus looks like a French Marxist when it's written by a French Marxist scholar. And Jesus looks like a German Lutheran when he's written by a German Lutheran. And so, at that point, he says, you know, I'm going to give you my point of view; you can argue with it, but I'm actually going to go do more important work in Africa and becomes a missionary working at hospitals and as a doctor pretty much down there. So, this is not a new observation to the world of biblical studies that are questions or identities shape what we see and who we see, not just when we look at Jesus, but we when we look at Paul, when we look at the stories of the Hebrew Bible. And so, one of the works that I have been working on in my writing has been, what do we see in the text, what we notice in the text, when we bring Indigenous concerns and stories at hand and asking these questions, right? And this is the work that feminist scholars did, right? Feminist scholars owning their, you know, identities, said, where are women in the text? What are women doing? How would a woman hear this text? And so, in a similar move, right, for Indigenous people who are familiar with smudging—where are phenomenon of smudging happening in the Hebrew Bible, right? And we noticed, Oh man, incense is all over the place here, and you trace out how Jewish people in the rabbinic texts and Talmud are making sense of smudging, the explanations that they give look a lot like the kinds of explanations that Indigenous people are giving for what smudging does. And this is just one example of many of that, your identity shapes the questions that you look for in the text—where you put the spotlights on the various characters and objects and persons, who you even consider as persons, as Danny noted, right? If you consider animals as non-human persons, you might think a little bit more about their agency and their place within these stories, and the significance of that. That said, also, right, we may think when we go to the text, that we're going in with his kind of blank slate, and we just want what the text says. But the texts are full of stories. And these stories are lacking a lot of details in terms of motivations, and where you should give your attention to, and then what the meaning of that is at the end, right. And we kind of impose all of this into it. And so, what happens when you read a story with different frameworks and different models of human motivations or stakes or concerns? Stories turn out differently, and in a multiplicity of beautiful ways. And so, I think the work that we're doing—and I would say the best work I've seen in African American interpretations of the Bible, womanist interpretations, Bible, Latinx interpretations of the Bible—is this poetic work of juxtaposing texts from our ancestral traditions of our heritage alongside—and stories and experiences—alongside of the biblical ancestral tradition. And when you hold these stories up together, you can't look at them the same way; you put them in dialogue, and you see new things and you appreciate new things. I think of James Cone’s work, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” from the African American tradition, in ways of: Why aren’t white theologians thinking about and noticing the low-hanging fruit of all the similarities that exist and abound between the American experience of lynching and what the Romans did to Jesus? And it's beautiful, and it's powerful. And so, kind of in that vein, I just recently worked on a piece thinking about the Babylonian exile, and that move away from the land, in conversation with experiences of the Trail of Tears. And for my Choctaw people, right, who were moved originally from Mississippi, going into Oklahoma and doing that research—you know, I’d known the story, but man, I did not know the gravity of details and the trauma and the chaos that was imposed upon the Choctaw people from the US government in the terrible relocation, the forced removal of the Choctaw and many other tribes, including the Cherokee, Muskogee Creek, the Seminoles and others, and all the broken trees along the way. So, you know, when we bring our stories, it becomes an opportunity, you know, to make these better known, because pastors are always making decisions of what stories they’re going to share on the pulpit. And those are always informed by what they think is important, and what they think is important is shaped by their experiences. And you know, what I like to say, their “spider sense,” right, to use a little pop culture analogy.
Kristin Ostensen
That is so fascinating. And I really appreciate the concrete examples you gave—the smudging and the Trail of Tears, and how that ties into the experience of exile. Because I think you're absolutely right. You know, for myself, as a non-Indigenous person, I didn't make the connection between something like incense and smudging. But once you see it, you see it. And how beautiful is that, that there is this harmony between the different approaches or experiences? And Danny, I don't know if you have any examples from your work as well, that come to mind of this kind of thing, where whether it's a story or asking a certain question, actually illuminates the Scriptures in a totally different way.
Danny Zacharias
Chris has said it well already that it's about bringing different questions, a different set of questions. And it's not like the questions have never been thought of—maybe they have been in, in disparate places, but it's kind of brought together. And that's really what, when we talk about Indigenous hermeneutics—like the work that Chris and I are doing together, both in essay forms, as well as eventually in book form—that's really what it's about is saying, these are some persistent questions that would arise from shared Indigenous worldviews, as it were, that then as we come to the text, with those sets of questions and this kind of framework, then you read the text in that light. And so I've recently done some commentary work, for instance, on Matthew, and kind of asking these types of questions, going into the text and then asking those types of questions and saying, What is it that we see here that, from an Indigenous perspective, again, aligns with the ways that we have thought about spirituality or relationship with Creator? And a great scholar that I can point to that we both mutually admire, Steve Charleston, who's done really good work on, again, reading the texts from Indigenous lens—so I'm shamelessly stealing from him—but a book that he's looked at is looking at what he calls the vision quests of Jesus. And so, we think about Jesus going out into the wilderness as a time of temptation, and he frames it in terms of a vision quest. And so, what does that mean to read it in that lens? That Jesus is out amongst creation, it's only him and Creator, and it's right after that, that Jesus then steps out and starts his ministry. Jesus doesn't really do anything in Matthew, as it were, concretely in terms of ministry until after that.
Kristin Ostensen
And, Danny, you're going to be giving a workshop at the INSPIRE Conference and Congress, where you'll be talking about how decolonizing Scripture can transform how we share the love of Jesus. I'm wondering, can you unpack that a bit for us? What does it actually mean to decolonize Scripture?
Danny Zacharias
Yeah, there's quite a few components to it. Maybe if I could just use one example or an illustration: I think decolonizing is a process of, if you can imagine a meeting in a boardroom and there's a stand at the end of the table, like a preacher’s stand as it were, and one person is controlling that particular stand, and they're there most of the time, doing most of the talking. And if anyone takes the place of that person to speak for a time, it's under the control of that person. And that's quite often how discussions in theology and Scripture have gone, is that the person in prime control in the main speaking space has been Western European Christians. And so, theology is theology if it's done from a white European, but it's African theology if it's done by a Black person; it's Indigenous theology. So everything else gets an adjective, except for the “true” theology, which is done by the white Western. And so, we need to start thinking about, talking about it, like Western theology, or European theology. Every theology has an adjective, whether or not you've assigned the adjective to it or not. And that's true of our interpretations of texts, of hermeneutics. And so decolonizing, again, with this illustration that I hopefully painted in a decent light, is removing that idea of a particular speaker stand, and removing the person who is in control of the conversation and saying, Let's all be in conversation equally around a table together so that no one perspective is valued over another, but rather, we appreciate and hear from one another and value one another, given the perspectives that we bring, and the contexts that we're in as we approach Scripture and then try to live it out. So that's at least one aspect of decolonization. And so hopefully, any person, regardless of your ethnicity, can see the value in hearing from the global church in their particular context, in their ethnic spaces, in their geographic spaces, what that brings. So regardless of whether you're an Indigenous person or a settler, we can all be built up by hearing from the diversity within the body of Christ. What would you add to that, Chris?
Chris Hoklotubbe
You know, when I think about decolonizing, I want to clarify that it's not this project to get back to some nostalgic pre-contact culture, because that in and of itself is an impossibility. But also, you know, cultures aren't static things. And I think, in particular from a Choctaw context, right, there's ways in which we are so removed from the Mississippi Choctaw culture, right, and in some of those life ways. And in so many people, especially living in urban centres, who are Indigenous, right, in their process to revitalize their Indigenous life ways, have participated in kind of a broad pan-Indigenous culture that really is coming from the 1960s and ‘70s, in the US context. And so, the quest to kind of go back to something that is so far past and removed, right, it's not really the goal when we say “decolonize,” right. But it is, nonetheless, to bring forward some of these values that in some sense have withstood the test of time here in Indigenous community. There are, you know, as distinct and plural as there are with Indigenous cultures, there are a lot of similarities. And one of the similarities, which Danny has emphasized, right, is this community-ism—this is a phrase that I pull from George Tinker. That it's not communitarianism or communism, right, but it's community-ism, right, that tries to resist this hierarchy where we privilege, you know, people's status one over the other. I mean, there are certain statuses that we respect like our elders and such. But we recognize that it's a value, not just what we get done, but the process by which we get things done, and that relationships are respected and community is built up in that—the process is really central. And so that image that Danny set up of moving the lectern, right, and creating space for everyone to have this kind of buy-in, is reshaping how we do things along, toward kind of this broad Indigenous pathway. And so, there's a lot of power to the word decolonization. I just I don't want people to dismiss that idea by doing what they perceive to be the easy dunking on it, like, “Oh, well, it's impossible. How are you going to get to some static Indigenous tradition that's like 200, 400 years removed? Are you not going to use your computer anymore as decolonize?” And no, no, no, that's not what's being asked here?
Kristin Ostensen
No, no, I appreciate that.
Danny Zacharias
Yeah, because colonization has affected everyone. Obviously, it was targeting particular people. But when I think about the, again, the global body of Christ, colonization has been to the detriment of all people. And there's, in the decolonizing space, in doing that work, it's meant to liberate all of us from this type of perspective of, you know, hegemony and control. And so again, in that sense, it's both for Indigenous people, but it's for the wider body of Christ.
Kristin Ostensen
Yeah, I really appreciate that point because I imagine that with all of us coming from our own different contexts, decolonization probably looks a little bit different for everybody, and for, you know, both on an individual level and on the communal level. And I wonder if you have any thoughts around that? Around how decolonization can work for both Indigenous folks and settlers, too?
Danny Zacharias
One thing I think about is thinking through my theological education. So I did an undergrad in biblical studies, I did a master of divinity and a master of arts and did a PhD. And so, in those first three degrees, which were all, you know, course-based, I can only think of one or two non-white, non-European readings that were required readings. And so that was, you know, that is changing a lot now, in many spaces, not in every space, but in many seminaries and theological education. And I think that's a good practical example. It's obviously not necessarily enough, but it's certainly a really good start, where you are exposed to different ways of encountering God, theology, Scripture; different ways of being, of practising your discipleship; of different ways that the church can gather and worship. And so those are, I think, small examples of where we've seen a decolonizing spirit take root within theological education. And it's a good first step. And then the question is, well, what conversations come out of that? Because the challenge is, because we come with a Western kind of trained mindset, quite often, we still want to think in hierarchies. And so the challenge is not to say, OK, you've read an African American interpretation of this text, you've read a Korean interpretation of text, and you've read a European interpretation of this text. Now, tell me which one is best. Right? So, we still want to put them in a hierarchy, instead of saying, what's the value that is expressed in these? How does this well display who they are as people as they then encounter God or the Scripture? And so, we still have work to do. But it begins, I think, with just starting to expose ourselves to those many and varied voices. And again, going back to the illustration, I'm very mindful that in NAIITS Indigenous Learning Community, that the founders of that group, they were doing that hard work of fighting just to get a seat at the table for this conversation in the first place, and this that was a long battle, and sometimes they weren't welcomed in, in certain places; sometimes they were. And Chris and I really are in a place that we're enjoying the fruits of their labour. So, we're invited to a podcast, instead of asking, Can you interview us, please? You know, can we get a seat at the table? Rather, we're being invited now. And so, I'm very mindful that really hard work was done within Indigenous spaces in the church that we're benefiting from.
Kristin Ostensen
And as you mentioned, you work together at NAIITS and you've currently got a research project going together. Can you tell us a little bit about that project? And what's the purpose of the project? And what's the process you're going through right now?
Chris Hoklotubbe
So, the book is tentatively titled “Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: North American Indigenous Interpretations of the Bible.” So, the book really came from, you know, conversations Danny and I were having—we realized we were both writing on similar things—and feeling that there was this real gap in scholarship, a gap in literature of a work that was explicitly focused on Indigenous interpretations of the Bible that were written for a lay audience. In some ways, we are both really appreciative of the work of Esau McCaulley, “Reading the Bible While Black,” which has done a wonderful job of thinking about African American interpretations of the Bible in an accessible way. And we just thought. Man, there needs to be something like this for the Indigenous community. And so, we actually are writing this book, you know, in partnership with the same publisher, InterVarsity Press, because that's our targeted audience, are college students and lay ministers. And the past two years, with funding from the Louisville Institute, Danny and I have been travelling across Canada and the United States, and doing phone conversations over Zoom, meeting with Indigenous ministers and lay leaders, hearing their stories, because we didn't want to be presumptuous and be like, Well, we've got doctorates in the Bible; we know what interpretations of the Bible are. And part of our argument is that Indigenous people have been doing this all the time; they just haven't been invited to the table to just share these stories. And, because, again, there's so many different tribes and so many different experiences. Danny and I wanted to make sure that the stories we told and the perspectives we told were informed by relationships with a number of people across different territories. And also, we thought it was really important for us just to be in different spaces, precisely because it's an Indigenous value, right? That one's identity is shaped by the space that you occupy, the long relationship that you have with lands and with, you know, mountains and rivers. And so, it's been part of our concern to go to different, meet people in their spaces and in their places, and to come alongside as appreciative admirers and guests to these lands across the southern United States and Canadian territory. It's not going to be exhaustive. This is not going to be the singular work on it. And there's going to be a lot of gaps. I'm already undercutting us, the work we’re doing. [laughs] So, I wanted to be humble on this, because you can always say, Well, did you make it up to Alaska? Did you make it up here, right? And so we want to be humble in the approach we're going at. But there needs to be something. And we hope that, through our work, that this will invite more Indigenous interpretations of the Bible, and more accessible treatments of this subject.
Kristin Ostensen
Yeah, that sounds so fascinating. Is there anything that has really stood out to you so far? Any interesting stories or learnings that you could share with us?
Danny Zacharias
I was really struck, as I've done some interviews, regardless of theological kind of space that people occupy—so, again, using the often unhelpful spectrum of “liberal versus conservative”—but, you know, I've talked to people in that kind of range, and I've been struck how often the idea of vision or dream has played into people's discipleship and following Jesus—and that would be regardless of theological space. And so, you know, certain denominations would emphasize those; others would more not. And I found that, you know, I just think that's an example of, even those who may not have fully leaned into their Indigenous heritage still have, as it were, this blood memory of how Creator reveals Creator’s self through vision, through dream, through spiritual encounters in different ways. So that'd be one that I found very interesting. And Chris can add to that, in terms of the New Testament, because I know he's, we've been doing work on that. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Chris Hoklotubbe
Yeah. As a New Testament scholar, when I think about Paul, I can't help but recall images of Paul poring over books, right. Of course, books is anachronistic. But these are the, you know, the Middle Age pictures that we get of Paul, right. Or the more recent depictions—if you see Paul, it's Paul poring over a book because he's going through, you can imagine in these pictures, he's going through Romans, right; he's figuring out his argument for how Gentiles are included in the people of God, without having to be circumcised, and he's going and poring through the Hebrew Scriptures. And the roots of my conversations with people, talking about the importance of dreams and visions—that just reshaped how I came to some of these stories and realized, Oh, gosh, if you go and actually look at how Paul talks about how he received his gospel, and how he's justifying why he thinks that Gentiles don't have to be circumcised, he's constantly telling you that, like, I didn't get this from like James or John or anyone else—I got this from Jesus, from a dream, from a vision. And I find this so funny. This is such, again, low-hanging fruit. He's like yelling at us, telling us that he got this from a dream and a visionary experience of Jesus in Galatians. And he talks about his visionary experience in Second Corinthians. And, you know, scholars in the New Testament have pored over Paul's use of Scripture to figure out, is there some kind of hermeneutic, or methodological framework or steps that he takes to arrive at his brilliant theology? And what they discovered is, he's all over the place. He's using allegories, he's using texts that are out of context, that no biblical scholar would be justified doing, right. If you actually take seriously his hermeneutics, it would make many evangelicals deeply uncomfortable. And this is the argument of Richard Hays. And I would say that, Well, yeah, he's all over the place, because I would argue that Paul is actually much more similar to a Lakota as visionary or a medicine man in receiving divine communication through visions and dreams, and then going back to the Hebrew Scripture to try to figure out how the Scripture makes sense of his dreams, and what Scriptures he should be pulling out in providing new significance toward, that he wouldn't have apart from his dreams. And again, you look at the story of the Hebrew Bible—story after story, it's not the patriarchs, poring over oral tradition, or poring over a text and being like, How's God communicated with us? It's, over and over, it’s Daniel receiving a vision, Jacob receiving a vision, Daniel receiving a vision. It’s dream and vision, dream and vision is one of the primary ways in which the God of Israel has connected and revealed God's self to his people throughout the stories of the revival, and yet that makes us uncomfortable. And I would say this is because of a Western colonial Weitzman sense where, you know, Christians post-Enlightenment felt that they had to have rational arguments to defend and justify the Christian faith. And it's easier to do so if you emphasize and overemphasize the way in which you are a logical, bookish people, because books have this kind of Western rationality and authority to them, versus the slippery slope of visions and dreams. That sounds primitive, that sounds: anyone can have a dream and a vision and how do you distinguish someone saying something that's kind of, you know, off the wall and someone who actually has a legitimate divine vision? And you know what? That's a slippery slope that the Christian tradition has existed and has always existed in, that the Hebrew Bible has existed in. And so, I think that actually coming to the text from the Indigenous perspective actually helps us solve some issues for us, or even enriches our imagination of the dynamics. And this is why I would argue is that the Hebrew people, and even people in Paul's era, are much more akin culturally to a number of Indigenous cultures and tribes than any 21st-century person living in Canada and the United States from a Western perspective. And then my last little note on this is that scholars actually have been doing Indigenous interpretations in the Bible for a long time. They just haven't recognized it. They call it socio-rhetorical interpretation or sociological interpretations. Because there's this movement of, Well, gosh, we have to understand the culture of the Hebrew people and the Israelites and the people of Jesus' time. Well, we need to understand how other Mediterranean cultures and Indigenous cultures live their lives and have values of kinship and honour, shame, right? So they're going to a lot of Indigenous communities to appreciate and learn about these cultures. And then bringing that back to say, Oh, this helps us understand the dynamics of what's going on with honour, shame with Jesus, or kinship. That's a really big deal when Jesus says, Who are my mother and brothers, right? That's a huge challenge to the kinship network. Well, those observations are coming from Indigenous people oftentimes, and it just gets erased, kind of, or sterilized in academic-ese, right. So part of what we're doing, too, I think, is kind of repainting observation traditions that have already been said in the biblical studies and actually saying, Oh, no, we've been contributing for a whole lot; we just haven't been recognized for that.
Kristin Ostensen
Well, it sounds like such a fascinating project. And switching gears a little bit: Back in 2016, The Salvation Army was part of an ecumenical response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission here in Canada, agreeing to begin the difficult work of seeking truth and walking in reconciliation. And, Danny, I know your denomination, the Baptists, have been a part of that response. And I'm wondering if you can talk about some of the steps your denomination has taken and how you've been involved in that work?
Danny Zacharias
Yeah, it's, in some sense, a little bit difficult to talk about how our denomination as a whole has done it because Baptists are kind of a bottom-up denomination. And also, the word “Baptist” captures a whole bunch of churches. So there are Baptists in Canada that aren't in my particular sphere of Baptists. So it's all terribly confusing. But the denomination that I belong to, we're connected throughout Canada with our missionary arm, which is Canadian Baptist Ministries. And so Canadian Baptist Ministries, I would say, did the good work of helping the denominations in the West, in central Canada, and then in Atlantic Canada, to begin to have those conversations. And Terry Smith, who was the executive director at the time, offered an apology. And since then, on my side of Canada, we not only endorse but you know, said, We stand with this. We moved a resolution within our denomination. And the big thing that I've been working on in the best way I'm able to in my denomination is just in the area of education and understanding. So, there's a free course that is run through our denomination’s website that's been curated by a group that I helped lead. And within the rest of Canada—or sorry, first here, too—we had some kind of mandates for education in terms of not only calling particular leaders and encouraging lay people in the churches to do that particular course, but also facilitating the Kairos blanket exercise at several large gatherings. And then just often fielding questions, being willing to speak particular churches or gatherings, helping people not only to learn about it, but also then say, what are the steps for beginning to build relationships within your particular area? In Atlantic Canada, in central Canada, they've done they had done a lot of, again, intentional gatherings around truth and reconciliation for education. So, I kind of started at the policy level on my side of Canada. In central Canada, they had done gatherings and conferences for a number of years that were very fruitful.
Kristin Ostensen
Very interesting. And, of course, we've talked about reconciliation on a sort of institutional or corporate level. But on an individual level, how do you see us moving forward with reconciliation in tangible ways? And what lessons about reconciliation can we draw from the Bible?
Danny Zacharias
I think there's probably endless lessons about reconciliation that we can draw from the Bible. I mean, the story is one of reconciliation, because reconciliation is about restored relationships. And that's what we see right from the outset, right till the end pages of Scripture. I would say maybe, in our particular context, and I think of our particular global moment, reconciliation with the land and environment is an important component that we neglect to our peril in the Scriptures. And very often the Scripture’s been used to justify the objectified use of land and resources, rather than reading it in a relational context. And so, I do think we need to be reconciled in that way. So, that's one thing I would suggest from the Scriptures. How we can move forward in reconciliation in tangible ways? Again, I mean, we sound like a broken record, maybe, but it really is, again, about relationships. And sometimes that is relationship with your own history. Quite often settlers can feel attacked or feel like they're being made to blame for past injustices. But it's really about recognizing the relationship you have with your past history. Everyone, you know, countries that are colonized countries, with histories of slavery and all those things, those have all, you know, those have all been built upon unjust practices, and to not recognize our part in that and to not recognize how we have benefited from that, as settlers—I just think that signals this lack of relationship with your own history as an individual, as a member of a family, as a member of a community, a country. And so, people need to reconcile with themselves in that way, and reconcile with their own hearts and minds, wondering, you know, I often wonder and have to remind myself to be calm and patient when I encounter people who so strongly react to this idea that they may have a part to play in truth and reconciliation, because, you know, they didn't steal the land, they weren't the ones that were on the boats that came—all that kind of stuff—without recognizing that everything is connected, everything is interconnected. And you're interconnected with your past history, and you've benefited from it. And so, there's tangible ways that people can do the individual work in and of themselves, both to reconcile with that. But also, just the work of educating yourself on these things, because I remember in Grade probably 7 or 8, in social studies class, the two pages on the indigenous peoples of Canada, with the rest of it focused on Christopher Columbus, and Cabot and others, right. And so, you just were not taught, because you weren't meant to know. These were skeletons in the Canadian closet. But these things have been brought to light, and many people have been speaking them for a long time. And so a tangible way is just doing the hard work of educating oneself, and, hopefully, educating your community towards the so that you, again, can face those things in which you have benefited. Because we all benefit from different things in different ways, no matter who you are. And so those are some, I think, tangible ways that we can reconcile. And there's these bigger movements as well, like Chris and I have indicated. What are your churches doing? It is likely that in your denomination, there is a group—even the most conservative group often has these small cadres of people that are thinking about this, but often doing so in a very lonely place because they're fighting against the majority, or trying to hear their voices. And so maybe it means joining that. And if you're in particular dominations, it's a lot more prevalent, and that's great. And again, it's about joining that, too.
Kristin Ostensen
Thanks, Danny. What about you, Chris, do you have any thoughts on this question?
Chris Hoklotubbe
Yeah, I second everything that Danny said. And if I were to lead off, I would emphasize relationships, right. Because what reconciliation and relationships look like, for any individual person, it's going to be space-based, right. Who are you by? Who is your neighbour, right? And it's not enough or even that meaningful—I mean, money helps, but again, at the heart of it, what is money about it? From an Indigenous perspective, it's about forming relationships to new networks of friendships and support and care, and helping kind of the flourishing of all our relationships. You know, that said—and this is one last little biblical story that I pulled from Ched Myers, who has been allied to Indigenous causes. You know, he talks about the story of the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and saying, Look, here's all the things I've done. What else do I have to do? And Jesus says, Well, you know, have you done all the commandments? He’s like, yes, I've done everything. And Jesus says, Well, why don't you sell your property and your possessions and give it to the poor? And then you could come follow me. And he's really sad. Well, we know Ched Myers looks at this and says, What would it have looked like for this person to sell his property? What was Jesus talking about in the ancient Galilean imagination? And, largely, the economy of those who are wealthy was based on land—land that these rich rulers and rich people had accumulated because of usury, of not-great banking deals, right; taking land from poor farmers and accumulating it, right. And in some sense, Jesus is asking for #LandBack, right? And so, we actually have this biblical principle of Jesus saying, Why don't you give back the land to the people in a useful way? And a number of churches have been doing this, and thinking about their church spaces that are no longer occupied because church populations have gone down, right. What do I do with this church building? Who could make use of this church property? And so, you know, some church nominations have said, Well, let's give this land back to the Indigenous people so they can reforest it and perform ceremonies there. These are all beautiful demonstrations that, at the heart of it, at the very stage one of it, is about building relationships to even begin with those local Indigenous communities. I will also say that one practical way is to invest in institution building. Right now, there are a number of Indigenous groups or cadres that are trying to build out institutions of theological education to kind of advance Indigenous Christian flourishing. One of the ways, Salvation Army already does this, right. Salvation Army supports the work of our director, Shari Russell, which is just amazing. And NAIITS’ work cannot be NAIITS without the generosity and support of The Salvation Army. So I want to throw out that plug in thankfulness.
Kristin Ostensen
Well, I just want to say thank you so much to both of you for coming on the podcast today and sharing your perspectives. I feel like I've learned so much from you. And I've just really enjoyed talking to you and meeting you as well. And Danny, we're really looking forward to seeing you at INSPIRE later this month.
Danny Zacharias
Yeah, looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I'll be on video, but I'll make sure that I'm I got my makeup on for video and all that stuff, and my mic is working. But yeah, looking forward to being with you.
Kristin Ostensen
Thank you so much.
Chris Hoklotubbe
Blessings. Take care.
Kristin Ostensen
Thanks for joining us for another season of the Salvationist podcast. We’ll be taking a break for the summer, but will be back soon. In the meantime, you can catch up on past episodes at Salvationist.ca/Podcast.