We Grieve

The recent discovery of the remains of 215 indigenous children on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School and the knowledge that this will not be the last such gruesome disclosure has brought to light again the harmful and misguided policies and actions of the Indian Residential School System established and maintained by past Canadian Governments with the influence and involvement of several Church denominations.

With people of goodwill across Canada, the leaders and people of West Highland Baptist Church lament the loss of these human lives and the deep hurt this discovery causes all Indigenous people. Furthermore, we are haunted by the truth that one of the darkest episodes and government policies in Canada’s history involved people of faith who fervently believed they were doing the right thing for Indigenous people. 

In addition to the loss of precious human life, we also grieve that our Lord’s Great Commandment (Matthew 22:35-40) was violated and his Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) distorted in two inter-related ways that we can discern from our time and place in history. These are the damage to Indigenous cultures and the distortion of the church’s mission.

The Damage to Indigenous Cultures

Surely our Lord’s command to love our neighbours would never involve an attempt to stamp out a people’s culture – the very thing that makes them distinct, their language, their customs. Yet this was the stated goal of the Canadian Government, a goal which professing Christians and several Church denominations cooperated with and were complicit in. The man who oversaw the enforced expansion of the Indian Residential School System in the early 20th century said before a House of Commons Committee, without any objections from his hearers, “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question and no Indian department.”

To achieve this objective Indigenous children were separated, often forcibly, from their parents, families, and communities. They were forbidden to speak their languages to each other and to wear their traditional clothing. Instead of their cultures being celebrated there was a systematic attempt to purge the children from their cultural roots. In 2008, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledged the damage to Indigenous people and cultures when he said, “These objectives were based on the assumption that aboriginal culture … was inferior and unequal … Today we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, caused great harm, and has no place in our country.” During our church’s summer missions to Thessalon First Nation, some of our leaders heard first-hand from the Elders there of the trauma they endured and their harrowing experiences of escaping from governing authorities who came to take them as children from their families.

As those saved by Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us, we find the past cooperation of churches and professing Christians in this goal to eliminate Indigenous cultures a gross violation of Christ’s command to love our neighbours. As followers of Christ, we have a glorious vision of the future. We know that every person, culture, and nation has been touched and tainted by sin and the curse. There are things in every culture that do not glorify God. We can be sure that none of this will enter the new creation for “nothing impure will ever enter into it” (Revelation 21:27; 22:15). But in the Apostle John’s vision of the new creation, we are told that “the glory and honour of the nations” (Revelation 21:26; Isaiah 60:1-3, 9-13) will be preserved for the eternal order. Those things in the cultures of the world which authentically reflect the God of truth, all that is of abiding worth within the national stories and cultural inheritance of the world’s peoples, will find its place in the new creation. The Christian hope and vision of the future is not an eternal city where all peoples have been removed from their cultural distinctiveness and are assimilated into some kind of bland celestial sameness. Rather, we look for a city where “every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9) are together and where “the glory and honour of the nations” will be celebrated and enjoyed. For this reason, the involvement of churches in a system designed to damage and eventually eradicate cultures is objectionable and unconscionable.

A Distortion of the Church’s Mission

Furthermore, we believe that the government-initiated and church-supported Indian Residential School System was contrary to the stated purposes of Christ’s Great Commission – a distortion of the Church’s mission in the world.

Christ’s Great Commission is about making disciples of all nations; it is not about making disciples conform to the cultures of those who bring them the Gospel. Those who become disciples are not to be baptized into the norms of another more dominant culture but into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Paul makes it clear that baptism is identifying with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4); it is not about identifying with the culture of those who do the baptizing. Becoming a disciple and being baptized is not about coercing people to renounce their culture and identify with another one; it is about renouncing the world and the works of darkness and identifying with Jesus Christ. The Great Commission is about winning people to Christ and teaching them to live as salt and light in their own cultural context (Matthew 5:13-16).

The early church saw this clearly when the Apostles insisted that Gentile converts did not need to become Jews and follow Jewish customs (Acts 15:1-21). The Apostle Paul’s approach to mission was to be sensitive to the cultures he was trying to reach. Instead of trying to stamp out their cultures he willingly adopted their cultural norms without distorting the truth of the Gospel so that they might embrace the Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

We grieve that those church denominations that participated in the Indian Residential School System had lost sight of the purpose of the Great Commission. We recognize that many professing Christians took part in this program because they saw the general education of children as a commendable good work but they failed to see that they were cooperating in a program not of disciple-making or educational betterment but of culture destruction and eradication. We grieve that all of this has left a blight on the Church of Jesus Christ in Canada and caused many indigenous people to turn away from the message that Christ is the true and only Saviour of the world.

In this month set apart to recognize and celebrate National Indigenous History, we encourage our church family to further educate ourselves on the Indigenous peoples in Canada and to pray for a great spiritual awakening among them. We also laud all efforts on the part of our government and Church denominations involved in the Indian Residential School System of the past to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. To those who have been wronged and to those who have wronged others we encourage you to look to Jesus Christ who specializes in removing the dividing walls of hostility and brings peace and healing to those who draw near to him (Ephesians 2:14-18; Isaiah 61:1-3).

The Pastors and Elders of West Highland Baptist Church

June 2021