![Dr. Terry Leblanc – Indigenous Pathways [FREEDOM – JUSTICE – PRESENCE]](https://www.pentecostaltheology.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Dr-Terry-Leblanc--Indigenous-Pathways-FREEDOM--JUSTICE--PRESENCE.png)
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Terry LeBlanc “Spirit and Spirituality: New Old Perspectives.” Contextual Mission, Indigenous Context
Full MP3 recording: http://www.northcentral.edu/sermons/archive/arc..?page=53&theme=All&speaker=All&date%5Bmin%5D=&date%5Bmax%5D=&date%5Bdefault_date%5D=&date%5Bdefault_to_date%5D=
Reclaiming the Word (abstract): FOR GENERATIONS, Native North Americans and other Indigenous peoples have lived the false belief that a fulfilled relationship with their Creator through Jesus required rejecting their own culture and adopting another, European in origin. …. The result has subjected Indigenous people to deep-rooted self-doubt at best, self-hatred at worst.
…. Indigenous children were taken from their families, prevented from speaking their native languages, and subjected to various other forms of abuse. Isabelle Knockwood, a survivor of church-run residential schools, observed, “I thought about how many of my former schoolmates, like Leona, Hilda, and Maimie, had died premature deaths. I wondered how many were still alive and how they were doing, how well they were coping, and if they were still carrying the burden of the past on their shoulders like I was.”
Given the countless mission efforts over the past four centuries (which in practice were targeted not so much to spiritual transformation as to social and cultural annihilation), we might conclude that Indigenous people must possess a unique spiritual intransigence to the gospel.
But that would not tell the whole story.
The real tale is best told through a more careful examination of the many Indigenous people who, despite the tragic history of Christian mission in their lives and communities, still claim affinity to one tradition or another of the Christian church. ….. Christianity, as presented to us over the centuries, offered soul salvation, a ticket home to eternity, but was essentially unconcerned with the rest of our lives—lives that, history makes clear, were nonetheless fully exploited by those bringing the offer. It was with this in mind that, in 1999, the emerging controversy over Indigenous cultural and theological contextualization of the gospel provoked our small group of Indigenous Jesus-followers to respond. ….. Challenging this deep-seated Western ethnocentrism in theology and mission—at least among our own people—will encourage Native followers of Jesus to more effectively contribute to the wider community of Christian faith. This is necessary not only for ourselves, but also for the wider church. The mono-cultural and mono-philosophical foundations of most Christian faith in North America has had a negative, limiting effect for many decades, not only on theology but on missiology as well, often relegating the practice of faith to unhealthy patterns of self-absorbed individualism.
…. Shift One: Away from Dualism …. First, we have shifted away from the dualistic philosophical frames within which European and Euro-North American theology has been classically undertaken to a more holistic philosophical frame of reference. To Indigenous people, life is not easily captured in the simple binaries and either/or realities common within Western thought. Our philosophy is much more akin to the Hebraic “both/and.” Making this shift has resulted in active engagement with traditional Indigenous thinking and a more biblically faithful position. …. Compounded dualisms in classical Christian theology have also, from an Indigenous vantage point, created senseless divisions of reality into the sacred and profane, sacred and secular, natural and supernatural. Not everyone assumes life happens on two separated planes of existence, isolated from the rest of a supernatural creation by human-dictated delimitations. For most of us in the Indigenous world, everything expresses the sacred, for it all proceeds from God—regardless of the means of its creation. Not only is it fully sacred, but clearly, despite scientific discovery, it is still a significant mystery.
[Terry LeBlanc is Mi’kmaq/Acadian, a founder and chair of the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies (naiits.com), and adjunct faculty in Indigenous and intercultural studies for Tyndale Seminary in Toronto and Asbury Seminary in Kentucky.]
[01/18/2016 7:53 PM]
PART 2 to this article: http://www.pentecostaltheology.com/scientific-speach-patterns-in-speaking-in-tongues/
Anonymous
YES Neil Steven Lawrence Nelson Banuchi Philip Williams Peter Vandever
Anonymous
ANOTHER good one to explore as to the SPIRIT in native Americans
or with other words NATIVE Americans in the SPIRIT
Michael Ellis Carter Jr. William DeArteaga Dale M. Coulter Tony Richie
Anonymous
Terry’s argument is not thoughtful to the acoustic context. The GA worship service was held in a vacuous, sound-absorbent civic auditorium, as it was last year. I led that one. I sang in the choir this year. These situations cannot be compared to the type of resonant sanctuary Terry enjoys each week. GA congregational singing as well as the spoken word, is at the mercy of the sound system, without which, the type of singing Terry is advocating would be impossible to unify. He needs to sing with us in the choir sometime to see a couple of things. First, he’d have an appreciation for the fact that in this day when most PCA churches have abandoned choirs, the very best efforts under the circumstances are being pursued. Second, he’d experience that singing with 100 voices on the platform is one level up from singing in your closet with a sock in your mouth. Third, he’d see that there are literally just a few hours between the set up of the stage area, room, and media – and any opportunity for Presbytery leaders and musicians to figure out how to inspire the congregation and hold them together. I respect Terry and I believe he wrote the finest book on Reformed Worship in print. It is required reading in my Reformed Worship Theology classes. But he has made these arguments before and they make no practical musical sense for congregational singing, in the context of where GA is held. He would be much more of a help assisting those of us who have been tasked with trying to accomplish what he’s saying is the high bar of congregational singing, than coaching from the stands like a frustrated parent.
Anonymous
dont see many comment here John Mushenhouse Brett Dobbs Kyle Williams