{"id":13007,"date":"2022-07-28T15:14:23","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T21:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13007"},"modified":"2022-07-28T15:19:23","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T21:19:23","slug":"oglala-sioux-at-pine-ridge-turn-against-missionary-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13007","title":{"rendered":"Oglala Sioux at Pine Ridge Turn against Missionary Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Some interesting things are happening in South Dakota, First, on July 22, 2022 the Oglala SIoux Tribal Council (Pine Ridge) demanded that the Jesus is King Mission leave the Pine Ridge Reservation in the southwestern part of the state.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis week the Jesus is King Missionary was found distributing material that literally demonizes the Lakota Culture and Faith,\u201d said the Oglala Sioux Tribe in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThis is unacceptable and completely disrespectful. It is the view of the President and Council that these \u2018pamphlets\u2019 seek to promote Hate instead of Peace. Hate has no place on Oglala land.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not a new issue, as a 2019 news story about Pine Ridge reports.<\/a><\/p>\n

[Anti-missioniary activist Davidica Little] Spotted Horse and others who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals from church supporters described incidents of aggressive proselytizing and demeaning treatment of Lakota spirituality and language, baptizing children without parental permission, use of humiliating poverty porn to fundraise, and of forwarding a colonial agenda that privileges non-Native values and goals. Some members have made allegations of sexual abuse and financial misdeeds and point to the failure of most organizations to conduct background searches for their workers and volunteers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another report on Twitter today (July 28th) said<\/a> that “\u201cthe Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has officially suspended all activity of every single church missionary on the reservation until all employees\/volunteers can pass a background check [and provide full financial transparency].” Outside religious groups were also forbidden to use such phrases as “Oglala Sioux Tribe” and “Pine Ridge Indian Reservation” in their printed or online fundraising materials.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you go the tribe’s Facebook page, you can watch video of the council discussing this registration proposal put forth by Councilwoman Whitehorse and hearing testimon<\/a>y\u00a0 (At least four hours’ worth\u2014and I have listened only to a little.)<\/p>\n

To compress history: when “Indian agencies,” precursors to the reservation system, were created in the West in the latter 19th century, it was often Protestant Christian church groups that agreed to operate them, since the pay was low but they could use the post as a basis for missionary activity. The Episcopal Church had a large footprint on South Dakota reservations at one time.<\/p>\n

In the US and Canada , Christian denominations and religious organizations likewise operated until fairly recently many of the residential boarding schools to which many Indian children were forcibly sent \u2014 the pope is in Canada right now apologizing for all that.<\/a><\/p>\n

In the US, the Epicopal Church is “studying its role” in the federal boarding schools. <\/a>Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is conducing a “listening tour” on the issue as well.<\/a><\/p>\n

For more on the boarding schools and their sad legacy, read here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Missionary activity continues, and many Native people today are Christian, from historically Russian Orthodox in Alaska to Mormon Navajos in Arizona.<\/p>\n

It is common for church groups to “parachute in” youth groups for quick service trips, promoted with language like this: “Spend a life-changing week with the Lakota people of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, and you will truly never be the same! You\u2019ll never forget the wild beauty of the land where the Sicangu Lakota, ‘Burnt-Thigh Nation;\u00a0 live.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

The Oglala are just one part of the larger Lakota nation. But if they do take a hardline on missionaries, it will be noticed. I will try to follow up on this later. It is a complicated issue, and there are law-enforcement issues, land issues, and more involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some interesting things are happening in South Dakota, First, on July 22, 2022 the Oglala SIoux Tribal Council (Pine Ridge) demanded that the Jesus is King Mission leave the Pine Ridge Reservation in the southwestern part of the state. \u201cThis week the Jesus is King Missionary was found distributing material that literally demonizes the Lakota […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,208,430,405],"class_list":["post-13007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-indian-tribes","tag-missionaries","tag-south-dakota"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3nN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1227,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1227","url_meta":{"origin":13007,"position":0},"title":"Third Death in James Ray Sweat Lodge Case","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Yet another of the sixty-plus people crammed into James Arthur Ray's Sedona sweat lodge has died. She evidently was one of his true believers:The Rev. Meredith Ann Murray of Bellingham, Wash., who has completed all of Ray's retreats, said [Liz] Neuman was among Ray's earliest followers and had attended dozens\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12509,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12509","url_meta":{"origin":13007,"position":1},"title":"The Hitchhiker","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The heart of western South Dakota: US Highway 212 near the town of Faith. Leaving Spearfish, South Dakota, on October 17th\u00a0en route to eastern North Dakota, I decided to skip the Green Bean coffeehouse, as much as I like it, and fueled up on motel-room coffee and a leftover partial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ancestors\"","block_context":{"text":"ancestors","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ancestors"},"img":{"alt_text":"The heart of western South Dakota","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/US-212-1_5543-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6178,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6178","url_meta":{"origin":13007,"position":2},"title":"When Trees Disappear","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"First, the background story. Back in 2011, I wrote about making an offering to Tlaloc, Southwestern god of the hydrological cycle (among other things), at a tiny mountain spring near my home. The spring is high on the side of a ridge, fed by that year's snow and rain, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-dV57BkoZQRQ\/UIgi2vbiO8I\/AAAAAAAABdc\/_ixQl3ANtJA\/s400\/volcanofire.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3285,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3285","url_meta":{"origin":13007,"position":3},"title":"Back at the PhD (Piled-high Desk)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It was good to disappear. I geocached along the Niobrara River, hunted ducks in North Dakota \u2014 where \"to combine\" is the verb of autumn, and you accent the first syllable \u2014 and ended up finally at the Black Hills Powwow in my old hometown of Rapid City. I ate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rose hips and bufflo berries on the North Dakota prairie","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/rosehipsbuffaloberries%E2%80%94sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1150,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1150","url_meta":{"origin":13007,"position":4},"title":"Back from the Florida Pagan Gathering","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I have not tried to sleep over all-night drumming since I was a little kid, when my district-ranger father would let the Indians from the Pine Ridge Reservation put up a temporary dance arbor each year on Forest Service land by our house, across from the Indian Health Service hospital\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12523,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12523","url_meta":{"origin":13007,"position":5},"title":"A Libation for the Mother River","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote earlier about the hitchhiker whom I called Travis, a post writen on the 19th of October, mostly at the Twenty Below coffeehouse in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to drive an old friend home to his tiny prairie town after he had been poked and prodded and MRI'd all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/missouri-at-fort-pierre-300x188.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13007"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13013,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13007\/revisions\/13013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}