October 8, 2020

Dear Ones,

This Sunday after the 10 o’clock service we will begin Coffee Hour with a short film called “The Episcopal Church Exposes the Doctrine of Discovery.” We will watch the video together during the first 15 minutes of our time together and then, as has become our norm, we’ll go into smaller breakout rooms for a time of conversation.

This is something new we’re trying for Coffee Hour and definitely not something we plan to do every week! But the timing of this particular effort is important.

First, Monday is a holiday still widely recognized in our nation as Columbus Day, while some have been working for a long time to mark the day as Indigenous People’s Day instead. (There’s an interesting New York Times opinion piece from 2014 that provides more background.)

Second, we as a church are working hard on confronting and dismantling racism, in ourselves and in our society, and that certainly includes discrimination against Native peoples, past and present. The Becoming Beloved Community initiative in the Episcopal Church offers many resources, including the Sacred Ground series we’re engaged in, as well as this film. Looking at the particular ways that our own faith tradition has been complicit in exploitation, oppression, and even genocide is an inescapable part of this important work.

The Doctrine of Discovery is a key piece of our history, but it is a key that many people are never given. One good thumbnail description of it follows:

If an explorer proclaims to have discovered the land in the name of a Christian European monarch, plants a flag in its soil, and reports his “discovery” to the European rulers and returns to occupy it, the land is now his, even if someone else was there first. Should the original occupants insist on claiming that the land is theirs, the “discoverer” can label the occupants’ way of being on the land inadequate according to European standards. This ideology supported the dehumanization of those living on the land and their dispossession, murder, and forced assimilation. [Source: Upstander Project]

As I understand it, the Episcopal Church was the first denomination in the U.S. to denounce the Doctrine of Discovery. There are many resources available on the Indigenous Ministries page and our own Diocese has a Commission on Intercultural Ministries.

Obviously we will learn a lot more by watching and discussing the video, which you are also welcome to preview here. Please join us!

Blessings,

Pamela+