United Methodism has been repenting for misdeeds against American Indians for many years. The 1996 General Conference apologized for the crimes of a retired/defrocked Methodist clergy, John Chivington, notorious for leading Colorado militia in an 1864 massacre of the Cheyenne. At the most recent General Conference in 2012, there was an evening festival of repentance, with George Tinker of Iliff Seminary waving feathers and delivering an unhistorical ideological rant against global American imperialism. Stones from the â??river of lifeâ? were distributed to delegates as part of the commemoration, prompting complaints from overseas delegates of pantheism and paganism. At the recent Council of Bishops meeting, there was another â??act of repentance,â? with one speaker explaining â??throughout history, the Church has been an entity that has helped to decimate native culture and identity.â?
Expect many more years of such â??repentance,â? ostensibly to promote â??healing,â? although undoubtedly very few native descendants lie awake at night awaiting Methodist apologies. The decades long liberal church preoccupation with misdeeds against tribal peoples has little to do with traditional Christian concepts of atonement and is much more rooted in post-1960s academic anti-Western ideology and secular multiculturalism. Ironically, multiculturalism could only have emerged from Western Civilization, not the ethnically homogenous, patriarchal tribal cultures of pre-European America.
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