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In Sunday’s SALT Forum we will be exploring some of the nuts and bolts of Land Acknowledgement. To help set the stage for this forum, we encourage you to look at this reference from our denominational (ELCA) website https://www.elca.org/our-work/congregations-and-synods/ministries-of-diverse-cultures-and-communities/indigenous-ministries-and-tribal-relations/repudiation

 

I can remember still being in parish ministry when the first resolution to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery came before our Saint Paul Area Synod Assembly in preparation for the Churchwide Assembly. I had never heard of the Doctrine of Discovery that I could recall. I think this was true for our denomination as well for while the church as a whole adopted the repudiation, it sat for many years, untouched and unexplored.

 

It was not until September of 2021 that the Church Council adopted “A Declaration of the ELCA to American Indian and Alaska Native People. Included in that declaration was commitment to “get to work”: “encouraging the ritual practice of land acknowledgement at the beginning of every church meeting or gathering in all expressions of the church; and researching and developing an appropriate settler narrative that reflects the Lutheran participation in colonizing Turtle Island and in genocidal acts toward Indigenous people over the past 500-plus years.”

 

From that declaration, there emerged the Truth and Healing Movement. Under the leadership and guidance of Vance Blackfox, this movement is helping the ELCA learn and lament the trauma that has been inflicted upon the indigenous people and sovereign nations and then inviting the ELCA to embrace and enact helpful and healing for all.

 

As a Racial Justice Team, we have much learning still to do. As a congregation, we have only begun to scratch the surface of the work that is set before us.

 

This morning, you have the opportunity to learn more about Land Acknowledgement and to discover some of the Dakota Sacred Sites in and around Saint Paul This is only the beginning of what we can do together as a congregation, for the sake of ourselves, our community and most importantly for our indigenous siblings whose land we occupy.

 

Kisten Thompson, on behalf of the Racial Justice Team