Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys: A Native American Expression of the Jesus Way

by Richard Twiss

A few months after I had begun living at a Christian training center north of Anchorage, I began to wonder how my Lakota heritage could be part of my new Christian experience—especially after having recently come through the AIM experience. Six months earlier I hated white people and Christianity, and now I was a Christian and supposed to love them. So one afternoon I asked one of the pastoral leaders how I was supposed to relate to my Native culture as a Christian. I distinctly remember him opening the Bible he was carrying. He read from Galatians 3:28 where Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (NIV). After reading it he commented how cultures should all blend together for us as Christians, and then concluded by saying, “So, Richard, don’t worry about being Indian anymore—just be like us.” Though he was unaware of it, essentially what he was saying was, “Forget your Indian-ness and embrace our white culture as the only Christian culture.” Being young and naive as well as deeply grateful for Creator’s love in setting me free from drug and alcohol abuse, and sincerely committed to becoming a wholehearted follower of Jesus, I believed that church leader. I really had no choice, being a new Christian, and he, being in a position of spiritual power/authority, gave an answer from the Bible about cultures. So for the next twelve years I lived the Christian life as it was culturally modeled for me by non...