Native Quotes

“I’m wondering how, for all these years, the church has gotten away with so many oppressive acts toward women, Indigenous peoples, Black people, other people of color, disabled people, immigrants, those who journey with depression or anxiety, those who grieve, and those who are gender nonbinary, transgender, or queer. Can we go to church and be angry? Can we go to church and be furious? Can we go to church and ask questions? Can we go to church and fight against what we believe is wrong within it?

Absolutely.

Those of us who are angry cannot wait for the church to give us permission, because white supremacy will never give the oppressed permission to be angry.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“The problem isn’t that we search for truth; the problem is that we become obsessed with our belief that we hold the truth, and we destroy entire cultures in the process.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“After moving to Georgia and serving at this church as the interim worship leader, I was suddenly struck with the reality that if I fight the effects of assimilation in my life, if I speak from my Potawatomi self instead of the whiteness I’ve been trained and taught to live through, the church will increasingly see me as a threat. They will get uncomfortable, and they will question my faith, because it doesn’t look like the faith shaped by the forefathers of the church. In essence, the church wants what is white in me, but not what is Native in me.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“What does it mean to be Indigenous and to have ties to the person of Jesus without being tied to the destructive, colonizing institution of the church? It is a constant decolonizing. It is a constant longing for interaction with others who, following the Universal Christ, as Richard Rohr calls it, can take on the hope of a decolonizing faith. It is sharing space with Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, and letting our experiences shape each other. It means interacting with my white friends, having really difficult conversations, and facing my own privilege in that conversation as well. Deconstruction and decolonization can be partners, along with grief and truth-telling. May we learn from this community that we are called to the bigger work ahead of us, so that, together, we know what it means to return to Mystery that has always wanted all of us. May we do this work together so that, each day that we move on, we are building a future that is made for everyone.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“We talk about the importance of adoption, but we don’t mention that Indigenous children are forcefully taken from their Indigenous families without consent and adopted into white families, not just throughout history but still today. We talk about violence against women of color, but we don’t say anything about missing and murdered Indigenous women, whose families must decide whether they can trust the government to seek justice for their sisters, daughters, grandmothers, and aunties. We talk about police brutality, but we don’t mention that Native Americans are killed by law enforcement at a higher rate than any other racial group in the US. If the church really wants to get to work to face the injustices of our time, the church cannot ignore the injustices against Indigenous peoples that have been happening since before the birth of this nation.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“This, the universal Christ who, in grace and love, holds all things and all people and all creatures in that grace, is what gives me hope in this world. The universal Christ, who is not a colonizer, who does not seek after profit or create empires to rule over the poor or to oppress people, is constantly asking us to see ourselves as we fit in this sacredly created world. It is what my Potawatomi ancestors saw when they prayed to Kche Mnedo, to Mamogosnan, and is what our relatives still see when they pray today, a sacred belonging that spans time and generations and is called by many names. Today, it is what I continue to see in my own faith—not a Christianity bound by a sinner’s prayer and an everyday existence ruled by gender-divided Bible studies and accountability meetings but a story of faith that’s always bigger, always more inclusive, always making room at a bigger and better table full of lavish food that has already been prepared for everyone and for every created thing.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“If we make room inside of ourselves for childlikeness, we will make room for the ability to learn again, to be small, humble people who ask questions instead of making demands, who listen to the land instead of carving it into pieces for profit.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“We are taught about who Jesus is, but in Western Christianity we are taught a diluted, whitewashed version. Settler colonial Christianity puts itself at the center of everything as the sole power, and evangelism becomes a tool used to erase other cultures and religions from the people whom Christians are meant to serve. Settler colonial Christianity is a religion that takes, that demeans the earth and the oppressed, and that holds people in these systems without regard for how Jesus treated people.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“White supremacy within our politics and within our churches should be addressed on a number of levels, but if we cannot admit that we have a problem in the first place, nothing will ever change.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“The problem with the white evangelical church is that assimilation is subtle; when you walk through that sanctuary door, the assumption is that you participate, you oblige, and you don’t cause a fuss.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“It is heartbreaking when the table of God is not set for all the people of God. It is heartbreaking when colonization and patriarchy take root over the truth, which manifests in inclusive love.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“What happens when white supremacy taints our Christianity so much that we would rather scream the love of God over someone than honor and respect their rights to live peacefully within the communities they have created and maintained for generations?”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“What might we learn if we listen, if we wade in—unafraid, untethered, and uninhibited—ready to become the ones we were created to become.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“And if we are learning anything in America in the twenty-first century, it's that restoration and healing are desperately needed. We need to begin asking what that might look like.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“We should watch the ants work and remember that we are called to pick up heavy things and move them for the sake of community.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Decolonization doesn’t mean we go back to the beginning, but it means we fix what is broken now, for future generations”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“The story of the prodigal son, one I’ve mentioned a few times in this book, is told again and again in the church as a triumphant story about a son who went astray, who degraded his father’s name, returning home to his father’s open arms and a celebration in his honor. Many Christians like to use this story to talk about those who have wandered away from the church, the ones they believe are on the outside and trying to get right with God again, the ones God welcomes back with open arms.

I don’t know what it means to waste a life, if that is even possible, and I don’t know that we can step so far outside the love of Mystery that we are not seen and known even in that distance. But there is always something important about returning. There is always something about the way a community welcomes us home. Young people who are forced out of their communities by traumatic events must return home and learn what it means to be part of their people again. I think about young Black men who are wrongfully imprisoned in the United States, who return home to reintegrate into society. I think about LGBTQ+ youth who are kicked out of their homes and communities and must find new homes with strangers who welcome them in. I think of Indigenous people separated from their communities through boarding schools, who must learn what it means to know themselves when their stories are riddled with trauma.

The work of returning is communal work, and we must all lead one another. When I sit down to write and tell my own story, I can feel the fire burn brighter again, and the work of returning leads me deeper into who I am and who God is.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Telling women that we do not matter as much as men do is dehumanizing and damaging to the soul. The way that Christianity has appropriated and erased Jewish history and culture and practiced anti-Semitism is dehumanizing. So, decolonization is a spiritual matter just as it is a physical, mental, social, and political one. We have to see it in a holistic light.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Approaching Indigenous culture with the goal of getting Native peoples in the pews isn’t an answer—it is merely an extension of colonization. Perhaps the church should consider that Indigenous peoples have more to teach the church than the church has to teach Indigenous peoples. Perhaps that would change how the relationship works. The important aspect of this relationship is that it is a partnership, a space in which listening really happens, a space in which Indigenous people are paid for their time and resources by the church itself, if asked. As I said earlier, Indigenous people shouldn’t have to spend our days educating non-Native people, but when we are willing to partner with institutions like the church for a better future, we should be heard.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Identity does not come to us without journey, because to learn who we are means we face difficult truths in our own lives and imagine what life might look like as those truths work themselves out inside of us.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“water is also the lifeblood of us all. It is why flood stories are so powerful and so sacred; the earth gets destroyed by water, and it gets rebuilt by that same water as it gives life to everything again. So we must hold great respect for the water, because her power is fierce, yet humble.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“THE JOURNEY OF ADULTHOOD requires so much looking back,”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“We are returning back to the goodness of the earth, to her gifts, to our childlikeness, as ceremony leads us all the way home.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Decolonizing our table means recognizing that sacredness moves and breathes all over the place, in all people, in all creatures, in all things, so communion becomes the space in which we say everyone and everything is loved.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Decolonization is not just for the oppressed. It is a gift for everyone. Just as growing pains hurt before the actual growth takes place, so it hurts to decolonize. For some, it hurts like hell, and then one day, we all appear on the other side of it, healed, our stories told in all their truth. Just like that, we all gather to bathe in the healing waters, and just like that, everyone is made clean.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“often, evangelism is erasure, and a listening relationship is something altogether different.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“One of the church’s biggest blind spots is ignoring the stories of those on the outside.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Systems of race are set up to create hierarchy, and we must recognize that even these labels fall short. What does it mean to”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“When we begin to name God, we find that God has suddenly become an image of us, our own cultural understandings.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

“Our work is to call each other home, to call to one another’s spirits and say, “This is for you. This is what it means to be human, to love and be loved. Let’s learn from one another as we go.”
― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God