Let the Children be Children

 On April 9, 1940 Norway was invaded by the Nazi's. In Norway there was a group of people who were sympathetic to the white supremacists and fascist thinking of Hitler's Germany. They eventually where called Quislings after the Norwegian leader of this group. My parents were 14 and 10 years old when this happened. I cannot imagine what that did to them, since they were only children, to witness and live through such trauma. I am just one generation away from that ordeal.

The native children of this continent have endured much worse. In 1879 our government opened its first off reservation residential school. They took children from their families and forced them into schools to "civilize them." This system was not ended until 1975. I was 11 years old when the last school was shut down. I am of the generation that experienced this ordeal, though I myself was unaffected and unaware of this sordid system until I took an American History class at Eastern Washington University. Even then it was glossed over as an event of the past, even though there may have been native students enrolled in that university who survived these schools.

As I write this I am wearing a t-shirt in solidarity with our siblings who were harmed by these schools. I wear orange for every stolen native child.

As Christians, we have to learn the history of the horrible things that have been done in our name. Every one of these schools were to "Christianize" and "civilize" these native children. In other words, to make them behave like the "white man." This is white supremacist and fascist thinking. To think that this is history of the past is to ignore what is happening in front of our noses in our time and our name!

I am struggling with whether or not to claim that I am a Christian. How do I differentiate myself from the Christian Nationalist and Evangelical Christian movements that choose not to pursue peace and justice?

I have tempted following the lead of many others and abandoning the description of my faith as "Christian" and instead identifying as a "Follower of Jesus." I want to be about loving the Lord my God with all my heart, and loving my neighbor as myself (Mark 12:29-30). I want to serve and follow Jesus (John 12:26). I want to become great by being a servant (Mark 10:43). Jesus taught us many things about what it means to be his follower. The one that hits home is when Jesus says: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23).

We must face the harm the world has done to our faith by reclaiming what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We must insist that Jesus is about non-violence, is about building up diverse communities, is about living in harmony with the land, is about justice for the least of these.

We must live as Jesus lived. To be able to say to the world: "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs (Matthew 19:14).