This week my heart has been wounded as I surveyed social media sites that are spewing anger towards Christians and churches as the graves of what is presumed to be unidentified Indigenous children have been found across Canada. My own Aunt received many likes and hearts as she disclosed she no longer wants anything to do with Christianity. This woman, who had stood on the fringes of her faith community had the seedlings of her Christian beliefs ripped up and thrown into the fire before they could become deeply rooted. To try to plant the seeds of Creator’s love at this time will only result in the seeds dying and turning the hearts they were planted in bitter.
The soil of many of the hearts of FNMI (First Nations, Metis, and Inuit) People have been poisoned with the sins of the past. The comments on an article I wrote on An Indigenous Perspective on Forgiveness was not well received on social media, nor were the comments of other Christians diligently working to undo the negative effects of past harms. Negative comments came pouring in, “Poor little colonized Indian” read one, “you have been lied to,” said another, while still others urged that every church in this land be burned to the ground. These bitter hearts are trying to coerce me and others like me to change my allegiance from Christ to anything else. My heart crumbled into a million pieces as I read an article about an American church that caught fire after it was struck by lightening. I thought, even God is burning the churches.
Another Facebook meme showed a picture of people of different ethnicities that were taken into captivity and forced into heavy chains and iron neck braces. The caption read, “Do Not Adopt the Faith of Anyone Capable of This.” The end is coming soon, and Satan is using the graves of murdered children to create an army that will wholeheartedly pledge their allegiance to him because they have been hurt by people who proclaim the love of Jesus. I am sad to say that many FNMI People are doing just that, because in their eyes, Satan has nothing on the evil that lives in the hearts of those who proclaim to be Christian.
Christians say to me, "if they just knew Jesus..." However, the question is not whether we know Jesus, but if Jesus knows us. Many FNMI People are going to their graves without wanting to know the Lord. Jesus’s name is mud while Christians simply scroll to something more cheerful. Jesus' words vibrated the depths of my being, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matt 7:21—23).
In John’s vision he stated, “The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Rev 9:20—21). How many children were murdered in Indian Residential Schools? How many Indigenous people were starved to death under the direction of John A. MacDonald? How many Christians proudly proclaim the beauty of their homes, and other spoils of the destruction of Indigenous People? Are these not idols of “gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood”? I think about how porn has become rampant in the church. Is this not a form of sexual immorality? How many Christians know they live on stolen land, but refuse to do anything about it?
My heart is aching for my People, and not just the Indigenous People of this land, but for those who proclaim to be Christian but have no love in their hearts. How Lord? How can I hope to make any kind of impact on anyone when the soil of their hearts have been poisoned and have become hard like baked clay? When they seem themselves as being without a need to repent and make restitution?
I have been praying that God will break the hearts of those who proclaim to be Christian for what breaks his. Only then will believers around the globe be moved to lower themselves to their knees to repent and pray for the forgiveness of FNMI People that were abused and beaten, had their children, their land, and their livelihoods stolen and murdered, and who were lied to in the name
of Jesus. Only then will those who bear the name of Jesus be moved to make things right, and only then will the Holy Spirit blow across this land and into the hearts of Indigenous People.
In the coming weeks I will be fasting intermittently while praying unceasingly for the spirit of forgiveness to enter the hearts of those who proclaim to know Christ, but with whom Jesus does not identify. I will also be praying for FNMI across the land. I ask that all people who identify with Christ and who read this article do the same and move others to join them in this quest for forgiveness.
Mussi
Follow us at IndigenousChristian.org