IN 1907, CANON NORMAN TUCKER, the General Secretary of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, wrote in a summary of the Anglican Church expansion among Canada’s Indians: “This glorious work, however, has not been without its limitations. It has indeed brought the gospel of Christ, under the unparalleled hardships and privations, to the Indian tribes in the most inaccessible regions of the earth… but in the main, it has not succeeded in training the individual Indian convert in self-reliance, and the Indian congregation in self-support and self-propagation. And now that the Church missionary Society has decided on a policy of withdrawal from this whole field, the prospects of Indian Missions are, to say the least, not reassuring.”

With these words, Canon Tucker accurately and prophetically described the state of Indian missions right up to the present era.

It must be said, of course, that there have been significant movements to Christianity. The development of the syllabic writing system and the translation work of James Evans in Manitoba, beginning in 1840, ushered in a new period of substantial church growth. Unfortunately, these kinds of movements are scarce indeed in the history of Indian missions, and often disappear in subsequent generations.

It seems likely that the early missionaries to the Indian people, and in many cases their modern counterparts, simply have not understood the monumental worldview shift necessary for the Indian person to move from his or her belief system to total allegiance to Jesus Christ. And they have muddied the water by often demanding allegiance to European cultural values as well.

In an unpublished paper, R. Pierce Beaver, then Professor of Church History at Chicago Divinity School, wrote several years ago: “All the missionaries were creatures of their own cultures and until very recently, few could see in Indian cultures anything but barbarism. Moreover, they completely identified the gospel with their own particular variety of Christianity and with the segment of European civilization out of which they came.” Further on in the paper, he writes: “Evangelization and civilization were inseparable. Transformation from damnation to salvation and growth in Christian faith would be demonstrated in the progressive conformity of the converts to English civilization. Puritan man represented the very flowering of the gospel. The gospel was powerful enough to make the Indian Christian into one.”

Alvin Torry, and early Methodist missionary, admitted in his biography: “It has never occurred to the religious denominations that these pagan people could be converted and made humble Christians without first civilizing them.”

There is absolutely no doubt that there was a prevailing attitude among the early missionaries that Indian culture was inherently evil and inferior. It was a common practice among both Catholic and Protestant missionaries, for instance, to change the Indian names of native people to suit the European perception of what was “Christian.” Thus Chief Pegwys of the Seaulteaux became William King, and his son became Henry Prince. Throughout Canada there are literally hundreds of native people today with the name of King or Prince. Where there were French priests, there are now scores of families with French names; where there were Anglicans or Methodists, there are now multitudes of English names.

The paternalistic and autocratic behavior of the early missionaries is exemplified by Anglican missionary William Duncan, the famous “Apostle of Metlakatla.” Metlakatla was the model Indian village founded by Duncan on the British Columbia coast. John Arctander, a contemporary of Duncan and his biographer, wrote the following: “Duncan was the personification of the qualities of the missionaries of the time. He had immense faith and courage, and the gigantic audacity required to move uninvited into a large community of hostile people, single-handedly assume absolute control, and reshape their lives.”

Alvin Torry, and early Methodist missionary, admitted in his biography: “It has never occurred to the religious denominations that these pagan people could be converted and made humble Christians without first civilizing them.”

There is absolutely no doubt that there was a prevailing attitude among the early missionaries that Indian culture was inherently evil and inferior. It was a common practice among both Catholic and Protestant missionaries, for instance, to change the Indian names of native people to suit the European perception of what was “Christian.” Thus Chief Pegwys of the Seaulteaux became William King, and his son became Henry Prince. Throughout Canada there are literally hundreds of native people today with the name of King or Prince. Where there were French priests, there are now scores of families with French names; where there were Anglicans or Methodists, there are now multitudes of English names.

The paternalistic and autocratic behavior of the early missionaries is exemplified by Anglican missionary William Duncan, the famous “Apostle of Metlakatla.” Metlakatla was the model Indian village founded by Duncan on the British Columbia coast. John Arctander, a contemporary of Duncan and his biographer, wrote the following: “Duncan was the personification of the qualities of the missionaries of the time. He had immense faith and courage, and the gigantic audacity required to move uninvited into a large community of hostile people, single-handedly assume absolute control, and reshape their lives.”

When his superiors, Bishop Hill, disagreed with some of Duncan’s ideas, the missionary responded, “He may be the Bishop of Columbia, but I am the Pope of Metlakatla, so it has to be the way I want it, or not at all.” Duncan’s attitude toward Indian culture surfaces in another comment by Arctander: “Mr. Duncan has never made any translation [of the Bible] or any part of it into their language. He has such a pious veneration of Scripture that he can only think of an attempt to transfer it into their tongue as an absolute mutilation of the Holy Word.”
It is only with a grasp of such attitudes that we can understand and analyze the current situation, for both Indians and missionaries have been powerfully influenced by their backgrounds and experience.

The Indian person has little positive to look back on as he considers what the gospel has had to offer. A dominant “Christian” culture has had a severe impact on all of the old values, belief systems, ways of life, and family patterns. The modern Indian remembers with deep resentment the Residential School system, where even Indian language was pounded out of the students. Middle-aged natives still refer to the Residential School as “the Penitentiary.” And since such schools were all sectarian, mainly Roman Catholic and Anglican, the result has been a very negative impression of what it means to be “Christian.”

At the same time, the missionary has been conditioned by years of exposure to negative impressions of Indians. Until recently, our Canadian and especially American history texts pictured Indians as ruthless, savage butchers who stood in the way of the peaceful development of North America. There was no thought of a nation of people who were trying, with inadequate war equipment, to defend their country from an invader. Movies, books, and articles have pictured the Indians either as heartless savages or as subservient “Tontos.” So, as do all dominant cultures, we have arrived at stereotypic attitudes toward this minority. As the modern missionary approaches the Indian culture, he or she must often relearn a whole set of attitudes.

The Indian mission field, then, is a burned over area. It’s hard to start a forest fire where a fire has already passed through. Indians have experienced the result of mission, and they are not impressed. Missionaries, too, are extremely frustrated. All modern workers have experience the elation of seeing numbers of Indians come to Christ, only to be devastated by their apparent inability to be victorious in their Christian behavior.

Very frankly, Christianity has never become a truly Indian belief system. Yet it has been said that the church is congenial to any culture. The question then arises: why is this not true among Indians?

At the heart of the answer lies our failure to encourage or permit the development of strong Indian leadership – leadership that today is emerging in other areas of Indian life. Any Indian agent will tell you that the administration of Indian Affairs has changed radically in the last twenty years. The paternalistic practices of the past are simply not tolerated today. An aggressive and extremely capable leadership elite is emerging among both status and non-status Indians. There are more natives in university today than the total graduated from 1900 to 1970. Native businessmen recently conducted their first annual conference.

The potential, of course, was always there, but secular and sectarian agencies did not acknowledge it or accept it. We Eurocanadians have been conditioned by the concept of cultural evolution, and so we have come to see ourselves as culturally superior to the non-white.
If there is to be any headway made in Indian mission in Canada, we must therefore rethink our attitude and approach, especially in the area of Indian leadership.

Out west, there is an Indian organization called Mika Nika, loosely translated as “our thing.” When Christianity becomes Mika Nika to the Indians, the Gospel of Jesus Christ will diffuse through the Indian population as it never has before. It won’t happen by recruiting more and more young missionaries who disappear from the scene after a term or so, discouraged and no longer sure that the gospel is “the power of God unto salvation.” It will happen as native Christians are encouraged to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to their own people; as native pastors arise to shepherd the flocks; and as indigenous outreach organizations develop to evangelize the fringes of their own society.

There is still a need for cross-cultural missionaries, but they must be culturally sensitive people whose primary orientation is to the natives. They must be people who avail themselves of first-rate cross-cultural training, who respect all that is good in native culture, who accept that God is no respecter of persons (or cultures), and who, with Paul, are ready to become “all things to all people, that by all possible means, some might be saved.”

Good things are beginning to happen. More and more missionary candidates are receiving sound missiological training in the Bible schools and seminaries. And missionary leadership is becoming somewhat more aware of the strivings for recognition by native Christian leadership. But missions must be prepared to allow the potential for leadership to develop in the native church to the same degree that is developing in the areas of politics, business, and education.

It is, in fact, the missions themselves that represent the greatest obstacle to the development of Christianity as “Mika Nika.” Unfortunately, it could be that real progress will have to wait until the old, shell-backed, paternalistic leadership is out of the way. Let’s pray that this will not be the case.

Dr. Dan Kelly was Principal of Okanagan Bible College. Formerly Professor of Missions at Ontario Theological Seminary, he has also served as a missionary among North American Indians.