Year: 2008
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: ≤ ''The One Who Did Not Break His Promises'' Native Nationalisms and the Christian RightReligion is never just the opium of the people. -alain touraineOn May 18, 2004, the city council of Eureka, California, voted to return 40 acres of land to a local tribe, the Wiyot, which had been trying to regain control of it since the 1970s.Whom did activists in the tribe credit with this successful campaign?They credited a constituency not generally known for supporting Native land struggles-the evangelical churches in the area.Earlier the Humboldt Evangelical Alliance had invited Wiconi International, a Native charismatic organization, to facilitate a reconciliation between evangelical churches and the Wiyot tribe in California (Wiconi International 2001, 4).After taking part in a three-day event, the churches donated a thousand dollars to help the tribe purchase land on Indian Island.The tribe bought 1.5 acres of land before the city council gave the Wiyot another 40 acres.The Wiyot claimed that this reconciliation meeting had paved the way for the city council to return the land in 2004 ( Uttley 2004b).This story illustrates the increasing participation of Native peoples within the ''race reconciliation'' efforts of conservative evangelicalism.This movement began in the early 1990s with the goal of fostering racial unity among evangelical Christians.Since its inception, most prominent white evangelical organizations have issued statements and passed resolutions on race reconciliation.A plethora of books on the topic have been published in the past five years, and there has been a significant increase in the number of articles in the conservative Christian periodical literature
Source: Duke University Press eBooks
Author: Andrea Smith
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4403959525