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How much contextualization of Christianity in a culture is too much? Few would challenge the notion that Christian life and worship should look different from one culture to another. But to what degree? When is a particular cultural form neutral, and when is it unacceptable?

After 200 years of missionary activity among the tribes in North America, the long dormant debate is raging at a new level in that context. Believe it or not, Hollywood contributed a key factor in kicking the question up a few notches. Although the old cowboys and Indians motif rode off into the sunset years ago, movie producers’ depictions of American Indians has been less than flattering. But the release of Kevin Kostner’s Dances with Wolves in 1990 presented a new genre. The Lakota Sioux in the story employed a delightful sense of humor, razor intelligence and family values recognizable and attractive to mainstream Americans.

The movie spawned a movement toward Native Americana, attracting many natives who had grown up in Anglo communities and had little connection to the culture, as well as the usual parade of “wannabe” non-natives.

Those “new Indians” include some evangelicals who, by some accounts at least, are promoting a Hollywood Indian Christianity. They are baptizing the new Native American popularity with Christian themes, especially a call to what they deem authentic native Christianity. That generally means the use of American Indian songs, drums, dances, feathers, regalia and even sweetgrass incense to accompany their prayers. Often, the call is accompanied by an indictment of the colonizers-Anglo missionaries who either failed to encourage indigenous expression or suppressed it altogether.

The inevitable parade of theoreticians gravitating to the missiologically correct lends an aura of respectability (via publishing and scholastic convocations) to this side of the debate. But not everybody in the American Indian Christian community agrees that the introduction of these new forms is healthy.

“My people aren’t interested in drums, feathers and dances,” one native pastor told me. “That’s Hollywood. You know what my people care about? They care about alcohol, drug abuse, unemployment and the breakdown of the family.”

Sadly, the debate has polarized large parts of the Christian community of Native Americans. Reports of new breakthroughs here and there fueled by the introduction of contextualized worship speak for themselves. Some of the dancers have performed in Africa, Asia and Latin America. (One might ask, though, just how helpful is this enthusiastic response of the international community as a measure of the worthiness of these changes on the ground in Native America.)

No doubt, the controversy parallels that of earlier efforts in other societies. The trail of Christianity’s growth through global cultures is littered with the bones of contextualization’s pioneer efforts.

While native denominations and agencies are scrambling to address the issues, closure still lies somewhere over the horizon. But one thing seems sure: outsiders will never settle the issue and the inability of some to recognize that is complicating the picture. I was one of a few palefaces invited to attend a symposium several years ago at which 15 experienced Native Christian leaders had gathered to address this issue. The inclination of some of my white brothers to almost monopolize the deliberations was, I’m afraid, too typical.

Although the matter will not be settled for a long, long time, only good can come from such indigenous forums. Outsider observers of one kind or another will perhaps have something to contribute to the discussion. But at the core, the resolution of this issue will be an inside job. When experienced Native American pastors and theologians—those who have studied and ministered the scriptures in their communities over the long haul—come together in frank dialogue over an open Bible, an indigenous theology of worship can eventually emerge. Not before.

June 7, 2002