If you hang out in Christian spaces long enough, you’ll probably hear someone bring up the idea of “reaching the community.”
But what do we mean when we say that? And what’s in our mind when we imagine our community? Long before we ever set foot in a neighborhood or mission field or city, the history of Christianity and the perceptions that come with it have already arrived before us. And when Christians have left behind a legacy of pain and trauma, it’s not surprising that we aren’t always welcomed into those spaces with open arms.
When Christian immigrants began pouring into the United States from Europe, we don’t see a group of people that treated others like Jesus did. Instead, we see that it was Christians who pushed people from their home lands - and they often did that in the name of their God. It was Christians who brought disease and slavery and terror into the lives of so many indigenous peoples, and who would repeatedly break their own treaties to take even more from others.
With a history like that, it’s no wonder the word “Christianity” is often unwelcome.
Pastor Seth Cantu serves as the lead pastor for a church in Madras, Oregon and with a church plant on the Warm Springs Reservation in central Oregon. I wanted to ask him - “With all of the horrible things Christians have done to indigenous peoples in the name of God, is there still hope for reconciliation? And if there is - what might that look like?”
We explore all that and more on this episode of Bridges Over Walls!
Bridges Over Walls