Old missionaries not welcome at All Saints Episcopal Church

BY STEVE BUTCHER

All Saints Episcopal Indian Mission occupies a don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it building on the edge of a working class neighborhood in South Minneapolis. To the north runs a hard-scrabble commercial corridor undergoing a slow metamorphosis, marked by repaving, new sidewalks and better lighting; to the south lies the Corcoran neighborhood, with its mixture of rentals, small businesses, corner taverns and well-tended owner-occupied houses.

The mission was taken over by the Episcopal diocese in the mid 1980s after it purchased the property from the Church of the Nazarene. While the external core of the building has remained largely intact, modifications have radically transformed the interior. Gone are the orange carpeting, smoked-glass windows, the fluorescent lighting and the dropped ceiling. The inlaid tiles, George Spears’ hand-carved cross, and the tipi light were installed as part of a series of alterations initiated by Rev. Melanie Spears, All Saints vicar from 1995–2002.

Rev. Spears also supervised the addition, through donated labor and materials, of the air conditioning system, the basement kitchen and the wheelchair lift. Len and Judy Kragness’ stained-glass composition, “A Gathered People,” symbolizing the shared Minnesota experience of the Ojibwa and Dakota nations, was dedicated in 1999 and is mounted over the entrance to the church sanctuary.

All Saints’ most recent challenges have proved to be a little more vexing. English language hymns or Native language songs? Sage or incense? Pews in rows or arranged in a circle around the altar? “Some priests in the diocese don’t like Native American traditions in the service,” said All Saints warden Donald Whipple Fox. Older members of All Saints, who came of age back in the days of the Episcopal boarding schools, have also been resistant. “The elders were instructed by missionaries, and most missionary churches wanted the Natives to give up their traditions,” said Fox. “The churches and the government wanted Natives to assimilate. The boys went to church in pants and shoes, the girls in dresses—no feathers. Classes were in English.”

Fox and some of All Saints’ younger members would like to see current trends continue. “One hundred thirty years later, assimilationist policies are bankrupt,” he said. “Melanie Spears said, ‘We can make this our church.’ There has been a push to contextualize the Gospel, an attempt to expand the liturgy to include the use of sage, and songs in both Ojibwa and Lakota.”

Warden Amanda Norman, who began attending All Saints in 2001, was intrigued by the new look. But she believes the church should continue to emphasize those factors that have remained, through time, classic church strengths. “All Saints must consider what we worship, and why,” Norman said. Concerns about pew arrangement tend to detract from more important issues. “It is a good exercise to let go of things in order to embrace the true spiritual reality of God,” she said.

You can leave your political leanings, beliefs and religion, to find a common time for prayer and reflection for the community and the world we live in, as well as a cup of coffee with others that share similar priorities in a prayer and service tradition.”

Norman and Fox—both of whom are Native American—agree that forging a better relationship with the neighborhood is All Saints’ most important goal. “I want to see this church lift up a gospel of relationship; to concentrate on mission work—not just among Native Americans, but throughout the Corcoran, Phillips and Powderhorn communities,” said Fox. “We have Spanish-speaking and Somali-speaking neighbors, but we can’t communicate with them. I would like to see soup kitchens and after-school programs, and services to the people around us—what we’re called to do as Native Americans and as Christians.”

The Episcopal Church’s history with Minnesota Native Americans began with Henry Whipple. In 1859, the church designated the New York- born Whipple bishop of Minnesota (Donald Fox’s great-great-great grandfather was baptized by Henry Whipple). He took office at a time when the federal government had begun to codify its policy of herding Indians onto reservations and then ignoring them. Whipple described the government’s relationship with Native Americans as one based upon “organized robbery,” and he spent much of his tenure trying to prevent a bad situation from getting worse. He succeeded in establishing a permanent link between the Episcopal Church and Minnesota’s Native communities: the Episcopal diocese’s Department of Indian Work.

In fact, the Minnesota diocese is the only Episcopal diocese in the United States to fund Native American churches. In 2001, the Diocese’s current bishop, James Jelinek, paid tribute to Whipple when he observed that Whipple always told “the hardest truths” —truths that “no one wanted to hear.”

In September of this year, Bishop Jelinek appointed Rev. Robert Two Bulls as the department’s newest director. Rev. Two Bulls, a Lakota from Redshirt, S.D., will spend much of his work week on the road visiting those reservations where the church has a presence. His daunting travel schedule will take him across the breadth of the state, from Red Lake to Prairie Island, an assignment for which he prepared by spending the past 10 years battling traffic in Southern California, where he worked out of the diocese’s Cathedral Center, in Glendale. On Sundays, Rev. Two Bulls expects to remain in South Minneapolis, where he will fulfill his other diocesan obligation—as the newly installed priest at All Saints.

Rev. Two Bulls refuses to discuss specific All Saints concerns. He does, however, believe that classic long-standing issues need to take precedence. “How relevant is the church on the reservation?” he asks. “Well, where I’m from, if the church left Pine Ridge, there would be very few tears shed. The church has stalled; aside from meeting spiritual needs, it is stuck in the old missionary model.” He pans the classic arrangement where the priest addresses a congregation, offers prayers, performs the Eucharist, and then dismisses everyone in time for the football game. “The church should be a place to change yourself and transform the community,” he said. “We need to be about more than just [meeting] on Sundays. Somewhere along the line we lost sight of this.”

All Saints officials welcomed Rev. Two Bulls, and believe that he is just the man for the job. “As with any community, All Saints’ successes depend upon its ability to put principals and vision before personality and agenda,” said Amanda Norman, who, as a member of the church’s bishop’s committee, interviewed Rev. Two Bulls. “The Corcoran neighborhood is, arguably, the most diverse neighborhood in Minnesota.” Mission objectives will test Rev. Two Bulls as much as he was tested at any time during his tenure in Los Angeles; yet Norman has no doubts about his abilities. “He brings the experience, skills, education and strengths that [we need],” she said.

Rev. Elaine Barber, a diocese supply priest who temporarily held the mission vicariate prior to the installation of Rev. Two Bulls, felt that the church faced many issues that could not otherwise be resolved without a full-time Native priest in attendance. She described a certain “fluidity” about the church community that would otherwise perplex anyone comfortable with well-ordered schedules and plans. The arrival of Robert Two Bulls can only help. “My first prayer was that we would be able to find a Native American rector,” she said. “My second prayer is that we will be able to keep him.”

“We want to bring back our image of God that we were forced to give up,” said Donald Fox. Rev. Two Bulls will be part of plan that will force every member of the All Saints community to consider and reconsider their worship preferences and ideas. Other churches have experienced similar tensions, but the difference for All Saints lies in the way Native Americans consider God. Unlike mainstream Anglo churches, where the emphasis is upon accepting the divinity of Jesus—the Trinitarian idea—and upon Jesus’ opposition to Satan, the members of All Saints come from a tradition that welcomes a less doctrinaire understanding of things. “Everything is ‘Wakan’: good and evil are not diametrically opposed—they are intertwined,” said Fox. “God is all there is; there is nothing else. Suffering is a necessary part of life. We keep that in mind and learn from it.”

The Department of Indian Work is operated by the Episcopal diocese of Minnesota. For more information contact the diocese at 612-871-5311. Do not confuse the Department of Indian Work with the Division of Indian Work, a nonprofit charity run by the Minneapolis Council of Churches, which was established to help Native Americans with nutrition programs, medical assistance, child care, etc. The Division of Indian Work can be reached at 612-722-8722. Nor should you confuse either of these with the Office of Indian Ministry, which is run by the Catholic Diocese of Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Office of Indian Ministry can be reached at 612-824-7606.