Danny Zacharias & Christopher Hoklotubbe | Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: Indigenous Christian Hermeneutics with

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined today by the authors of Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, An Invitation to North American Indigenous Interpretation. So Daniel Zacharias and Christopher Hocotubby. I knew I'd get that wrong, dude. I said it like three times before the episode. I knew it. Can you say your last name for me, bro? I apologize. Absolutely. Hocotubby is the Oklahoma pronunciation. Hocotubby. So Christopher Hocotubby and Daniel Zacharias, welcome, guys, to the show. Sorry about butchering your name. And I just knew I'd get it wrong. Before every episode, I try to get everybody's name right, and then it's like I have some sort of short-term memory loss in the middle of this. So welcome to the show, guys. Appreciate you being here. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, appreciate it. This is good because Danny, as he said, he middle-aged, has short-term memory loss all the time. That's why we might even surprise him about this book as we're talking, like, oh, I wrote that. Well, let me have you guys introduce yourselves just a little bit. Usually, you know, when I do an episode with just one other person, I'll introduce them. But it's usually better if people who are just listening on audio can get a feel for your voice if you introduce yourself, give a little bit of your background. That's helpful for folks. So, Chris, can I start with you? Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you my name is Chris Hockletubby. I am a member of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, and I live in Iowa. I am an assistant professor of classics at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, as well as the director of graduate studies for NAIT's and Indigenous Learning Community. And that is the first Indigenous-designed, developed, delivered, and governed theological institute to be accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. And I am very blessed and lucky to be married to Stephanie, and I have two daughters, Claire and Emily. Fantastic, man. Thank you. Danny? Yeah, my name is Danny Zacharias, and I'm a good mixture of wonderful things. On my maternal side, I am Cree and Anishinaabe and Métis. These are the main Indigenous nations of what's called Manitoba now. We often refer to it as Treaty 1 territory in Canada here. Indigenous people refer to it that way. But I also have ancestors residing in Treaty 2, 3, and 5 territories. And my father was a first-generation Austrian man. I live in Nova Scotia now, again, traditionally called Mi'kma'ki, because the traditional people here are the Mi'kmaq. And I'm here in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. It's a little town about an hour away from the Halifax airport where Acadia University sits. And I'm the associate dean of the Divinity College, Acadia Divinity College, and professor of New Testament Studies. And I've been working here since 2007 and live right in the town with my wife, Maria, and four kids and a very quirky cat. I'm also an adjunct with NAITs. And NAITs, part of NAITs work and their symposium, which happens every year, is a journal that comes out. And so I'm also a co-editor of the journal. Fantastic. All right, guys. Well, let's dive into the book a little bit. Your title, Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, I got what you were going to do through the subtitle. So try to explain to me, you know, let's give our listeners a little bit. What's the term? What is Turtle Island? Give them a little background and history on that. Yeah, Chris, do you want to start? You start by just telling the story, the story, and I'll then kind of riff on why we wanted to use that language. So for a lot of Indigenous tribes in the upper plains area and the lakes area, there is a story of Sky Woman, and this is an origin story of where the land comes from. And it's told in various ways. The broad strokes of this story, and I'm able to share this. This is a well-published story, and I will say that there are many Indigenous stories that elders and storytellers ask us not to share. And so we try to be very sensitive of that in our book. This is a commonly shared one. And the broad strokes of it is Sky Woman falls out of the sky. She's the first woman, the first mother, and she's pregnant. And birds of the air feel compassion for her and they catch her. And as they're looking for land or someplace to put her, they find a willing turtle. And this turtle graciously invites the woman on its back. And when they are fully contemplating, well, she's about to have a baby, there's not enough room on this turtle's back for this baby. They decide that they need to create some land. And so creator tells them to go down to the bottom of the sea to grab some soil underneath the ocean and to bring it back up. And that will be magically transformed into the land. I won't get into the full story, but a number of animals try, they fail. In variations, it's usually the smallest animal or the grandmother, another grandmother animal, whether it's a grandmother turtle or something that goes down and actually gives his life for this quest. And in the palm or the mouth of the animal, there's dirt and that dirt is put on the back of the turtle. And that turtle then looks like what we have in the modern North America. If you squint your eyes, you can kind of see the mouth at the very top of Canada and the tail in Mexico and the feet are, you know, Florida and Maine and Alaska. Okay. Very cool. Danny, go ahead, man. Yeah. And so, you know, there's a couple of reasons why we took this language and really wanted to make it central. And we didn't know if it would make it to the title of the book. We were really happy that InterVarsity saw the value in it because it was really trying to signal something from the outset. First off, just lots of people don't know that story. Lots of people don't know that North America was known by a different name for a much longer period of time than Canada and the U.S. has been around. Right. So try to reorient people to the place. Help them see the history and longevity of the place and the people subsequently of this place. So that was one component of it. And the other component is that we, in our approach, take seriously our location, take seriously our relationship with land, and take seriously our relationship with our histories. And so choosing, you know, something that's a bit jarring, but very specific to a location was really important for us to kind of bring in and label, you know, our approach, Turtle Island Hermeneutics, is hopefully a good kind of, you know, good kind of question that gets thrown up. Why would you call it that is really what we're trying to get at and hopefully it well displays what we're trying to do. Yeah, no, I think it does. I mean, having read the book, I understood sort of where you were going. And I actually had a gentleman named Terry Wildman on. He's done a lot of work on, you know, indigenous Bible translations. And he, his, you know, I kept sort of flashing back to that conversation with him as he was talking about some of these native stories, native concepts, ways of being in the world and understanding the world that are just different and can really be enlightening for the biblical text. And so as I was reading you guys' work on Turtle Island Hermeneutics, I sort of felt echoes of that. Why don't we describe a little bit about what that Turtle Island Hermeneutic actually is? I mean, the story sort of, again, having read the book, sort of highlights for me what you all are doing, but maybe give a thumbnail sketch, and Danny, maybe I can start with you, a thumbnail sketch of what that Turtle Island Hermeneutics actually is. Yeah, so in the very first chapter of the book, kind of establishes what we call Turtle Island Hermeneutics. And there's a kind of a four-part dance to it. We use that kind of analogy of the dance. And it sits in the medicine wheel. So that's a common image that even people who may not know a lot about indigenous peoples or their history can often recognize a medicine wheel with the four different colors pointing to the four different, you know, north, south, east, west, et cetera. And this is a kind of a common, you know, paradigm for understanding lots of different things. And we're just bringing it into this space of talking about biblical interpretation. I'll leave it to Chris to kind of talk through the four specifics. And what I want to say at the outset is this kind of hermeneutical approach that we try and work through and put on display is kind of undergirded by a couple of things, but there's two big ones that we talk about. And the first one is challenging the notion, either unspoken or spoken, but quite often unspoken.

That God was absent functionally from North America prior to the gospel coming with the missionaries. And this we just think is profoundly wrong. It doesn't make any sense of how we understand theology as the Bible teaches it, and yet it is functionally how many things worked out as colonization happened. You know, the doctrine of discovery of, you know, we can claim these lands because, you know, it's empty space. It's not being used by Christians, that kind of thing. So there's this kind of functional notion that God was absent until the Europeans brought God, and we just think that's theologically bad. And it does damage to how Indigenous peoples, like our ancestors, understood themselves as being placed in this place by Creator and given laws, given traditions, given stories to live well in this space. So that's one of the big foundations of Turtle Island hermeneutics. The other one is what we talk about as asset-based theology, and that's really something that we inherited very gratefully from one of our mentors, Terry LeBlanc. And it's kind of comes out of asset-based approaches to community development, and it brings that kind of ethos into theology, which basically, you know, if I were to boil it down, I often tell students, we need to think of our theology beginning in Genesis 1 rather than Genesis 3. You know, the frame of everything is the goodness of creation, of which we are a part, not that our foundational human story is about how we rebel. That rebellion takes place after the goodness of creation. And so if that's the case, what are the good things, what are the assets in our theological thinking and our theological systems, etc., that then help us live our best lives, help us try and live lives that honor Creator, that help us follow Jesus well? And so asset-based theology, as well as this firm conviction that God was in these lands, loving these people, working with them already prior to the gospel coming with missionaries, is really the foundation for then our hermeneutical circle approach that we kind of call the medicine wheel of the Turtle Island hermeneutics. So I could keep riffing on it, but we want to hear Chris's lovely voice now. Yeah, Chris, anything to add there? I have a couple of questions if you don't, but go ahead. Well, when you look at the book, you will see that first chapter, we have something called the medicine wheel of interpretation, which is our riff of the Wesleyan quadrilateral. And of course, scripture is there. And one thing I would add is that it's not just that scripture holds a deep authority for us within the Christian tradition. It's also that from a New Testament perspective, from a biblical scholar perspective, that there are much more resources and interesting things that scripture does when you do a close look at it in contrast to the kinds of things that are said about scripture from a meta level that doesn't always reflect what scripture is doing. And when we look closer at what scripture is doing, it gives us license and I think permission to make the moves that Danny and I like to make. You know, for example, right, you look at the Psalms and Proverbs, and they're incorporating wisdom from Egypt, that we look at ancient sources and we say, oh wow, this is actually almost one for one, or it's in conversation with these other traditions. And if the ancient Hebrew scribes can incorporate wisdom from other cultures into their sacred texts, why can't indigenous Christians look at the assets of their community and to think productively with what these might tell them about how we live in harmony and how we shape our values and our community ethos? We then move into the other quadrant, which would be cultural traditions, which is related to that kind of move to recognize the assets of one's community. And it actually relates to the Skywoman story that oftentimes we've been told, well, you only have the Genesis story and any other creation story that you bring into your theological imagination is an inherent competition with the authority and sole legitimacy of the Genesis story. Now, again, you can look closely at Genesis 1 and 2, and there are distinctions between those, but I would even point forward that there are multiple creation stories or riffing off of the story of creation that we see in other texts of the Old Testament that talks about God putting down dragons and marking off the water from the boundaries of the water, which are riffing off of in conversation with other Canaanite and Babylonian myths. And sometimes it's in contrast, and sometimes there's a lot of resonances between these themes. And at the very least, it shows that ancient Hebrew scribes were thinking with these stories and found them helpful to imagine and tell stories and write poetry about God. And again, I think that invites us to think about the plurality of creation stories and people who are, many of us are mixed and many of us hold multiple creation stories that it's not just reading them as scientific stories, but thinking about what are the values and the ways of looking at the world and framing the world that come out of these stories. And I'll just mention the last two, which would be the recognition that creation is a teacher. And I know this sounds weird, like, what do we do? What does it mean to learn from the land? But you step back and it's like, man, we have been learning from the land forever. In science, we have this thing called biomimicry. And so many of our scientific advances have come from closely watching and paying attention to how nature successfully glides through water or camouflages itself, or there's any number of things that humans from all across cultures have learned from watching animals and trees and the seasons, but we don't take it seriously as them as teachers. And what might that teach? And then where might we look for parts in the scripture where land is teacher or land is a personified being or land is something that has its own relationship with the creator? And then lastly, our hearts and minds. And be open to the way in which we ought to be led by the Holy Spirit directing us to discern what is right or wrong about any given cultural tradition. And one of the things we say is that, you know, look, every culture from Euro-American to many indigenous cultures have many assets and they have many deficiencies. Our tendency as humans, because we're insecure, is to point out the deficiencies of other communities. And that makes us feel better about ourselves. And along with Danny's position, it's like, well, what if we just talk about the assets and let's focus on the good and let's bring everyone to the dance to think about the goodness and that this goodness is not just for indigenous people. We believe that this is for all people. And then last, I would say that for many indigenous communities, like dreams and visions are really important to the way in which they interpret meaningful things that are happening to their lives and ways in which they read scripture. And when you look with that lens of scripture and you think about, well, how is God communicating with the prophets and the people who are the main characters of the stories? They're not reading texts. They're usually dreaming dreams and having visions. I'll stop there. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. That's really interesting. I mean, I think, again, having read through your book, I had a couple of questions. And so as we're thinking about those sort of when I see what the Israelite are doing in drawing on other cultures, oftentimes what I've thought of is, you know, sort of broadly and conceptually is saying these other cultures are noticing things in creation. They're recognizing a pattern that is accordant with God's order, let's say. You know, so they're recognizing something that is truly good, truly beautiful, or truly true, right? And then what the Old Testament does, what the writers of the Old Testament do, they pull that in under the fear of the Lord. They pull that in under a Yahwistic faith.

and they contextualize it back in here and give it additional meaning, surplus meaning, almost situating and saying, yes, you've had this wonderful insight. Now, here's how we expand on that. Here's how it becomes truly good, good in an ultimate or an infinite sense, as opposed to good in a lived and practical sense. I'm not exactly sure that's the language I use, but it kind of gets the point home. Am I articulating that in a way that makes sense to you guys or am I missing something? No, I think it's similar to what we're saying. I mean, certainly, you know, the fact that, like you said, they see something good and true and beautiful, you know, that itself is evidence that they see God at work outside their little covenant community. Like God's wisdom is elsewhere and we don't ignore it just because it didn't come from one of our prophets or it wasn't handed down from Moses or whatever it might be. I would also say maybe just the one place where I would maybe articulate it slightly differently is I am wary and sometimes I'm guilty of this, even as a biblical scholar, but we want to be careful not to say something is only at its best expression once we wrap it in Christian language or intertwine it with the scripture. Certainly there is those times, I think, where, like you said, you know, we bring it to a fuller expression. I mean, that's what we see the New Testament often doing with the Old Testament, right? There is those times, but we also need to acknowledge those times when it's just, it is true and good and beautiful just the way it is when we encounter it in a particular culture or text or outside of the Christian tradition. I think sometimes Christians, for whatever reason, in the present space get worried by that and scared by that, that if we don't wrap it in Christian veneer, it's like it's less important or something. And I just want to, I want us to be careful that we don't always feel we need to do that, re-wrap it or add to it. Sometimes it's the way it is, it's already beautiful and it's wisdom and we need to learn from it. No, that's fair. I think, see what you think about this. My thought would be that it's always gesturing beyond itself, you know, and I think that's what I'm trying to articulate. I don't want to just make it Christianese all the time, right? I agree with you. I think something can be true and good and beautiful on its own, but then also recognizing that that true good and beautiful isn't sufficient, that there's something even beyond that, that it is not reality, it is created reality itself. And so we always want to be pushing toward the creator, but am I, would you disagree with that or what am I? No, I wouldn't disagree with that. I think that's part of the, I would say that that's part of the, you know, kingdom ethic of Christianity, that there is this sense that, you know, the kingdom coming in its fullest expression in our eschatological future is the flourishing of all things. It's the beautifying of all things. So I certainly would agree with you there. Then maybe my other question, and this will take us in a little different direction, but the land aspect. I mean, I'm an Old Testament guy, right? So, you know, you do see a lot of times in the Old Testament, you see nations trading land with other nations and they do that through war. They do that through conquest. You also see God punishing nations for doing that, right? You see God becoming impatient with, you know, X, Y, or Z nation and expelling them from the land. I mean, he does it with Israel, but the Amorites are also referenced in Genesis 15, 16, right? Where Israel is going to spend 400 years in slavery because the iniquity of the Amorites are not yet, has not yet been fulfilled. You see this importance of this land, but you also recognize that it's not as permanent as maybe we tend to think it is, right? That God is still working within these contexts. And I take your point there really well. I'm just wondering how you wrestle with some of those sort of displacements in the Old Testament as we move into this doctrine of discovery, which I tend to agree with you guys, is problematic in a number of ways, right? But how do you structure that Old Testament idea where God is moving amongst the nations and sort of using the nations to drive his agenda, we might say, accomplish his plans versus what we see now with the doctrine of discovery? Is there a coming to terms with that doctrine of discovery that we need to do where the people who executed that are really going to get their comeuppance, let's say, in a very Old Testament sort of way? Thoughts? You want to tackle that or you want me to? Chris, you want to try? Well, yeah. I mean, it raises a related question of how long do you have to be on land to be indigenous to that space? And, like, does one's indigeneity in relation to the land, is that static? And is that, like, forever? And I don't know that we've ever seen that true for any people group. We make stories about, I mean, there are plenty of stories about people coming from the land. This is really important. And so I do want to frame the origin stories. I'm a mound-building people. The Shawta come from a mound. But there are stories that, like, we walk from some other place. And there's Cherokee stories that they came from maybe the Caribbean and they landed in Florida. They went up to the Iroquois nation, the Haudenosaunee up in New York, and they got their language. Their languages have some similarities. And then they went down to Georgia and Tennessee. So it's not like our people have not moved and all our origin stories tend to have some kind of story of wandering or finding that place that God is calling us to. The Chata have a story where they are following a pole. And the pole keeps leading, basically, and they just keep going in the direction the pole leads. And then finally they find their center space. Like, okay, this is what, this is our promised land. This is where creator is telling us is a good place to be. And that seems to have been Mississippi. So, you know, I think the importance of the land is that it's not just even an indigenous insight. I think it is a widespread human insight that the effort, the work you put in the land, the fact that your family's buried there, that you form deeper relationships to the land, that the land holds the stories of your people. And also the land filled with animals and filled of rocks have also furnished the characters and the stories you tell, whether about, like, Raccoon or Salmon or that have framed your theological imagination, the values that you hold. They're living parables. And so your life becomes enmeshed in this land. Now, people do get displaced and they form new relationships with lands. The Chata are down in Oklahoma and then have been here for many generations and have a new relationship with that land. So all that to say is that what we see in the Hebrew Bible are, one, this constant reference to the promised land and holding on to this land and this relationship to the land. But even that looks different throughout the Hebrew Bible. I was just even thinking that it's not that long that the actual Hebrew people in the grand story of the Hebrew Bible actually independently own this land. It's actually a very short time. Like, because then they split it up and it's North and South Kingdom. But then quickly, they become vassal states to the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans. So by the time we get to Jesus, it's been much more in the grand scheme of things that they haven't actually really owned their land. And yet they have this relationship and other people have come into this land as well. So where we get to the Doctrine of Discovery and its problem is where people enter the land and the people that exist don't exist, right? They don't legally qualify as dignified people. As long as they're not Christians, this is the Doctrine of Discovery. As long as a Christian discovers land, it's first come, first serve, granted that the land is being occupied by barbarians or infidels or whatever, you know, the term is. I know the term, but I'm forgetting it right now. So, you know, I think it's just being a good neighbor, right? Anytime you go into a place, you try to be a good neighbor. You treat the people around you as dignified, worthy people to negotiate how to live well in the neighborhood. And you honor those treaties you establish. There's something odd about, and I'll just, this is just my commentary on it, but I think there is something odd about the Doctrine of Discovery because it had the sense that, I always think of the Blues Brothers, if you guys have ever seen that movie, were on a mission from God. And you just watch these two guys do basically whatever they want throughout the whole movie because they're on a mission from God and it's all justified. And that's what it feels like when I read things about the Doctrine of Discovery. It's like, You're justifying everything you're doing based on this idea that God has given you some sort of mandate, but he hasn't given you that mandate. This is an idea that you've come up with that isn't necessarily particular.

really well tested. And so I don't know how you think about what do you think about that concept of the doctrine of discovery when you consider it within your hermeneutic? How do you deal with that sort of, I don't know, fictional agenda, let's call it, right? Danny, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, well, I was gonna say, I mean, that's what's been so problematic as we talk about the Bible and theology is that, you know, we need to reckon with the reality, you know, especially non-Indigenous Christians, you need to reckon with the reality that the Scripture has been tied into and entangled in this colonial project since inception. You know, it was it was used as the justification for what's being done so that, you know, the Joshua story becomes the paradigm for colonization. You know what I mean? So it's just this, you know, which goes back to your original thoughts on this is that and what Chris just said, you know, does this mean that, you know, God actually ordained this or is this just your idea? And coincidentally, you know, it allows you to just take major resources and riches from this place and impoverish the people, you know, and how many of us of our ancestors died from, you know, from the diseases that came and, you know, losing their land, all this type of stuff. It's like, yeah, can you equate this one-to-one with giving up a precise piece of land for them to reside in? And the other, the other interesting component of it, as those as these things get juxtapos, is that the Old Testament makes it very clear who the owner of the land is, and that's creator, it's God. You reside there by his good will, by his, and it's a gift, just like what the land gives you is a gift. And that's so different than the idea of owning land. I mean, that was just a totally foreign concept, which resulted in a lot of problems because, you know, early on Indigenous people just this was not part of the worldview, how could you own land? You know, they would say, well, you can't own the air, how could you own the land? You know, this is just something that's a gift to us and so we'll share it with you. But Europeans coming with a totally different perspective on land as property, privately owned property, you know, this resulted in all sorts of problems when it came to treaties, you know, when they signed treaties, yeah, we'll share the land with you. And the Europeans are signing thinking, oh, good, they just handed it all over and now we can get off this land, you know. So there's just such marked differences in that relationship to land that in the Hebrew Bible is much more similar to Indigenous ways of understanding land than European understanding. It's interesting. It's almost like it's a loss of an imagination. So like Charles Taylor sort of imagination concept where you have the Europeans coming in and their imagination is going to beat out the imagination of the Native Americans. And what I think you guys have done in your book is you've reminded you're trying to remind people that, hey, that imagination has actually really great value and it can help us understand the world around us far better than the European imagination in different ways. Right. It's not like, hey, let's pick one and go with it. It's there's a mixed bag here that if we're careful about what we pull out, this can be really fruitful for us. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up and many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Can we, and maybe I'll go to Chris, but I'm wondering if you can kind of walk through, you guys do fantastic chapters, I think, on, you know, the Naboth analogy and then also the Babylon and boarding schools chapters. I thought were fantastic. I'm wondering if you can comment maybe on the trail of tears chapters, chapter first, and then we can move into the Babylon and boarding schools chapter just to give people an illustration of how you're thinking through and how this hermeneutic works itself out more practically and historically. Yes, do you want me to start with the Naboth stuff a little bit and you can do the trail of tears, Chris? Sounds good. Yeah, so the Naboth story, you know, obviously I read it in the Bible itself, but when I first started kind of thinking about it again, it was just this little quotation as I was reading from a missionary on the west coast of Canada. His last name is Claw, C-L-A-H. And, you know, they're disputing with the colonizing government where essentially the land's just being taken. You know, this land's now ours, please stay off of it. And he, you know, he theologizes and says, well, I've read the story of Naboth. You know, I know that God doesn't think it's right that you just take people's land. You know, it's just, it's so matter of fact, but it's so poignant to the histories of Turtle Island, you know, where land was so often just taken, where treaties were almost never honored on the government side, and they just, you know, ended up squeezing Indigenous peoples onto smaller parcels, which often shifted places where they were going to be. That's the history of, part of the history of my people is, you know, they were put on a reserve and then the reserve got too big and wealthy and so they got moved again. Or the Trail of Tears, so like Chris will talk about. And so the story of Naboth's vineyard as a story of land theft is really a, you know, a great place to think through it and think with a lens, a biblical lens, to say, well, if God thought this way about what Naboth did, let's apply this analogy to all of Turtle Island. What does it mean when we know that these lands were unjustly taken? And what is the result of that? What does God think of that? Because we assume because, you know, many of us are Christians, because our country is prosperous, God must be blessing us. Like, well, yeah, King, you know, the King ended up still staying very rich for a long time. It doesn't mean God is happy with him. So yeah, using that story, we kind of delve into what does it mean to read from the perspective of those who living on their land yet are not sovereign within that land, don't have that type of control? How do we read from that perspective of landless people as it were in a place where our ancestors resided? So that's what that, you know, chapter was about, was reading from that perspective. Cool. Yeah. I love the analogy. Yeah. Chris, go ahead. Trail of tears. Kind of connect these things for us. Yeah. And related to that is how often we oftentimes read ourselves as the either the victimized Naboth or like we're always the Israelites, but we never really take the perspective of, oh, we might be like Babylon. We might be the ones like Jezebel taking land from other people, right? We're always the heroic figure and the prophetic word of the Bible and our ability to kind of occupy multiple characters as part of our spiritual discipline to check. I come from a Presbyterian background, so it's always this, like, discipline of owning one's depravity in some ways, which is the opposite of a passive-based theology. But there is some practice there that I see is so valuable. With the Trail of Tears, one of the ways in which I think about biblical interpretation at its best is to think of interpretation like viewing art in museum. And when you have two paintings sit next to each other and juxtapose them, you can't but help interpret one in light of the other in relationship, and you begin to see comparing and contrasting. And because you're seeing them together, you might be making connections you would not have otherwise or asking questions about one over the other that you wouldn't have thought about otherwise. And so out the basis, there seems to be some resonances. I was really excited. I kind of started this chapter being like, well, there has to be some resonance between thinking about the Trail of Tears experience that my tribe was one of the first to go on and the exodus or the story of the A Trail of Tears where the Babylonians took out those living in Jerusalem and took them away from their land into Babylon, which was a really traumatic experience and a really important moment for the Jewish experience and in the way in which they stored, they told their stories and remembered their stories.

So much of the Hebrew Bible was edited and copied and brought together in Babylon. So I thought that would be really fruitful. And being a New Testament guy, I was like, okay, there's probably stuff in the Old Testament I have not really paid attention to. Let me go in this lens. And I came up to this point. I was like, oh, there's actually not a whole lot. Like in terms of capturing the experiences of those traveling and walking all those miles for all those months, like that's not recorded. I have a friend named Daniel Smith Christopher, who is an expert on Daniel, is an expert on this period. And he suspects, he's got a paper not yet published where he would say that when the Israelites are remembering their own Exodus from Egypt and retelling that story from Babylon, that they might be importing some of the recent experience of their long walk into that story. But it's interesting, they don't. And then there's this parallel that we don't have a lot of firsthand accounts of those experiences of the Trail of Tears. We have a lot of administrative accounts and missionary accounts, which is funny because we have Babylonian accounts of deporting the Jews. And so there's that. And that's not as interesting, but what's interesting, I would say, is when I started this project and we had this grant from the Louisville Institute to go and meet and spend time with indigenous people and leaders to just marinate in these stories. And so Danny and I said, we're not gonna write for two years. We're just gonna listen to stories before we begin this process. As I was meeting with different Cherokee and Choctaw pastors and I asked them questions like, so when you think about what it means to be a fully Cherokee or fully Choctaw person and you're reading scriptures and you see resonances between these two cultural experiences, or, you know, what is that like? Or where, where do you, what kind of story does that evoke for you when you feel like, oh, this is where my Christianity and my Cherokee or Choctaw culture come in full, full beauty together. And the responses I would get would be, well, it's in our Cherokee hymns. It's in our Choctaw hymns. And as a textual person, I'm like, oh man, what am I gonna do with songs, right? Like I want some like beautiful sermon from the texts. And as I'm sitting one night listening to Cherokee hymn singers, they began telling stories about the songs and the hymns that were sung along the Trail of Tears. Many of them were written on the Trail of Tears. And so there's this whole oral tradition that sits along these songs that are just perfectly pious songs. And they describe the really terrible experiences that the Cherokee had, whether it was, you know, experiences of like sexual assault in the forts or it was experiences of babies getting killed along the marching way. And it made me really think about, boy, these songs, like just basic pious Christian songs are also these like vehicles and containers from the vessels for memories, for really traumatic memories that then help them to process that experience. And again, I will say, we don't have, we do have accounts of these. They just come in the second and third generation when ethnographers and sociologists came and talked to the grandchildren and the children that went on the trail. So those stories are verified in a lot of those accounts. All that to say is that made me go back to Psalm 137 and, you know, by the canals and rivers of Babylon, I'm like shedding tears and they're asking me to sing this joyful song for my land, but how can I do it? It's just this really sorrowful lamentation of a song. And it ends with, you know, blessed are those who like bang the heads of babies on rocks of our enemies. And you're just thinking, oh, that's kind of overreaction, or what do I do with this as scripture, right? Like praising babies getting killed. And, you know, I had this moment like, well, you know, I bet you, you know, someone like F.E. Oaks who witnessed Choctaw babies being killed as a result of walking too slow along the trail and her deciding that I'm going to carry my little brother across this trail so that he doesn't die. She might be able to resonate with that sentiment. And by juxtaposing these stories, I came away with a greater appreciation for the Psalms and what songs do, right? Like I so often in the Western way, we look for scripture to give us mathematical theological propositions, right? About who God is or how we're saved and such. But to kind of look at it from a sociological perspective that these are songs that help us process trauma, that may actually have held stories of the Jewish people that we no longer have access to, but help them process. And what's interesting is when you think about the Psalms, they're all organized in certain ways, like they're collected in all these mini story frames. And the stories and the songs that like surround Psalm 137 are pretty basic praise songs. There's like nothing distinguishing them that makes them special. And they're all special, but there's nothing really quite like part of the story. And yet when you look at the Cherokee and Choctaw songs, they're just basic songs. You'd never expect them to have so much cultural significance or stories associated with them. And I can't prove this, but it leads me to ask different kinds of questions of how these songs were used, even the most basic kind of flat theology songs had a sociological life among those in Babylon. Yeah. It kind of goes to the, and I think, you know, that connection to the Babylonian and boarding school chapter, where you talk about the enculturation of people, for lack of a better term, right? This enculturation of people, a learning out. It reminds me, I always go back when I was reading the chapter, I was thinking about this, the Braveheart line. If you've seen the movie Braveheart, right? Where Longshanks says the trouble with Scotland is that it's full of Scots. And if we can't get them out, we'll breed them out. I had that sort of echoing my head when I was reading that chapter because that's essentially what is happening. It's not specifically breeding, but it is this very deep erasure of a culture, of an imagination, of a history and a story that now has to develop resilience where maybe before it was more natural. You know, there had to be this sort of resistance. And I can't help but think that the songs and the stories and the, you know, the rituals and celebrations were part of that point of resistance. You know, if I, if I had to guess it, that's how I'd see it happening, at least in part. So. I agree. I agree. Guys, really fascinating stuff. We're running out of time. This has gone by super fast. I can't believe we've done 45 minutes already. So I usually ask my guests one final question. So I'll ask you guys and you answer it however you'd like. But what do you think the church should be doing today that it's not doing that would help us be and make disciples more faithfully? That is a really great question. One of the main driving principles of the learning community we're a part of, Nate's, is that people really respond well when you are able to point to something in their lives that and say, well, that's beautiful. That's really lovely. That the way in which your grandfather took you on that hunt, the way in which your grandmother sang those songs to you, that there's something beautiful and good and formative in there that has a significant piece of what it means to live a beautiful, harmonious life that is blessed, that is part of the kingdom of God. And we talk about what it looks like to contextualize pastoral care, contextualize theology, contextualize that, that it's meaningful, not just when you're a kid and you're looking at a Marvel movie and you're saying, oh, Black Panther, that's, I see myself in that. Or for us, the Choctaw person, they have Echo. Echo is not a Choctaw person in the comic books, but because the actresses, they had a whole storyline in Marvel's Echo where it's, she's Choctaw and they incorporate Choctaw stories in there. And I just thought, you know, this is amazing storytelling. Like, I don't know, I think a lot of the metaphors were lost on people, but it was incredibly powerful and beautiful as a Choctaw person to see my stories being used in a meaningful way or my tribe stories be used in a meaningful way. So I think when we can do that with discipleship and theology and look at what the assets of any given culture is, and this is not just for indigenous cultures, this is for Hispanic cultures, Asian American cultures, Euro-American cultures, right? That this is a way to present the gospel rather than always this antagonistic, like, well, you have these deficiencies and these are things that need to be brought under the throne, right? Like you move people into that fight or flight mode as a result. But if you're able to talk to people about the goodness that's there, you lift them up in their chest and you move them into this imaginative space and you're confirming some of their biases of what they've experienced to be good. And it's just a better way. I think this is a worthwhile way for the church to begin imagining how are we communicating and building relationships with our neighbors around us. So trying to highlight the, trying to affirm.

affirm what that neighbor is already seeing is good, the assets they're recognizing in and around them and the way that they're using them that are in accordance with God's order is kind of the gist. Am I getting that right? That's the gist. I would say underlined that, like, that takes time and that takes relationships. It takes time to get invited to the barbecue. It takes time to get invited to the quinceañera, right? And it's not, you know, we were talking about our past in Campus Crusade before this podcast started. And I just was raised into a culture where it's like, it's quick four spiritual laws. You never know if you'll ever see this person again and lob these bombs at them. And it's just not relational. Hey, I just want to share this track with you. Yes. Oh, what's your name? Yeah. Yeah. No, you definitely have to fight against that. Crew is a great organization. I mean, we both agree with that, but I had that exact experience. It's like, just, you know, leave the track. It'll be fine. But I hear you. Yeah. Develop the relationships and then really focusing in on that affirming aspect of where are you seeing the true, the good and the beautiful and with probably with the hopes of us pointing beyond it. That's sort of idea. Yeah. Very good. Danny, anything? Yeah. I mean, there's lots of things I could say. I think probably what I settled on as I was pretending to listen to Chris and trying to figure out my answer is that's the writing process. I was thinking about, so I'm a Matthew guy. I do a lot of research in Matthew and that passage at the end of the Olivet Discourse, you know, where God is speaking from his throne and, you know, saying, you know, you didn't do this to the person in the prison. You didn't do and, you know, you did this. And they said, you know, they're saying, well, when didn't we do that, you know, or when did we do that? And one of the things that I take from that that I think is a really big opposition to a way a lot of Christianity functions right now is that what we do really matters. And we are not being in that portrait. He's not asking us to correctly explicate our doctrine. It's actually our, it's the way we live. It's our deeds that actually say who we are. And a lot of Christianity and a lot of ways that we talk about discipleship is almost always talking about doctrine instead of saying, what are the practices that characterize, you know, following Jesus? How do we exist in the world? You know, I'm reminded of the, I can't remember the guy's name. You guys will probably remember if I do, but Cornel West, you know, justice is what love looks like in public. You know, what do we do? So I would say, you know, back to your question of making disciples, discipleship is, we really need to focus on what lives look like, what practices look like, what characterizes us. And that could be a beautiful, it can and should be a beautiful mosaic based on who you are, where you are, who you belong to, whose people you are. All of that should shape the beautiful mosaic. But it's not, it does not come down to how you believe or how you articulate something. Indigenous peoples don't often use the language of religion, but if you press them, I remember talking to an elder and he said, I don't even use that language. You know, you can't really ask me about what I believe, but he said, I would just say I'm ceremonial. And that's the way you tell how I think and what I believe is the things I do regularly. My life is a ceremony. That's a great way to put it. I'm ceremonial. I love it. Well, guys, this has been great. I kind of wish we had more time. Maybe we can do this again. But I'd recommend to everybody reading the Bible on Turtle Island. Really fantastic book. I think a great treatment of this type of hermeneutical approach. And I think a really necessary corrective to much of what you might be reading. It's definitely a helpful way of approaching the biblical text. And I just really appreciate you guys taking the time to write it, taking the time to research it two years before you ever put pen to paper is pretty impressive. And it shows it was a great book. So thanks for being on the show, guys. Thank you so much. We really appreciate the conversation. Absolutely. If I make one more plug, I just want to emphasize that this book is really for everyone, for Euro Americans, for Indigenous people, for we really had the whole church in mind as we wrote this book. And we wrote it so that it could be used in Bible studies. It could be used by Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity. That's I would sometimes poke at Danny and be like, that's a three syllable word. Are you gonna make my dad read such a long word? Like, let's let's just calm it down here. So, yes, the topic is about Native American interpretations of the Bible. And it's one of the first on the topic. But we believe that the assets and heritage and what we see is really beautiful gifts that and interventions that Indigenous perspectives can bring to reading the Bible. It's not just for Indigenous people. It's also for, it's for everyone. And so this is a book that's not about like, let's bash Euro Americans. And you're supposed to, it really is. We approach everything from an asset base. It didn't come off like that. And I would just say to everybody listening, as I was reading through it, I felt it was very accessible. Just like you're saying, I think anybody could read this. And it did not come off as a negative portrayal of any particular thing. It was a very positive. I think that idea of affirming what you see comes out really well in the book. You're not, you're not negative theologizing all over the place. You're very much affirming what you're seeing. And so it was a very positive and oddly uplifting book to read. A book on hermeneutics, but a very accessible book on hermeneutics. So we'll have the link in the show description. This is an IVP title. IVP gives us 20% discount. So if you click the link in the show description, you'll go to IVP press. You'll get the book. You'll get the 20% discount by putting in the code also in the show description. So don't buy it off Amazon. Nothing wrong with Amazon, but you won't get the 20%. So get the 20%. You'll enjoy it. And anyway, guys, really appreciate you being on the show and we'll catch everybody on the next episode. Take care. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. A powerful prayer life does not require hiking a mountain to be able to hear from God. God can meet us right in the middle of our busy lives to help, guide, and speak to us through prayer. I'm Christina Patterson, host of the Teach Us to Pray podcast, providing practical teaching and encouragement on how you can make prayer a natural and consistent part of your everyday life. I promise it won't require hiking a mountain, but you just might develop the faith to move one. Listen and subscribe at lifeaudio.com.