Youth
to Lead Future Gatherings
DAVAO
CITY , Philippines
- In southern Philippines this week, Christians from some
200 tribes and 25 nations gathered to celebrate their
customs and their faith.
It
was a tapestry of God's creation as people from every
tongue, tribe, and nation joined together at the Sixth
World Christian Gathering on Indigenous People. The goal
for the event was to uphold the role of indigenous people
not only in the Church, but in nation building as well.
Its
founder, Monte Ohia, said that the movement began in 1996
when they imposed their legitimacy as the Maori Indigenous
Group of New Zealand and practiced Christianity the Maori
way.
“People
were telling us in order to be good Christian in New Zealand
you need to follow the English way. But I never felt I
was English. I was brought up a Maori. I saw more of God
in the traditional setting,” Ohia said.
As
the Maori practiced Christianity in their own culture,
40 percent of the Maori people of New Zealand have now
become Christian.
But
the growth of Christianity among most indigenous people
groups is slow. Ray Minniecon, leader of the Khabi-Khabi
tribe of Australia says the global church is partly to
be blamed.
“In
relation to the rights of indigenous people, the global
church needs to be challenged,” Minniecon said.
“They have seen us only as a mission field and with
that came a Western model of doing things. They came in
and said we are pagans, we are evil people. Therefore
in order for us to become good Christians, we have to
become like western people.”
Terry
Le Blanc of the Mi'k Maq tribe of Canada says his people
have also experienced such discrimination.
“A
missionary to my own people said, ‘these heathen
must first be civilized so that they then might be fit
receptacles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.’”
Le Blanc said. “We say that's not true. The vision
is we are quite able to be fully authentically Christian
and fully authentically indigenous without conflict between
those two identities.”
The
different indigenous people groups have one desire in
their heart and that is to express Christianity in their
own indigenous ways and to create a significant impact
in the world.
After
30 years since the indigenous peoples have been asserting
their human rights, the United Nations has finally seen
the marginalization, poverty and injustice that indigenous
peoples have faced around the globe. A draft of
the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People is
now at the Human Rights Council and is just waiting for
approval.
It
is vital for the indigenous people groups to be given
due importance because they hold the key to the revival
of the nations. Knowing the culture of the unreached peoples
of the world makes them a very effective evangelistic
force in the 21st Century.
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