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Settler Colonial Subjects, Indigenous Rights, and Repair

Submitted to Program Units
1: Martin Luther and Global Lutheran Traditions Unit

The Lutheran tradition is not without its own history of colonialism and of working with governments to settle people on colonized lands around the world. Papers in this session engage historical, theological, and other perspectives that critically address the complexity of past or present relationships between Lutheran theology, land appropriation, indigenous rights and settler colonialism. This session also reflects towards future possibilities for action and scholarship.

Man-Hei Yip, Wartburg Theological Seminary, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

The Lutheran tradition is not without its own history of colonialism and of working with governments to settle people on colonized lands around the world. Papers in this session engage historical, theological, and other perspectives that critically address the complexity of past or present relationships between Lutheran theology, land appropriation, indigenous rights and settler colonialism. This session also reflects towards future possibilities for action and scholarship.

Papers

  • Jan H. Pranger, Concordia College, Moorhead

    Changing the settler colonial subject: Lutherans among the Bafokeng and Sioux

    Abstract

    In many contexts Lutheranism has been deeply entangled with settler colonial efforts to appropriate Indigenous lands for white settlers within an extractivist capitalist economy while seeking to eliminate the Indigenous population. However, there are notable exceptions to this dominant arrangement of Lutheranism and white settler colonialism that involves important Indigenous agency within a settler colonial order. This paper contrasts such different relationships between Lutheran churches, white settler colonialism, and Indigenous populations by describing the situation of the Southern African ELCSA church and the North American ELCA. Specifically, this paper compares the relationship of the ELCSA and the Bafokeng in the North West Province with that of the ELCA and Indigenous peoples in North Dakota, including these churches’ relationships to Indigenous lands and resource extraction.

  • Rudolf von Sinner, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná

    Lutheranism in Brazil 1824-2024 - Settlers' Impact and the Struggle for Citizenship

    Abstract

    Lutheran churches in Brazil have emerged through migration from 1824. The paper argues that there were three struggles for its citizenship: a first one in the 19th century for the civil rights of immigrant settlers. At the same time, black and indigenous people were fought as enemies. With expanding pan-Germanic tendencies after 1871, not too few claimed the "Protestant church and Germanness must remain indissolubly linked". The second struggle for citizenship, after 1945, implied the clear positioning as a Brazilian church. This was severely tested under the military regime (1964-85). From 1970 onwards, the church took an increasingly critical stance on issues of democracy, civil rights, and issues of social justice in its third struggle for citizenship: standing up for others' rights. However, prejudice and land struggles against indigenous peoples continue. The Bolsonaro government (2019-22) brought to the fore a strong polarization between ministers and members around such issues.

  • Jone Salomonsen, University of Oslo

    Hegemonic Humans? The Norwegian Sami struggle for indigenous rights and a close-to-nature theology of creation.

    Abstract

    Historically, Norway is constituted by Sami tribes and Norse settlers. These historical groups are still referenced, and in 2013 a conflict evolved between Sami tribes and the Norwegian state. The state will erect 277 wind turbines on a specific site, not taking into account that the location is an important Sami winter pasture for reindeer. Huge wind turbines disturbing 2000 grazing reindeer may violate the Sami people's rights. Despite protests, the government decided (March 6, 2024) to build the turbines as planned. As a consolation, Sami reindeer herders are promised “compensation”. I will use this complex case to ask “Who are the ‘hegemonic humans’ in Norwegian thinking and theology?” I will discuss the case by comparing two influential traditions: inherited Sami Nature Spirituality and modern Scandinavian Creation Theology.

  • Christian Scharen, Lutheran School of Theology At Chicago

    Custer Died For Our Sins: Vine Deloria, Jr., Theologia Crucis, and the Work of Settler Repair

    Abstract

    Fifty years ago, Dr. Vine Deloria’s challenged American white settler churches to begin an “honest inquiry by yourselves into the nature of your situation,” a situation where “you have taught [humanity] to find its identity in a re-writing of history.” Turning to Vitor Westhelle’s *After Hersey*, my “beginning of honest inquiry” interrogates the pseudo-theologies that funded European colonialism and settler claims to Indigenous lands in what became the United States. Deploying an anti-colonial *theologia crucis*, I follow Westhelle’s critique of the history of European colonialism allowing “naming the thing for what it is.” This theological approach then funds a critical look at my own family story of pioneer life in the Upper Midwest chronicled famously by my relative Laura Ingalls Wilder. I conclude with a case study of the Northeastern Synod of the ELCA engaging in truth telling and repair in relationship to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

Business Meeting
Marit Trelstad, Pacific Lutheran University, Presiding
Jacob Erickson, Trinity College, Dublin, Presiding
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Sabbath Observance

Sunday morning

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

settler colonialism
Global Lutheranism
Lutheran Theology
Indigenous Rights
Scandinavia
Brazil
Theology of the Cross