How One Native American Pastor Celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day

My celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day began months ago. On June 14, 2022, for the first time in its long history, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) acknowledged the many atrocities committed against Native American peoples. It was a momentous moment.

As a Southern Baptist pastor and proud member of the Comanche Tribe, I was given the honor of presenting the resolution titled “On Religious Liberty, Forced Conversion, and the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report” at the SBC’s annual meeting in Anaheim, California.

My heart raced as we prepared for the vote. I wasn’t certain the members of my denomination would understand the significance of the resolution.

My heart raced as we prepared for the vote. I wasn’t certain the members of my denomination would understand the significance of the resolution or the opportunity before them to be agents of healing for my people (I’m also of Kiowa and Cherokee descent). By God’s grace, a sea of affirmative ballots verified that Baptists did understand and wanted indigenous peoples to know they were no longer invisible but seen.

The SBC’s resolution gives Christians a model for how to honor Native American peoples. In view of the realities acknowledged there, I spent Indigenous Peoples’ Day mourning, remembering, and reflecting.

I Mourned

The SBC report responded to the findings of the recently released “Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report,” which was published by the federal government in May 2022. The report outlines how the United States federal government subcontracted with religious groups to operate these schools to accomplish the forced conversion and assimilation of indigenous children to Christianity.

The report outlines how in some cases, Native American children were taken from their families by strangers, ushered into small rooms, and stripped of their clothes. These children were doused in kerosene, lathered in lye soap, and scrubbed with the equivalent of a toilet brush. They had their hair cut. Then, already stripped of their modesty and dignity, they were forced to the nearest church altar and made to ask God to forgive them for being Indian.

When I first read this report, I grieved the attempted annihilation of my people’s culture and the atrocities committed against them. My heart aches even now as I write about those, including members of my own family, who endured horrific abuse.

I Remembered

I remembered my great-uncle, Perry Noyobad, who was a boarding school survivor and later a Comanche code talker during World War II. In the boarding schools, children were severely beaten for using their native language or for practicing any form of their native culture. It’s ironic that Uncle Perry was punished for speaking his language as a child but later used it as a soldier to help turn the tide of the war.

Uncle Perry once told my relatives, “I did not fight for what America was at the time, but what I believe America can be.” He was a hero.

I Reflected

On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I also reflected on the great hope and healing available to native peoples. Native Americans today are thriving and achieving in almost every field and profession, and I’m thankful for this evidence that the U.S. has learned to share its dream with my people.

In response to the boarding school report, U.S. secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, traveled across the country with other department officials to allow survivors from the boarding schools and family members of those who endured mistreatment to voice their pain. On this “Road to Healing” tour, officials listened and provided trauma counseling to those in need.

I attended the first stop on the tour and listened to hours of agonizing first-hand accounts from survivors. At the end of the first round of listening, I was given the opportunity to read the SBC resolution. I’m so grateful, for while there is healing in receiving remorseful actions from our government, there is greater hope and healing in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

While there is healing in receiving remorseful actions from our government, there is greater hope and healing in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In June, Southern Baptists resolved to “pray for the families of those targeted by the atrocities brought to light in this [federal] investigation (Ps. 82:3–4; Is. 1:17; Jer. 22:3).” They declared “the atrocities done against [Native] people in the name of religious ‘conversions’ as reprehensible, betraying the Great Commission and our efforts to reach all nations with the gospel (Matt. 10:14; Matt. 28:18–20; John 3:8).” As I read those words, I watched as they became a healing balm to the hearts of the wounded.

Hearing these words from Christians brought much-needed relief and was a witness to the reality that deeper healing is possible. The awful history Native Americans mourn, remember, and reflect upon on Indigenous Peoples’ Day can be an obstacle to their faith in Christ. But I’m convinced Christ is at work among my people.

My prayer is that you would receive days like this as an invitation to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15) and to pray for Native Americans across the country who don’t know Christ as their Savior. Let’s together pray the Lord would bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair (Isa. 61:3).