10 minutes with … Mark MacDonald

c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The Right Rev. Mark L. MacDonald, who was named last year as Canada’s first national indigenous bishop, is currently in England for a global meeting of Anglican bishops, eager to talk about an aboriginal take on Christianity. The Lambeth Conference, held every 10 years, includes hundreds of Anglican bishops […]

c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The Right Rev. Mark L. MacDonald, who was named last year as Canada’s first national indigenous bishop, is currently in England for a global meeting of Anglican bishops, eager to talk about an aboriginal take on Christianity.

The Lambeth Conference, held every 10 years, includes hundreds of Anglican bishops from around the world. The last Lambeth Conference, in 1998, was dominated by the issue of homosexuality. This time, MacDonald hopes other subjects will be on the agenda.


MacDonald, born and raised in Minnesota, served as the Episcopal bishop of Alaska for 10 years before he became an Anglican oddity: In January 2007, the Anglican Church of Canada church chose him to represent not one geographical diocese but all of the country’s indigenous population. And because he continues as assistant bishop to the Navajoland Area Mission, which includes parts of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, his work crosses national borders, too.

MacDonald, 54, lives in Toronto and will soon become a Canadian citizen. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Are you unique as an indigenous bishop?

A: There are others in Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, there are four active bishops who are indigenous.

Q: What is your tribal background?

A: I have native ancestry in my family, and I’ve lived among First Nation communities in the U.S. and Canada all my life. As a priest, I’ve served much of my ministry among them. For 10 years, I was bishop of a predominantly native jurisdiction, Alaska.

Q: You were once active in the Native American Church of the Four Winds in Portland, Ore. Why do native congregations sometimes falter or fail?

A: The Anglo formula for building a congregation is “mimic us, and you’ll do well.” That’s been the kiss of death for many Native congregations. Most don’t have the funds to reproduce an Anglo-style parish, and indigenous ways of governance, meeting together and worship are not Anglo ways.

Q: Can you give an example?

A: The way you gather and how you treat time in the gathering are different. It’s not a casual attitude toward time, but the idea that people matter more than time. Children and elders are treated with extra special care as Native worship unfolds. These things may seem trivial to Anglo congregations, but they’re important in indigenous ones.


Q: You describe yourself as a spokesman for Canada’s aboriginal people and for “Mother Earth.” What unique perspective do you bring to the theological conversation about the environment?

A: Aboriginal people can speak prophetically to the larger culture by saying, simply and clearly, that we don’t exist apart from the Earth God has given us.

Environmentalists talk about what a tragic loss it will be if we destroy our environment _ as if human life would be possible without it. The biblical and indigenous response is that the world God has given to us makes us human, not in and of ourselves, but we are made human by our environment. To be responsible for creation is a moral absolute, not an option. God made everyone green.

Q: Do you encounter criticism from indigenous people because you represent Christianity, a religion that some say was forced on them?

A: No. Traditional, non-Christian people recognize that in my position their primal authority has been recognized and respected. Some of the most powerful aboriginal voices for justice and liberation are Christian voices, and that comes as a surprise to everyone.

Q: What can indigenous Christianity teach the rest of the church?

A: Indigenous Christianity says to Western Christianity that God has made you, set you in this sacred place, that the gospel addresses you in this place and time. And it addresses all the creatures of this place.


Q: Is it easier for people in the American West to connect to the land because we still see its beauty and majesty all around us?

A: Yes. People in the East think they have destroyed their connection to the land, cut it down with every last tree. But I try to tell people in Manhattan that the reason they feel their city is so special is because it sits on sacred ground.

(Nancy Haught writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)

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