Generosity on the road to reconciliation
It is common to hear a land acknowledgement at the start of a service in many Canadian churches today. It’s a way to recognize the Indigenous Peoples who first occupied the land.
Such acknowledgements are good things, says Adrian Jacobs, senior leader for Indigenous justice and reconciliation in the Christian Reformed Church in Canada. But he believes they don’t go far enough.
Along with acknowledging the original occupants, Jacobs says churches should consider doing more by paying reparations – a symbolic amount donated to Indigenous-led organizations in their communities. “It would be a spiritual covenant with local Indigenous people, a treaty between people with respect to the land,” Jacobs says.
Four churches in Canada, all of them Mennonite, are paying reparations.
Four churches in Canada, all of them Mennonite, are doing just that. Home Street Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, one of the four, decided to give 1% of its budget to two local Indigenous organizations. According to Esther Epp-Tiessen, part of that church’s Indigenous-settler relations committee, paying reparations is a way for the Church to acknowledge the “theft and dispossession of Indigenous land and the near-erasure of Indigenous [Peoples] from that land.”
Another Winnipeg congregation making reparations is Charleswood Mennonite Church, located on land once used by the Métis, Anishinaabe and Swampy Cree people for hunting and trapping. Under the terms of the treaty, it was assumed the land would be shared by settlers and Indigenous Peoples.
After Charleswood adopted a statement of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in 2021, the congregation decided they wanted to act on it by giving away 1% of its annual budget to an Indigenous organization with “no strings attached,” says copastor Jonathan Neufeld.
Esther Epp-Tiessen is part of the Indigenous-settler relations committee at Home Street Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. PHOTO: BYRON BURKHOLDER
Also in Winnipeg, Hope Mennonite Church has been donating 1% of the value of its property since 2022 to local Indigenous organizations. “We realize reparations are something we should and need to do,” says lead pastor Lynell Bergen.
In Kitchener, Ont., Stirling Mennonite Church has been donating 1% of their annual budget since 2021. “We had been talking about it for many years,” said Josie Winterfeld, former pastor for missions, peace and justice outreach. “We’ve been learning, growing and working into it.”
It’s about learning to live in a good way with Indigenous neighbours.
The church is located on Block Two of the Haldimand Tract, territory given up by Indigenous Peoples with the promise of payments for giving up the land. The symbolic payment “doesn’t come close to what they lost,” says Winterfeld of the donation, which goes to a nearby Indigenous-run organization that seeks to preserve and promote Indigenous knowledge. “It’s about learning to live in a good way with Indigenous neighbours.” –JOHN LONGHURST