In September, a group from Hamline Church’s land acknowledgement task force met to workshop and revise the current draft land acknowledgement statement. This was a significant waypoint in Hamline Church’s multi-year journey toward adopting a land acknowledgment statement and the Sacred Reckonings that it will require.

The current and final draft statement will be presented to Church Council in October or November. This juncture is a meaningful opportunity to revisit how we reached this point, and the stops for reflection and learning along the way:

Hamline Church’s journey toward Land Acknowledgement and Sacred Reckonings began at least a decade ago, in response to compelling calls from two Native American church leaders. At the 2012 General Conference, George “Tink” Tinker, citizen of the Osage Nation and professor emeritus at Iliff School of Theology, helped to lead an “act of repentance toward healing relationships with indigenous people.” And in 2015, Rev. Anita Philips, a member of the Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee Nation and Director of the Native American
Comprehensive Plan of the United Methodist Church, spoke to the Minnesota Annual Conference in 2015. Rev. Philips asked four questions that have shaped our journey: Can you see us? Can you hear us? Can you find Christ in us? Will you claim us as part of yourself and your community?

In 2019, Hamline Church hosted an event discussing dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Energy was starting to gather around the question of whether Hamline Church should use a land acknowledgement statement, like many other Minnesota institutions had begun to do. In winter of 2023, a group at Hamline Church met to study this topic, drawing on the resource Transformational Journey Towards Land Acknowledgment. An overarching theme of these discussions was that mere acknowledgment without action was simply not enough, and potentially worse than no acknowledgment statement. Another theme was that our discussions were raising many questions that we did not have the historical background to answer. We made a first attempt at writing a statement, but the more we discussed, the more we realized we have to learn.

Members of the study group formed an ad hoc land acknowledgment task force, committed to continuing the discussion and learning necessary to move toward a land acknowledgment statement and related reparative action. As the draft land acknowledgment statement said at that time, “we are listening, we are learning.” This task force sought out local Indigenous organizations and land-back or reparations initiatives with which Hamline Church could build relationships. The group began a partnership with Rev. Dawn Houser, Chair of the Annual Conference Committee on Native American Ministries and member of the Sault tribe of Chippewa, to become one of five locations that will host a space where local Native Christians might worship in a culturally sensitive way. A group of Hamline Church members volunteered at the Mendota Mdewankanton Dakota Tribal Community annual wacipi (powwow), beginning a relationship we hope to continue building. Hamline Church members also participated in a training workshop titled “Sacred Reckonings.” This training, developed by Jewish and Christian faith leaders, including United Methodist Rev. Dana Neuhauser, is a “call to sacred task of reckoning with the histories of colonization and White supremacy” and is “rooted in the relationship, spiritual practice, and faithful responsiveness to a national movement for reparations to Black and Indigenous communities.” This training continues to inform the discussion of land acknowledgment and our congregation’s relationship to our Indigenous neighbors. In April 2023, the taskforce and Hamline Church Earthkeepers planned a church service to share ongoing reflection and learning (Earthkeepers Sunday: Were Our Hearts Not Burning Within Us?, April 23, 2023).

In 2024, members of the land acknowledgment task force worked with church leadership to develop and carry out a Lenten study series around the topics of Land Acknowledgement and Sacred Reckonings. During this series, Hamline Church members attended Sacred Sites Tours led by Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs and Dr. Kelly Sherman Conroy, and learned from land consultant Jessica Intermill about the treaties and land theft that transferred Minnesota land from Native stewardship to European-American ownership. This discussion series deepened our practical understanding of how church communities like ours continue to profit from the cruel system that intentionally deprived Minnesota’s Native communities of their homes, livelihoods, and sacred sites. By the end of the series, the discussion groups had marked up the previous draft land acknowledgment statement and provided feedback to inform a major rewrite of the draft statement. Among other critiques of our previous drafts, we wanted the statement to clearly name the genocidal harm done to Native communities, the active role Christians have played in that harm, and our resulting commitments to our Native neighbors.

That overhaul of the draft statement occurred through this summer, which brings us to present: The current version of the draft statement will be considered at the October or November Church Council meeting. The congregation is invited to review the draft and share your feedback with church leadership. An important question, moving forward, is how the church will use the statement and how we will pursue the commitments to action incorporated into it. Please email any comments or suggestions to HamlineEarthkeepers@gmail.com – everyone’s participation is welcome and important in this ongoing work and learning!