On Wed. Aug. 10, 2022, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly received a presentation on the “Declaration of the ELCA to American Indian and Alaska Native People” adopted by the ELCA Church Council last September.

Prior to the presentation, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton recognized the life and witness of Marlene Whiterabbit Helgemo, who died July 22. Helgemo was the first Native American woman ordained in the Lutheran church and had served on the ELCA’s Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery task force.

The declaration was presented as part of the implementation of the 2016 ELCA Churchwide Assembly’s resolution to repudiate explicitly and clearly the European-derived doctrine of discovery. Task force members gave examples to the assembly of what the ELCA has been doing to live out the declaration, closed with remarks by Vance Blackfox, who began last year in his newly created position as ELCA director for Indigenous ministries and tribal relations.

Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, addressed the assembly “on behalf of 574 sovereign Tribal nations.”

A service of Holy Communion centered Native voices as the assembly marked the Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery.

For more information: https://www.livinglutheran.org/2022/0...