Some of the NAIITS board members at the 2012 Symposium at Wheaton College. Left to Right: Ray Aldred, Randy Woodley, Wendy Beauchemin Peterson, Terry LeBlanc, Andy Smith, and Richard Twiss.
WHEATON,IL—Amongst the brick and ivy of Wheaton College in suburban Chicago, the 9th annual North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies (NAIITS) Symposium was held June 7-9.
The topic of this year's symposium was "Giants in the Land: Metaphors for Native Evangelicalism," inspired by an old, well-known quote from Billy Graham: "The Native North American has been a sleeping giant. He is awakening. The original (North) Americans could become the evangelists who will help win (North) America for Christ!"
Conference attendees were gifted with presentations from a number of noteworthy speakers including Michael Oleksa, Randy Woodley, Shalene Jobin, Richard Twiss and Deanna Zantingh.
Twiss led off the symposium with a presentation of material from his new book, titled Rescuing Theology from the Cowboys: An Emerging Indigenous Expression of the Jesus Way in North America.
Michael Oleksa, an Orthodox priest from Alaska and a gifted storyteller, delivered an entertaining talk Friday morning about Native Alaskan education. "I could've listened to him speak all day," one of the conference attendees stated during the lunch break.
After the break, Shalene Jobin presented a paper connecting mythological monsters with boarding school experiences and Deanna Zantingh shared some ideas about the Native voice in the North American church.
The conference took a much-needed break Saturday night, after a long day of intense theological debate and discussion, to enjoy the music of songwriter and guitarist Steve Bell at a local church.
The speakers were insightful, challenging and uniformly brilliant, but, according to conference delegate Darlene Silversmith, "The best part was the meet and greet at the beginning—seeing who's all there, finally getting there and reacquainting myself with people...being able to feel relaxed about talking about contextualization." Silversmith traveled to Chicago by car from Gallup, New Mexico, a four day trip. "It's nice to be able to sit down and tell about what you've observed on the reservation with other people who don't judge you," she remarked.
Silversmith was also impressed with NAIITS' efforts to influence higher education. "It's fascinating that a lot of the students who are in the MA program [in intercultural studies, offered through George Fox University] are non-Natives," she noted. "That surprised me, but maybe it shouldn't. [I think] it's finally changing. Educators are becoming more sensitive to the way Natives respond to evangelization. It's good to see."
On Saturday, Randy Woodley hosted a question and response session regarding his newly published book, Shalom and the Community of Creation, which was for sale at the conference. Andrea Smith led a panel discussion on the dynamics of global oppression, and Vincent Yellow Old Woman shared some words of wisdom regarding treaties and gave an impassioned call to the young people at the conference to take up the torch of Indigenous theology and carry it into the next generation.
The NAIITS Journal, a collection of the presentations in bound format, is available at their website (www.naiits.org) as is information about next year's conference, which will be held in Toronto, Ontario.
