Barriers to Christianity: From Without and From Within
There are a variety of barriers that Native peoples in the US and Canada face that can make it difficult to accept Christianity as the way to living a hope-filled and fruitful life today, tomorrow, and for all eternity. Barriers from without are caused by the mistakes by those representing the Christian community going back many generations. Barriers from within may include barriers to Christianity that are shared by all people until God sovereignly opens the eyes of their hearts to his existence and infinite love and mercy toward those who believe.
Barriers Native Peoples Face When Presented with the Christian Message
1. Spiritual Forces: As with all people, there are spiritual forces that work against Native peoples’ ability to believe the message of Jesus Christ. See Ephesians 6: 12, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Romans 1:25. In Native communities, spiritual forces are engaged through ritualistic practices that border on witchcraft and New Age philosophy.
2. Paternalism: A belief called “Manifest Destiny” was used to rationalize the oppressive, and in many cases, brutal acts of genocide on Native peoples of North America, by dominating Westernized governments. Related efforts by the dominant culture to eliminate Native culture e.g., to “civilize” Native people, were often supported by churches during the 1800’s and early-mid 1900’s. Such counter-productive involvement by churches distorted the message of Jesus Christ and still causes unnecessary resistance among many Native peoples to Christ’s good news of unconditional love, forgiveness, and eternal salvation.
3. Conflict Among Christian Denominations: On most US reservations and Canadian reserves, the existence of multiple Christian denominations results not in cooperation but in conflict. Such unbiblical competition among Christian groups is also counter to Native values of community harmony and unity. As a result, conflict among denominations has created another unnecessary hindrance to Native peoples’ acceptance of Christianity.
4. Breakdown of Family and Community: Alcohol, drugs, and suicide have torn down otherwise healthy Native values of family, community, and related traditional lifestyles. Learned patterns of alcohol abuse are often passed on from generation to generation.
5. Lack of Men in Church Leadership: In churches on most reservations and reserves, low church involvement by men has resulted in women assuming a disproportionate burden of leadership.
6. Few Indigenous Pastors: Not only do many churches attended by Native peoples lack a Native pastor, many were founded under, and are still unnecessarily influenced by western culture. In this regard, many Native churches are still dependent on leadership from Anglo-American church and para-church institutions. This prevents maximum integration of Native culture with Christian beliefs and general practices e.g. of worship and service. This, in turn, prevents effective church planting efforts among Native peoples, according to Craig Smith*. Also, in this regard, Ralph Winter** stated that most Native tribes are still “unreached” in that few churches attended by Native people are truly indigenous i.e., self-supporting and self-expanding.
* Craig Smith, Whiteman’s Gospel
**Ralph Winter was the Founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission and coined the phrase “unreached people groups”. See: Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, 1999, p. 364. Note: Currently, only about 1-3% of Native Americans call themselves Christians.
7. Self Sufficiency/Self-Satisfaction: Native Christians who are satisfied in their own abilities to meet their own needs are complacent and lack the motivation to take the steps required to grow in their faith.
8. Compromising Christian Walk: Some self-proclaimed Native Christians may continue in activities that, while acceptable in the general culture, are in conflict with the teachings from the Bible. Such activities include gambling, mixing non-Christian beliefs with Christian beliefs, and drinking to excess.
9. Limited Financial Resources: Native churches and para-church organizations like, Overcomers Ministries, often lack the financial resources to sufficiently support ministry activities among Native peoples. In addition, churches with missions budgets rarely view Native peoples as an “unreached people group” with the same priority as they view unreached people groups located overseas. As a result, churches often allocate relatively few dollars to support missions efforts among Native peoples. Also, while over 60% of Native American’s now live in urban areas, US churches still allocate more dollars to reservations.