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Hawaiian Episcopalians
get good news

IN THESE DAYS of debate over what the courts and Congress might do to give indigenous people their due, Malcolm Naea Chun found good news on the subject from a different corner -- his church.

A leader in efforts to bring a Hawaiian context to the local Episcopal Church, Chun returned this week from a meeting of American Indian members of the denomination in Canada.

There, the presiding bishop of Canada told the Anglican Indigenous Sacred Circle that he agrees with them, that there should be a national native bishop. Archbishop Andrew Hutchinson said he'd do his best to see that the position is created and filled within a year.

Unlike the "nation within a nation" concept of Hawaiian sovereignty, these indigenous believers don't quite want a "church within a church."

"We advocate a church without borders," Chun said. The worldwide Anglican Communion is divided geographically into dioceses within nations. "That doesn't make sense with indigenous people; it's like a Berlin wall, borders that divide people," he said. For example, he said there are six groups of American Indian tribes linked by language and culture who live across expanses of Canada and northern United States, never mind state lines or diocesan boundaries.

"It's a huge step," said Chun, moving a denomination with European roots from its mind-set as missionaries coming to convert and civilize native people.

"It comes from the idea that people came from someplace on a mission, to fulfill the New Testament command on spreading the Gospel. But when does the mission end, and when do missionaries feel what they planted has taken root? Or are missionaries going to be the institution and keep the people they came to teach always as children, as students? Are missionaries so indispensable, or can they be partners, no longer senior and junior?

"It's a kind of liberation theology. This is the way it should have been after the first encounters," Chun said.

Chun is secretary general of the Anglican Indigenous People's Network, which includes not only North America, but New Zealand, where there is a separate Maori church structure with its own financial base in a land trust, and Australia, where, Chun said, aboriginal members of the Anglican church are "beggars in their own land." The network is expanding to include minorities in Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Belize and Torres Strait.

Delegates to the network's convention in April in California approved resolutions calling for the development of culturally appropriate and language-appropriate liturgies for a diversity of indigenous experiences. He says it's a way to articulate diverse theologies, to honor the experiences of indigenous peoples and to gain greater support for youth and indigenous ministries.

Although the Episcopal Church in the United States isn't at the point of accepting the separation of its indigenous membership, the action in Canada energizes people who envision something similar here. It's not a new idea in the United States, where the national Episcopal Council on Indigenous Ministry was created years ago to inform the presiding bishop and the General Convention, the lawmaking body. Several Hawaii members have served on the council and the network.

The Hawaii church traces its roots to the indigenous people in a unique way. King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma became acquainted with the Anglican Church in a visit to England. They invited the church to come to Hawaii and were among the first members of St. Andrew's Cathedral.

Hawaiian spiritual values were recognized by the 2003 Hawaii Convention in a resolution that stated:

"The Hawaiian values of mana, malama and pono helped shape our early church in Hawaii, as they should today. Mana is the understanding that along with all of God's creation, we are filled with the spiritual energy, gifts and talents that come from being created by God.

"We are called as Christians to malama all of God's creation in all aspects of our lives -- that is to recognize and to care for the mana, the sacredness that is inseparable from all that God creates. Pono, righteousness, is achieved when we successfully malama all our relationships with God's creation so that the mana in them is strengthened."