Summer school is also an opportunity for intensive course work for students in the Indigenous Studies Program MDiv by Extension. ISP Summer School serves people from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, with an international and largely Indigenous faculty.

Indigenous Studies Program Summer School is holistic and interdisciplinary. Courses examine sacred scripture, theology, and philosophy through the lens of Indigenous thought. Courses achieve this by examining social data, literary-oral tradition and the artistic cultural aspects of Indigenous spirituality.

Treaty is a living relationship on the land built on the desire for the deep relationship of peace that comes from peer respect. Haudenosaunee Wampum Belts encoded these original covenantal values and we mistreat the earth and one another when we stray from these ideals. As various pressures force churches across the country to reconsider their land and building assets, it is also an opportunity to think more deeply and theologically about our relationships on and to the land. For the non-Indigenous church, the renewal and repair of these relationships – with the land and with Indigenous communities – is perhaps the most important pre-development work we can do. It is time to polish the tarnished silver of relationship and rebuild a better future on the land.

How do you find reconciliation when justice is so far away? For individuals who have experienced oppression and marginalization, the church’s advocacy of reconciliation can seem artificial or contrived. How do you continue to advocate for reconciliation if it means that you will never see justice for the ones you have lost? Perhaps the only way forward is to listen to our elders, to the call from those who have suffered and are surviving, to seek reconciliation. Perhaps we need to seek the truth, but in the end, embrace reconciliation and try to live together as neighbours. Reconciliation is not cheap grace, it cost something.

This just in: Join Rev. Dr. Sarah Travis and members of her advisory committee to discuss her latest book, "Unsettling Worship: Reforming Liturgy for Right Relations with Indigenous Communities." On November 2 at 1 PM EST on Zoom, you're invited to be part of the conversation about decolonizing worship and creating new possibilities.