EDINA COMMUNITY LUTHERAN CHURCH
WELCOME TO ECLC'S INDIGENOUS RIGHTS PAGE
Follow our monthly updates here:
Indigenous Rights Monthly Email Update Archive
From this page, you can pull up past email updates.
COMING OPPORTUNITIES
Check out the May 2026 update for many opportunities in the area to learn more about our Indigenous neighbors. Note the Pow Wows and art exhibits!
Sunday, June 14, PRE-TRIAL FAIRNESS BRUNCH at Edina Community Lutheran Church
The MN Legislature asked…so MNJRC told them! Come to a delicious finger-foods brunch and an interactive shareback learning event to hear what MN Justice Research Center told legislators about Minnesota’s pre-trial system: how it works, how it does NOT and what to do about it. It’s Sunday, June 14, at ECLC, starting at 11:15 (after 10am worship). Please sign up here for this free event — space is limited and open to the public! (Brunch provided through a Thrivent Action grant.)
Saturday, June 27 - Mark Charles - Dine/Navajo scholar, author, and activists
He will be speaking at Unity Church St. Paul. This is a two-session event: a.m. Doctrine of Discovery; p.m. Decolonizing Health and Food Systems. Please register by June 20. Many of us were inspired by Mark Charles' powerful TED talk in a Community Enrichment session last fall. You can see it here.
To trace our initial education emphasis during the fall of 2022, you can access lists of curated resources and activities below. Use them to broaden your understanding of our Indigenous neighbors, the sovereign nations who were here before European settlers took over their land.
In spite of the U.S. government’s and the Church’s intentional, systemic attempts to exterminate their life-ways, their languages, their cultures, and their religions, Indigenous People are still here and are our neighbors.
This kind of history calls for the long and difficult work of justice, confession and healing, hoping to rebuild the respect and honor our Indigenous neighbors deserve as sovereign nations and children of God.
For Christian white people, “doing the work” is a baptismal calling, and expresses the mission of our congregation: to give witness to love and justice at God’s welcome table and in the world.
LAND, LAND, LAND
Injustice legitimized by the Doctrine of Discovery spread across centuries and geographies. In the US, treaties almost always forced Indigenous people from their homelands.How might we, who now occupy these lands, acknowledge this history and act in ways that move us toward justice?
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INDIGENOUS STORYTELLING FOR ALL AGES
Indigenous peoples have a long history as storytellers. Take time this week to listen to some of these contemporary storytellers.
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ADVOCATING FOR JUSTICE
There are many opportunities to advocate for a better way. The insidiousness of the assumptions driven by the Doctrine of Discovery manifested in the late 19th Century and forward as Indian Boarding Schools. Indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools which forbade their language and other cultural expressions. In our day, Indigenous people continue to disappear, too often murdered, proportinately far more often than other groups. These are just two justice issues that call for our attention.
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A DIFFICULT HISTORY
Our county's history with its Indigenous peoples is a record too often unknown because it is too often unspoken.
Begin with the Doctrine of Discovery.
Let learning open your heart.
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INDIGENOUS EXPRESSION - THE ARTS
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INDIGENOUS CUISINE - DECOLONIZED FOOD
Our Indigenous neighbors are taking some fascinating approaches to their own health and wellbeing,
returning to the foods that sustained them for thousands of years before their economies were destroyed
when our government used treaties to take the land that had sustained them.