From here:
The Anglican Church of Canada should apologize to the country’s Indigenous people for having “demonized” their traditional spirituality, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, told Council of General Synod (CoGS) November 24.
“There’s a need to do something by way of an apology, and we need to do it carefully and prayerfully, and we need to do it well so that it’s meaningful,” Hiltz said. “There is a need to do this.”
[….]
An apology for spiritual abuse, he said, would likely also include an expression of gratitude to Indigenous elders for keeping traditional spirituality alive, despite the risk to themselves from European and Canadian authorities.
“The elders need to be thanked…notwithstanding a position they often had to take, to say: ‘We don’t talk about that,’ or ‘We can’t talk about it,’ they have still carried the spirituality,” he said. “It’s not dead, not extinct—it’s still very much alive in their hearts.”
The apology would likely include some way of encouraging young Indigenous people to learn more about their traditional spirituality, he said.
Here is a description of Cree spirituality:
Cree people believe in Spirits visions and dreams. These visions are mediums through which we attempt to enlighten our understanding of the world in which we exist. Each of the Creator’s gifts, particularly animals and humans, possess a Spirit. Because the Spirit is eternal we know that when we die, it is only a physical death and our journey continues on. Traditional Cree spirituality also strongly reinforces the principle of a circle of life, the essence of which is found in Spirit. Spirits have the power to manifest themselves to the human eye and mind as well as to communicate with us. For example Cree people believe that the Northern Lights occur when the Spirits are dancing. Various Spirits such as the Old Woman, the bear or the buffalo often enter the Sweat Lodge during prayer. At other times, depending upon our need, particular Spirits are called upon to provide us with assistance. A variety of Spirits also come to us during dreams or in visions.
As you can see, the basis of Indigenous spirituality is Animism, a form of idolatry which is not only more primitive and less plausible than Christianity, but one that is expressly forbidden in the ten commandments.
If Christianity is true, Animism is false. If our Anglican Primate thinks imparting this information to anyone, including Indigenous people, is an act worthy of apology, then it’s tempting to conclude that he does not believe that Christianity is true.
