Rescuing the Gospel from the cowboys : a Native American expression of the Jesus way /

The late theologian Richard Twiss (1954-2013) makes a powerful case that Native American Christians can pursue their faith "while still fully embracing [their] tribal identity, traditional customs, cultural forms, worldview and rituals." In contrast to Christian leaders, including some Native Americans, who regard such practices as sweat lodges, powwows, and native music and dance as syncretistic and hence anathema to "true" Christianity, Twiss argues that such "contextualization" of indigenous culture is the only way to make Jesus's message fully and meaningfully accessible to Native peoples. Such a view is becoming more widely accepted, if Twiss's sometimes benumbing recitation of conferences and organizations promoting it is evidence. Despite its focus on a specialized challenge within one religious community, Christianity, and its unfortunate failure to include women's stories among those detailed at any length, Twiss's book offers valuable lessons for those struggling with decolonization in a religious context or any other. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. --William F. Schulz, Meadville Lombard Theological School

Twiss (One Church, Many Tribes), in his last work before his death in 2013, shares stories from his research into how Christians have attempted to assimilate or destroy Native American cultural identity. He explores how Euro-Americans have disparaged Native rituals from earliest contact to the present day, and resisted Native American voices much more strongly than other non-European contributors to religious discussions. Moving beyond critique, Twiss also provides a way forward for Native American followers of Jesus by arguing for contextualization-the careful inclusion of non-Eurocentric practices-in order to allow Christianity to meet the needs of Native believers. Twiss shows how this process was present in early Christian writings but was lost during the era of colonization. His focus on the history and spread of contextualization over the last few decades becomes a bit too much of a listing of groups and events, but it speaks to his interest in the theory and practice of diffusion (with reference to Malcolm Gladwell's writing on how ideas spread). Also, some of the stories he shares are composite and incomplete. Nonetheless, the work provides useful insights for all Christians engaging in cross-cultural mission work, and offers strong hope for a multicultural future of the church. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.