They took part in Apache ceremonies. Their schools expelled them for satanic activities

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jun/24/apache-students-school-reservation

They took part in Apache ceremonies. Their schools expelled them for satanic activities

Educators on the Fort Apache Reservation have repeatedly condemned teens for participating in a sacred dance. It follows a pattern of Christian discipline begun more than a century ago

Nicolle Okoren with photographs by Trevor Christensen
Mon 24 Jun 2024 10.00 EDT

The way the school saw it, it was devil worship.

In October 2019, three teenage girls were punished for participating in a spiritual ceremony. Their Arizona school expelled two of them, and let the third off with a warning, citing their attendance as a violation of school policy and grounds for expulsion.

Caitlyn, now 18, says she and her friends were disciplined for participating in a Sunrise Dance, a traditional Native ceremony at the core of White Mountain Apache culture.

…

Caitlyn finished her eighth-grade year at East Fork Lutheran school and then moved on to a school off the reservation, but the damage was done. For the next four years, Caitlyn struggled to integrate into her Apache culture. She explained: “I didn’t allow myself to engage or talk about my culture,” she says. “Even after I graduated, I had that paranoia that I would get in trouble for talking about or participating in it.”

…

It states that these 13-year-old girls will only be allowed to return to school if they agree to confess in front of the Wels church, school and community that they were worshiping the devil when they took part in the Sunrise Dance. They must promise never to do it again. Maria, a younger woman in her late 30s, was there to share a similar story. The school board found that she had also participated in what they considered a satanic ceremony. Her children were not allowed to return to school the next year. The school had decided to penalize the children for the perceived sins of their mother. Astonishingly, this pattern of Christian discipline, started more than a century ago, had never stopped.

…more…

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. This needs more eyeballs.

[Celerity]

47. Based on our reporting and speaking with members of the tribe, there are over 80 churches on the reservation,

representing 27 different Christian denominations. The tribe indicated that there was an official list the churches operating on the reservation but no list has been delivered.

East Fork Lutheran school was founded in 1951 by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (Wels), a religious group which has been active in Arizona since 1893 as part of its Apache Mission – an effort to convert “unreached tribes” to Christianity. This was one of many schools built on the reservation by Wels. The mission has shifted to now being focused on training Native American Christians to lead in the ministry and serve as missionaries to other Indigenous nations throughout the US and Canada.

The school is not unique in its dogma opposing traditional Indigenous practices; the vast majority of the churches on Apache land teach families who participate in traditional ceremonies that they’re damning themselves by worshiping the devil. The Whiteriver Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church, stated in its missionary handbook that Crown Dancers – those who help welcome the girl into womanhood during the Sunrise Dance – could be a “demonic manifestation”.

Since 2020, Wels has published 180 sermons on its YouTube channel, Native Christians. Thirty-one of the 190 videos – almost a fifth – include disparaging remarks about tribal practices including the Sunrise Dance or medicine men, including two completely dedicated to convincing the congregation of the evil within the Sunrise Dance.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

48. I have no tolerance of evangelicals. Surely all of this shit is illegal.

[SarahD]

2. Lutheran school?

I thought they were more tolerant than that. Must be Missouri Synod.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Worse, Wisconsin.

[wnylib]

6. Not Missouri synod. The Wels name for the school

in the article should be all caps, WELS. It stands for Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. They are so conservative that they make the Missouri Synod look moderate.

The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) would not have expelled the girls.

[Bettie]

16. My DH's family is WELS

it is the only church where I have come out of a Christmas service depressed!

Politics from the pulpit since W's time. Actually, earlier than that...

[murielm99]

18. I grew up Missouri synod.

WELS is the only thing wackier.

[wnylib]

35. I went to a Missouri Synod church for a few years

when I was a child. The only reason that we went there was because my grandmother's sister lived with us then, after her husband died. She was a German immigrant as a child and the MS church was a German congregation. She had friends there.

After a few years, my great aunt went to a nursing home following a few strokes. As soon as she moved out, my parents switched to what was then the LCA. What a difference!

[AZSkiffyGeek]

7. WELS - Wisconsin Synod

I don't think they've discovered fire yet. May require women to plait their hair and sit in the back.

[SarahD]

9. Thanks, everyone, for the explanation.

I grew up in Sconsin and was blissfully unaware of WELS. My family was ALC or LCA before the merger. I suspect a few of my whacker cousins might belong to some offshoot movement.

[marble falls]

40. I was in Missouri Synod parochial schools in Cleveland from second to sixth. We were taught evolution was wrong, ...

... that dinosaurs were faked. That Catholics were going to hell. I remember telling a Catholic girl she was going to Hell but that we could still go to the playground together. They also taught me that G*D was going to show up any moment and if I had even one forgiven sin, I was going to Hell. At eight my grandfather gave me my first Timex. I used it to pray every ten minutes at school to beg forgiveness. I went to my first psychologist in fourth grade because I lost it reciting a portion of Luther's Small Catechism and I couldn't remember a thing I'd spent hours memorizing.

I still remember portions of it, including "what does this mean: I, the lord gawd, am a vengeful gawd who visits his revenge onto fourth and fifth generation of them who hate me."

In sixth grade we moved to Parma Hts and joined an Evangelical Lutheran Church and life got a lot brighter for me.

I was confirmed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and I was refused Communion once in a Missouri Synod church I attended with friends.

Religion screws Christ's message of inclusion up.

[MagickMuffin]

3. Sounds like they need to start a school voucher system on the reservation

I hear that school vouchers are all the rage nowadays and they can take taxpayers money to do it.


And to the intolerant and ignorant faux “christians” it is you who are evil and should repent.

[BoRaGard]

4. So-called christians are always persecuting others

because they have no inner spiritual strength or integrity.

Then they whine that they are the "victims" like the victimy felon they worship as a leader.

Sad.

[wnylib]

46. That particular religious school is affiliated with

a very ultra conservative, fundamentalist branch of Lutherans, the WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. They not only do not represent all Christians, they do not represent all Lutherans. The largest, main branch of Lutherans, the ELCA, would not expel or discipline those girls in any way. The ELCA would probably have embraced the girls' spiritual ceremony as a positive cultural experience for them.

There really are differences among Christian denominations.

Is it only Christianity specifically that you are opposed to, or is it religion in general? If it is religion in general, why take the side of girls who were practicing a religious aspect of their Native culture? Is it convenient to use a particular ethnic demographic as objects to support your personal views? Asking for some relatives.

[lpbk2713]

8. They weren't praising Chaysuss

Can I get an amen?

[duncang]

10. Cancel culture.

Trying to erase thousands of years of history. If it isn’t good white Anglo-Saxon history it’s evil.

[LeftInTX]

39. They attend a Lutheran school

However, the case still has merit. But a Christian school already is part of that.

The girls can argue that what they were doing was cultural and not religious.
Also, the school is on the reservation, so I don't know how tribal laws work.

[Marcus IM]

11. The freedumb of the greatest nation on earth.

Next thing ya know we'll lose our universal healthcare, and equal rights!

[calimary]

25. Women are pretty much halfway there now.

Anybody talking about legislating men’s bodies yet?

And I couldn’t help noticing how they misspelled “Sin-Odd.”

[Ping Tung]

12. Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. Thomas Paine

[twodogsbarking]

13. Doesn't surprise me.

[onecaliberal]

14. Pay taxes then mother fuckers.

[DFW]

15. Native Americans being punished by European-Americans for being Americans

This story is not about bashing of Christians.

This story is about bashing BY Christians.

[republianmushroom]

17. Religious freedom as long as I approve of your religion and worshiping.

[slightlv]

24. This is what we're all looking at, should the talibangelicals take over

[republianmushroom]

26. I'm afraid you are correct.

[Mosby]

19. Interesting tidbit

Only two Christian denominations operating on the reservation told me they do not include anti-traditional-Apache rhetoric in their sermons and ideology: the Catholic church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church. Families on the reservation commonly have a similar understanding.

The two conservative churches allow for native practices, but the liberal ones (Lutherans, Methodist) are intolerant. That's a surprise.

This is really part of a much larger problem, and that's Christianity's obsession with converting non Christians. They should really just stop it, especially if they want to help people like the Apaches with stuff like education. A religious group of all people shouldn't be conditioning help based on accepting ones beliefs, that's coercive.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

29. WELS Lutherans are NOT liberal by any stretch of the imagination

They are paleo-conservative. I did a quick look and the ELCA and Episcopalians don't seem to have churches on the White Mountain Apache Rez.

[Mosby]

33. My mistake.

Nt.

[Iggo]

44. Lutherans are liberal? Did I miss a memo?

(It’s entirely possible I missed a memo.)

[Celerity]

49. The Swedish national church (Lutheran) was led by a female from 2014-2022, and has a major bishop who is a lesbian,

the first ever bishop in the world for a major christian church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antje_Jackel%C3%A9n



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Brunne

[maxsolomon]

20. Fuck em. Don't go back to that crazy school.

This was 4 years ago, so maybe it's resolved itself in the meantime?

[cbabe]

42. From the story: but the damage was done.

but the damage was done. For the next four years, Caitlyn struggled to integrate into her Apache culture. She explained: “I didn’t allow myself to engage or talk about my culture,” she says. “Even after I graduated, I had that paranoia that I would get in trouble for talking about or participating in it.”

[LudwigPastorius]

21. Apparently, killing them and stealing their land wasn't good enough.

They must also be punished for practicing their religious rituals.

[Dave Bowman]

37. And also punished for speaking their own language.

[Warpy]

22. I thought that horse shit went out with high button shoes and corsets

both of which go a long way toward explaining the old Indian school systems and their hostility the children in their care..

At least the nasty white folks gave the kids a common enemy so they weren't fighting each other.

Clue phone to people confronting different cultures: if the activity isn't directly hurting anyone, ask what's going on and realize that at a certain point "none of your business" is a valid answer. Also, realize we all look like mannerless clods to different cultures just as much as they might to us, the only thing you can do is take a step back and ask "Is this person going out of his way to be a jerk, or am I witnessing a profound cultural difference?" Sometimes it's a close call. Most of the time it's not.

Being expelled from that sink of a school might be the best thing to happen for those girls. One hopes there is a civil rights lawsuit. Tribal people are getting educated these days and going to law school. They'll win the case. Ka-ching.

[republianmushroom]

23. Sadly, no, it is still alive and well in this country.

[Warpy]

38. A lot of tribes here do K-12

By the time they graduate, they're fully equipped to deal with religious and cultural bigots.

[Iggo]

43. "Being expelled from that sink of a school might be the best thing to happen for those girls.

That is a very very very good point.

[slightlv]

27. This just infuriates me.

Native American spirituality is what we should all be trying to understand, as our earth quakes with climate change.

More than that, it is exactly this type of attitude that kept me from knowing more about my own Native American background, including our tribe. My grandfather was one of those who kept quiet out of fear for himself and his family. Had he known more, he would have been part of the land grant program. But so much history now has been lost...

[jaxexpat]

28. Unfortunately, the reservation lands have become the prized homelands of the worst of Societe American'.

These aboriginal Americans should sue on the grounds that their Christian,........I mean "Cretin", neighbors have made their homes unsalable by their presence and consequent Neolythification of progressive property values.

[Dave Bowman]

30. When I first saw the title I briefly though that it

was something that happened 200 years ago.

[3catwoman3]

31. And if they don't confess, are the school officials...

…going to tie them up and throw them into a pond to see if they float or sink?

This is unbelievable.

[malaise]

32. WTF?

Rec

[marble falls]

34. As a Lutheran I am appalled by this. I cannot believe this crap happened in a Lutheran community on the ...

... reservation, I cannot believe this would happen in the 21st century.

[keithbvadu2]

36. Are you the one, true variation of Christian?

[Iggo]

41. Religion is awesome!

[hunter]

45. The legal framework that allows these schools to exist ought to be dismantled.

There are religions I will not respect, especially those of the people who worship cruel and capricious gods.

The greatest fear of this Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod is that no one will respect their tiny god.

Mostly because there's no good reason too.