Regardng Globe and Mail article: Dismantled sweat lodge exposes rift in Christian, traditional teaching

Original article at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec/dismantled-sweat-lodge-exposes-rift-in-christian-traditional-teaching/article2066299/

It is sad that this community is so divided. After a century of failed assimilation policies, one community has recovered relatively from the draconian laws of the 19th and 20th centuries. While I accept the Great Creator as the ultimate Spirit encompassing all that is good, Jesus, and angelic spirits, humankind has twisted the words and teachings of Jesus and created a century of fear and distrust between native and non-native people. The Elders and authorities of this community have been duped into thinking that now their religious beliefs are part of the tradition of the community, while at the same time the social ills of the community arise out of behind the veil of civility and Christianization of a people who were always connected to the holy trinity through our own relationship to Jesus when he visited us here on Turtle Island. He told the people that he may not come back because he was going to be killed in the old world and when he was killed, he came back briefly to tell the first people of what happened. This teaching passed down to me by a medicine woman, tells me that what is being taught in the schools, dormitories and previous institutions of the assimilations years, has purposely changed the world and historic view of many first people, and demonized their own history and culture which was part of the Great Spirit/Creator long before the European culture of ships sailed to Turtle Island. Yes, take the community to the human rights courts, because the Elders actions are unacceptable but understandable due to the brainwashing actions of residential schools, reform schools, boarding schools and mainstream society which painted the aboriginal person as heathenistic and void of spirit and worth. Shame on Canada for creating this form of division and mistrust through your failed assimilation policies of Canadian Society.