The Methodist Episcopal Church and the Sand Creek Massacre

We grew up on stories of Indian raids, the scalps taken and women and children murdered. We have heard tales of children kidnapped by Indians. We were raised on tv shows and movies full of pioneer families fearful of Indian attack. In 1764, my own sixth great-grandparents were murdered by Native Americans led by a white criminal. Rev. John Rhodes was a Swiss Brethren pacifist, an early settler in the Shenandoah Valley. Theirs was not the only family targeted in the area. It must have been a frightful time for the new immigrants. Their ancestors had faced persecution and death because of their faith. They had hoped their life in the New World would offer better.


What we don't often hear about is America's policy of genocide, the massacre of Native women and children, the broken treaties--justified by European Christians who believed that God had ordained them to inherit the earth and to convert the savage.

Massacre at Sand Creek: How Methodists Were Involved in an American Tragedy by Gary L, Roberts was commissioned by the General Commission on Archives ad History of the United Methodist Church. It rose out of the 2012 General Conference of the United Methodist Church through the Council of Bishops call for repentance and healing of relationships with Indigenous peoples. They called for a full disclosure of the Methodist Episcopal Church's involvement in the Sand Creek Massacre.

In 1864 at Sand Creek in the Colorado Territory, 250 Cheyennes and Arapahos under the protection of the US. government--mostly women and children--were murdered in a raid led by John M. Chivington, a popular Methodist minister. The Territorial Governor whose policies led to the attack, John Evans, was a prominent Methodist layman. 

Roberts book is scholarly in its approach. It is not a popular narrative history. He details the culture and mindset of American society at the time and considers how Native American and Western cultural paradigms differ. He offers a synopsis of American/Native relations.We learn about Chivington and Evans as religious, political, and military leaders. The natives were divided, some seeking American protection but some bands attacking the settlers. Fear was magnified and all Natives were vilified. Chivington became adamant about decimating all natives.

Thankfully, Roberts does not dwell on the outrage of the massacre, for the details he offers are too horrendous to want to know more. The reaction to the massacre was explosive and polarizing. It was considered the worst crime ever committed by America. But Methodists were reluctant to accept the charges against those responsible. They were, after all, church leaders and greatly admired.

What was the culpability of the Methodist church? Was it a lack of moral leadership, its alliance with an immoral culture? Why did the local Methodists not take a stand against Chivington? Can we judge the actions of our forefathers based on today's values and understanding? How could a society based on freedom enact such evil? Roberts explores these crucial issues.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"It is time for this story to be told. Coming to grips with what happened at Sand Creek involves hard questions and unsatisfactory answers not only about what happened but also about what led to it and why. It stirs ancient questions about the best and worst in every person, questions older than history, questions as relevant as today's headlines, questions we all mus answer from within." from the publisher

Massacre at Sand Creek: How Methodists Were Involved in an American Tragedy
by Gary L. Roberts
Abingdon Press
$19.99 hard cover
ISBN:9781501819766

Jim Crow Racism, Murder, and the Methodist Church

"Evil flourishes when good people sit idly by and do nothing." Attorney General Hood

As I read One Mississippi, Two Mississippi:Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba County by Carol V. R. George I experienced shock, depression, and sorrow.

In the early 1970s I married a seminary student at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio. During our three years on campus I audited classes and managed the campus bookstore. I took a class with Dr. Jeff Hopper and Dr. Everett Tilson. Dr. Van Bogart Dunn was the Dean of Students. I knew Dr. Paul Minus. These four men, all with Southern roots, participated in the 1964 Easter Sunday in Jackson, MS when an interracial group of Bishops and pastors endeavored to worship in a black congregation. Local law officers arrested them at the door. Read the story here.

I was so very young and had no idea that 1964 was 'yesterday' to these men in 1972. After reading this book I better understood their courage and conviction.

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I requested One Mississippi, Two Mississippi because of the subtitle Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba. The author is a history professor who spent nine years researching the Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba and the relation between Methodists and the murder of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and John Chaney.

Goodman and Schwerner had come to the area to work for voter registration of Blacks. Chaney was a local black man. The organizational meeting to create a Freedom School was held at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba. The young men were abducted and murdered, their bodies buried and bull dozed over, and the Mt. Zion church was burned to the ground and church members severely beaten.

If you want to know about the events the book covers you can visit the Oxford University page on the book here. Or watch the movie "Neshoba" or Mississippi Burning. The internet is full of articles about the murders.

The Methodist church is a world-wide connectional system; every four years a General Conference consisting of laity and clergy meet to vote on the denominational policies, goals, and regulations. Change does not happen quickly. The stated ideals often lag behind practice. Founder John Wesley allowed free thinking beyond basic Christian tenets. The denomination is diverse in opinion. In theory members are to think and let think. In practice, strife, conflict, and schism occur--particularly over social issues. Segregation was one of those divisive issues. The denomination showed little prophetic leadership in demanding equality, giving Southern segregationists and the status quo a nod.

This book reveals that the Southern White Methodist church laity and clergy were not only complicit in maintaining segregation but were actively involved in KKK hate crimes, murder, and a decades long cover-up.

In 1939 the denomination created the Central Jurisdiction composed of Black pastors and churches, effectively establishing segregation as official church polity until 1972 when it was finally disbanded. See more about this at:
http://www.credoconfirmation.com/Leaders/LeadersArticles/tabid/292/ArticleId/449/The-Central-Jurisdiction-and-the-Story-of-Race-Relations-in-the-Methodist-Churches.aspx

It was not until after the Methodist Episcopal church merger with the United Brethren church in 1968, creating the current United Methodist Church, that implementation of federally mandated integration began. In 1970 the Neshoba County accomplished full integration without mass violence; but there were viscous attacks and harassment that led to the (white) School Superintendent's suicide.

It took years and several trials before the mastermind behind the murder plot was convicted. In 1999 The Winter Institute began a study of global models of reconciliation, particularly the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, consulting with Peter Storey.

It was hard to read this book, the events are so harrowing. I felt angry and ashamed and disheartened. I remembered a Facebook friend's comment about the hypocrisy of the Methodist Church, which had baffled me then. Now I get it. The friend is particularly interested in Civil Rights history.

I thought about issues the church avoids today, the injustices we allow. This statement from a United Methodist Church website on confirmation materials says its all:

As United Methodists—even United Methodists who weren't alive when the Central Jurisdiction was around—we have to think critically about how a faith tradition birthed by abolitionists and weaned in part by mixed-race house churches could cling to institutionalized segregation for so long. And, as we move forward, we need to make sure that we don’t repeat past mistakes. We need to be mindful of ways in which we exclude people or create divisions within the church, whether based on race, nationality, language or culture, age, or any other factor. Paul in Galatians tells us that we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). We should be sure we act that way.

In church on Sunday I could barely keep from crying. It seemed insipid, 'feel good', shallow. Last week we heard of a church being closed; the pastor preached 'too much' about acceptance of Gay and Lesbians. The world cries. Do we listen?

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Contents:
Part I
History and Memory Settling Longdale, MS and Mt. Zion Methodist Church reviews the founding of the church in 1833 through the Jim Crow Years to 1954
Part II
"The Great Anomaly" The Methodist Episcopal Church and Its Black Members looks at segregation and the creation of the Central Jurisdiction, the politicization of Mississippi Methodist church, the Methodist church's debate over segregation, the Neshoba murders and their relation to Mississippi Methodism
Part III
Mt. Zion's Witness: Creating Memories considers how Neshoba struggled to fulfill equality in church and school, the retrial of accused murderers, and reconciliation

I received a free ebook through NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review.

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi: Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba County
by Carol V. R. George
Oxford University Press
Publication May 1, 2015
$29.95 hard cover
ISBN: 9780190231088