A LIBRARIAN’S ORIENTATION
What this book explores
Richard Twiss challenges the way Christianity has often reached Native peoples wrapped in Western culture, colonial power, and assumptions about what faithful life must look like. Writing as a Lakota Christian leader, he argues that following Jesus does not require Indigenous people to abandon their identity, community, ceremonies, or ways of knowing. He imagines Christian mission as relationship, listening, and mutual transformation rather than cultural conquest.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Why it’s in the Library
It helps travelers separate Jesus from the colonial forms in which Christianity has often been delivered. Twiss also reverses the usual direction of explanation: Indigenous Christianity is not treated as a variation needing approval from Western Christianity, but as a source of correction and insight for the wider church.
Good starting place if…
You are questioning the connection between Christianity and colonialism, or want to hear an Indigenous Christian vision of faith, identity, ceremony, and mission.
Know before you begin…
Twiss is criticizing colonial Christianity from within Christian commitment, not offering a general introduction to Native religions. Indigenous peoples and traditions are highly diverse, and his Lakota-rooted vision should not be treated as the single Indigenous view. The book was completed after his death by his family and colleagues.