Columbus Day or Indigenous People Day, What Do Christians Celebrate?

Columbus Day or Indigenous People Day, What Do Christians Celebrate?      Maj. Kelly Durant

 

Colossians 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

 

2. What will you celebrate tomorrow, Columbus Day or Indigenous People Day? I think most of us, as in the past, won’t really celebrate anything having to do with either of these cultures, but instead will go out to a local park, or just stay home and enjoy a free day. There are a few cities with festivals celebrating this holiday, but there are a few.

 

In general how are we to celebrate the holidays established by men of certain cultures? This has always been a dilemma for people of conviction from the beginning. For example if you were a Jew, would you celebrate with the Romans their holiday to recognize the goddess of the harvest? Probably not, right? The Jews celebrate Sukkot but that’s not like our modern ones.

 

And the Christians in the Roman times, did they celebrate Roman holidays? Probably not, but converted Romans must have had a hard time because all their life they were use to participating in certain holidays, and to break the habit was not easy. Once Jesus became your, ‘all in all’, nothing else had anything more to offer, it was empty. All worship of idols and gods who reign over seasonal holidays were despised! They were false!

 

3. As the Christians back then and now, we have the discretion to observe or not observe holidays (holy days) but of course anything directing us to the worship of evil, or of an idol or false deity we must avoid. So how should we interpret Colossians 2:16

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:

 

I think this verse may confuse some folks as to what it is being reiterated from Romans 14. Basically in Colossians, and this happens anywhere at any time within any culture, there was a blurring of doctrines and ideas. On the eating of meats, for example, are there not vegetarian Christian denominations today that eat only vegetables? Some Christians are vegetarians, as in India and elsewhere, but are they wrong to choose as they do? No, but there is controversy. Back in Paul’s day when you ate in someone’s home serving some meats that were offered to pagan idols you just needed to pray in Jesus name before you ate it, or just not eat it.

 

In their eyes if you were eating meat while you were in fellowship with them then you would need to be looked down upon as doing something they disagreed with. What does scripture say about that? In general it basically says, when with Romans do as the Roman, and when with the Jews, do as the Jew. Romans 14: 21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak.

 

4. The rest of Colossians 2:16 says, “or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days”.  What’s that? Did Christians back then celebrate holidays and new moons?

According to this some of them in some places did, and it seems clear we are not to judge them for it. What harm is it to be culturally adapted? If this were a literal worship of the moon goddess (which the Romans did practice with Diana or Luna) then this would be idolatry, but otherwise a new moon it is just a recognition of a special day, a way to reset your biological calendar. Who knows, maybe they did picnics by sea or a vigil or something special to get together but for sure it was innocent of pagan customs.

 

Notice also they liked to honor the Sabbath, and even today some Christians do that as the Seventh Day Adventist or Messianic believers. It was the first day of the week when Jesus resurrected, or Sunday, (See John 20 :1 ‘The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early’…) but to honor a Saturday, what harm does it do? No harm unless we start in fighting and condemning each other as heretical Christians over it!

 

Here is the difference, we may respect a certain holiday, as you know many Christians like to respect some Jewish holidays, but in the observance of it we must evaluate ourselves to be sure we are not doing it in an idolatrous way with alternative motives like doing it for a spiritual pride! Also, no one should be reverencing any part of anything that has total pagan  roots and inferences because anything observed is to be as a means to honor God only, amen?

 

5. So Christopher Columbus or the Native American Indian, which should we honor? With all the new light on history, I think many people have become disillusioned in their admiration for Columbus, not because he himself was so evil, but because he opened the gateway for many other colonists to come over and kill and oppress the Indians and take their lands. So why is he recognized? He is honored because he was first in connecting Europe with the New World. After all, it was a voyage of many months with the risk of death.

 

Columbus, according to new evidence, must have been Portuguese and not even Spanish or Italian as many presume, plus he landed in the Caribbean, not in North America but landing only in the islands. Through him word got back to the Spanish, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Italians and others that there were new places they could immigrate to and many wanted to escape Europe. Europe has a history of cruel kings and dictators with constant war, and in the 1500s there was a lot of religious persecution against those who wanted to not submit to the institutionalized church. The pursuit of freedom or the pursuit of prosperity became a huge motivator for immigration away from the Europe. For sure anyone of us would have risked it too just to come here, to the land of opportunity. And even today we cannot stop the immigration with 700,000 granted visas yearly and another half million more who sneak in.

 

There is record that many Christian colonists (puritans and the like), contrary to recent divisive revisionist history that respected the American Natives and traded with them iron goods for their natural goods such as furs. The beginning started out well. We celebrate another holiday over that, do you know which one? Thanksgiving! A celebration of diverse cultures and good relationships. But what happened? Some new greedy colonists came over that wanted to steal land, furs and natural resources and kill in the process, and thus began the war with invaders. 

 

6. So Columbus did not ‘discover’ America, America was already discovered and inhabited by several million people with many hundreds of Native Tribes. Adventurous Christopher only introduced a new knowledge that there were ‘noble savages’ (this is how they labeled them) and massive land opportunities after his voyages. Also, Columbus brought Christianity to the new world, the Catholic-Jesuit-Templar Knights type. However, the way in which later settlers imposed themselves in the Americas, many would argue their societal model was not so Christian done more in the style of Spanish conquests establishing class distinctions and feudalism. The Catholic Church traditionally honors Columbus for his missionary endeavors which is now a 500 year old holiday!

 

So what has happened in the past 500 years? Atrocities that you and I cannot change! The ancient wars we read about in the old Testament, and the wars we learn about that happened in the Americas and everywhere else reveal how much the world needs our prince of peace, the savior Jesus Christ! We cannot change the past but we can learn lessons from it and pray we do not repeat the same evil mistakes of killing each other over race, greed, power, or ideologies.

 

As Christians we are commanded to be opposingly different from the people of the world! James 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

 

7. Christians historically fought for the rights of the underdog and those who are abused unjustly. Isn’t this the premise for which the Salvation Army was founded? To practice the commands of Jesus to love others as ourselves and provide for the needs of the defenseless and suffering? We do this as best we can but still there is a lot to do, considering joining us! Talking about cultural practices, this is our Salvation Army practice: compassion & love through service.

 

Some Christians feel that one way to honor the Natives that were almost entirely wiped out is to give them a holiday in their honor, the Indigenous People Day. We observe a MLK Jr. Day, a Hispanic day, but shouldn’t we also have a native American recognition Day? After all, they were the dominate culture in the past, and now they are only 1.6% of our entire population!

 

Did you know there were many tribes that had practices to help their young children mature into men and women? The Jewish people do this with Bar Mitzvah, but this is not a common practice with most people anymore. We need to do something to help our youth today, do we not? The solemn ceremonial events the Indians did helped awaken their youth to the reality of respecting God (the great white Spirit) survival and nature’s importance. There was a principle of only taking what you needed from nature and then giving something back to replenish it.  

 

Traditionally in The Salvation Army in our youth programs during the summer camps we have celebrated native American customs, did you know that? The ones who consistently applied their selves well in the life skills programs would get awards and recognition. My wife made many dresses and feathered jewelry for them throughout the years. We talk about ‘best practices’, this is one of them, one to help young people see the value in progressing oneself in the knowledge of many practical things needed for survival in this life. (food prep, sewing, etc.)

 

8. Considering Indigenous Peoples Day, or Native American Day is a holiday in Maine, New Mexico, South Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Wisconsin, and in our neighboring Washington D.C., we can conclude it is legal and acceptable to honor our Native ancestors on October 12^th if we so desire. Considering I am Chickasaw myself, I believe to honor the original American dwellers is a good thing to do. But that being said, I am not going to go on a hate filled rant about the evils of Columbus or the colonists as it leads nowhere. We cannot change the past but we can learn from it; we must learn to respect each other and not keep the hate refueled over the past, over race, or over loses. 

 

Here is what I propose, that we learn the good practices from every culture, glean those into our way of life, and let the evil practices be shunned and forgotten. Was Columbus inherently bad? No. Yet some of those that came after him were the real bad ones. Were the Indians bad?  In general they were not! But some  of the tribes were bad as they owned slaves from other nearby tribes and plundered and invaded in the style of the European Vikings. 

 

When we look at the entire history of the world we observe there has been dominance by certain races for certain periods of time and always all of them used slaves to build their empires. Today in 4/5^th of the world’s people are still in essence slaves as they are oppressed by false religions, evil atheistic governments, or cultural norms that consolidate class distinction which includes the oppression of women and children. In those places a protester or a counter culture resistor of the unjust system is either beaten, jailed, or killed! No rights there! We must appreciate and conserve the few rights we do have and resist top down mandates that do not empower, but rather control: It’s our mind, body, & spirit and the control belongs to Jesus!

 

Here there is a certain amount of freedom, freedom to the extent some governors allow destructions and anarchy, and freedom to worship God or Satan as you please. But personally, as a Christian, I find we should not give place to the devil or to those who destroy, to those who want absolute power, or to anyone who stirs up hate with excuses because usually hate groups attack the good people, or the ones not guilty, and they target Christians! 

 

9. In conclusion there is no harm done in the celebration either of these holidays as long as we are not doing it with an evil motive. Some people want to change our history and make all people appear evil, be they white, black, or Indian, and we need to rebuke them and their vain words as God taught us to love each other! Use all holidays as a means to preach Jesus!

 

Here is a book in the New Testament for Christians that get swayed by divisive history rewritten to instill hate for others, for those that put culture and education above the dominance of their faith in Jesus.  Galatians 1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

 

Please do not get pulled into all the current arguments made by anyone, even by false so called Christian leaders that want controversy over anything, over holidays, theology, over gender, over class equality, over race supremacy, over sexuality, over or anything! They are not worth your time as stated in Galatians! They are to be rebuked in Jesus name and exposed as Paul exposed the Galatians who were trying to force Christians to distort their beliefs and simplicity into a submission of practices that would elevate a certain group as more spiritual, righteous, and powerful than another. (In that case it was the Jewish Galatians) In our case today there are several groups vying for power!) We are princes and princesses to God and we must act like it! We are a noble people, not ones to trash, but ones to build and edify with sound doctrine!

 

So everything we do needs to be all about Jesus! He is all in all! No race, no social class, no religious practice, nothing should distort us away from exalting Him in every holiday, amen!