This resolution briefly explains the Doctrine of Discovery and outlines its-long impact in the U.S., as well as the damage and trauma it has inflicted on indigenous peoples. We turn to Scripture to remember that God has created all humans in God’s own image and imbued each individual with God’s image (imago Dei).
We confess with our Indigenous brothers and sisters that the whole of creation is the work of God, and we acknowledge the damage done to the Indigenous inhabitants of the Americas through the taking of rights, property, and land. We acknowledge the cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples through sustained and systemic acts of injustice.
We acknowledge the complicity of the Christian church (including the Covenant Church) in that dispossession, subjugation, and relegation. We the Evangelical Covenant Church hereby repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamentally opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will seek to support Indigenous people as they identify ways to affirm their inherent human rights and resolve wrongs.
