Galatians
For you are all children of God through faith in Jesus. All who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Jesus. And now that you belong to Jesus, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.
Matthew
“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. Don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.”
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“There will always be free thinkers and heretics, unless we deal with the root of the problem. It is our duty to protect the children from the corrupting influence of dust, and nurture a generation at peace with itself, one which will never question authority again. We owe it to the young, do we not?”
So says the Magisterial Emissary, in the story “The Golden Compass”.
The Golden Compass, part of a trilogy of stories by author Philip Pullman, follows the young protagonist, Lyra Belacqua through her world in an effort to find and save her friends Bill and Roger. In Lyra’s universe, there are witches and armoured polar bears; yet, like our world, there is also a broad range of studies involving particle physics, philosophy, theology and spirituality.
In Lyra’s world, people’s souls are external to their body, an animal-shaped "dæmon" that always stays near its human counterpart. During childhood, a dæmon can change its shape at will, but with the onset of adolescence it settles into a single form which reveals the person's true nature and personality, implying that nature and personality stabilise after adolescence.
The Magisterium is the equivalent of the religious leaders of the church in this parallel world. The Magisterium exerts a strong control over this world, and wishes to control everything. Their greatest fear is people who do not accept the dogma and doctrine, and think outside the box.
Under the direction of the Magisterium, a group known as the Oblation Board kidnaps children and subjects them to a process called “intercision”, whereby the daemon and the human are literally separated by a laser guillotine. This renders the human unable to think independently, and removes their ability to care. The same is true for the daemon soul.
The children who are kidnapped are sent to an “experimental station”, far north on the island of Svalbard, where they are essentially in a boarding school where experiments can be conducted on them without their parents around. Those who try to run away are caught an punished. They come mostly from a nomadic group of sea people, or poorer people who are indigenous to the land. Children of wealthy or educated people do not get taken, and don’t have their daemons removed.
Now - it’s important to note that the word daemons in this case is quite different than our word “demon”. The words daemon, dæmon, are Latinized spellings of the Greek used to distinguish the daemons of Hellenistic religion and philosophy, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, from the Judeo-Christian usage demon. In his writing “Theogony”, the poet Hesiod relates how the men of the Golden Age were transmuted into daemons by the will of Zeus, to serve as ineffable guardians of mortals. Their function is that of the soul.
In the 19th century, the Canadian government believed that the best chance for aboriginal peoples to succeed was to learn English, and adopt Christianity. Ideally, they would pass their adopted lifestyle on to their children, hence abolishing any native traditions within a few generations.
This policy was known as "aggressive assimilation". The government of Canad provided the funding, and the churches managed what were first called industrial schools, and later residential schools. Children were easier to mould than adults, so children of aboriginal peoples were forcibly removed from their families, taken to the schools where they were required to speak English, not allowed to speak their native tongue, and forced to accept the Christian God. Many were beaten and punished if they spoke their own language. Those who tried to run away were caught and punished. Many committed suicide.
Residential schools were federally run, under the Department of Indian Affairs. Attendance was mandatory. Agents were employed by the government to ensure all native children attended.
At first there were about 69 schools operating, but by 1931, at the peak of the residential school system, there were about 80 schools operating in Canada. All together, 130 schools operated in every territory and province except Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick from the earliest in the 19th century to the last, which closed in 1996. Approximately 150,000 aboriginal, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend the schools.
It was believed that native children could be successful if they assimilated into mainstream Canadian society by adopting Christianity and speaking English or French. Students were discouraged from speaking their first language or practising native traditions. If they were caught, they would experience severe punishment. They lived in substandard conditions, endured physical, emotional and sexual abuse. All correspondence was written in English, which many parents couldn't read. Brothers and sisters at the same school rarely saw each other, as all activities were segregated by gender.
In 1994, I had the privilege of sitting for a day listening to aboriginal survivors of the residential schools. No one in that room left the same person. I heard more than one person say their soul had been ripped out of them.
In Lyra’s parallel universe, the Magisterium covers up its lust for power and control by claiming that what they are doing is for the good of those children they kidnap. - just a little cut, and then the children would be sent home. In reality, once the children are taken, they never return home. Life is literally never the same, for their souls have been taken from them. They practice a patronising and patriarchal system of religious teaching which removes any question of their authority.
Here in the real world of Canada, both the government and the churches practiced a patronising and patriarchal system of assimilation. There was a common, and quite racist belief, that aboriginal peoples were somehow “less” than white peoples. Perhaps there was a belief that by becoming Christian, and learning western ways, aboriginal peoples “put on new clothes” and became new people. I am being generous here. For I believe that while they may have said “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek”, it was not a real commitment of faith. Galatians says clearly that everyone is equal in the sight of God, yet even today we can see that aboriginal peoples are still not seen as equal, either in the eyes of the church or the eyes of the various governments. Extinguishment of aboriginal rights and claims is very much still an item on the agenda. The fact remains that those aboriginal children and families were ripped apart in the name of the Christian God. Note that although hundreds of Chinese came to Canada in this period - and there is no doubt they were badly treated - they were not required to give up their language, religion or families. No other ethnic group has been treated quite as badly as the aboriginal peoples of Canada.
The words of Jesus in this rarely-read passage are important to remember. He is more than scathing of the religious leaders. Jesus says “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. Don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. Don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.”
Two worlds, where children are taken and abused - where families of those who are deemed “lesser” are abused. Where a policy of extinguishment extends to particular cultures. Two worlds where religious leaders, more interested in control of thought and action, delude themselves that they have the way to enter the realm of God. In their need to exert power, and control, they deny others the opportunity to go there.
So after a delay of more than a year, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission begins in Winnipeg. It is not an end, and it will not solve everything. Native peoples are already saying that apologies are a step, this commission is another step, but they are also looking for justice to be done. Churches can take a strong role in supporting aboriginal peoples as they struggle to find that justice. Everyone is equal in the sight of God; we can do no less.
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28classical_mythology%29
2. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials). Philip Pullman. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, c. 2002.
3. CBC website - Residential Schools, Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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