This past February we were joined in the Learning Centre by contributors to Unsettling the Word: Biblical Experiments in Decolonization. We were so challenged and encouraged by these conversations and ideas that were sparked during our time together that we are making them available to you now.

If this is your first time learning from this content, or are interested in using these resources in your church or other learning communities, please consider sharing your appreciation with a gift that will specifically go to Idle No More and the justice and decolonization work that our guest speakers continue to do.

For generations, the Bible has been employed by settler colonial societies as a weapon to dispossess Indigenous and racialized peoples of their lands, cultures, and spiritualities. Given this devastating legacy, many want nothing to do with it. But is it possible for the exploited and their allies to reclaim the Bible from the dominant powers? Can we make it an instrument for justice in the cause of the oppressed? Even a nonviolent weapon toward decolonization?

In Unsettling the Word, over 60 Indigenous and Settler authors come together to wrestle with the Scriptures, re-reading and re-imagining the ancient text for the sake of reparative futures.

Created by Mennonite Church Canada’s Indigenous-Settler Relations program, Unsettling the Word is intended to nurture courageous conversations with the Bible, our current settler colonial contexts, and the Church’s call to costly peacemaking.

with Steve Heinrichs

Liberating the Bible

Pg. ix – Preface

Pg. 1 – “Return to the Good”

Pg. 12 – “The Foolishness of Petropolis”

Pg. 47 – “The 15 Commandments”

Pg. 190 – “A Shaman Appeared in Ventura”

Pg. 247 – “Good News to the Colonized?”

Pg. 256 – “Let Us Imagine”

with Cheryl Bear

Decolonizing Christianity

Pg. 123 – “No Fence Can Hold”

Pg. 134 – “Lament on Coast Salish Land”

Pg. 176 – “You and Madre Tierra”

Pg. 196 – “Mending the Broken Circle”

Pg. 216 – “For God So Loved”

Pg. 243 – “Dancing with God”

Pg. 271 – “Survival Space”

with Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum)

The Doctrine of Discovery

Pg. 37 – “Scouting the Haldimand Tract”

Pg. 40 – “The Boundaries and Limits of Settler Colonialism”

Pg. 52 – “Destroy Everything”

Pg. 112 – “Reconciled”

Pg. 184 – “Resisting the Great Co-Mission”

Pg. 223 – “Unholy Alliances”

Pg. 285 – Afterword: We Need our Lands

with Steve Heinrichs

Reconciliation through Reparation

Pg. 31 – “In the Seventh Round of the 13 Moons”

Pg. 79 – “Lost and Found”

Pg. 162 – “With Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness”

Pg. 220 – “Stolen Waters, Thirsty People”

Pg. 230 – “Voices Rise”