MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In Wyoming, people on the Wind River Reservation are trying to force out the pastor of a Christian church. They say a recent sermon denigrated their Native religion. Wyoming Public Radio's Melodie Edwards reports.
MELODIE EDWARDS, BYLINE: On Sunday July 5, the Northern Arapaho Tribe was celebrating the last day of their Sun Dance ceremony. That morning, in a church on the reservation, Foundations for Nations' pastor Sarah Lucas' sermon ridiculed Sun Dance and its ceremonial use of a pipe.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SARAH LUCAS: A pipe cannot hear your prayers. It's just a piece of material. This is a cycle that they're caught up, and this is all they ever known. And the Lord is saying, tear down the idols, tear down the altars.
EDWARDS: A video of the sermon went viral across Indian country. For weeks now, protesters have been waving signs outside the church reading leave.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Vocalizing).
MIRAE YELLOWBIRD: She called our sacred pipe an idol.
EDWARDS: MiRae Yellowbird, who's Northern Arapaho, says she's here to set the record straight.
YELLOWBIRD: Jesus didn't die for me. My ancestors did. And my ancestors were here way before Jesus was. So that's why I'm here. And, you know, speaking bad on our traditional ways is colonizer behavior.
EDWARDS: University of Wyoming historian Jeff Means is Oglala Lakota. He participates in Sun Dance and says the pipe holds great meaning as a physical representation of the universe. As for the Sun Dance ceremony...
JEFF MEANS: It pretty much goes back to the beginning of most of these Native nations' culture, and it is the central spiritual and religious ceremony of the year.
EDWARDS: Means says the federal government outlawed Indigenous religious ceremonies like Sun Dance in 1883.
MEANS: They went out and arrested Natives who participated in this. Oftentimes, they would either be fined, and if they couldn't pay the fine, then they would have food rations withheld from them and their family. It was all kind of an effort to stamp out this savage culture. And it lasted in the United States until 1978.
EDWARDS: The two tribal governments that oversee the reservation have also asked the church to go, and they adopted a registration system requiring their approval of all nontribal organizations. The church can no longer pick up and drop off children on the reservation. Lucas says her church has given a lot to the community, helping kids and low-income people. She told the news outlet WyoToday she has no plans to leave.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LUCAS: We own our land. It's private. And so, like, we just can't up and leave.
EDWARDS: Lucas declined a request for comment, but in the interview with WyoToday, she did apologize.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LUCAS: I'm so sorry that that came off mocking. That, I apologize for, you know, how it came off, how it delivered. However, the word of God remains the same. And I can't apologize for something that I gave my life up for.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORN HONKING)
NICOLE WAGON: I think it was hollow. It wasn't said from the heart.
EDWARDS: That's Northern Arapaho protester Nicole Wagon, a practicing Catholic. She says her church is an example of how contemporary Christianity can embrace tribal belief systems.
WAGON: I mean, if you're going into the church, paintings and everything embrace who we are and where we come from. I mean, even in the backdrop is a tipi.
EDWARDS: MiRae Yellowbird says they plan to keep protesting as long as it takes.
YELLOWBIRD: She just needs to leave. That's all we want. She can go practice anywhere else for white people, but, you know, leave us Natives alone.
EDWARDS: For NPR News, I'm Melodie Edwards.
(SOUNDBITE OF SUSS' "BIG SKY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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