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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Calvinist, Reformed & Presbyterian Churches > General
College Voices tells the story of Christ's College Aberdeen, a
theological college of the Church of Scotland, from its beginnings
in the 1840s to the present day. This is a rich and colourful
story, vividly told, and peopled with many fascinating characters
and stories. Hundreds of young men, and later women, have passed
through the doors seeking to meet the demands of the College and
authorities to become ministers for the Free Church, the United
Free Church and, since 1929, for the Church of Scotland. Written by
the College's administrator, who saw how the personalities of
teachers and students alike shone through the formal language of
minute books and other records, College Voices relates how the
College grew and evolved alongside the history not only of Scotland
but of the world. It demonstrates the effects on ministerial
training of two world wars, and is honest about times when the
College was threatened by closure and scandal.
Histories of missions to American Indian communities usually tell a
sad and predictable story about the destructive impact of
missionary work on Native culture and religion. Many historians
conclude that American Indian tribes who have maintained a cultural
identity have done so only because missionaries were unable to
destroy it. In Creating Christian Indians, Bonnie Sue Lewis relates
how the Nez Perce and the Dakota Indians became Presbyterians yet
incorporated Native culture and tradition into their new Christian
identities. Lewis focuses on the rise of Native clergy and their
forging of Christian communities based on American Indian values
and notions of kinship and leadership. Originally, mission work
among the Nez Perces and Dakotas revolved around white
missionaries, but Christianity truly took root in
nineteenth-century American Indian communities with the ordination
of Indian clergy. Native pastors saw in Christianity a universal
message of hope and empowerment. Educated and trained within their
own communities, Native ministers were able to preach in their own
languages. They often acted as cultural brokers between Indian and
white societies, shaping Native Presbyterianism and becoming
recognized leaders in both tribal and Presbyterian circles. In 1865
the Presbyterian Church ordained John B. Renville as the first
Dakota Indian minister, and in 1879 Robert Williams became the
first ordained Nez Perce. By 1930, nearly forty Dakotas, sixteen
Nez Perces, a Spokane, and a Makah had been ordained. Lewis has
mined church and archival records, including letters from Native
ministers, to reveal ways in which early Indian pastors left a
heritage of committed Presbyterian congregations and a vibrant
spiritual legacy among their descendants. Bonnie Sue Lewis is
Assistant Professor of Mission and Native American Christianity at
the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa.
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