Paul A.

“The historical irony is that European Christians coming to the Americas were escaping highly stratified and intolerant societies; in North America they encountered societies that were open and tolerant; but in response, these European immigrants simply duplicated the oppression they had known by practicing it on the Native People.”
― Steven Charleston, Coming Full Circle: Constructing Native Christian Theology

“The koshares are far different from a Western clown in a red nose and big shoes. With the koshares there is a shock value to the spirit embodied by the clown. There is an intentional effort to draw attention through behavior that creates a disorienting presence as unsettling as it is humorous. Koshares appear around adult themes of fertility and sexuality. They exhibit our mixed attitudes toward subjects that can make us both aroused and embarrassed at the same time. They are ambivalence personified; they are also raw energy and life.”
― Steven Charleston, The Four Vision Quests of Jesus

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide Show respect to all people and when it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
― Steven Charleston, The Four Vision Quests of Jesus

“The individual Native person, therefore, carries a strong sense of being a child of God in covenant connection to all of the others in the nation. Jesus, as a “Son of the People,” walks behind the Spirit into the Wilderness, not as a single mystic going out for a private audience with God, but as the representative of the whole nation going out to speak to their parent God. It is crucial to remember these many layers of relationship in the Native tradition embodied by Jesus in order to fully appreciate the impact of what God shows him.”
― Steven Charleston, The Four Vision Quests of Jesus