Hi there, Mesquite!
Quote:I'll bet there are more than a few baptists that do their own blending of pagan traditions and Christianity.
We could easily fill a 150 page thread with the sins and shortcomings of baptists, but I'm not sure that one would be among them. In fact, we tend to go too far in the opposite direction, insisting that indigenous peoples divest themselves completely, not only of their pagan beliefs, but their whole culture - their very identity!
For reasons I have never understood, the spanish and french colonists did not seem to suffer so much from the shameful cultural intolerance and virulent racism that always afflicted my english ancestors - and that very intolerance precluded their ability to share the Good News with native peoples. Jesus was not pleased!
In your area, for example, while my anglo/saxon, protestant forbears were busily exterminating the Apache, their close cousins in Sonora, the Yaqui, had been christians for 100+ years. The great jesuit missionary, Father Eusebio Kino, successfully brought christianity to the Yaqui because he didn't demand that they reject their whole culture and become europeans. He understood that the core gospel message of salvation is what really matters. He succeeded because his heart was filled with love, not hatred, and all peoples everywhere respond to love.
The policies of the great colonial powers toward native americans can be summed-up, it seems to me, in one sentence (not original with me) -"The spanish christianized them, the french married them and the english exterminated them."
Because if this history, there have been times when I wanted to convert to catholicism. I opted instead to stay with my own people and work to make the necessary changes in attitudes - and, with the Lord's help, there have been some successes in that regard - quite a bit of success, actually.
If I don't have my historical facts exactly right, I welcome constructive corrections.
Jack
