Christian church vows to fight tribal order to leave Wind River Reservation

As the Northern Arapaho Sundance ceremony was in its final day on July 5, Foundations For Nations Pastor Sarah Lucas stood before her congregation on the Wind River Reservation and suggested Native people should turn away from their traditional ways, calling them a false “idol.”

“I pray as the people coming out of Sundance today, their last day, they’re going back into community,” she said in a video of the sermon that’s since gone viral. “You have generations, generations, centuries of people doing this offering, going in and being, making vows to change, Father God. And we see no fruit.”

As Lucas ushered a handful of Native people up to the podium to tell their stories about how they rejected their traditional faith in favor of Christianity, she offered prayers that others do the same, that they “not be in any demonic activity.”

“The pipe cannot hear your prayers. It’s just a piece of material, right? And this is a cycle that they’re caught up in, and this is all they’ve ever known,” she said. “And the Lord is saying ‘Tear down the idols, tear down the altars, the idol worship.’”

As the video began circulating on social media, several hundred Native community members moved swiftly to protest, to demand that Foundations For Nations leave the reservation.

The Lucas family fled, citing death threats. The church’s related food shelf closed its doors.

On Friday, church officials met with the Northern Arapaho Business Council and were told to leave the reservation. 

But instead, Sunday services were held, and today, the Foundations For Nations Church had doubled down. 

“We are standing firmly on the truth of the Word of God concerning idol worship. As many of you know, traditional practices here include the worship of the ‘old man pipe’ and prayers directed to ancestors,” the church wrote in a statement to its members, describing threats received since the July 5 sermon and saying the FBI and local law enforcement have become involved in the conflict. 

“This brings us to a critical question: Should we compromise the Word of God for the sake of safety or to maintain peace with a people group? Our answer is clear — no.” 

Foundations For Nations argued that it owned its property and can’t be removed “in this manner,” adding that it was ready to fight the removal order in federal court. “We are in need of financial support to help cover the legal expenses required to continue this mission and ensure God’s Word continues to go forth on the Wind River Reservation,” the message continued. 

Backlash against the church has continued, and some have called on the tribes to invoke the “bad man” clause in their treaty with the U.S. government, which empowers the tribes to ban people from reservation land.

The sermon

Though the church acted quickly to remove the sermon video online after mounting criticism, it has continued circulating and drawing blowback from Native leaders across the country.

At the end of the sermon, Lucas called up several people to offer testimony about how they embraced Jesus Christ and rejected their traditional spirituality. A Crow man from Montana stood before the congregation and offered a story about his grandfather, born in 1904, who participated in 20 Sundance ceremonies. In the 20th year, the Crow man said, as his grandfather danced to the center pole in prayer, he saw demons. “He never did it again, and he ended up giving his life to God … God’s real, and if He can turn a ceremonial man away, He can save anybody,” he said.

The story received a round of applause before the next person began their testimony. Lucas called them “points of contact” who could join in to evangelize the rest of the community toward Jesus Christ and away from traditional ways.

Delivered one day after the Fourth of July, part of Lucas’ sermon on July 5 reflected on freedoms found in the U.S. “It’s hard to understand if you’ve never left the nation,” she said. “But I’ve been to nine countries, and I’m telling you that I look forward to every day of coming back to my nation, to my country.”

Lucas pointed to countries ruled by dictators, where people were not free to worship openly. “But in this nation, in this tribal nation, in this reservation, they came off their week of Sundance,” she said. “Today is their last day of festivities. And if you don’t understand [what] Sundance is, ask some of our Native community that is here that said Jesus is enough and walked away from some of that.”

She urged her congregation to be watchful in the “spirit realm” and reflected on a busy week for the church. “But are we fighting the spiritual temperature in the atmosphere?” she asked. “Where it says ‘Tear down the altars; tear down the idols?’ And this nation gathered this week and they prayed, and they prayed to pipes, and they prayed to their ancestors, believing that this is their way for their freedom to get free from addiction, for people to be healed from their sickness, and this is what this culture did this week. And we went on as church as normal, but here’s the thing. I feel like we’ve got to pray this morning before moving on. I feel like we’re going to pray for this nation this morning, and we’re going to pray for our Indigenous nation, for our tribe this week as they’re coming out of this, because we know that Jesus is enough. He’s enough. It’s not Jesus plus. It’s Jesus everything, he’s everything … Jesus is the chain breaker. He is the only god that we should be praying to.”

A community outraged

“But as Natives we have been persecuted by these types of people since their immigrant grandparents came here. They forced that religion on us,” Chris Friday wrote on Facebook. “Talk to your grandparents who were beat, spit on, SA’d, tied up and locked in dog cages as kids. The nuns would wash their mouths out with soap and hold food from them. Starving them for days. Locking them in pitch black basements. These are some of the things I’ve heard from my late grandma. How [the] radicals would treat Native kids at the boarding schools. Their mindset isn’t far from this same mindset of beating the Indian out of the man.”

The sermon sparked a wave of criticism, and many tied the church’s message to the treatment of Native American people and their traditions by the U.S. government such as Indian boarding schools where children were punished for using their native languages and expressing their cultures. The goal was to eradicate Native cultures and traditions, and tribal communities often had to worship in secret to escape persecution.

“For many Indigenous people, churches have been intertwined with colonization, cultural erasure,” wrote Lynette Grey Bull, who founded Not Our Native Daughters, which focuses on educating the public about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. “If Creator made Indigenous peoples with our languages, cultures, ceremonies and identities, why should we be shamed for them? Why should an outside interpretation of Christianity require us to reject the very gifts Creator entrusted to our nations? … Sarah Lucas is repeating a traumatic history of the boarding school era, where our hair was cut, language removed and our babies were beaten if they did anything to identify themselves as their Native way of life!”

For some, the statements made by Lucas about the sacred Arapaho pipes were doubly offensive; the Arapaho creation story includes a great flood, with a man holding a pipe fasting and praying for land to remake the earth. The land returned under the pipe, which is today sometimes called “grandfather” or “grandfather pipe” and one of the tribe’s most sacred objects.

“What she did was not damaging to one religious organization, it damaged the trust granted to any that would ever attempt to come to our home again. It is no secret that Indian Country has a past and a history with religion. Religion for us carries complex, heavy, and negative connotations, wrought by suffering, abuse, murder, rape, and the destruction of our traditional practices and way of life. This incident has the potential to further damage that already tumultuous relationship. The ability to further trust perceived outsiders with sacred knowledge and wisdom will never be approached the same again,” Jennifer Fienhold wrote of Lucas’ statements. “There is no coming back from what she said. If she truly values her relationship with the community, she will do the respectful thing and take her leave. I don’t mean from social media or from any future ceremonies, I mean quite literally pack her things and leave … Backflip, square dance, and yodel your apology all you want, the people already see you. And you aren’t sorry. What you are is the wrong fit.”

Many called for the church and Lucas to leave the reservation. While the protests were peaceful and featured speeches, drumming and singing, and circle dances, some commentary online included veiled or outright threats against the church and its leadership.

In a text message that appeared to come from Pastor Lucas last week, she said she was going to meet with Northern Arapaho leaders on Friday before making a statement on the sermon. “I do know we hurt your people,” the text message read. “That was not my intention. We will eventually respond!”

Those protesting Tuesday said they wanted a public apology over the controversial sermon and statements against the tribe’s traditional ways. “We want a public apology from them,” said Northern Arapaho Business Council Chair Keenan Groesbeck. “They still have the same ideology of their forefathers, you know: Kill the Indian, and save the man. We’re not putting up with that anymore. They need to remember they’re visitors on our reservation.”

Lt. Governor of Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma Hershel Gorham weighed in on the controversy via a social media video. “There are no words other than to say this is despicable,” he said. “This country just celebrated their 250th anniversary, yet our people go back to time immemorial … our Sundance has been with us for a long, long time … to have a person who’s more or less an invited guest … to talk down and belittle our ways like that during the time that the Sundance is actually going on is totally unacceptable.

“All tribes suffered at the hands of the churches, of the federal government,” he continued, referencing the Indian boarding schools. “We know that way, we understand what happened, that’s why there’s graveyards all across this country at those churches, at those boarding schools … If that’s the level of religion that we can expect, no thank you.”

This article has been updated to correct a description of Lynette Grey Bull’s background. —Ed.