Richard Twiss

“The real aim of colonialism was to control the people’s wealth, what they produced, how they produced it,” Ngūgī wa Thiong’o sees the way that control was introduced and managed was to deconstruct the people’s sense of self and replace it with that of the colonizer. This would occur when a people’s perception of themselves and their world was overthrown.”

“As a “syncretist” I have a core allegiance to Jesus as Creator that is enriched, further informed and inspired by traditional Lakota ceremonial ways and beliefs. I am able to hold the “exclusive” claims of Christ in tension with the religious claims of other Indigenous ways that I embrace, and lose nothing of my faith in Jesus in the process.”

“I think we would be better served if we considered syncretism to be the exploration of the synthesis of faith, belief and practice in a dynamic process of blending, adding, subtracting, changing, testing and working things out. This process does not take anything away from the authority of Scripture or orthodoxy.”