Reminder: CPC Leadership ZOOM Conversations of “Murder at the Mission”
Have you read the book Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West by Blaine Harden? If you haven’t, I hope you will, and I hope you’ll join the conversation that’s already taking place in our conference.
I first came across this book while working on the Reckoning with Our Racist History Project with the CPC Board cohort. We read the book as a group, and were struck by how often Congregationalists appeared in the story. It’s the story of how the Oregon Territories of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana came to be American. It’s the story of how missionaries funded by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (the same Massachusetts corporation we now call Wider Church Ministries of the UCC) led the charge to take land from indigenous peoples, and how their cause was championed by my predecessor, Dr. George Atkinson, the first leader of the Congregationalists in these parts. The fact is that you can’t tell the story of the taking of the Northwest without telling the story of our ancestors in the faith, and that’s a fact we must reckon with.
I’m inviting you into an All-Conference Read of Murder at the Mission, with some opportunities for further conversation. It’s not a short book, and it’s not an easy read, so we’re giving you plenty of time to read it before we talk about it in October.
Here are some activities you can participate in:
October 21st – Oliver Lecture at First Congregational Portland with Author Blaine Harden
October 26th – Zoom Conversation with CPC Leaders, 11:30am PT and 12:30pm MT
October 28th – Zoom Conversation with CPC Leaders, 9:30am PT and 10:30am MT
I’m grateful to First Congregational of Portland for bringing Blaine Harden to speak. Unfortunately, the lecture will likely not be accessible remotely, because of contractual obligations. However, the great thing about books is that they can be read from anywhere, and we’ll be able to have our own conversations amongst ourselves in the weeks that follow the lecture.
Understanding our history is part of our call to meet the future, as we seek to be the Church for this time and this place.
