Deep faith: A conversation with Bishop Mark MacDonald
by Joey Royal, The Living Church:
This interview took place in a coffee shop in Iqaluit, Nunavut, on October 9. Bishop Mark MacDonald, the National Indigenous Anglican Bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada, was there for a pastoral visit. He led lively services every night at St. Jude’s Cathedral, visited elders in the community, and spent two days teaching theological students at Arthur Turner Training School. The following interview covers a lot of ground, touching on the bishop’s experiences and spiritual formation, the unique character of Indigenous life and faith, as well as pressing issues facing Indigenous Christians such as self-determination, the environmental crisis, sexuality, and marriage.
[…] In your role as National Indigenous Anglican Bishop you spend most of your time traveling around Canada meeting with Indigenous people — Inuit, First Nations, and Métis. Can you describe something you have seen or heard in your travels that fills you with hope?
My travels fill me with hope because I see a depth of faith, and a reality to faith, that is hard to see outside of Indigenous communities. It’s not that it doesn’t exist outside of Indigenous communities, but it’s especially concentrated there. In those communities there are huge problems and huge difficulties, but in the midst of that darkness there shines such a great light. I’m always filled with hope when I spend time with Indigenous Christians in Indigenous communities because in the midst of horrific realities another reality is being born.
Can you say a bit about what is particular to Indigenous people in their approach to Scripture and to faith? What are some distinctively Indigenous ways of thinking about and engaging these things?
Anyone who spends any time with Indigenous people will see that the unseen world is a very real aspect of life in Indigenous Christian faith. Someone who has been strongly influenced by the modern world will find themselves surprised at how much the modern viewpoint has influenced the way modern people look at Scripture. By contrast, when you spend some time with Indigenous people, specifically Indigenous elders, the Scripture begins to make sense in a way that it never has before. I find it helpful to ask myself: “How would an elder look at this passage? How would they understand it? In what way would it impact them? How would they read it?”
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