Truth and Reconciliation

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) represents an investigation into a difficult and destructive intersection of Canadian history, indigenous culture, and the church. The cultural atrocities and individual abuses that happened at the residential schools is not something we should allow ourselves to ever forget, especially when so much of the harm was committed at the hands of organized religion.

The TRC ‘Calls for Action’ require the church to take action and we, the BIC, continue to consider our responsibility as part of the dominant culture and our part in the overall process of healing and reconciliation. To stay up-to-date on the ongoing outcomes of the TRC please visit the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.Many steps are required as we seek to heal our land and rebuild trust with the Indigenous nations who have been stewards of these lands long before we arrived. One resource that the BIC has created to advance our understanding of the struggles of the Indigenous people is called ‘First Steps.’

Please feel free to download the PDF file  by click on the image below. Feel free to use this resources personally or in your church in whatever way is helpful to advance truth and reconciliation.

Honouring the call of Indigenous peoples from around the world, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has specifically summoned, not only the State, but all churches to embrace the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But what is the Declaration? And how might it gift and reorient Christian faith and practice?

In Wrongs to Rights, over 40 authors from diverse backgrounds – Indigenous and Settler, Christian and Traditional – wrestle with the meaning of the Declaration for the Church. With a firm hold on past and present colonialism, the authors tackle key questions that the Declaration and the TRC’s call to “adopt and comply” raises: What are its potential implications? How does it connect to Scripture? Can it facilitate genuine decolonization, or is “rights talk” another form of imperialism? And what about real life relationships? Can the Declaration be lived out – collectively and personally – on the ground?

Short articles combined with poetry and visual arts provide a rich, engaging and accessible resource for individual and group conversation in 164 pages. A study guide is included.