The Symposium:

The purpose of the symposium is to facilitate open dialogue about various aspects of biblical and theological contextualization in Indigenous thought, history, and experience. Symposium planners hope that participants will bring together academic and practical approaches to the issues being addressed in the symposium.

For many years now NAIITS has been exploring topics of interest and concern to a wide variety of people engaged within the Native North American and wider Indigenous community. At each symposium there have been clear articulations of the landscape in which we found ourselves. There have been cutting edge insights about how we might more effectively engage with Indigenous people, their communities, and those from other socio-cultural backgrounds and contexts.

Our focus will be on overall health and well being of human beings with one another, the land, politics, and the rest of the creation of which we are a part. Of particular interest will be those topics and presentations that describe a holistic and corrective approach to dealing with justice framed within the need for relationship with land and place for people of all walks of life.

Of interest will be how the interplay of theology and practice from Indigenous perspective, might transform our understanding of the human community environment, the practical issues of social context, and relationships with the living creation of which humanity is a part. Presentations will address one or more of the following topic areas as noted above:

1. Indigenous values and perspectives that might contribute to alternative responses to those being offered elsewhere in respect of land and human displacement from it;
2. Indigenous readings of the gospel and theologies that might offer a way forward in some of the following:
- For example, does, or how does the Bible instruct us as far as corrective approaches to the concept of dominion over the land?
- What do the concepts of ownership and/or stewardship mean?
- What, if any, are human responsibilities to the land?
3. Does land simply have a utilitarian function or is there a spiritual connection we are intended to have with the land?
- If there is a spiritual connection, how does the land as part of human identity help us heal, or conversely, how does our identity help promote healing of the land?
4. What are the implications of short and long-term displacement; displacement and disconnection; displacement and reconnection?

TIME: June 6, 3:00 pm beginning with registration through to the closing ceremonies Saturday June 8th at 4:00 pm. Friday evening will have a special singular focus.

LOCATION: June 6 - 8, 2019 - Co-hosted by Tyndale Seminary