The Indian Church in a Sponsor-Oriented Society

Abstract

Can or should a church be “indigenous” in terms of the local ethnic group when that group constitutes a minority and is looked upon — even by its members — as occupying an inferior position with respect to the dominant society? This was the problem faced by a group of Aztec Indians as they went to the “First Evangelical Indian Congress” in Mexico in October 1961 (see the preceding article). The writer, who attended the conference as an observer and who has worked for a number of years with this Aztec group, sets forth an interpretation of the solution to this problem which their leaders reached after discussions with Indians from both independent and denominationally related churches at the conference.