Response: Elaine Enns and Ched Myers

Abstract

We think the best way we can help decenter a romanticized North American white Mennonite narrative is to help decolonize it. Our church embodies a material legacy rooted in both marginalization and prosperity under colonialism, which require healing and reparation—as is true of every white-majority denomination and congregation on Turtle Island.

Since Healing Haunted Histories’ (HHH) publication five years ago, we have enjoyed learning from many integral experiments in intercultural decolonial workshops. One in particular comes to mind: a summer Canadian School of Peacebuilding course at Canadian Mennonite University, in which half the participants were non-white, non-Mennonite immigrant students. A cohort of Nigerians eagerly adapted the “Landlines, Bloodlines, and Songlines” (LBS) model, applying it first to their intergenerational experience of classic colonial displacement in Africa, then bringing it forward to how they must engage the legacies of settler colonialism in Canada. Ukrainian, Greek, Pakistani, Jamaican, and Cree students followed suit. It was beautiful to see how diverse participants adapted HHH to their context.