Friday, September 10, 2010

The Conversion of Fish Hawk

Bonnie Sue Lewis uses the conversion story of Fish Hawk, a Cayuse Indian, to illustrate the complexity involved in deciding to become a Christian Indian. (To get the whole story, you'll have to read Creating Christian Indians.) Like many other Indians, Fish Hawk made a deathbed conversion.

If Fish Hawk's conversion was like most people's stereotype of deathbed conversions, it would have been a superficial and/or cynical gesture, but this is clearly not the case. Instead, Fish Hawk experienced a vision; and it was his vision that led him to accept Christianity, but not the rest of white culture.


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