Choosing the Jesus Way: American Indian Pentecostals and the Fight for the Indigenous Principle

4. Institutionalizing the Indigenous Principle: The American Indian College and Mesa View Assembly of God

115 chapter 4 Institutionalizing the Indigenous Principle The American Indian College and Mesa View Assembly of God Sister Alta Washburn had a problem. After many years on the mission field in Arizona, she faced competition from an independent Christian evangelist for the souls of the Phoenix area Indians.1 The evangelist ’s emotional preaching style horrified Sister Washburn; in her opinion, he exploited people.2 She believed that she was losing Indian converts to him because they did not possess a solid biblical education. In her mind, the AG, though not perfect, represented firm, biblically based, evangelical teaching. This experience convinced Sister Washburn that the only way she could encourage the conversion of Indians and loyalty to the AG was through well-educated Indian missionaries and evangelists. Unsure of where to turn, Sister Washburn prayed. A few days later, she received her answer. Plainly the Lord spoke to me, “There came a bear and a lion, and there came Goliath who roared against the camp of Israel. What did David do? He arose in the name of the Lord God of Israel. He laid hold of the bear, the lion and Goliath. He did more then [sic] pray. He attacked them and prevailed.” As I left the meeting I was more assured than ever that God would help us build a Bible school for American Indians. There they could learn to fight the good fight of faith with sound Bible doctrine against the bears, the lions and the Goliaths who might come against them.3 A white, female missionary who had completed only middle school, Sister Washburn identified closely with the young David, who had battled 116 institutionalizing the indigenous principle 6 Goliath. In this case, Goliath proved to be not only the ministerial competition but also the AG hierarchy. Initially Sister Washburn had a hard time convincing white AG missionaries to support her idea for an all-Indian Bible school. Her fellow missionaries feared that if they sent converts to the Bible school, they would never return to the reservation. Others questioned the need for a Bible school and wondered how she would find the money to build it.4 But Sister Washburn clung to her vision, bolstered by letters of support from like-minded missionaries. She wrote to Brother C. M. Ward of California for guidance. Ward, a rapidly rising star in AG circles, responded with encouragement. “‘Sister Washburn,’ he wrote back, ‘keep yelling about that Bible school. Someone will hear you.’”5 Sister Washburn followed his advice. She spoke so loudly and clearly that no one, even the AG hierarchy in Springfield, could ignore her. In September 1957, against significant odds, Sister Washburn ’s all-Indian Bible school opened. By holding to her convictions, she changed the face of AG Bible school education and forced the AG to recognize the needs of its Indian converts. Sister Washburn’s sincerity was noted by the indigenous leadership within the AG. As Mohawk evangelist Rodger Cree remembered, “In the conversation that followed with Sister Washburn, Esther and I both sensed that she was indeed a visionary pioneer in uncharted and even controversial territory—that of ‘raising up’ indigenous Native pastors.”6 Cree first met Washburn in the late 1950s and stressed the importance of her work to Native Pentecostals. “Her vision was not only to reach Native Americans with the gospel, but also to equip them to reach their own people—an integral component of the indigenous principle propagated throughout the apostolic era, especially by the great apostle Paul.”7 Note that Brother Cree not only invoked the importance of the indigenous principle to Native Pentecostalism but also claimed both his Native and Pentecostal identities . He affirmed that Native people could indeed be leaders within the church, and he also traced their own authority as Native leaders back to the apostle Paul, thus making their Christian identity inarguable. Sister Washburn was not the only missionary who made the AG grapple with the indigenous principle. When Brother Charlie Lee arrived on the Navajo reservation in the 1940s and began preaching in Navajo, fellow missionaries, white and Indian, took notice. He asked his congregation to negotiate the transition from being a supported mission to a fully indigenous , self-supporting, district-affiliated church. Lee’s work took place well under the AG radar and was not as well documented as Sister Washburn’s institutionalizing the indigenous principle 117 Bible...