Once Upon a Sand Creek

Nov 29, 1864 probably doesn’t mean much to most of us.  But it should.

The name John Chivington probably doesn’t mean much to most of us.  But it should.  Especially to the Church.

On Nov 29, 1864, in modern Kiowa County, Colorado, approximately 150 Cheyenne, mainly women and children were slaughtered near their homes by the United States Calvary led by Col. John Chivington.  Chivington had claimed there were upwards of 500 Warriors in the village, but no evidence collaborated this.  Instead, 700 men ran down a village that was little equipped to defend itself.  After the ‘battle’, Chivington’s men returned to the scene to collect trophies of scalps and other body parts, including genitals.

Col John Chivington was known as a cold and brutal man, who employed violence to achieve his ends.  He was known for an accidental attack on a Confederate Supply Train during the Civil War, whereupon he threatened to kill his prisoners. 

But what makes Chivington noteworthy, and infamous, is that he was a Methodist Preacher.  He was a Christian.

Chivington had been appointed as a preacher by the Methodist General Convention and sent to Colorado. He was known as a ‘hell and brimstone’ preacher, one who preached the anger and wrath of God.  He preached against the existence of the Native Americans and urged his congregation members to exterminate them.  When the Civil War broke out, he applied for a commission.  When offered a commission as a Chaplain, he refused, insisting that he was going to be a warrior.  He served and was never punished for the events at Sand Creek.

Today, Chivington should remind us in the Christian Church about the dangers of extremism, of fundamentalism and of hatred wherever it shall be found.  This should be a reminder that we are not called to hate, not called to violence, but to love and to peace.  The Church needed to have helped the Cheyenne and all Natives.  A little less than a hundred years later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would remind us that the Church has a duty, “not to simply bandage the wounds of victims of the wheels of injustice, [but] we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

Sand Creek should remind us of our failures of the church in the past to even bandage the wounds.  The Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Navajo, indeed all Natives and all slaves, needed us. 

We should mourn the 29^th of November as a day when a man of peace became a man of violence.  And we should renew our commitment to serve others, to love others and to be that instrument of justice and peace that God has called us to be.