Brian Wilkes will appear on Wild Wild Woman Network: Conversations with Creative Vagabonds, Thinkers and Innovators this Tuesday, July 21 at 2 PM est.
Brian is a businessman and Cherokee language instructor, he is also head of the region’s nascent branch of the NAC, a century¬old denomination with a membership approaching 300,000. Brian will discuss his role and the role of Native American spirituality today. http://www.TheNativeAmericanChurch.com
Native American Church Grows Quietly
Crittenden Press, Marion KY, July 16, 2009
Few in the town of Marion may realize that it is becoming a destination for Native American descendants seeking healing and reconciliation. Since the late autumn of 2007, a branch of the Native American Church(NAC) has conducted healing and worship services, attracting people from as far as New Jersey, Chicago, eastern Kentucky and Virginia, and inquiries from as far as Australia and the United Kingdom.
While many in Marion know Brian Wilkes as a local businessman and Cherokee language instructor, few outside of the Native American community realize that he is also head of the region’s nascent branch of the NAC, a century¬old denomination with a membership approaching 300,000.
“We keep pretty much to ourselves;” Wilkes says. “We don’t do sales pitches. We are first and foremost a healing ministry. People usually come first for healing, andlater for worship ceremonies. We meet in homes, and we protect the anonymity of those who come to us.”
Since the beginning of 2008, about 40 have accepted salvation and two have been baptized through the local Four Rivers chapter of NAC.
“NAC is ethnocentric like the Greek Orthodox Church, but not exclusionary – you don’t have to be Native American to join, but most likely, you will be," Wilkes adds. "Each chapter takes on the culture of its local community. Around here, most of us are Cherokee descendants who were raised Christian, so our services follow the form of a non¬denominational prayer meeting with hymns in Cherokee. In other communities, the form will be different. It has a strong Christian feeling because that’s who we are, but we don’t force it on anyone.
"In the Navajo or Lakota country, where there are fewer Christians, there will be few Christian elements. But in the Winnebago chapters, the medicines will be placed on an open Bible to acknowledge the source of the healing. One size does not fit all.”
Wilkes points to the healing of co¬founder Quanah Parker. “Parker was a Comanche chief whose mother was a white Texan. He was critically wounded, and his mother sought out a traditional Indian healer. The only one she could find was a Huichole Indian from Mexico, who only knew one medicine. It was a cactus known for its antibiotic and anesthetic properties.
"As he hovered near death, Parker saw Jesus reach down from heaven, and thought his time was up. Instead of ‘taking him home,’ he saw Jesus hand him the medicine the Huichole healer had brought. In that moment, Parker accepted both Jesus and Indian medicine teachings. Since then we consider the medicines that relieve human suffering to be sprung from the blood of Christ, and recognize both as sacraments.”
The denomination was formed in 1918 by an act of Congress, and the church enjoys special legal status, inluding exemption of its ministers from state jurisdiction normally imposed on therapists.
Wilkes conducts one meeting monthly of the Four Rivers in or around Marion, and another in or around Murphysboro, Ill. In fact, his co¬pastor, Joyce Rheal, and another cluster of church members live in Murphysboro.
The name Four Rivers was inspired by the Old Testament book of Genesis, said Wilkes, and its service area covers western Kentucky and southern Illinois. Wilkes was recently approached by an isolated community in west Texas about forming a chapter there. He was then able to help them get started and documented. Recently, a Four Rivers satellite group was also formed in Sussex, England.
Rheal, of Murphysboro, was raised in a Cherokee home that still followed traditional healing practices, and she attended NAC meetings until age 13. She then went into a different church with unexpected consequences.
“I had rejected Christianity because I was victimized by a cultish denomination for 23 years," Rheal said. "They dehumanized my gender as a woman and my ethnic heritage as a Cherokee brought up in those traditions. I thought all Christianity was like this.
"A few years ago, I started coming to the Native American Church meetings in Marion, and asked the Holy Spirit if Jesus and his teachings were real. After receiving communion for this first time, I received a comforting feeling asif Jesus was putting his arms around me. I realized that my Cherokee grandmothers’ teachings about Jesus were true, and now I’m back on that path, and recognize Jesus Christ as my savior.”
Rheal began medicine training in 2008, and is now co¬pastor of Four Rivers. Wilkes began his own return to the “medicine path” in 1990 under a Cherokee teacher. He later travelled to Peru, studying with Quechua and Shuar teachers. His current teachers include Seminole, Shahaptian and Lakota elders. At the beginning of 2009, he was named to one of the elders’ councils and the curriculum review committee.
“It’s not all roots and berries,”he joked. “We’re as likely to use dark¬light microscopy as a medicine pipe. We have no animosity to technology.”
Four members are currently involved in training as healers and ministers.
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