"The Everlasting People" by Matthew J. Milliner. A Review

 

I have gone with my congregation every year to Southwest Oklahoma, where we serve among Kiowa Christians, and Apache, Caddo, and others. So, I was looking forward with anticipation as "The Everlasting People: G.K. Chesterton and the First Nations" came in the mail. This 184-page softback was penned by Matthew J. Milliner, associate professor of art history at Wheaton College. The author intends for this volume to continue "the age-old conversation between Christianity and Indigenous North American life" (13), and he seeks to do this primarily by drawing G.K. Chesterton into the conversation. It mostly does.

The author takes readers through some of the indigenous art of earlier peoples in North America, primarily rock art and other forms, depicting the stories of the Hodag/Mishipeshu and Thunderbirds. He then takes us around the Winfield Mounds and Chicago. And strangely he ends on an icon of Our Virgin of Perpetual Help ("The Virgin of the Passion"). On almost every page the author draws in G.K. Chesterton as an aid for thinking through a given subject and interactive ways to perceive things from healthier angles. At the end of each chapter he has a guest respondent reflect on his topic: David Iglesias, David J.P. Hooker, and Amy Peeler.

At times it felt like I was trying to grasp the author's aim and point. But mostly I was able to track along with him. I appreciated his attempts at leaving behind the mythical and mistaken notion of the noble savage, but felt like what he gave out with one hand he ended up taking back with the other. For example, toward the beginning of the book the author rightly notes that hating "my own Whiteness, (...), remains a dead end" (23). But then in the conclusion that's where he ends up, or so it appeared to me.

What I most appreciated about the work was the portrayal of the genuineness of Indigenous Christianity, as Milliner calls it. It hurt to recall with the author how White Christians would wrong their fellow Native American Christians, to expand possession of land, violate treaties, etc. And yet the Indigenous believers' resilience in remaining close to Jesus as they were pressured from Whites to give up resources and places at the point of a gun barrel, but also as they were pressured by their own tribal peoples to give up their Christian faith at the point of a knife, was amazing. I have personally experienced this genuineness when surrounded by Apache, Kiowa, Wichita, and Comanche Christians while they prayed for me and my ministry team in English and native languages simultaneously. I have rarely been as deeply touched as I was on that day.

"The Everlasting People" is a noble attempt at drawing G.K. Chesterton into the age-old conversation between Christianity and First Nations peoples. And it mostly gets there. It might be a useful book for ministries that work among Native Americans. It could be meaningful for others thinking through some "outside-the-box" applications to Chesterton. I give it a mild recommendation.

My thanks to IVP Academic for sending the book used in this review. I requested it, and they happily mailed it, asking nothing in return but my honest analysis. Therefore, I have freely given my evaluation without restraint of hesitancy.