On May 4, the three Episcopal dioceses of Wisconsin met jointly at the Ho-Chunk Gaming in Baraboo for a convention at which each diocese would vote on the proposal to reunify the three dioceses. I had been involved in the so-called Trialogue and I was curious to see what would happen. But more than the vote on reunification, I was curious about something else, namely how the story of the Episcopal Church in Wisconsin would be told and how that story would contribute to the future identity of the church. Finally, the moment I was waiting for arrived. No, not the announcement of the voting results, although that was a historic moment of great significance. For me the most powerful moment, a taste of spiritual transcendence, came earlier, during the convention Eucharist. After the post-communion prayer and a brief pause for silence a lone voice was raised to sing the Te Deum in the Oneida language. I had read about the Oneida Singers. I had heard recordings of the Te Deum and I knew of the tradition that the Te Deum was sung at all conventions of the Diocese of Fond du Lac. It was a historic day and the inclusion of the Te Deum sung by descendants of the first Episcopalians to arrive in what is now Wisconsin bore powerful witness to the complicated history of the Episcopal church in Wisconsin and the United States.
As I have reflected on that moving experience and on a day full of excitement and joy, I began to wonder what difference it might make if the story of the Episcopal Church in Wisconsin was centered on the Oneida story rather than on the stereotypical denominational history of arrival, institution-building, and now decline. Unlike most white settlers in Wisconsin, the Oneida came largely against their will, forced from their homes by land speculators and westward expansion. They built the first Episcopal Church in Wisconsin, continued to worship and to pass on their faith to later generations. Deacons and priests were raised up from among them and they carried their faith with them as they moved and were forced to assimilate. The larger Episcopal community honored and protected them, most notably by leading the resistance to their removal from Wisconsin to Indian Territory in the late 19th century. But it is a story that is largely unknown by most Wisconsin Episcopalians. Certainly when I’ve mentioned it to most Wisconsin Episcopalians, they express amazement and wonder to learn of the Oneida connection. A collection of essays sheds important light on the relationship of the Wisconsin Oneida and the Episcopal Church: The Wisconsin Oneidas and the Episcopal Church: A Chain Linking Two Traditions.
To center the Oneida experience in the story of the Episcopal Church in Wisconsin complicates the narrative, exposing all the ways in which Episcopalians participated in settler colonialism and profited from the exploitation and expulsion of Wisconsin’s indigenous peoples. It would emphasize the reality that the church is a flawed, sinful institution, as any human institution is, even as it participates in the perfection and holiness of Christ. To center the Oneida in the Episcopal story in Wisconsin moving forward, it could help us overcome our presentist bias—the assumption that we know better than those who have come before us—and encourage us to build future communities that are better attuned to the limits of our perspective and knowledge. It might also encourage us to center reconciliation and restorative justice at the heart of our work and common life. It might also compel us to seek out other stories that have been forgotten, or suppressed, or ignored over the decades of our history. It might challenge us to consider how our unexpressed assumptions about the identity and mission of the Episcopal Church could be a detriment to the thriving of the Episcopal witness and charism in a rapidly changing nation and world.