Vine Deloria Jr. is a well-known author of many books. In his book, God is Red, he analysed the fundamental differences between Christianity on the one hand, and Native American religions on the other. As Deloria sees it, it is, at its root, related to a dichotomy between time and space -- that is, between history and geography. Christianity emphasizes history, the progression of events through time, as God's plan is gradually revealed and manifested. Native American religions emphasize geography, that is, the relationship of people to specific lands and places in those lands. It is this fundamental difference in worldview that led to the conflicts between European settlers and Native tribes in the Americas. Settlers did not understand the sacredness of specific locations; they moved easily from place to place, as their faith did not require a sacred site.
My reading of Deloria clarified a feeling I had long had -- the feeling that first insipred me to take the name of Vagabond. The Christian God is a Vagabond God, detached from homeland, wandering. We see this symbolized in a number of Christian hymns, which give us images of the open road; songs, for example, like "Wayfaring Stranger," which portrays the believer as a traveller passing through on his way to somewhere else. The wayfaring stranger acknowledges no homeland on earth; wherever he goes, he is an alien and a stranger, trying to get to a faraway land of which he has heard, but has never seen.
The Vagabond nature of Christianity is not just found in Western Christianity. In another song, "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus," the content of the lyrics combines with the cadence of the melody to create the image of a lone pilgrim trudging forward, one foot in front of the other. Look at the musical notations and you will see this song is a "folk melody from India;" it originated in Assam.
Of course, the Vagabond archetype is not the only one in Christianity. "Bringing in the Sheaves," for example, uses the image of a settled community, with its roots deep in the land both literally and figuratively. On the whole, however, the metaphor of the pilgrimage or journey tends to predominate in Christian thought, borrowing much from Old Testament accounts of the Exodus -- leaving behind the country of slavery, crossing the desert, crossing the old River Jordan, in search of a promised land in the afterlife. The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, is one of the definitive allegories in the lives of many Christians; its narrative of a man leaving his hometown to set out across unknown lands has shaped our theology of the meaning of the Christian life, but was in turn shaped by earlier ways of understanding. Likewise, Edmund Broadbent titled his history of the persecuted faithful, The Pilgrim Church, emphasizing their status as outsiders in the lands and cultures in which they found themselves.
No wonder, then, that it was the Christian peoples who launched the Age of Exploration. Our Vagabond faith could not but grow restless and set out in search of new adventures. Once we wandered away from the graves of our ancestors, there was no longer any reason to remain attached to any particular land.
It was surely inevitable, then, that in time, a longing would appear among us. A people can only be disconnected from the land for so long before it begins to feel as though it is under the curse of Cain (who was, after all, the world's first Vagabond). Recent years have seen a movement away from Christianity as part and parcel of a search for a meaningful connection with the earth. The people doing this sense that Christianity has been a Vagabond faith for too long to establish easily new roots, especially in a country so far from its place of origin. This has led to an interest in indiginous religions among many Westerners.
But, as Deloria points out, tribal religions only exist in the context of a tribe. When non-Indians try to adopt Native American religions, he says, "No matter how hard they try, they always reduce the ceremonies and teachings to a complicated word game and ineffectual gestures. Lacking communities and extended families, they are unable to put the religion into practice." This is another fundamental difference between Christianity and Native religions: Native religions cannot make "converts" in the Christian sense; one can only truly practice them by participating in the Native community.
My identity as Vagabond fits me. I have never really managed to put down roots in any one place. My family has no longstanding tradition in any one place; trace the generations back, and you find them living in many different places. I could not adopt a tribal religion even if I wanted to, because I have no tribe.
The irony, though, is that despite the traditional imagery of life as pilgrimage or journey, Christianity, at least in the wealthy countries, has reduced it to nothing more than a metaphor; it no longer has any reality. Everywhere we look, we see big church buildings with ongoing building programs and affluent congregations. "Family values" has become the euphemism by which middle-class suburban values are promoted as though they were the teachings of Christ Himself. Truly Deloria had it right when he observed that, far from shaping the culture, Christianity has been continually shaped by the culture: all the trappings of pop culture, from t-shirts with Christian slogans, to stores full of Christian-themed merchandise, to Christian celebrities, have been wholeheartedly adopted by Christianity. Christianity not only lacks any connection with the earth, it actively markets and consumes the industrial production that is using up the earth.
Need I point out that all this accumulation of material wealth is not conducive to the Vagabond (or pilgrim) life? I know something about being weighed down with material possessions; as I have criscrossed the continent, I have had to spend extended periods of time more-or-less living out of my car. This takes careful consideration: What is necessary? What can I fit in this finite space of the trunk and back seat? What do I need to leave behind to make room for something else? Once I tried a U-Haul trailer, but it was so cumbersome and made life so much more complicated, it was not a viable long-term solution. I keep toying with the idea of one day leaving behind even the car; just up and start walking, with only what I can carry on my back.
And here is the biggest irony of all: St. Francis of Assisi has been promoted in some Christian circles as a symbol of a new environmental consciousness. While his vision of a brotherhood of all creatures is certainly comforting, his modern-day promoters have missed one thing: although born into a wealthy merchant family, St. Francis chose to abandon the things of the world and live a life of poverty. He told his brothers he was going to marry "lady poverty." The Franciscan Order were known for their poverty, and later, his order for women were known as the Poor Clares. The Spanish Franciscans along what is now the Georgia Coast were even forbidden to handle money. St. Francis was a Vagabond in the true tradition -- a tradition few if any Christians in today's affluent countries can understand, and few if any would actually want to revive. We have to ask ourselves: can we do anything meaningful for the earth, without renouncing consumerism?
Like many jaded Christians in the West, I, too, feel the pain of being "an alien and stranger on the earth." But we were never promised a life without pain. I embrace the identity of Vagabond. I have wandered far from the graves of my ancestors, and I cannot find my way back. I have no tribe to return to. But the Vagabond God bids me not be distracted by the allure of material wealth and possessions. He bids me resist the temptations of consumerism, with their false promises of happiness and comfort. If we do this, who knows if, in time, the curse of Cain will be broken and the earth will again open itself up to us?
