God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (Religion and Spirituality)

Rating:
Summary: God Bless America
Review: I have read a lot of books, and very few have moved me, inspired me and blown me away like this one. Vine Deloria is one very wise man. If you come to this book with preconceived ideas and stereotyped conceptions about Native Americans (as most of us do) you will no longer have them once you have opened your mind and your heart to what this man has to say. While it is true that he may not be an *expert* on Christianity or the Judeo-Christian ethic (whatever that means), he certainly speaks truth to the perception of Christianity as it made its way into Indian country, and the hypocrisy and irony in the face of what he knows to be true. His awareness of Native spirituality is what is important here. It is important in reading this book to take that in, and balance it against what many of us consider to be "true faith."

"The test of the extent to which a religion has a claim to historical validity, therefore, should at least partially involve its identification of the specific location and lands where the religious event that created the community took place," Deloria states in attempting to ground the concept of spirituality, "...we are left with a religion devoid of any significance in either time or space." This ability to articulate what rings so true for me (and others) is what makes this man the shaman that I believe him to be.

Deloria is well read, and this book is far more than I expected it to be. As for those who cling to the superiority of Christianity, I suggest they did not read the book in its entirety. This phrase will haunt me until the day I die: "The Spanish, in slaughtering the Indians, would have a priest standing by with Holy Water available as they disemboweled pregnant Indian women."

God Bless America.

Rating:
Summary: God is Red: YES, she certainly is!
Review: This is the best book I have ever read. The only reason someone whould criticize this book is because it makes them take a look at the absurdity of their own beleifs and forces them to face up to the legacy of racism, oppression, bigotry and hatred that go hand in hand with the Christian religion. No non-native person has the right to critisize Deloria, because he is simply stating truths that he has come to know from his experience as a Native American. Basically, this book encompases virtually everything that I, and others with my naturalistic mindset embrace, and everything that the conservative, fundamentalist, religious right types hate and fear. This book is freedom. And it is freedom for all people, of any color or culture;freedom to live in a world full of beauty and warmth, freedom to let one's spirit soar without fear of oppression. I suppose you can try to knock Deloria for extremely minute innacuracies, but to do so is to completely miss the point of what he is trying to say. Actually, NOTHING in this book is innacurate, because Deloria is speaking about his people's and his personal experiences. Lastly, this book represents a complete revolution in the Western world. We finally have a non-white person from a native, earth based culture who is applying the very same methods of critisizm to western culture that western culture has used in the past. The only difference is that Deloria does not need to rely on rasicm or myths to get his message across, the way westerners do. The reason for this is that Deloria speaks the truth, and forces us to see western culture for what it truly is.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent...
Review: Well, after years of the Western tradition doing 'comparative' studies of other cultures it finally gets analyzed in the same manner by someone from a different culture. Deloria is a well-known member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe who is also an author, scholar, philosopher and lawyer. Utilizing precisely the same methods practiced by the Christian-based, scientific-minded culture perpetuated in our present Universities he deftly slices open Christianity from his point of view.

Deloria's main thesis is to remind us that "we are a part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibility to the natural world." He makes this point in numerous ways, often in a very witty manner. I have no doubt this makes those entrenched in our Western condition very uncomfortable but it is healthy medicine for the insanity of the times. I also have no doubt his views make those with 'authentic Indian names', no doubt given at a three-day retreat, very uncomfortable.

Welcome to reality. The reality of forced sterilization, funded by the churches and government, and the the reality of children who were "rescued" to residential schools and force-fed Western culture. This book aptly exposes the hypocrisy and malaise affecting Christianity at this time.

It is only somewhat scholarly in style - compared to many such books, particularly Said's classic, this is an easy read. Enjoy even if it makes you squirm.