Moravian Church Northern Province Racial Justice Team
New Way of Being Advent Series 2024
The Doctrine of Discovery: What It Is and Why It Matters
December 4, 11, and 18 7:30-8:30 pm ET
The Moravian Church Northern Province Racial Justice Team is pleased to present its New Way of Being Advent Series for 2024. This year’s theme is, “The Doctrine of Discovery: What It Is and Why It Matters.” There will be three one-hour sessions on December 4, 11, and 18 at 7:30 pm ET. All sessions will be on Zoom. We will welcome a guest presenter each week. The session on December 4 will include a short film on the Doctrine of Discovery from the Episcopal Church’s Sacred Ground curriculum. Also included in the sessions will be prayer, scripture readings, and time for reflection. All sessions are open to all.
Participants are encouraged to read the 2023 MCNP Synod legislation entitled, “Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery and Terra Nullius and Initial Steps Towards Reconciliation and Healing of the Church’s Relationships with Indigenous Peoples.” Click here for a PDF of the synod legislation.
The Zoom access for all three sessions is:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83789192982?pwd=Jw3uYBKL8lot4QUK6XVZIqdB4IpsMO.1
Meeting ID 837 8919 2982, Passcode 718545
An accompanying four-week Bible Study on the Doctrine of Discovery is also available for download (click here). For those unable to attend the sessions, we are offering a devotional (click here).
For additional information about the series, contact [email protected].
December 4
Guest presenter: The Rev. Canon Debbie Royals, Pascua Yaqui
Canon for Native American Ministry, Episcopal Diocese of Arizona
Film, The Episcopal Church Exposes the Doctrine of Discovery
The Rev. Canon Deborah J. Royals is Pascua Yaqui from Tucson, AZ, a sister with two siblings, mother to two wonderful young men and grandmother to four. She is an Episcopal priest, author, retreat leader and educator. Debbie earned a diploma in Nursing, a B.A. in Native American Spirituality and Theology from Prescott College, an M.Div. from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and a M.A. in Religion and Society from the Graduate Theological Union. She serves as the Canon for Native American Ministry in the Diocese of Arizona and is developing a “new church community” called Four Winds serving Indigenous people. She also serves the diocese as a Title IV Intake Officer. Debbie served for 19 years as Faculty for the Church Pension Group leading clergy wellness conferences in Physical Health and Spirituality, designing curriculum and developing the worship materials for all conferences. Debbie has served as Native Ministry Coordinator for Province VIII,
Missioner for Native Ministry in the Dioceses of Northern California and Los Angeles, as chair of the Standing Commission on Mission & Evangelism and on the Executive Council’s Committee on Indigenous Ministry. She also participated in Lambeth 2008 as a presenter and writer for the Listening Process. Debbie led the Indigenous Theological Training Institute for 10 years and published several journals with Indigenous theologians, has published in books on prayer and daily meditations. Debbie has navigated the divide by forming a bridge as a Native American spiritual leader and Episcopal priest. Her passion for restorative justice and binding community is evident in every aspect of her life.
To learn more about the Episcopal Church’s Indigenous Ministries, visit https://becomingbelovedcommunity.org/doctrine-of-discovery and https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/indigenous-ministries/.
December 11
Guest presenter: The Rev. Dr. Winelle Kirton Roberts
The Rev. Dr. Winelle Kirton Roberts, a native of Barbados, is an ordained minister in the Moravian Church, Eastern West Indies Province. She has pastored congregations in Trinidad, Barbados, and the United States Virgin Islands from 1993 to 2019. During this time, Rev Dr Kirton-Roberts was the Superintendent of the Virgin Islands Conference from 2008 to 2014 and then the Secretary of the Provincial Elders Conference of the Eastern West Indies Province from 2015 to 2019.
At present, Rev. Dr. Kirton-Roberts is on secondment with the European Continental Province of the Moravian Church. She is the Pastor of the Geneva Moravian Fellowship, Geneva, Switzerland, an English speaking, international community, which she pioneered in 2019. The fellowship is one of the four Moravian communities in Switzerland.
Rev. Dr. Kirton-Roberts completed a BA in Theology from the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona, a ThM from Princeton Seminary, and a PhD in history from the University of the West Indies, Barbados. She has taught Church history at Codrington College Barbados and Ethics at the Barbados Community College.
As a Caribbean missiologist and Church historian, Rev. Dr. Kirton-Roberts’s research interest is the connectivity of the theological positions of the mission bodies with the historical contexts. As such, she has given several public lectures and presentations. She has recently contributed to the book, Moravian Americans, and Their Neighbors, 1722-1822 published by Brille. Her chapter is ‘Black People White God: Moravians and the ‘Cultural Purification of the Afro-Caribbean in Antigua and Tobago.’ She has authored “Created in Their Image: Evangelical Protestantism in Antigua and Barbados 1834-1914 (2015) and has written four entries to the Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South (2018). She is an editor of the Journal of Moravian History.
Rev. Dr. Kirton-Roberts is married to the Rev. Dr. Mikie Roberts, and they have three daughters Tsedek, Tsamara and Tsalom.
December 18
Guest Presenter: Mrs. Erica Rios, Member of the Morongo Moravian Church
Erica Rios is a 43 year old Indigenous Mexican American woman from Beaumont, California. She is a member of the Morongo Moravian Church on the Morongo Indian Reservation in Banning California where she serves as a Board Member and youth leader for her Congregation.
Erica’s husband is Fernando Rios and they have been married for 25 years and share 4 children, one son and three daughters. Two are adults and two are teenagers.
Erica is of Mexican American Indigenous decent of the Raramuri tribe also known as Tarahumara of the state of Chihuahua Mexico. Fernando is Native American of The La Jolla Band of Lusieño Indians in San Diego California. He graduated from Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, California. The Sherman School is a Native American boarding school that has been open since 1892 for Native American children. Their four children are enrolled in the La Jolla Band of Luseño Indian tribe, as it is customary to enroll with their paternal side.
