This is my Uncle Vine Jr.'s perspective on "modern Christianity" from his first book, "Custer Died for Your Sins" in 1969. He had a great gift of words and an immense English vocabulary. For some of his books, like the "Metaphysics of Modern Existence," I needed a dictionary, close by, to fully understand what he was saying. What I enjoyed most about him was his tremendous wit and sense of humor.
Uncle Vine Jr. also had no problem saying truths that were very controversial. There is no one that I know, that could analyze and relate Karl Jung's perspectives to Indigenous thinking. This is what he had to say 52 years ago.
"The largest difference I can see between Indian religion and Christian religions is in inter-personal relationships. Indian society had a religion that taught respect for all members of society.
Remember, Indians had a religion that produced a society in which there were no locks on doors, no orphanages, no need for oaths, and no hungry people. Indian religion taught that sharing one's goods with another human being was the highest form of behavior.
The Indian people have tenaciously held to this tradition of sharing their goods with other people in spite of all attempts by churches, government agencies, and schools to break them of the custom.
Christianity came along and tried to substitute "giving" for sharing. There was only one catch: giving meant giving to the church, not to other people. Giving, in the modern Christian sense, is simply a method of shearing the sheep, not of tending them." By Vine Deloria, Jr. "Custer Died For Your Sins" 1969
