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Journey to Eloheh: How Indigenous Values Lead Us to Harmony and Well-Being

Based on their experiences of Native American cultures and U.S. churches, the authors offer guidance for anyone “seeking a better way of living in this troubled world ... a way that Indigenous people have known about from time immemorial.”

By Randy Woodley and Edith Woodley
Broadleaf Books, 264 pages
Published October 8, 2024

Is it time for the church and its people to reflect, once again, on the ways our society’s dominant culture promotes values that are less healthy and more harmful than we realize? Should we reconsider the value of the Protestant work ethic, the pursuit of happiness and our excessive reliance on individual freedoms? Randy and Edith Woodley remind us that how we live and act in our world matters. The path we take – and how we journey on that path – matters. How we interact with others and all creation matters.

In Journey to Eloheh (pronounced ay-luh-HAY), the Woodleys offer a corrective vision for how to live responsibly with God, one another and all creation. Based on their experiences of Native American cultures and U.S. churches, the authors offer guidance for anyone seeking “a better way of living in this troubled world … a way that Indigenous people have known about from time immemorial.”

Readers will find a worldview that is compatible with our modern Presbyterian understanding and whose values can help us recalibrate our lives so that they align better with the life and teachings of Jesus and become second nature. For example, the authors highlight the Indigenous values of seeking harmony and peace, respecting the sacred, recognizing we are all related, speaking from the heart and sharing what one has.

For us, Christianity is a way of life, not an extracurricular activity or system of beliefs to which we simply and intellectually assent. The Woodleys, who integrate their work as scholars and activists with the work of farming, take a similar approach. They insist: “Spirituality is inseparable from Native American life and thought. It is woven into the very fabric of Indigenous life … Whether ceremony or just the way we conduct ourselves daily, the entirety of life is viewed as a sacred, spiritual path.” Eloheh, a Cherokee word meaning harmony, wholeness, abundance and peace, encompasses the well-being to which we aspire.

At times, Journey to Eloheh is difficult to read, filled with stories of the historic mistreatment of Native Americans and critiques of American culture. A knee-jerk response might argue that the Woodleys compare the worst of U.S. culture with the best of Native American cultures — but this argument would prevent us from receiving their insights. A more helpful posture is to listen silently and nonreactively with openness and a desire to learn from our Native American siblings.

Journey to Eloheh is a must-read for anyone eager to be in ministry or mission on Native American lands or among Native American people. It is a must-read for congregational leaders, mid-council leaders and denominational leaders wishing to offer land acknowledgments with a good heart and in the right way. And it is a must-read for those of us seeking to live more sustainably. The great irony is that the same Indigenous values, practices and culture that Westerners once sought to remove from Native Americans, purporting to help them survive in “civilized” America, might just be the same values and practices that help civilized societies survive into the future.

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