Contextualised worship amongst the Nanticoke-Lenape American Indians

Abstract

The Christian history of the Nanticoke-Lenape people who live in three American Indian tribal communities of ‘first contact’ around the Delaware Bay (USA), is over three centuries old and continues in the contemporary tribal community congregations. The modern era of tribal cultural reprisal and rise of Pan-Indian neo-traditionalism has heightened an awareness of, and cast a critical eye on the absence of contextualisation in the regular worship of the tribal community churches. This article is a study in ethno-doxology and seeks to determine the need for contextualised worship, to analyse the challenges of contextualisation, and provide guidance for an approach to contextualisation of worship amongst the Nanticoke-Lenape Christian congregations.