[Episcopal News Service – New Brunswick, New Jersey] The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council asked Oct. 22 that law-enforcement officials “de-escalate military and police provocation in and near the campsites of peaceful protest and witness of the Dakota Access Pipeline project.”

…The Rev. John Floberg, council member and supervising priest of the Episcopal churches on the North Dakota side of Standing Rock, told the council’s Joint Standing Committee on Advocacy and Networking for Mission Oct. 21 that the way the protest has been conducted has been “the most powerful experience I have had in my 25 years on Standing Rock.” And, yet, he said, he has been shaken by the racist responses that the protest has generated elsewhere in the state.

… The resolution asks the Episcopal Church at all levels to prayerfully and financially support the planned winter encampment, which it says is the Sioux Nation’s “right for peaceful assembly and protest.”

On the closing day of the meeting, Floberg presented to the Archives of the Episcopal Church housed in Austin, Texas, the now-tattered Episcopal Church flag that flew over the Oceti Skowin Camp in North Dakota for months. The flag, he said, was the only Christian church flag among the 300 flags of tribal nations that flew over the peaceful-protest encampment.

…The Episcopal Church’s entry into the protest is rooted in its 2009 repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, Curry said. “Part of that action was to say we have got to find more just, equitable and fair ways of being in relationship with our brothers and sisters in the Native communities in our country,” the presiding bishop said.

Episcopal Church Executive Council stands with Standing Rock

hmmmm