Talk:Capernwray Harbour Bible School

residential school history

I came across this page by accident, and seeing it was Thetis Island kept on reading and found:

Later owners included the North America Indian Mission which offered technical training to First Nations people on the site; this organization ceased activities after ministry strategy changes.

I"m a big aghast at that soft-soaping. Thetis Island I'm not sure about, but the neighbouring Catholic-run Kuper Island Residential School was one of the most notorious residential schools, which smacks of something between denial and obscurantism, or just plain insensitivity. I would hope that the students of this school are apprised of the site's grim and unsavoury past - unless the North America Indian Mission was somehow innocent of the wrongdoing common with all other schools, but I doubt such is the case; to this day many modern churches are reluctant to admit to any wrongdoing in regards to the evangelization of First Nations people, but you'd think they would be, as good Christians, more concerned about the hardship and ill-treatment of native children, and not just throw up a vague "technical training to First Nations students" and "this organization ceased activities" due to "changes in ministry policy". Maybe evangelicals don't require atonement or don't have the concept in their vocabulary; the Catholics are certainly learning to....Skookum1 (talk) 23:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

This google contains links to current incarnations of the North America Indian Mission, but no clue if this is the same organization.Skookum1 (talk) 23:39, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

In fact, almost no housing of First Nations students took place on the property. Attempts were made by the NAIM to run recreational weeks during the summer months, but that was abandoned as a dismal failure. The property was used by the NAIM to house white American (primarily) and Canadian missionary staff who were involved in activities with various reserves.

Additionally, no mention is made of the school in the IRS settlement agreement documents, http://www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca/SchoolsEnglish.pdf, unlike the Kuper Island Residential School, admittedly the site of atrocities of the scope of those of WWII. Kuper is named and included in the Settlement Agreement.

This article treatment is so much 'soft-soaping' as it is reflective of the maxim 'innocent until proven guilty' (or at a minimum, accused). No need to tar any and all religious prosteletizers with the same brush. Certainly it does not warrant the accusation of the site having a 'grim and unsavory past', simply because a neighbouring school run by a completely different organization did, in fact, have an overwhelmingly gruesome and unforgiveable history. To consider Catholics and Evangelists in the same camp amounts to equating Sunnis with Shia. AskedFriend (talk) 19:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)