Reconciling my indigenous beliefs with being a Church presbyter
Me at the spiritual seat of my family in Hawai`i at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. Photo: Gerald Farinas.
Me at a Chicago Presbytery Assembly as Elder Commissioner. Photo: The Rev. Paul Jana Blazek/Chicago Presbytery.
Let me explain something that can be hard for others to understand—especially for those who’ve only ever known Christianity through a Western, colonial lens.
I am a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA). I serve my church with integrity, I affirm the creeds, I believe in the God who creates, redeems, and sustains us, and I follow Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection I confess to be the foundation of my faith.
But I am also a person with two indigenous heritages.
I am Ilocano.
They were descended from a people whose lives were once governed under a Spanish theocracy run by Augustinian monasteries in the highlands and mountains of what is now Luzon—lumped together despite language and cultural differences with other peoples and together were called Filipino.
In that time, our ancestors were forced to abandon their indigenous names in favor of Spanish ones.
They were told that their gods, their rituals, their ways of relating to the land were evil—and they were punished for honoring them.
I am also born in Hawai`i, where Congregationalist missionaries maneuvered themselves into power and declared hula—the sacred dance used for storytelling and even prayer—immoral, and where kanaka maoli were forced to abandon their gods, chants, and offerings under threat of shame, exile, or even violence.
So when I say I still honor the gods and spirits of my ancestors, when I still offer food at the edge of a forest trail or speak words of praise to Hi`iaka before swimming in the ocean or give thanks to Pele near a volcano’s edge—it is not because I am confused about my Christian identity.
It is because I remember what was taken. And I believe in a God who does not ask me to forget.
Presbyterian faith makes room for mystery
In the Reformed tradition, we don’t claim to have all the answers. We are called to be humble before the mystery of God’s presence.
Theologian John Calvin called the world a theater of God’s glory—which means that the Spirit of God can be experienced not just in the Sanctuary of Edgewater Presbyterian Church, but in the sea, the lava flow, the song, and the story passed down through generations.
The Confession of 1967, part of our Book of Confessions, acknowledges that “God’s Spirit speaks in the experience of all peoples.”
That’s a radical statement.
It means that the sacred was present in the stories of my Ilocano and Hawaiian ancestors long before they were ever handed a Bible.
It means that the rituals and reverence I carry are not barriers to God, but bridges.
The spirits of my ancestors are not foreign to God
In Ilocano tradition, anito—the spirits of ancestors and natural places—are not feared, but honored.
In Hawaiian belief, gods like Pele and Hi`iaka are manifestations of nature’s power: fire, healing, wind, wave.
Some might look at that and say it’s idolatry.
But the Bible is filled with divine encounters in nature—Moses meets God in a burning bush, Elijah hears God in a still small voice, the Spirit descends as fire and breath.
Trees clap their hands in Isaiah.
The rocks cry out in the Gospels.
These are not metaphors—they are proclamations that the world itself participates in God’s voice.
When I offer a chant or a gesture of reverence before entering the ocean, I’m not praying to a different god.
I am acknowledging the sacredness of what God has made and how my people have always responded to it—with awe, respect, and deep love.
Jesus as fulfillment, not replacement
As a Christian, I proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord.
But Jesus is not a replacement for the gods of my ancestors.
Jesus is the fulfillment of all our searching.
The love and fear my people once offered to Pele, to anito, to the forest spirits—those are not nullified by Christ.
They are completed, embraced, reoriented.
Christ does not erase my culture; Christ redeems it.
Missionaries to both the Ilocos and Hawai`i didn’t always understand this.
They came preaching salvation, but also enforced cultural annihilation.
They forced name changes.
They banned hula.
They burned altars.
They confused colonization with conversion.
But the God I know in Christ is not a God of erasure.
The Spirit of God does not silence ancestral voices—it remembers them.
And Christ, in his love, brings the wisdom of every culture into communion with himself.
My leadership is a form of healing
I do not serve as a ruling elder in spite of my heritage. I serve because of it.
My calling in the PCUSA is a form of resistance and healing.
I lead not just for myself, but for the generations before me who were told their beliefs made them unworthy.
I lead because I believe the Church must repent of the ways it colluded with empire, and must now open itself to the full humanity of those it once tried to silence.
My theology is unique
When someone asks how I can be Christian and still honor my gods and demigods, I say, I am not betraying Christ by remembering my ancestors. I am honoring Christ by refusing to forget them.
I am Ilocano.
I am born of Hawaiian land.
I am a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
And I walk with all of it, reconciled, alive, and held together by a God who is bigger than doctrine, older than conquest, and always speaking.
