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CNAIS Faculty Greg Johnson - Indigenous Spiritual Beliefs and Protests

Joe Brusky ThinkPress pic from Dakota Access Pipeline protest

CNAIS Core Faculty and CU Religious Studies Professor Greg Johnson was interviewed for a recent ThinkPress article on the intersections between environmental protests and indigenous spiritual beliefs:

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Religion has long been a part of Native American protest movements, as has its connection to the environmentalist struggle. But religious scholars say they’re also seeing something unusual this year: demonstrators are actively creating new religious expressions. Greg Johnson, a Hawaiian religion expert and an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï, said these indigenous protests are increasingly led by young, creative organizers who are “generatingâ€� religion through their activism.Ìý“The kids of today’s generation know a new set of chants, a new set of prayers because of those who came before them,â€� Johnson said. He noted that Native Hawaiian schoolchildren are already singing songs written in the protest camps of Mauna Kea just a year before. “In this moment of crisis, the religious tradition is catalyzed, activated, but most of all articulated — this is when it happens.â€�

Read author Jack Jenkins full article from ThinkPress.Org here:

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