Indigenous Peoples’ Day Convocation features Sarah Augustine, author of The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery.

Sarah Augustine, a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is founder and co-chair of the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition and executive director of a dispute resolution center in central Washington State. She is also the co-founder of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has advocated for vulnerable Indigenous Peoples since 2004. She has represented the interests of Indigenous community partners to their own governments, the Inter-American development bank, the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and a host of other international actors including corporate interests. She is a columnist for Anabaptist World, and co-hosts the Doctrine of Discovery podcast with Sheri Hostetler.  She and her husband, Dan Peplow, and their son live in the Yakima Valley in Washington State. She is author of the book The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery.

Sarah Augustine will share her journey to dismantle the “doctrine of discovery”, a legal and theological framework that defines an oppressive reality for Indigenous Peoples. By sharing her own story, she will explore how a colonial framework designed to remove Indigenous Peoples from their lands continues to be expressed in the law, mainstream culture, and in theology.  Her message will explore a collective response to a call for justice.