American Indian Traditions and Religious Ethics

The Journal of Religious Ethics has published only two full-length articles focusing on American Indian religious ethics in the last decade. This may signal that the field is uneasy about integrating American Indian religious ethics into its broader discourse. To fill this research lacuna and take a step toward normalizing religious-ethical engagement with American Indian ethics, this article argues that the field needs an intentionally anticolonial, self-aware approach to understanding American Indian religious ethics—one that decenters methods and approaches that may facilitate the analysis of Christian texts, groups, and phenomena, yet limit insights into the religious-moral beliefs and practices of Native Americans. The article first shows examples of how religious-ethical methods, definitions, and epistemological starting points can obfuscate rich and accurate understandings of Native American religious-ethical systems and phenomena. Next, it turns to historical and anthropological studies and Native American philosophy and ethics to outline an interdisciplinary framework for integrating American Indian traditions into the discourses of religious ethics.