- September 24, 2020
- 6:00pm – 8:00pm CDT
- Online Event
Please join us for the virtual launch of Decolonizing Discipline: Children, Corporal Punishment, Christian Theologies, and Reconciliation. Editors Valerie Michaelson and Joan Durrant will be joined by contributors the Reverend Dr. Martin Brokenleg, The Most Reverend Mark MacDonald, The Reverend Dr. William S. Morrow, and The Right Reverend Riscylla Shaw.
A Q&A will follow the presentation.
Register here! Send questions or comments to [email protected].
About the Book
In June 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released 94 Calls to Action that urged reform of policies and programs to repair the harms caused by the Indian Residential Schools. Decolonizing Discipline is a response to Call to Action 6—the call to repeal Section 43 of Canada’s Criminal Code, which justifies the corporal punishment of children.
Editors Valerie Michaelson and Joan Durrant have brought together diverse voices to respond to this call and to consider the ways that colonial Western interpretations of Christian theologies have been used over centuries to normalize violence and rationalize the corporal punishment of children. Theologians, clergy, social scientists, and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis leaders and community members explore the risks that corporal punishment poses to children and examine practical, non-violent approaches to discipline. The authors invite readers to participate in shaping this country into one that does not sanction violence against children.
The result is a multifaceted exploration of theological debates, scientific evidence, and personal journeys of the violence that permeated Canada’s Residential Schools and continues in Canadian homes today. Together, they compel us to decolonize discipline in Canada.
About the Presenters
The Reverend Dr. Martin Brokenleg, OSBCn, is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, and a member of the Kyaanuuslii Raven House of the Haida First Nation. He practises the culture of his Lakȟóta people. Brother Brokenleg holds a doctorate in psychology and is a graduate of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a retired priest of the Anglican Church of Canada. He founded the Anglican Canon Communities of St. Benedict and prior of the Community of St. Aidan in Victoria, BC. He was a co-founder of the Circle of Courage.
Dr. Joan E. Durrant is a child-clinical psychologist and Professor of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba. Her work focuses on the multi-faceted issues of corporal punishment of children. She co-authored the Canadian Joint Statement on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth and created Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting, a program designed to help parents adopt a non-punitive approach to discipline that is being implemented around the world.
The Most Reverend Mark MacDonald is Archbishop of the self-determining Indigenous church within the Anglican Church of Canada, and former National Indigenous Bishop to the Anglican Church of Canada. He is very involved in the Truth and Reconciliation process. Having Indigenous ancestry through both his mother and father, growing up among the Ojibway people, and also having a pastoral relationship with Canada’s Indigenous Anglican church over the last decade, Bishop MacDonald has first-hand experience of the impact of the Indian residential schools on the lives of Canadians.
Dr. Valerie Michaelson is Assistant Professor, Department of Health Sciences, Brock University. Much of her research relates to decolonization and reconciliation, with a particular focus on social and cultural norms that lead to poor child health outcomes. Before completing her doctoral studies, she served as an ordained Anglican priest in Kingston, Canada.
The Reverend Dr. William S. Morrow is Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Hebrew Scriptures, School of Religion, Queen’s University. An expert in methods of biblical interpretation, he has taught many candidates for Christian ministry and students in religious studies. He is an ordained minister (formerly Presbyterian) and priest (currently Anglican). His work focuses on questions of law and violence as manifested in the communities that created and transmitted biblical literature, and as they continue to be manifested in contemporary experiences of religiously motivated violence.
The Right Reverend Riscylla Shaw is Bishop of Trent-Durham in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, where she has also served as Ambassador for Reconciliation. She sees her role of promoting reconciliation and justice for marginalized peoples as a priority. Inspired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, she continues to interpret the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the church and the broader community by building bridges ecumenically and culturally. Bishop Shaw is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario.
