The Rapid City Journal reports on the 9 churches closed by the Diocese of South Dakota and the revival of worshipping congregations under the direction of Bishop Tarrant and The Rev Bob Two Bulls:
Bishop John Tarrant’s initial message to the Rev. Bob Two Bulls was viewed with a high degree of skepticism by the pastor of Christ Church Episcopal at Red Shirt Table. “I was suspicious when I got an e-mail from the land office there at the diocese, saying Bishop Tarrant wanted to meet with me,” recalled Two Bulls last week, seven months after Tarrant was installed as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota and about 18 months after the diocese officially “closed” Christ Church and eight other small churches on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Since that initial contact, Two Bulls and Tarrant have had three face-to-face visits. They’ve developed a friendship and a change of heart, if not a change of policy, in the diocese’s approach to those nine Pine Ridge congregations. In 2008, then-Bishop Creighton Robertson announced plans to close Episcopal churches in Oglala, Wolf Creek, Wakpamni Lake, Manderson, Kyle, Potato Creek, Porcupine, Allen and Red Shirt Table because of falling attendance and failing finances. The move sparked controversy across the reservation and acrimony within the diocese.
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“What we told them was: ‘We will treat you like we would treat any other community. If you develop a congregation, then we’ll offer pastoral, priestly support if we can,” Tarrant said. There is no financial support forthcoming now from the diocese for any of the churches, Tarrant said, but he’s excited about the potential for renewal of at least some of the congregations. So is Two Bulls.
“Some of them are organized. They’re coming alive. They’re not dying away,” Two Bulls said. “If the congregations wanted to redevelop, they could do that, and that’s pretty exciting because that means it’s coming from the local people,” Tarrant said. “When that happens, that’s cooler than cool.” Two Bulls likes what he’s hearing from the diocese.