Christian Scharen
Exploring the intersections of faith, culture, and the art of living through deep theological grounding and honest storytelling.
Custer Died For Our Sins
How might North American Christian inheritors of a pioneer settler past work toward repair?
Scharen traces the intertwined stories of the Ingalls and Deloria families on lands near De Smet, South Dakota, offering theological grounding for speaking complicated truths and resources for moving toward practical actions that repair relationships.
"A brilliant, deeply personal, and bracingly honest exploration of the injustice at the root of American pioneer mythology."
After Laura
When Christian Scharen’s father died, he knew he finally would have to face his complicated relationship to his father—and his father’s famous American pioneer story. His childhood in Montana and Wyoming was formed by the pioneer tales of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but he’d never grappled with the fact that they were his family stories, too.
He resolved to drive west from Pepin, Wisconsin, where his great-grandmother Lottie and her double-cousin Laura were both born in 1867. He stopped to visit the land where the Ingalls homesteaded as well as sites important to the Indigenous peoples whose land it was prior to the pioneers’ arrival.
Along the way, he discovered the awful truth of land theft and genocide perpetrated against Native Nations, a truth his own family stories elide. At turns loving and heart-wrenching, this book looks for—and finds— hard won healing with a father, even as its explores repair required for healing a nation’s relationship with its original occupants and with the land itself.
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Speaking
Here are the events where I am teaching, speaking, book signing, or preaching. If you’d like to inquire about having me for your event, please email with your details.
christian.scharen@gmail.com
Please note I use a sliding scale based on ability to pay, and 50% of my speaking fees support Indigenous organizations and causes like NDN Collective’s Landback organizing, the Mary Sully Foundation, Woyatan Lutheran Church in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Events
About
A practical theologian, he was ordained a pastor in the ELCA in 2001. He holds the Ph.D. in Religion from Emory University and has written or edited more than a dozen books and many articles, book chapters, and research reports.
His research and writing focuses on theology, worship and the arts, pastoral leadership, social justice, and theological education. His early work on theological ethnography helped spark an international movement bringing together sociology and theology in the study of the church.
His most recent book is co-authored with Aana Vigen, Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics: A Completely Revised 2nd Edition (T&T Clark). He is currently working on a decolonial theological memoir about his family, the Ingalls of The Little House on the Prairie books, and a book on Christian worship before and after Christianity became the religion of Empire.
He enjoys cooking, poetry, and music, especially learning to play on his grandfather’s 1910 Washburn bowl back mandolin. He is married to Pierrette Comulada, and together they have three adult children, Isaiah, Finn, and Owen, and a bulldog named Walt.
Get in Touch
Representation
[Agent Name / Agency]
christian.scharen@gmail.com