Kaitlin Curtice is a Native American Christian author and speaker. As an enrolled member of the Potawatomi Citizen Band and someone who has grown up in the Christian faith, Kaitlin writes on the intersection of Indigenous spirituality, faith in everyday life, and the church.
Her new book NATIVE (available May 2020) is about identity, soul-searching, and being on the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics. In this book, she shows how reconnecting with her identity both informs and challenges her faith. Her first book, Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places, was published with Paraclete Press in 2017. It is a series of fifty essays and prayers focusing on finding the sacred in everyday life.
Kaitlin has contributed to OnBeing, Religion News Service, USA Today and Sojourners, among others, and she was interviewed for the New Yorker on colonization within Christian missions. In 2018 she was featured in a documentary with CBS called “Race, Religion and Resistance,” speaking on the dangers of colonized Christianity.
Kaitlin travels around the country speaking on faith and justice within the church as it relates to Indigenous peoples. She has been a featured speaker at Why Christian, Evolving Faith, Wild Goose Festival, The Festival of Faith and Writing, and more.
She also occasionally writes at her blog, kaitlincurtice.com.
Posts By This Author
It’s OK to Take a Break
These times of resistance are also heavy, and in the daily work that tethers us to the people who came before, we also have to stop, rest, and remember things like Sabbath, so that we don’t grow too weary. And I am weary. So when the weekend comes, our family carves out extra time to stop and breathe
It’s Time to Prune Back the Unfruitful Parts of American Christianity
The American Christian church once again finds itself at odds with itself, especially in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump. On all sides, there are a lot of questions. To understand where we are, we must look at where we’ve been ...
Face to Face Faith in a Digital Age
Growing up, I heard stories about random acts of kindness, anonymously dropping off gifts for people, blessing them in some way as to remind them that they are not alone. It was almost a Christian duty to spread kindness like this, because it was kindness without expecting anything in return. I thought about doing that for these neighbors, leaving a simple note or just a bouquet on their doorstep, but that’s not what was needed. In all that may have been awkward or uncomfortable about that encounter, these people needed to know that I saw them.
100 Days Into Trump Presidency, Christians Grapple with Polarization Within the Church
Since Inauguration Day, I’ve seen a lot of emotional outbreaks from the people of America — people on separate ends of the political spectrum, on separate ends of what it should mean to be a person of faith in America. These divisions have been reinforced with violent hate crimes and rants from church pulpits; they’ve resulted in people leaving the church and claiming that Christianity is nothing more than a white man’s religion practiced through discrimination and oppression.
Christ Is Risen. Now What?
What if Easter is our starting over point, our "New Year" packed with resolutions to begin again in the ways of grace? What if Easter for us is like those days for Barabbas, those days after he watched this innocent man die on a cross and find him after he'd resurrected? What began again in Barabbas, what new life and fresh perspective?
A Prayer for Good Friday
There was something about you there on that cross, that Good Friday.
There was something about your body there, about your manner.
Irony of all ironies, you were the “Son of God,” sent back to God by crucifixion.
Where Do You Find Church?
I recently had a conversation with a woman who used to be a church-goer when she was young, but hasn't found herself in a church setting in a while. When I told her I lead worship at a nearby church, she was interested in coming to visit. We in the church have theories about where we go wrong in bringing new faces into our buildings. Out in the world people go about their everyday lives, and we watch to see if they are a part of the church or outside of it.
Letters to Trump
I began writing letters. One hand-written letter a week, delivered to the White House door, so that he’ll know we are here, so that he’ll know our story exists and that we are not to be ignored. I’m not saying that as a liberal I feel ignored; I’m saying that I don’t want to be ignored as a human being, as a citizen, as a woman, as a mother, as a Native American, as a Christian.
Practicing Resistance with the Work of our Hands
We’re telling ourselves, our neighbors, and this country that we care about the everyday lives of the people, that we’re willing to work to protect them. We’re willing to care for the environment when we recycle and dig in the dirt and support our national parks, we’re willing to protest in the streets when we see injustice, and we’re willing to pray in our homes that the resistance-heart and hard-working hands of Jesus bleeds into who we are in every moment of our lives.
America, the Bully: We Grew Up This Way
My 5-year-old son sent a letter to Donald Trump a few months ago in which he referred to him as a bully, because he watches the way this man speaks of and to others. If my 5-year-old can catch the palpable tension in the United States today, we must have a lot of questions to ask of our nation’s values. I am not a political scientist, nor do I pretend to be, but I love culture and the way people come together to create the historical rituals of a nation, and it’s important to notice how those rituals carry on generation after generation.