Last month, a church pastor on the Wind River Indian Reservation stood before her congregation and prayed for Native people to reject their traditions in favor of Christianity. She delivered her sermon on the last day of the Northern Arapaho Sundance ceremony. The tribal ceremony offers prayers wit h a “grandfather pipe,” a sacred object that comes from the Arapaho creation story.  “Jesus is the chain-breaker,” Pastor Sarah Lucas said during the July 5 sermon. “He is the only God that we should be praying to. A pipe cannot hear your prayers. It’s just a piece of material. This is a cycle that they’re caught up in.” Christian Wassana, a cast member on the drama series Yellowstone and a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, shared a clip of the sermon on social media. “It feels like history repeating itself, with attempts to erase and discredit our traditional way of life,” he wrote.  Rather than heed the pastor’s words, hundreds of Native community members rose in protest, and the Northern Arapaho Business Council ordered the church to leave the reservation, reported WyoToday Media, which covers Fremont County and the reservation. The church, Foundations For Nations, which has been on the reservation since 2017 and also operates a food pantry, said it would fight the removal order in court. At present, it doesn’t appear that the church has done so. The church didn’t return a call from WyoFile by publishing time.  Some called on the tribes to use the “bad men” clause in their treaties with the U.S. government to oust the church from the reservation. Treaties signed in 1867 and 1868 between the federal government and nine Native American tribes — including the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone — have such “bad men” provisions.  Through the provisions, the federal government vowed to compensate Native Americans when they suffer injuries stemming from “any wrong” committed “upon the person or property of the Indians” by “bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States.” “Bad men” complaints go straight to the federal government. If the government determines that a “wrong” has been committed, federal agents can arrest the offender and punish them “according to the laws of the United States.”  “You’re generally looking at some sort of physical injury or property crime that would occur,” said John Schumacher, a Riverton lawyer with expertise in Native American law. “Inherent in that is the idea that there’s some action the person took that violated some existing law.”  Schumacher said the clause would likely not apply in the current situation on the Wind River Reservation with Foundations For Nations church, which concerns a differing religious view. “If the tribes are excluding someone, then that would have to be done under their inherent authority as a tribe,” Schumacher said. “There’s no bright line test for that.” After the sermon, the Northern Arapaho Business Council announced a new policy requiring outside organizations like the church to receive the council’s authorization before conducting activities on land under the tribe’s jurisdiction, according to WyoToday Media, which publishes The Ranger, Lander Journal and Wind River News. After looking through records, the council found that Foundations For Nations Church hadn’t ever received authorization to set up on the reservation.  “This policy is not about preventing anyone from practicing their religion,” Northern Arapaho Business Council Chairman Keenan Groesbeck said in the business council’s July 20 statement about the new policy. “It is about respecting the sovereign government of the Northern Arapaho Tribe.” Protestors have gathered outside Foundations For Nations Church in Arapahoe every Sunday since a controversial sermon on July 5, 2026. (Sarah Squires/WyoToday) The business council noted the “historical relationship between many Christian institutions and Native Nations, including the devastating legacy of forced assimilation, boarding schools, and efforts to suppress Indigenous languages, cultures, and spiritual traditions. “These historical experiences make it especially important that any outside organization engaging with the Northern Arapaho people do so through respectful government-to-government consultation and with a full understanding of tribal history, culture, and sovereignty.” The Eastern Shoshone Tribe backed the new policy, calling on the church to stop its efforts to persuade Native people to reject their traditions.  “It is a profound abuse of trust for any outside institution to be welcomed onto the Reservation, endear itself to our community, and then use that access to insult, diminish, or erase the people who offered that welcome,” the Eastern Shoshone Tribe’s statement said.  The Eastern Shoshone Tribe noted that it “respects the individual constitutional rights of all people to practice their faith.”  “What is troubling is the use of religious expression as a cover for targeted efforts to undermine coexisting beliefs,” the tribe’s statement said. Particularly troubling, the statement continued, is the church’s “use of tribal symbols and imagery to gain trust while simultaneously urging our people to turn away from traditional practices.   “Such tactics borrow the appearance of respect while working against the very cultures they claim to assist.”   Tribes have their own laws that govern people living on reservations. People living under tribal jurisdiction don’t have civil rights under the U.S. Constitution, but instead have statutory rights under the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act, known as ICRA.  The act provides nearly all the same civil rights found in the U.S. Constitution, like free speech rights, to people who live under tribal governance, including nontribal members. But there are some differences that attempt to accommodate tribes’ unique needs. For example, ICRA doesn’t require the separation of religion and government because “religion and religious leaders have always played a central role” in governing some tribes, according to Stephen Pevar, author of “The Rights of Indians and Tribes.”  The only current federal remedy for alleged ICRA violations is a writ of habeas corpus — an order requiring a court to decide if a person’s imprisonment is lawful, Pevar explains in his book. In other words, for situations where no one is imprisoned, ICRA doesn’t really have teeth, though some tribal courts deal with noncustodial ICRA violation cases, according to Pevar.  If Foundations For Nations were to fight the removal order, the case would likely land in tribal rather than federal court. “There’s a requirement that before you can go to federal court, you have to exhaust your tribal court remedies,” Schumacher said.  Groesbeck, chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, didn’t respond to WyoFile’s inquiry before publishing time about the status of the removal order against the church.  The church has argued that it can’t be removed “in this manner” because it owns its property, The Ranger reported. It’s not clear whether the tribal order has legal clout, or if the church has an avenue to fight the order.  “Excluding people from the reservation doesn’t happen very often,” Schumacher said, adding that he wasn’t aware of any past cases off the top of his head that fit this particular situation.  Even amid reported threats and the order to leave, the church has continued its Sunday services. The post Could tribes use ‘bad men’ clause to oust Christian church? appeared first on WyoFile . ...read more read less