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In the spring of 1999, Inuit Jackie Koneak, who works for the government of northern Quebec, was repairing a snowmobile in the village of Kuujjuaq, which sits above the Arctic Circle. He heard an announcement on his radio about a Christian renewal conference being held at an arena nearby, and hoping to reconnect with old friends whom he thought might be there, he decided to stop in. He left the snowmobile parts lying on the floor, and with hands still blackened with motor oil, stepped into the arena for a short respite from work.He stayed the whole day at what turned out to be a charismatic conference. When the speaker asked for people to come forward for prayer, Koneak went. "Something was pulling me," he recalls. "I wanted to experience what others did." He kept going back each day, and by the end of the week, he was a newly baptized believer.A church-based charismatic renewal in Canada's remote Arctic region has deeply touched the lives of thousands of people like Jackie Koneak. But revival hasn't come without controversy, and northern Canadian Christians are striving to harmonize this new wave of Christianity with their native culture and their historic ties to older, established churches.

Inuit people in northern Quebec (an area called Nunavik) and the new territory of Nunavut (formerly part of the Northwest Territories) are spread out across Canada's eastern Arctic—a massive and inaccessible area with only 35,000 people. Life in a small village of fewer than 2,000 people is all that many Arctic residents may know.Some villages claim 40 to 60 percent of their people are born again because of the recent revival meetings. "Many of these communities have been completely transformed, right up to the top, right up to the mayors," says evangelist Billy Arnaquq, who lives in the tiny village of Qikiqtarjuaq on Baffin Island in Nunavut.The Inuit are generally quiet but emotionally expressive; in worship, they often weep over abuses they have suffered or sins they have committed, and laugh out loud from a newfound spiritual joy.With metaphors that listeners can readily grasp, Inuit pastors encourage expressiveness: "Don't be like a caribou that hangs dead in the storage locker!" exhorted one woman pastor in their native tongue of Inuktitut. "You must be alive in Christ."According to church leaders, the charismatic movement has had visible results: people give more of themselves, they make major changes in their lifestyles, and they influence their communities for the better. In several villages, mayors and council members have become active believers, and in a few instances, the mayor doubles as the local pastor. Some villages report sharp drops in suicide and alcohol abuse, although such drops are difficult to verify.

But long-established leaders in the Anglican and Roman Catholic church, which helped bring Christianity to the Arctic 150 years ago, have expressed doubts about the value of charismatic worship and teaching.Traditional church leaders are troubled when they learn that some evangelists are reporting that, just now, native people are hearing the gospel story for the first time."When you see people who are making capital out of the [poor Inuit in the North]—Please send us money so we can go tell them about the love of Jesus—it makes me wonder what their understanding of the North is," says Anglican Bishop Chris Williams. His Diocese of the Arctic is a gigantic territory covering 1.5 million square miles. "People do know the gospel. They don't all listen to it."Williams, who came to the Arctic from England 40 years ago, especially objects to outsiders from southern Canada or the United States who fly up North for revival services and fly out again, making grandiose claims about their evangelistic successes.Ben Arreak, an Inuit Anglican priest in Kuujjuaq, agrees that the northern charismatic movement, which began almost 20 years ago, has been a source of divisiveness. When lifelong Anglicans moved to launch Full Gospel churches, it "caused division of the families and friends in small communities," he says.Further concerns of Williams and other longtime church leaders include:

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October 23 2000, Vol. 44, No. 12