Vine Deloria Jr.
1933-2005 · Indigenous Thought · Known
Deloria was a Standing Rock Sioux author, theologian and activist. Native religions are religions of space, he argued in God Is Red, grounded in particular places and sacred landscapes, while Christianity is a religion of time, one universal story running from creation to judgment. His earlier Custer Died for Your Sins helped launch the modern American Indian intellectual movement.
Signature
The position Deloria is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Nature
- leans Harmony
- Beginning of Things
- Theogonic Origin
Positions on the 6 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- mildly leans Purposeful (63 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (71 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
14 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Deloria refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Animism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Communal Order
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Ethics Basis
- Relational
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will / Other
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Theogonic Origin
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Sacred Time
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Self-Sovereignty
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Customary Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ancestral Presence
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Innate Good / Existence Precedes Essence
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Place / Ancestors
What is your primary bond and loyalty?