215

Brian Doerksen begins “215” with children who cannot come home, then refuses to let a number conceal the people and families behind it. The song mourns Indigenous children lost through Canada’s residential-school system and asks how many more remain missing. Mothers crying through countless nights make the history personal rather than abstract.

The questions grow sharper as the lyric names church and government complicity, violence, forced assimilation, and years of ignored testimony from elders. Its appeal to the God of heaven is also an accusation against religious language used to dominate another people. Calling the perpetrators “Christian and Canadian” creates no excuse; it establishes a responsibility to confess, listen, and grieve with Indigenous communities.

Psalm 82:3 commands the defense of the weak and fatherless, and Isaiah 1:17 joins worship to seeking justice for the oppressed. James 5:16 connects confession with healing. “215” functions as lament and examination: it asks listeners to face an ancient wrong truthfully, honor the stolen children, and reject the silence that allowed abuse to remain hidden.