Theology as Threshold: Invitations from Aotearoa New Zealand (Decolonizing Theology) 9781978714793, 9781978714809, 1978714793

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Theology as Threshold

Decolonizing Theology Series Editor: Jione Havea This series aims to demonstrate the character and shape of the future of theology, which is a diversity of theologies “decolonized” of Western captivity and influence. Each volume of the series, as such, will highlight and explore indigenous expressions of Christian theology from a thickly contextual perspective. At the heart of the project is the goal of providing readers an array of theologies from around the globe, many unknown or often overlooked by Western audiences, as a way of demonstrating the availability of non-Western Christian development and de-centering the study and methods of Christian theology from Western domination and standards.

Titles in This Series Theology as Threshold: Invitations from Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by Jione Havea, Emily Colgan, and Nāsili Vaka‘uta Cuban Feminist Theology: Visions and Praxis, by Ofelia Ortega Resisting Occupation: A Global Struggle for Liberation, edited by Miguel de La Torre and Mitri Raheb Theologies on the Move: Religion, Migration, and Pilgrimage in the World of Neoliberal Capital, edited by Joerg Rieger Theological and Hermeneutical Explorations from Australia: Horizons of Contextuality, edited by Jione Havea

Theology as Threshold Invitations from Aotearoa New Zealand

Edited by Jione Havea Emily Colgan Nāsili Vaka‘uta

LEXINGTON BOOKS/FORTRESS ACADEMIC

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Lexington Books is an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2022 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Havea, Jione, 1965– editor. | Colgan, Emily, editor. | Vaka‘uta, Nasili, editor. Title: Theology as threshold : invitations from Aotearoa New Zealand / edited by Jione Havea, Emily Colgan, Nāsili Vaka‘uta. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, [2022] | Series: Decolonizing theology | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “The future of theological education requires crossing thresholds that mainstream theologies blocked and engaging native heritage and wisdom. The contributors to this volume demonstrate that theological studies have a future, and there is a role for theologians in and from Aotearoa New Zealand and Pasifika to play in navigating (into) that future”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022033339 (print) | LCCN 2022033340 (ebook) | ISBN 9781978714793 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978714809 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Theology—Study and teaching—New Zealand. Classification: LCC BV4140.N45 T44 2022 (print) | LCC BV4140.N45 (ebook) | DDC 207/.50993—dc23/eng/20220826 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022033339 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022033340 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Work on this book was supported by Trinity Methodist Theological College and Te Hāhi Weteriana o Aotearoa (The Methodist Church of New Zealand)

Contents

Foreword: Kaitiakitanga: Resisting Injustice

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Prefacexv 1 Nau mai, Haere mai: Welcome Jione Havea, Emily Colgan, and Nāsili Vaka‘uta (RE)LOCATING THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 2 Margins as Thresholds Nāsili Vaka‘uta

1 13 15

3 Early Christian Networking and Overcoming Isolation and Competition in Theological Studies in Aotearoa Paul Trebilco 4 Gift Exchange and pae nekeneke: Learnings for Theological Education from the History of Becoming Presbyterian in Aotearoa New Zealand Steve Taylor

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5 Whakawhanaungatanga (Doing Right Relationship), Beyond a Failure of Nerve and Imagination Kathleen P. Rushton

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6 Tough Conversations: Engaging with Biblical “Texts of Terror” in Aotearoa New Zealand Emily Colgan and Caroline Blyth

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7 Asking the Right Questions: Noticing and Naming Sexual Abuse David Tombs 8 Thresholds of Alternatives: Re-imagining the Vocation of Theological Educators George Zachariah 9 Digital Technologies and Theological Education Stephen Garner

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107 119

NATIVIZING THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

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10 Māori Theology: Unavoidable, Priority Arapera Ngaha

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11 Biculturalism and Democratic Decision-Making: Models for Theological Education Moeawa Callaghan 12 Once Was Colonized: Jesus Christ Te Aroha Rountree

147 161

13 Taniwha, Guardians in Creation: Thresholds for Māori Theology177 Keita Hotere 14 Wheiao, a Threshold: Where Māori and Pākehā Meet Beverley Moana Hall-Smith and Rosemary Dewerse

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15 Moana and Qoheleth: Futility in Diaspora? Brian Fiu Kolia

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16 Calling for CONversion Jione Havea

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Bibliography231 Index249 Contributors253

Foreword Kaitiakitanga: Resisting Injustice Emily Colgan (on behalf of the writing team)

Tihei mauri ora! Ki te whai ao, ki te ao mārama. He korōria ki te Atua, he maungārongo ki te whenua, he whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa. Tahuri te kei o te mihi ki te Atua, Koia te Timatanga, koia hoki te Whakamutunga. Na ona ringa e hanga nga mea katoa o te ao. A, ka kororia i runga i te ingoa o Te Matua, Te Tama, me Te Wairua Tapu, Amene This reflection was born as a collaborative theological response to the critical issue of environmental racism—specifically the reality that indigenous communities worldwide are disproportionately impacted by ecological injustice and the climate crisis.1 The group comprised theologians from Aotearoa New Zealand and Oceania.2 Over the course of a number of weeks we met to talanoa,3 keeping this kaupapa at the centre of our discussions. Our conversations roamed as people shared stories of how their communities carry the burden of ecological degradation and are powerless to initiate change. One member of the group spoke of the chronic over-fishing by commercial fisheries that had decimated the fishing grounds near her village. Not only does the corporate plunder of the ocean deprive her people of food and income, but it is also a source of profound distress to her community that they cannot carry out their ancient custodial responsibility to protect the Moana and its inhabitants. ix

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While there were moments of hilarity and deep-belly laughter, these stories also drew tears of anger at the fact that indigenous voices are so often excluded from political bodies that make decisions on ecological issues—particularly when these communities so often bear the brunt of environmental degradation. There was a sense of frustration and hopelessness that while indigenous communities carry generations of contextually specific ecological knowledge which could contribute to climate mitigation strategies, this knowledge is silenced or dismissed as “unscientific.” These communities are powerless to enact the knowledge which would restore mana to the environment. As we shared and listened to these kōrero we began to hear resonances between ancient indigenous ways of being in the world and ancient ways of being in biblical texts. And so began a weaving together of these traditions; a weaving to create a brief ecological reflection, grounded in and responsive to our context in Aotearoa and Oceania. This reflection is an experiment, a work in progress, and by no means the last word on this important kaupapa. It is an attempt to push back against traditional, western models of theology which pretend to exist above or beyond contextual concerns, and which are often highly individualist (in the sense of being written by and for individuals). So, it is a collaborative attempt to evoke and to provoke. It is an attempt to push the boundaries and to wrestle with what it means to “do” theology meaningfully here, in this place. It is presented here, as the Foreword to this collection, to play the (metaphorical) role of a doorstop for Theology as Threshold in Aotearoa and Pasifika.

Indigenous Māori and Pacific peoples understand creation as inherently unified; there is a profound connection among all that exists within creation. Māori recognize this relationship as kaitiakitanga. Kaitiakitanga is a taonga and a whanaungatanga that exists between humans and the other-than-human world. At the heart of the term kaitiakitanga is whanaungatanga—the interrelatedness of all creatures within all species; plants and birds, rivers, lakes and sea, mountains and hills, animals, and insects—all have value in themselves and are to be respected and honored. In this way, kaitiakitanga respects the mana of all living things and seeks to uphold their mauri with tapu, aroha, and manaaki. Mana refers to spiritual power. If a forest, lake, or coastal area has mana, it will hold an abundance of life in birds, fruit, and fish. Kaitiakitanga affirms that respect for the care and harvesting of these resources enables people to receive from the land and sea in a cycle of mutual reciprocity. Mauri literally means the essence of life that exists within every aspect of creation. As just one part of the created order, we are called to honor the mauri and the mana in all that exists—human and other-than-human. Tabu or tapu refers to the sacred, and in practical terms relates to ways of ensuring our resources are replenished and restored. This is done through

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offering aroha and manaaki by following the maramataka, kore hi ika, kore kai moumou, and having a rahui. Tapu ensures that our relationship with the earth breathes in and out sacredness through our spirituality. Our totemic relationship with our mountains, rivers, birds, fish, trees, and root crops is integral to our identity as kaitiakitanga. As kaitiaki, we are responsible for the sustenance and maintenance of creation. In this way, the concept of kaitiakitanga positions human beings in creation, not as supreme masters over the Earth community, but as interdependent members of the Earth community. Perceiving ourselves as interdependent members of creation requires us to broaden our gaze beyond our own anthropocentric concerns to include consideration of all living entities in everything we do. It asks us to offer aroha and manaaki to all other living entities. Although the indigenous concept of kaitiakitanga certainly pre-dates the arrival of missionaries and Western Christianity, there are significant resonances between kaitiakitanga and Christian concepts of relationality within creation. As Christians, we affirm that human existence is intrinsically and inescapably inseparable from God; life without God is simply impossible. God is the source of our existence—our beginning and our ending. In the same way that our existence is profoundly dependent upon God, so too are we utterly dependent upon the Earth and Earth’s other-than-human community. The depth of this interconnectedness is seen in Genesis 2:7, where God creates the human being from Earth’s soil and breathes into humanity te hā ora. It is the very same soil and breath from which God creates the animals and birds (v. 19). There is whanaungatanga or kinship between these creatures and the human being—they both originate from Earth’s fertile soil; Earth is their common ancestor and God their creator. It is to the Earth our bodily forms will return when our life cycle is complete. It is in this same text that human beings are instructed to “serve and preserve” the Earth (Gen. 2:15). We are imaged here as created beings, formed from Earth, animated by God, and entrusted by God to serve and honor all creation. As interdependent whanau and members of the Earth community, we serve and in turn are served in a reciprocal pattern of mutual custodianship. To serve and honor Earth in this way is to recognize and respect the intrinsic worth of all other-than-human life. It is to see creation as God does, and to affirm that it is “very good” (Gen 1:31). And, as we see with the concepts of mana and mauri, to recognize the inherent worth of all that exists (human and other-than-human) results in an attitude of restraint that respects each created entity in itself, for itself. This attitude of restraint or rahui, calls to mind the sacred, set apart time that is Sabbath. As God rests in the Sabbath moments, so all creation—human

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and other-than-human—rests with God. This consecrated season that is sacred time and space enables healing and restoration for all God’s creation, breaking the pattern of unfettered progress and unquestioning consumption of Earth’s resources. It is a reminder of the imperative for justice so that all creation might flourish and have abundant life (John 10:10). In a world where relentless ecological degradation and widespread racism deny fullness of life to so, so many, we are called to expose and confront systems that silence, exploit, oppress, and abuse. As the sea roars (Ps 96:11–12), the mountains tremble (Ps 46:3), the land mourns (Jer 4:28), the stones cry out (Luke 19:40), and creation groans (Rom 8:22), so we add our human voices to the cry of the Earth community, resisting oppression and demanding justice and restoration. In practical, tangible terms, justice and restoration for Māori and Pasifika peoples is realized through tino rangatiratanga or sovereignty and selfdetermination. This includes the ability to care for and protect God’s creation, exercising kaitiakitanga and ensuring the physical and spiritual well-being of all. At the heart of the term “ecology” lies the Greek word oikos, meaning “house,” “home,” or “household.” Ecological well-being is weaved into the well-being of our home—the whole inhabited Earth. The flourishing of one is impossible without the flourishing of all. It’s time to get our house back in order! “Toitū te marae o Tane, toitū te marae o Tangaroa, toitū te iwi.” (Protect and strengthen the realms of the land and sea, and they will protect and strengthen the people). GLOSSARY Aroha love Kaitiaki guardian Kaitiakitanga guardianship Kaupapa topic or matter for discussion Kore hi ika a strict fishing quota or no fishing/diving at certain times Kore kai moumou harvesting at the right times/only for what is needed Kōrero conversation Mana authority Manaaki care/hospitality Maramataka Luna calendar Mauri essence Moana the ocean

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Rahui setting temporary restrictions on certain areas Talanoa open and inclusive dialogue Tapu sacredness Taonga gift Te hā ora the breath of life Tino rangatiratanga sovereignty or self-determination Whanau family Whanaungatanga kinship NOTES 1. The reflection initially appeared as part of a webinar series hosted by the Anglican Indigenous Network, entitled Prophetic Indigenous Voices on the Planetary Crisis. 2. Those in the group included Eseta Mateiviti-Tulavu, Emily Colgan, Jacynthia Murphy, Kerry Davis, Paul Reynolds, and Wilson Chan. 3. A glossary of words and their meanings can be found at the end of the reflection.

Preface

This waka (read: book) came through long carving and binding (read: review and revision) processes. Trinity Methodist Theological College hosted a seminar in 2018 (7–8 Apr) at which several of the contributors presented the first draft of their papers, and they received feedback from other contributors and participants. However, not all papers at the seminar came through the review, revision, and publication processes. The publication was delayed in order for Māori and Pasifika interests to paint the waka, rather than just be included (the politics of representation). In the delay, a few more voices jumped on. The last to board ends up in the front, as the Foreword—calling attention to our planetary crises and environmental racism, and how engaging with Māori wisdoms is both helpful and critical. In the delay, Covid-19 also landed onto the shores of Aotearoa and Pasifika, but the Covid crises and racisms are not featured in this waka. Climate and Covid are pain(t)s for another waka. The 2018 seminar was a platform for imagining the future of theological education, and how the presenters as practitioners and educators in Aotearoa and Pasifika might shape that future. The guiding image for that seminar was “Thresholds of Theology.” This waka/book is pushed out to the moana of theological education with an awareness and a prayer, that theological educators may (re)carve and (re)bind Theology as Threshold. Theology is not just product, but space also. Space that is opening. Inviting. Welcoming. Challenging. Interrogating. Troubling. Nativizing.

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Chapter 1

Nau mai, Haere mai Welcome Jione Havea, Emily Colgan, and Nāsili Vaka‘uta

The natives1 of the clusters of islands that make up Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Pasifika (for Pacific Islands, Oceania)2 did not invite Christian theologies to come onto their shores. Rather, Christian theologies came—uninvited, unwelcomed—in the arms of white European (pākehā,3 pālangi) traders and missionaries whose drives interlocked with the missions of explorers and flagbearers (read: land-grabbers, colonizers) for their white European crowns. Upon arrival, the carriers of Christian theologies established institutions— governments and churches, with legislative bodies, schooling societies, disciplining / incarcerating facilities, hospital wards, and other colonial institutions—to house, justify, protect, and propagate their interlocking missions. At the beginning, the Christian theologies that invaded Aotearoa and Pasifika were fully European—in form and content. To borrow gardening imagery, the first theologies to penetrate our (is)lands4 were potted in Europe and they were kept in their European pots—separated from the home dirt and nourishment of Aotearoa and Pasifika. The first carriers of Christian theologies into Aotearoa and Pasifika were also potted (read: raised and trained) in Europe, and they did not expect nor have the intelligence to perceive the native theologies that were in the islands before contact.5 Over time, some of the European pots cracked and some of the subsequent carriers of theologies (which included many locals) learned to cope with the (soil) conditions and conditionings of Aotearoa and Pasifika. But some remained very European, and standoffish (read: kept their distance), and divides have consequently widened and deepened—between pākehā (pālangi, European) versus local / contextual theologies, between academic versus church theologies, between church versus community theologies, between proper versus appropriating theologies, between right versus wrong theologies, and so forth. This collection gathers wisdom from Aotearoa and Pasifika to identify intersections and 1

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openings between those divides, and to find ways to step between them—hence the use of the threshold imagery in the following chapters—in the interests of theological studies (qua discipline) and theological education. Bridging the divides (read: removing the gap) is not the aim of this work. Rather, we are interested to locate and to clear the crossings and the openings (thresholds) between bodies that have been parted, separated, divided by institutions (churches, colleges) in the interest of their potted Christian theologies. Finding these intersections and thresholds is the task that binds the essays in the first cluster of essays (part I)—(re)Locating theological studies. One of the desired effects of this work, drawing upon the concept of the “pain threshold,” is to increase the threshold (read: tolerance) of Christian theologies for matters that are different, foreign, strange, inappropriate, wrong, and so forth. Of course, what are determined to be different, and so forth, depends on who has the power to decide, their location, heritage, and worldviews. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so also are matters that are perceived to be different, foreign, strange, inappropriate, and wrong. In other words, with respect to Christian theologies, it comes down to the theologians (beholders) and their sponsoring bodies (church, community, academy). In the second cluster of essays (part II)—Nativizing theological studies—we welcome natives of Aotearoa and Pasifika to behold and to help native and non-native theologians (especially they who are in the businesses of theological education) determine the beauties for theological engagement. HAERE MAI Haere mai is a Māori invitation: come in, come here, welcome. The invitation is uttered to convey permission and willingness to extend hospitality. This work shouts H-A-E-R-E M-A-I to native subjects, native wisdoms, and native directions; native matters do matter, and they have a role to play, in shaping the vocation and procedures of theological studies (as multifaceted discipline) and theological education in Aotearoa and Pasifika, and beyond. Whether Christian theologies will, as a consequence, become more welcomed (approved, appreciated) to the cluster of islands that make up Aotearoa and Pasifika, is also not the objective of this work. (That would be a bonus, or by-product, depending on one’s point of view.) TALANOA The talanoa (stories, tellings, conversations)6 in, of, and through this work unfold over two overlapping clusters of essays. The first cluster—(re)

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Locating theological studies—consists of eight essays that (1) look back over the journey of Christian theologies in particular church institutions in Aotearoa and Pasifika and (2) map ways to cross the thresholds (qua opening) as well as increase the thresholds (qua tolerance) of theologies. These essays “look back” as well as “look forward,” on a range of subjects that extend from biblical and Māori traditions to new opportunities offered in the media age. The second cluster of essays—Nativizing theological studies—consists of seven chapters that also look back (this time, at native conjectures) to find ways forward for the ongoing journey of theological education in Aotearoa and Pasifika, and beyond. The authors of the second cluster give primary privilege to native matters, a commitment that the authors of the first cluster also share in life but not explicitly in their essays for this collection. Put a different way, the essays in the two clusters open toward, and welcome, one another. (re)Locating Theological Studies The talanoa in this first cluster move from theological studies in general (Nāsili Vaka‘uta; Paul Trebilco) to particular models of theological education in Aotearoa New Zealand (Steve Taylor; Kathleen P. Rushton), to specific concerns that require theological attention (Emily Colgan and Caroline Blyth; David Tombs), to the vocation and pedagogies of theological educators (George Zachariah; Stephen Garner). All of these thresholds invite crossing, as well as relocating (that is, move the thresholds to different settings), for theological studies to have relevance and a healthy future in Aotearoa and Pasifika, as well as beyond. NĀsili Vaka‘uta opens the first cluster of essays by looking at, and toward, “the ends” (goals, purposes; edges, limits) of theological education (chapter 2). In the pluralistic context of Aotearoa New Zealand, Vaka‘uta affirms the bicultural orientation of the Methodist Church in New Zealand (of which he is a member, and at whose theological college he works) and argues that theological education needs to be both relevant and transformative. For this to happen, theological education needs to be renegotiated within four spaces: the margin, the church, the academy, and the public square. Providers of theological education therefore need to reassess what they do (vis-à-vis the ever-changing sociopolitical terrain), to enable truth to be spoken to power and truth to be spoken about power and to serve as “conscience” for a society that values justice, equality, and liberty. Paul Trebilco looks at another “end” of theological studies in/from Aotearoa New Zealand: to overcome isolation (chapter 3). Traditionally, biblical scholars and theologians worked in isolation. We tend to work away on our own ideas and our own projects. We try to connect with each other and with

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worshipping communities but that is sometimes a challenge and sometimes it is unsuccessful. Trebilco has found the situation in the New Testament period to be quite different. The early Christian communities functioned as a network. They were strongly interconnected through travel, letter-writing, and their own sense that they formed a single entity or movement and belonged to a single worldwide family—this sense of being a network led to Michael Thompson writing of early Christians as “the Holy Internet.” Theologians of the early church were strongly connected with each other. They were not always in agreement, but they were in contact and in dialogue. Early Christian theologians were also deeply rooted in communities—as founders, pastors, or leaders. Being/becoming a network remains a challenge and an opportunity (portal, threshold) for biblical scholars, for theologians, and for institutions of theological education in the modern times. The digital age gives us all sorts of opportunities for interconnectedness, but we continue to be sole authors, and our interactions with worshipping communities are limited. Trebilco thus presents the networking of the early church and the vision of interconnected communities to be relevant and vital (for which Vaka‘uta pushed) for theological studies in the present time. Steve Taylor draws attention closer to Aotearoa New Zealand, looking back at one particular church and the development of its programs for theological education (chapter 4). Motivated by Paul Ricoeur’s suggestion that our history teaches us how we might become, Taylor looks back at how theological education has taken shape over 140 years for Presbyterians in Aotearoa New Zealand—first in the Theological Hall and more recently through the School of Ministry and Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership. In this history is embodied knowledge, and a range of thresholds that have been negotiated. Four thresholds are significant in this history: settler relationships with indigenous people, settler responses to migration, the impact of secularism, and student activism in seeking a nuclear-free New Zealand. In each is the opportunity to examine theological education by probing the socio-location of church and college, paying particular attention to the learnings from encountering an-other (for thresholds suggest there is someone/ something on the other side). How has the voice of the other(s) been heard in the history of Presbyterian theological education? How has the church as an institution exercised power in its discipline, its standards for ordination, and its resources of time and finance? How has theological education positioned itself, both in relation to power and in self-understanding as it encountered the liminal space between stakeholders and marginal voices? Around these questions Taylor examined the history of Presbyterian theological education using published history,

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archival research, and participant interviews to clarify liminal learnings that can address the who, how, and what theological education might become in Aotearoa New Zealand. Kathleen P. Rushton looks back at an ecumenical platform for theological education in Aotearoa New Zealand—the Ecumenical Institute of Distance Theological Studies (EIDTS, 1993–2014), which was shaped by four people sitting around a kitchen table imagining a way forward for theological education for that time (chapter 5). Later, through a failure of nerve by partner churches reverting to their traditional denominational thresholds, this ecumenical, accessible, and contextually grounded means of delivering theological education ceased. EIDTS’s was based on the values of oikoumene and “working ecumenically; respecting and learning from all traditions in pursuit of an authentic response to God” (receptive ecumenism). It offered the church, the Body of Christ, imaged in the vine and branches (John 15:1–11), a threshold for doing theology, which moved from a narrative of diminishment to a narrative of communion. Rushton attends to the three eco-words of ecology, economy, and ecumenism to explore whakawhanaungatanga (making right relationship happen; see also chapter 10) with Atua (God), tangata (people) and whenua (land) in Aotearoa New Zealand (see also chapter 13), a nation of islands of the Pacific Ocean. Emily Colgan and Caroline Blyth take a deep look at society in Aotearoa New Zealand (chapter 6). Seeing that Aotearoa New Zealand is a society in which gender violence and rape culture are prevalent—research by the World Health Organization reveals that one in three women in Aotearoa experience an act of sexual violence during their lifetime—and noting that gendered aggression pervades the pages of the Bible, Colgan and Blyth invite “difficult conversations” on biblical “texts of terror.” Their essay testifies to the subjective violence of multiple gendered abuses that grant a voice to the symbolic violence of misogynistic and heteronormative discourses, which marginalize and objectify women (and sometimes men), while normalizing their social, sexual, and religious subjugation. These discourses lie rooted in the foundations of patriarchal culture, constituting part of the framework upon which rape-supportive ideologies and belief systems are built. While it would be inaccurate to claim that the origins of rape culture and gender violence lie exclusively (or even predominantly) within the biblical traditions, we must nevertheless acknowledge that these texts are by no means blameless. No literature (particularly sacred literature) is value neutral, nor leaves the reader untouched by the reading process. Rather, all texts invite their audience to embrace certain discourses, values, and belief systems, expressed through their authors’ rhetorical strategies. Given the endemic levels of gender violence in Aotearoa, and the pervasive global presence of rape cultures that sustain such violence, Colgan and Blyth argue that the issue of sexual

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violence must become a priority for theological studies generally, and for biblical studies specifically. There is an urgent need for scholars to disrupt the rape-supportive discourses that continue to exist at a symbolic level within the Christian tradition, as it is this symbolism that influences contemporary discourses and creates an environment in which gender violence can flourish. David Tombs carries this talanoa further, insisting that we ask the right questions when it comes to sexual abuse (chapter 7). Tombs examines a key passage in the crucifixion narrative (the strippings of Jesus in Matt 27:26–31) alongside the story of Rachael Denhollander who was sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar (a doctor who treated gymnasts for the USA Gymnastics organization). The Nassar case sheds light on the instinctive skepticism that typically greets the suggestion that Jesus was a victim of sexual abuse. Drawing on lessons from the Nassar case, Tombs suggests that theological educators should help the church acknowledge Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse. Embracing this threshold in theology is an important step toward a fuller understanding of Jesus’ historical experience and will also help the church to respond to other pressing issues. For example, when the sexual side of Jesus’ abuse is discussed with care and sensitivity, it can reinforce important messages to survivors—such as, “It is not your fault” and “You are not alone.” George Zachariah looks back at the major role that theological educators have played historically, and forward to the need to evaluate the understanding and practice of the vocation of theological educators (chapter 8). Discerning the vocation of theological educators, introspecting pedagogical philosophy and practices, developing alternate models of being theological educators, and re-imagining theological education are all essential to transform (read: relocate) teaching ministry into a vocation of equipping the people for God’s mission and ministry in the world. In the footsteps of Paulo Freire, Zachariah affirms that practice and reflection upon practice make authentic and relevant theological educators. In the spirit of self-reflexivity to discern anew theological educator as vocation in the modern times, Zachariah draws from his experience in teaching in theological colleges in India and Aotearoa. Stephen Garner also looks back at pedagogies (chapter 9). Providing routine and familiarity to teaching and learning experiences, pedagogies—which reflect the way that disciplines shape modes of thought, performance, and behavior relevant to a profession or discipline—aid in the organization, interpretation and acquisition of knowledge, skills and meaning. The increasing ubiquity of digital technology and new media within the academic and wider contexts raises pointed questions about the way in which those technologies might align with or reshape signature pedagogies. Theological education is, Garner contends, predominantly focused on a set of signature pedagogies that are textually focused (compare chapter 16): from engaging with the Bible, to negotiating historical and theological writings within various Christian

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traditions, and to the performance of texts found in preaching and liturgy. Garner’s essay explores how signature pedagogies found within theological education might be enhanced and challenged through dialogue with creative and judicious use of digital technologies. Nativizing Theological Studies The talanoa of the second cluster of essays flows in two directions. First, toward how Christian theologies might be understood in the Māori (Aotearoa) and Moana (Pasifika, Pasefika) worlds. And second, toward how the wisdom gifts of Māori and Moana worlds might make Christian theologies understandable and relevant for Aotearoa and Pasifika, and beyond. Flowing in both directions, the essays are carried by the currents of native-inspired practices (see esp. Arapera Ngaha; Moeawa Callaghan; Te Aroha Rountree), native wisdom truths (see esp. Keita Hotere; Beverly Moana Hall-Smith and Rosemary Dewerse), and native attitudes (see esp. Brian Fiu Kolia; Jione Havea). While all of the essays drift into all of those currents, the essays are arranged as such in order to highlight the wisdom gifts of the Māori and Moana worlds for Christian theologies, and to invite further talanoa. That is to say that the “divides” between the currents and between the essays are porous, as one expects of thresholds. Arapera Ngaha opens this cluster of essays by looking back and revisiting a suggestion by Māori theologian Henare Tate—that a beginning place for Māori spirituality is the concept of whanaungatanga (relationships; chapter 10). Such an exploration inevitably leads to other Māori values and concepts which also link to each other; these linkages are expressions of whanaungatanga. Māori spirituality is a cyclical process, reflecting the nature of te ao Māori (the Māori world). Within this paradigm, Māori spirituality is not set in concrete nor set at the beginning epoch of time, or a time frame from 1840 (when the British tricked the Māori with Te Tiriti), nor is it located anywhere on the time and space continuum. Māori spirituality had its beginnings in ancient times, and as an evolutionary process its tenets are embraced and considered as Māori ways of doing theology. Ngaha discusses the literature on Māori spirituality beginning with whanaungatanga and considers how Māori theological concepts and applications might be addressed in institutes of (mainline, institutionalized, pākehā) theological training in Aotearoa. The views of three mātanga Māori (specialists in the field) offer insights into what and how such matters might be included in theological training. But, do theological colleges in Aotearoa have an obligation to implement such areas into their curricula? This is the challenge because it is, Ngaha argues, more than an obligation; it is an imperative for theological training in Aotearoa to engage in these matters.

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Such engagements offer insights into theology through indigenous lenses, and will benefit all aspects of theological education. Moeawa Callaghan adds a reflection on biculturalism and democratic decision-making (chapter 11). Majoritarian democracy worked effectively against indigenous peoples during colonization and continues to undermine tangata whenua (indigenous people) in Aotearoa, as it does against other indigenous people who are minorities in their own lands. Using a tikanga7 lens, Callaghan examines bicultural8 democratic models practiced by theological colleges committed to bicultural partnership based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The essay explores both historical and contemporary understandings of democracy in Aotearoa, decision-making processes relating to the place of indigenous theology programs within bicultural theological colleges in Aotearoa, and insights on democracy from scripture and tradition. Te Aroha Rountree invites Māori and Pasifika theologians to decolonize the “once was colonized” Jesus (chapter 12). Jesus has been (re)made in the image of man, most specifically white man. And followers of Jesus have reveled in the good news while perpetuating unthinkable destruction upon creation. Jesus has been made to emulate the oppressive colonial imperialists who have carried him/her beyond the territories of Europe. Theology in Aotearoa and Oceania has been (re)made by colonial institutions of school and thought, since the arrival of missionary societies, to justify and perpetuate white dominance over tangata whenua (first peoples). Pākehā—including missionaries—spread the good news, while stripping tangata whenua of our language, culture and land. Theology has been used as a tool of exclusion, segregation, and discrimination. In Oceania, theological institutions have become places of privilege and influence. Theological discourse has imposed itself upon the liberties of native peoples to engage in theology of our own making. What if theology was not the dominant, but rather the dominated? What if theology was Once a Native wisdom? Rountree deals with these questions through reflections on a sculpture by Gillian Laird (on the cover of this book)—it represents a Jesus that has been sculpted from Papatūānuku (mother earth). Rountree used the sculpture to decolonize attempts to dress Jesus with a bow tie (see figure 12.1) and a hei tiki (pendant; see figure 12.2). Keita Hotere shows how the divine (atua), the divine interlocutors (taniwha), and humanity (tangata), intertwine in Te Ao Māori (chapter 13). She begins with an exploration into an ancient Māori traditional narrative about taniwha and the world in which they live. The taniwha narrative reflects how the theologies of Māori tupuna (ancestors) developed and were directed by their human experiences and engagements with the natural world, which in turn shaped their understandings of the divine and supernatural. Hotere

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argues that taniwha narratives continue to have significant meaning and relevance for Māori in contemporary Aoteraoa New Zealand society. Driving Hotere’s essay is a re-imagining of what taniwha might look like within theological spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand as a means to progress our God understandings. For theological education to be relevant and meaningful for Māori communities, there must be a willingness from theological institutions to engage and connect with contemporary expressions of taniwha worldviews. Re-thinking Māori‑conditioned wisdom truths to enable the emergence of opportunities in theological education requires us to look back in order to move forward. Beverly Moana Hall-Smith and Rosemary Dewerse turn back to wheiao— which they associate with threshold as a place of liminality, another wisdom truth in te ao Māori (chapter 14). Wheaio is where the world of darkness meets the world of light, the time of sunset and of atapō (dawn). It is the meeting point in the processes of dying and of being born. Wheiao is the horizon—that space between earth and sky—and it is in the pōwhiri (meeting, welcome) where haukāinga (relatives) and manuhiri (visitors) meet. Wheiao is where teaching and learning take place, where art is made, and where culture is created. It is a place of truth and struggle, hope and possibility. Wheiao is also found in the creation narratives of Genesis and across the biblical narrative. In the place where difference meets, where dualities reconcile, where there is Good News. Hall-Smith and Dewerse explore realities and imagine possibilities of wheiao for individuals and communities in theological education seeking to walk bicultural journeys, using a methodology of “māua-ethnography” to draw wisdom from their own stories—of a Māori woman and a Pākehā woman. Brian Fiu Kolia looks back at Moana (the term refers to the sea, and it is also used as a metaphor for Pasifika matters) as context for understanding Qohelet (chapter 15). Kolia focuses on Ecclesiastes 1:7, which speaks of the futility of the actions of streams that run endlessly into the sea, because the sea—according to Qohelet—is never filled. This view is based on the premise that the sea is seamless. To Moana people (Pacific Islanders), Moana is anything but seamless. To Westerners, Moana is the postcard backdrop waiting to be explored, but in Pasefika (alt. spelling for Pasifika), Moana gives life and must be treated with respect. Moana also takes life, one of the harsh realities that is becoming more imminent with climate change. Moana is serene and peaceful, and it is also rough and unforgiving. Kolia re-reads Ecclesiastes 1:7 with a Pasefika lens that draws back the celebratory and utopian notions of Moana. He first provides an alternative perspective of Qohelet’s idea of futility through a Pasefika perspective that perceives Moana as the connection between lands. Second, he highlights

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the changing ocean-face of Moana (in light of rising sea levels in Pasefika) in response to Qohelet’s idea that “the sea is not full.” Third, given that Moana is an avenue for migration, and given that Kolia himself is a secondgeneration Australian Samoan, Kolia closes the essay with implications of his approach for Pasefika migration and diaspora. Jione Havea winds up the second cluster, and the collection, with an invitation to engage with native sacred texts (chapter 16). The invitation comes with two twists: First, honoring the preference of Moana people for orality and oral texts, Havea invites the scripturalizing of native poems. Since poems (so lyrics and proverbs) are more affective when they are spoken and heard, in comparison to them being written and read, the invitation interweaves orality with oratory. Sacred texts are not limited to what have been written (scripted, scriptures), and oral texts need to be oratorized (heard). Second, honoring the dispersion of Moana people—since the days of our voyaging ancestors—across the diaspora, Havea reflects on poems by two young women migrants and thus deromanticizes the expectation that old men living in the home(is)lands, with traditional pre-contact views, represent natives. Sacred texts and scripturalization are not artifacts from the long past. On the other hand, young, diasporic women too may represent the natives and create native sacred texts. SO WHAT? This collection of essays is a platform, and an invitation to re‑story Theology as Threshold. Theology is not just a product (that explains revelations, scriptures, teachings, doctrines, relations, etcetera) but a space also. It is a space that has been experienced as prohibited and prohibitive. BUT it is also space that is opening. Inviting. Welcoming. As threshold, theology is a space that is also scary. Troubling. Risky. Exposing. Vulnerabl’ing. As threshold also, theology is challenging. Perplexing. Stunning. Interrogating. Nativizing. NOTES 1. “Indigenous people” is also used in this book to refer to “the natives.” Which label is used depends on the preference of the authors. 2. There are too many native languages that it is impossible to find a common name for our region. Two of the more popular names are Te moana nui a Kiwa (Māori

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and Maohi for “the big sea of Kiwa”) and Atuvasa (“vasa” is a Samoan term for the ocean/sea). 3. The term “pākehā” conveys a range of meanings for different communities and is used to signify both political and ethnic identities. In this chapter, we are drawing on one of its more common usages: to refer to inhabitants of Aotearoa who are of European descent. 4. The invasive, sexual connotations of “penetrate our (is)lands” are intended. This phrase flips one of the labels for white Europeans—“pā-langi” (“touch, reach, pierce the skies”), a reference to their tall ships appearing to touch, reach, or pierce the skies. 5. See Jione Havea (ed.), Sea of Readings: The Bible in the South Pacific (Atlanta: SBL, 2018); Jione Havea (ed.), Theologies from the Pacific (New York: Palgrave, 2021). 6. The term talanoa refers to three intersecting events: story (which is made up of many stories), the act of telling (stories), and conversation (around stories and acts of telling). A story (talanoa) requires telling (talanoa) and leads to conversation (talanoa); telling (talanoa) and conversation (talanoa) birth stories (talanoa); and hence the events of talanoa unwind, encircle, entwine, revive, and prolong. We prefer talanoa to be productive and empowering in those ways, but we are mindful that talanoa can also divide, insult, flip, shut down, and so forth. 7. Acknowledgment of the tapu and mana of people and all creation is central to any understanding of tikanga. In Callaghan’s essay tikanga refers to just and fair practice that uphold the values of tika (correct, right), pono (true, truth), aroha (love). Knowledge of whakapapa (genealogy), Māori values and beliefs, the history and experiences of the people is essential for considering what is just and fair. 8. In Aotearoa biculturalism refers to the relationship implied in the Treaty of Waitangi whereby two peoples, Māori and the Crown (as representative of the settlement and colonization by Britain and British settlers), have a special relationship. In addressing the injustice and disparity caused by colonization the Crown have a responsibility to decolonize, compensate, and provide special consideration for redressing wrongs toward Māori.

(RE)LOCATING THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Chapter 2

Margins as Thresholds Nāsili Vaka‘uta

To mark the ninetieth anniversary of Trinity College1—the theological school that I work for—I posed a somewhat strange question, “To what end is theological education?” This question may give the impression that I am expecting theological education to end (stop, finish), but the question is important insofar as “end” also refers to the “goal” of theological education. By Trinity reaching this significant milestone, it is imperative for me (as theological educator and principal) to reassess Trinity’s practices (so that the college is clear about its heritage) and chart paths for going forward. In this regard, this essay is an attempt to envision (dream, imagine, visualize) the threshold of theology from the context of Aotearoa and Oceania. But what determines what to do when we pass through the threshold? Who decides? For whom? Situated within the pluralistic context of Aotearoa New Zealand and acknowledging Te Haahi Weteriana’s (the Methodist Church’s) bicultural orientation,2 I argue that theological education needs to be both relevant and transformative. What an institution does has to be rooted in the context in which it exists and serves. This is where relevance is found. To do otherwise is irrelevant and disorientating. By the same token, what an institution provides must not be confined only to dissemination of information or proclamation of dogmatic ideas that have long passed their usefulness. A transformative institution must accomplish, and carry out, life-affirming changes in its context of service. The agenda for such a project has to be (re)negotiated from and within the position of marginality.3 This position of marginality encompasses a vast array of ideas, of which three are relevant and critical for this reflection. First, marginality is rooted in the margins. One needs not only to recognize and acknowledge the periphery, the fringes, the outliers; one also needs “to be” in the margins in order to understand the margins and what marginality offers. 15

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The margin is herein given priority because theological education traditionally pays attention to the center (the locus of power, privilege and authority) and thereby ignores the longings and aspirations of those who inhabit the fringes and undersides of the church and society. Relevant and transformative theological education must be situated and aligned likewise. Second, marginality is “an involuntary position and condition of an individual or group at the margins of social, political, economic, ecological, and biophysical systems, that prevent them from access to resources, assets, services, restraining freedom of choice, preventing the development of capabilities, and eventually causing extreme poverty.”4 Theological education, though it needs “to be” in the margin, must work toward allowing marginals to have more access to scarce resources and power. Theological education ceases to be relevant when it seeks to legitimize lack of access. Third, marginality indicates a position of difference, non-conformity, fluidity, and instability. Marginals—those who occupy the margins—do not entertain conforming to a particular norm or tradition, and nor should they. They yearn to be different, because they are essentially and functionally different. They resist rigidity and the illusion of stability. They favor changes and movements. Relevant and transformative theological education has to be flexible, different, non-conforming, and dynamic. This project, from the position of marginality, urges a departure from tradition. It calls for theological education to move beyond the austere boundary of Christian orthodoxy,5 ecclesial dogmatism,6 and religious fanaticism.7 Theological education must grow out of, and liberate itself from, these shackles if it is to be relevant and life-affirming. The role of a theological institution is not to be a passive guardian of tradition but to constantly reassess what it does vis-à-vis the ever-changing sociopolitical terrain, delivers programs that empower generations to speak truth to power and speak the truth about power, and serve as a “conscience” for a society that values justice, equality, and freedom.

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION HAS BECOME IRRELEVANT The orthodox theological position invented and propagated by the Constantinian church8 is, from the standpoint of the margin, a culturally intrusive and socially irrelevant propaganda driven by a misdiagnosis of humanity, rooted in a delusional view of reality, and inspired to an extent by misguided dogmatic interpretations of scriptures. Orthodoxy is intrusive in the sense that it imposes (sometimes violently) an agenda upon people in their own cultures; an agenda that is largely alien

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and contradictory to the life-world, traditions, values, and worldviews that people from other contexts treasured. A good example is the imposition of the Bible and the way to read it without considering the richness of oral cultures, like those in the islands of Oceania. It must also be emphasized that Oceanic cultures were not one of illiteracy, because though most did not write or read books, many were able to read waves, stars and wind. Literacy should not be measured with imperial yardsticks because they are irrelevant to Oceania’s sea-oriented cultures. The same applies to theological education. The abstract Eurocentric models of theological education should come to an end and be replaced by models articulated and constructed using Oceania’s cultural capital. Orthodoxy misdiagnosed humanity by claiming that we are essentially sinful and lost (cf. Gen 3 and the so-called fall of humanity), and therefore in need of salvation / redemption.9 Like any misdiagnosis, it comes with the wrong remedy and prescription, which has the propensity to cause more problems. The late Marcus Borg, in his discussion of the older way of seeing Christianity, speaks about this problem in terms of Christian moralism.10 To Borg, Christianity is too moralistic, and this means two things: first, being a Christian means trying to be good, and being good means trying to live in accord with the ethical teachings of the Bible, understood as “God’s laws”; second, we Christians are not very good at being good. Christianity is centered on the dynamic of sin, guilt, and forgiveness. In other words, orthodoxy is very good in making people feel guilty and worthless; guilt comes with fear, which in turn serves as a platform for the call to conversion and to accept Jesus and the promise of salvation and eternal life. There is thus a need, Borg suggests, to shift theology from the guilt-driven agenda to a positive and nontoxic agenda that is shaped by the values of unconditional love and freedom. The orthodox view of reality is delusional because it propagates an apocalyptic idea that we are in a corrupt and unjust world that is doomed to end, and the only world worth striving/waiting for is heaven. Heaven is not an issue here, but heavenism is. Heavenism shifts the attention of humanity away from their responsibility to the earth and encourages an obsession with a world that is illusive and at once elusive. Orthodoxy is inspired by misguided and dogmatic readings of texts. It holds on to the outdated view that scriptures are sacred, divinely inspired, inerrant and infallible words of God. The Bible, therefore, is the sole authority for life and faith, and there is nothing outside the text. The Bible is viewed to have everything a person needs to guide him or her unto salvation. Such a position is self-deceptive in the sense that it is not a simple, unintentional, overlooking of evidence; it is not an innocent ignorance of, or lack of acquaintance with, the evidence. It involves a refusal to see the evidence as evidence, even though it is familiar.11

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Orthodoxy (and neo-orthodoxy) and Constantinian Christianity are based on a refusal to acknowledge evidence. Appreciating, and being informed by, what is real and in front of us should mark the threshold of any theological undertaking. That is where searching for the end of theological education begins.

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION MUST BE TRANSFORMED Jürgen Moltmann, in a speech delivered at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on January 13, 2016 on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, spoke about “The Future of Theology.” He declares, Theology is always in a triangle of the church, the public, and the academy. Theology takes place in the pulpit, the marketplace, and the lecture hall. Theologians live in the Christian community, the public community, and the academic community.12

With regard to church theology, he warns against what he calls “a Christian in-group mentality” that could make theology “preaching to the choir.” He then proposes a shift from this “inland traffic” of church theology to “a theology with a face to the world” as proclaimed by Johann Baptist Metz in the 1960s. He was very cautious, however, about allowing the world/public to determine the agenda of Christian theology. The same hesitancy comes with reference to the academy. Moltmann explains: With the loss of its relationship to the church, academic theology is also losing its character as theology. Full Christian theology must, in my understanding, hold the triangle together. As an all-embracing function of the kingdom of God, theology is a special function of the church, and a special function of the people or the public, and a special function of truth-seeking communities in the sciences.13

Moltmann’s proposal raises questions because some aspects of it are problematic. First, is it possible for the church to do theology without the influence of the world/public? Moltmann’s reservation about allowing the world/ public to determine the agenda for theology rests on an assumption that the theological agenda can be done otherwise. Yet this could only be possible if theology was to be articulated in a vacuum. Theology is worldly, it is rooted in the world, it is shaped by the world, and it should be accountable to the world, and maintain its worldliness because it cannot do without. Theology, and theological education, ceases to be relevant the moment it pretends to be otherworldly.14

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Second, does the church have any mandate to decide what is or what is not theology? The church has, and should have, no monopoly on theology. If theology belongs to the triangle of church, academy and public, then each of them should have similar authority to decide what is/is not theology at any given time. The theological character of any theology lies not in its connectedness to the church, but in its ability to transform the lives of those at the underside of the church, the academy, and the public. Without this transformative edge, theology loses it character. Third, can the church be trusted to hold the triangle (church, academy, public) together when the church itself becomes the problem? When the church fails to be the church, the public and the academy should be allowed to hold things together. To deny the public and the academy of that function is detrimental not only to the church, but also to those whose trust had been betrayed, and whose well-being compromised, by the church. Moltmann in the same speech goes on to discuss two key turns in modern theology. The first is the ecological turn where he acknowledges the environmental and climate crisis we are facing and calls for a reconsideration of the traditional creation theology. This turn requires a transition from the idea of world religions to earth religion with reverence for the earth, that is, the biblical Sabbath of the land. It also advocates for a change from the traditional gnostic spirituality (the notion that we are only guests on earth, our homeland is in heaven) to see that the earth is indeed our home in this world and also in the world to come. The second turn in modern theology is the pneumatological turn, which to Moltmann is not a promotion of abstract religiosity but an invitation to shift from the old Constantinian model of church (which is an imperial version of Christianity)15 to a non-Constantinian model of church that focuses on the minority, the marginalized, and the poor. The pneumatological turn is about turning to the fringes, the underside, the less privileged, and the ignored. To turn otherwise is anti-pneumatological. Both these turns do offer alternative routes for doing theology and theological education in general. Instead of obsessing with an unseen and abstract “heavenly home up there,” it is oriented toward a real and concrete “earthly home down here.” Likewise, instead of serving the interests of those at the center, theology is urged to move toward the periphery. It is down here on earth at the periphery that theology is made relevant and transformative. THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION MUST BE GROUNDED Relevant and transformative theological education needs to immerse itself in the realities on the ground rather than being obsessed with some kind of

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heavenly bliss that has no relevance to real people in real places. Here are some of the real-life issues in Oceania. First, climate injustice. Climate change is not the real issue because climate changes over time. Oceania’s problem is climate injustice—that is, nations who are responsible for high emissions and environmental disasters are not owning up to the problem they caused. In Oceania, the sea is rising, and islands are drowning. Oceania demands climate justice! Second, economic injustice. Capitalism and neoliberalism have positioned the region in such a way that it continues to be dependent on imperial centers and transnational companies for its economic survival. This dependency feeds into a neoliberal agenda that encourages the treatment of seasonal workers like “slaves” such as the case in Australia. Capitalist visions and neoliberal policies have failed the islands. Neoliberalism requires that if you don’t have anything to sell, then sell yourself. Everything (people, sea, land, air, etc.) is a product and must be traded without restrictions in a global market that is driven by greed and unfair distribution of resources.16 Oceania cries for economic justice. Third, legacies of imperialism. Imperialism has not left our shores. Despite the many attempt at decolonization, the legacies of imperialism are still strong and islands are struggling to get out of a past that is violent and oppressive; others with colonial powers that are at present give them no freedom and power for self-determination such as West Papua. Oceania begs for social and political justice.17 Fourth, ecclesial issues. There are also church-related issues. The church and its dogmatic positions can be suffocating and life-threatening. When what we do as a church is removed from reality, we become out of touch and out of focus. The way we do theologies and interpret the Bible is still very much stuck in the nineteenth century, and continues to embrace “missionary positions” more than anything else. We also need to reposition our theological outlook, because, like the Bible, some of our traditional theologies have “expired.” The ongoing association of suffering and sin is a case in point. Oceania yearns for theological and hermeneutical justice! One might as well ask: How might we envision relevant and transformative theological education from such a context? For whom are we doing it? Whose interests are we intending to serve? These questions are definitely not new, but I call for further talanoa. The notion of talanoa is more than exchanging words and abstract ideas. It is about digging deep into our theological past, tracing back our roots, acknowledging our present, and charting new routes. It involves sharing our hearts, our beings, our life-stories, our disappointments, our shames, our hopes, and our dreams. It is through this act of talanoa that we can discover the transformative edges that theological education needs. So, let’s talk!

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THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION MUST EMPOWER Theological institutions should, and must, not become “theological factories” where churches manufacture products according to their preferred tradition or their own needs. What we get from such seminaries at the end of training are bad clones of past theologians and missionaries; those we have never allowed to rest in peace. The primary task of theological education is not to clone people and/or indoctrinate them with ideas that have long outlived their usefulness. Theological education is about equipping people to think and weaning them to think independently. It is about empowering people to be critical and ask difficult questions. It is training people not only to work for the church but also to challenge the church. Here lies the prophetic role of theological education. Theological education should prepare people to become agents of transformation, and not ecclesial puppets. Theological education must prepare agents who are called • to speak out for, and stand with, those in the margins of church, academy and public; • to tear down the borders that exclude, and to build the bridges that link; • to expose narratives of domination, and to retell stories of love and peace; • to break traditions that kill, and to create new traditions of healing and hope; • to disrupt violent supportive systems, and to promote fullness of life. A lot of church-based theological education providers in Aotearoa and the region are very good at talking about transformation, but in practice they are more comfortable with cloning and indoctrination as long as they do not rock the ecclesial waka or disappoint those who are buying their bacon. This is a great disservice to churches and also to the academy, to the public, and to those in margins. Transformative theological education should be characterized by at least the following markers. First, it is disruptive of abusive systems, because some systems and institutions are deadly. Theological education needs to begin with an acknowledgment that there are abusive systems at work in our midst. Systems like patriarchy that produce toxic masculinity, purity, and rape cultures. It is a duty of theological education to resist, disrupt, and demolish such systems in the name of life. Churches and seminaries will become complicit in promoting such systems if they, on the one hand, do not break the cultures of silence, and on the other hand, continue to cling on to some aspects of a theological tradition that is both irrelevant and delusional. It is about time to demolish systems of death and create a new structure of life!

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Second, it must confront supremacist narratives. The stories we tell and live by can be violent and dehumanizing! This includes biblical narratives and those preserved by Christianity. Transformative theological education requires that there is a concerted effort to confront narratives that validate slavery, bigotry, racism, homo-/bi-/trans-phobia, and all forms of discrimination and injustice. Resist narratives of death, and create a new story of life! Third, theological education should be a means of re-visioning a lifeaffirming and life-flourishing future, because a future full of life is possible! This is a call to envision a future that is life-giving for all. Such a future begins with departure from ideas that are toxic and life-denying. Any theological project that sacrifices life on the altar of tradition and orthodoxy is not worthy of the name. Theology needs to empower people and allow them the agency to make their own decisions, speak their minds and strive for justice, equality, and fullness of life.

NOTES 1. Trinity Methodist Theological College turned ninetieth in 2019 and that also marked 175 years of theological education in Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa (Methodist Church of New Zealand). 2. Aotearoa (New Zealand) is set up by Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) as a place of “two-cultures” (Māori and Pākeha). It is the duty of each resident to learn to be bicultural, to live in two cultures. It is also the responsibility of all institutions in the land to acknowledge this bicultural setup, and operate accordingly. 3. Jung Young Lee, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985); See also Joachim Von Braun and Franz W. Gatzweiler, Marginality: Addressing the Nexus of Poverty, Exclusion and Ecology (New York: Springer, 2013); George Yudice, “Marginality and the Ethics of Survival,” Social Text 21 (1989): 214–36; Assefa Mehretu, Bruce Wm Pigozzi, and Lawrence M. Sommers, “Concepts in Social and Spatial Marginality,” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 82, no. 2 (August 1, 2000): 89–101; R.S. Sugirtharajah, “Muddling along at the Margin” in Still at the Margins: Biblical Scholarship Fifteen Years after the Voices Form the Margin, 8–21 (London: Bloomsbury, 2008); Braj B. Kachru, “The Paradigms of Marginality,” World Englishes 15, no. 3 (November 1, 1996): 241–55; R.S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), Voices From the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World 25th Anniversary Edition (Maryknoll: Orbis., 2016). 4. Von Braun and Gatzweiler, Marginality, 3. 5. The term orthodoxy literally means “right belief.” When there are multiple claims to “right belief,” orthodoxy becomes problematic. In such cases, orthodoxy is decided by those with power and authority. Most, if not all, Christian doctrines were formulated and decided with such power. Christian orthodoxy is therefore the “right beliefs” of the powerful. See David W. Jorgensen, “Approaches to Orthodoxy and

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Heresy in the Study of Early Christianity,” Religion Compass 11, no. 7–8 (July 1, 2017): e12227. 6. The term dogmatism is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the expression of an opinion or belief as if it were a fact or positiveness in assertion of opinion especially when unwarranted or arrogant.” 7. Hansjörg Hemminger, “Religious Fanaticism,” Evolutionary Processes in the Natural History of Religion: Body, Brain, Belief (Cham: Springer, 2021). 8. Wes Howard-Brook, Empire Baptized: How the Church Embraced What Jesus Rejected 2nd–5th Centuries (New York: Orbis, 2016). 9. See further Jorgensen, “Approaches to Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Study of Early Christianity”; Willem Styfhals, “Deconstructing Orthodoxy,” New German Critique 45, no. 1 (2018): 181–205; Ilan Fuchs, “Orthodoxy,” Oxford University Press (2019); Walter Bauer, Robert A. Kraft, Gerhard Krodel, and Georg Strecker, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971); Craig A. Carter, “The Decline of Nicene Orthodoxy,” First Things (New York, 2022), 1–7. 10. Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally (New York: HarperCollins, 2002). 11. J. Kellenberger, The Cognitivity of Religion: Three Perspectives (London: MacMillan, 1985), 122. 12. Jurgen Moltmann, “The Future of Theology,” The Ecumenical Review 68, no. 1 (March 2016): 3. 13. Moltmann, “The Future of Theology,” 5. 14. And most theologies are otherworldly and largely abstract. 15. G. E. Demacopoulos and A. Papanikolaou, Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016). 16. J. Sprague, Globalization and Transnational Capitalism in Asia and Oceania (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2015); S. Soederberg, G. Menz, and P. G. Cerny, Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Decline of National Varieties of Capitalism (New York: Palgrave, 2005). 17. S. Ratuva, Contested Terrain: Reconceptualising Security in the Pacific (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019); W. D. McIntyre, Winding Up the British Empire in the Pacific Islands (Oxford: OUP, 2014); G. Horne, The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007).

Chapter 3

Early Christian Networking and Overcoming Isolation and Competition in Theological Studies in Aotearoa Paul Trebilco

Often in Aotearoa New Zealand in my experience, staff in institutions of theological education have worked in relative isolation from those working in other institutions. We seek to have some interaction with each other, but that is sometimes a challenge and often it is sporadic. In addition, theological education is often conducted within an underlying ethos of competition between institutions. Theological educators may know their colleagues in other institutions reasonably well, but the institutions to which we belong are often competing in the “market place” for students. In this environment, institutions of theological education tend to seek to develop a distinctive ethos, so that they can differentiate themselves from “competitors.” Individual theological educators who seek to build strong relationship with colleagues in other institutions, or who seek to collaborate in a variety of ways, are then swimming against the tide of this institutional competition. With the decline in denominational loyalties, such competition becomes ever more prevalent, as students seek the institution that reflects their interests rather than attending their denominational college. Accordingly, the ethos of competition is very prevalent. This leads to isolation of one institution from another. Cooperating with competitors is difficult! This is also a situation facing the church in Aotearoa New Zealand. One very obvious trend in recent years is the growing congregationalism of many New Zealand Churches. A significant number of churches are “stand-alone congregations” that do not belong to any wider denomination. Many congregations within denominations also see themselves primarily as individual, autonomous congregations, rather than as part of a wider grouping. This leads to a sense of competitiveness of many churches with other churches and to a sense of isolation in many congregations. In my view, increasing 25

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fragmentation is one of the hallmarks of current-day Christianity in New Zealand. As someone who studies the New Testament and earliest Christianity, what light might the beginnings of the Christian faith shed on this situation? Here I will look at one important dimension of being a Christian in the first century that might not come immediately to mind. It is the sense of being a network, in fact a worldwide network. I want to consider what could be called the sense of worldwide connectedness in earliest Christianity. I will then reflect on the situations of both theological education and the church in New Zealand in the light of early Christian networking. As someone involved in theological education and in the church, I note that I am part of this competitive mindset. My audience for this paper includes myself! CONNECTIONS: A WORLDWIDE NETWORK “THROUGHOUT THE WORLD” In many New Testament texts, we see a very strong sense of being connected across a worldwide movement or network. This is seen simply in the references to “the world” in the following passages (the NRSV is used here): • Mark 14:9: “Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” • Romans 1:8: “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world.” • Colossians 1:5–6: “You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves.” • Colossians 1:23: “provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.” • 1 Timothy 3:16: “[Jesus] was revealed in flesh . . . proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.” • 1 Peter 5:9: “Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.” These passages1 show the sense of not just belonging to a local group, or one restricted to a particular ethnic community, but rather, the sense of being a

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worldwide network. Of course, their “world” was geographically smaller than ours, but it was still very considerable. Recall how small Christianity was in the first century. We do not know how many Christians there were; one estimate suggests there were 2,700 Christians in 60 CE, and 10,500 by 100 CE.2 But on any reckoning, early Christianity was numerically small. Yet it had this sense of being “for the world” and, for example, of the faith of the Romans being proclaimed “throughout the world.” I would suggest that this sense of “world-wideness” and of being a worldwide network was a vital element in early Christian identity. I will now seek to expand on particular elements of “connectedness” that contributed to this sense of “networking.” Not only did the early Christians see themselves as a worldwide movement, but they also understood themselves to be interconnected, and to “belong together.” The evidence for this has suggested to one author that we should think of first-century Christianity as “the Holy Internet”—a network of interconnected groups.3 Connections through Travel This sense of interconnectedness was in part caused by all the contact between Christians in different places. By contrast with what I am suggesting here, it has been common in the past to think of at least some early Christian communities as insulated, isolated and introverted, and hence to see them as unaware of what was going on for other Christian groups in other places. But when we look at what we know of early Christianity from this period, this seems very unlikely. Rather, a strong sense of interconnectedness and of networking emerges. Take Romans 16 for example. Here Paul, writing in Corinth, sends greetings by name to twenty-eight people in Rome. He had not visited Rome, yet he can greet this number of people. Perhaps he knew some only by reputation, but he probably knew a good number of them personally. It is likely that he had met some of them during his travels, when they lived elsewhere (since he had not yet visited Rome), but he had also met some of them during their travels—perhaps they visited him when he was in Antioch, or Corinth, or Ephesus. This is a snapshot of the mobility of the earliest Christians, and a testimony to interconnectedness. But there is further evidence for interconnections in early Christianity. It was comparatively easy to travel in the first century. As Bauckham notes: “Mobility and communication in the first-century Roman world were exceptionally high. Unprecedentedly good roads and unprecedentedly safe travel by both land and sea made the Mediterranean world of this time more closely interconnected than any large area of the ancient world had ever been.”4 It

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was not only the wealthy who traveled; ordinary folk went on trips to healing shrines, to religious festivals and to games; slaves accompanied masters; soldiers, sailors, and brigands all traveled. Even people who did not travel would regularly be meeting people who did. We should think then of the members of the early Christian communities as people who were mobile, and frequent contact between Christian communities would have been the norm. Of course, the leaders of the early Christian groups also traveled a great deal; think of the travels we know from the New Testament for Paul, Timothy, Titus, John, Mark, Peter, Barnabas, Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, Andronicus and Junia, and Philip the evangelist and his four daughters who were prophets. Later in the first century we know of traveling teachers like John, the author of Revelation, and he speaks of traveling people who call themselves apostles (Revelation 2:2). The Johannine letters speak of traveling teachers (2 John 10–11; 3 John 3–8) as does The Didache (11:1–6). But ordinary people travelled too—as Romans 16 shows. All of this is the stuff of interconnectedness. Connections through the Sending of Letters The sending of letters was a way of establishing and fostering connections between groups. From the time of Paul and throughout the first and second centuries, the sending of letters from one church to another seems to have been a common practice. The early Christians were avid communicators. Paul is our best-known example of a letter writer, but there are others. 1 Peter is written by Peter and other leaders in Rome (see 1 Pet 5:13), to churches spread throughout Asia Minor. John wrote Revelation to seven churches in Western Asia Minor. Around 95 CE, Christian leaders in Rome sent what we call 1 Clement to the church of Corinth. Early in the second century, Ignatius wrote to six different churches, and Polycarp of Smyrna wrote to the church of Philippi. In the mid-second century, Dionysius, bishop of Corinth wrote seven letters to various churches. And the letters that have survived are probably only the tip of the iceberg. These letters established strong connections between churches. But in the absence of a postal system that everyone could use, letters were carried by people; Phoebe, mentioned in Romans 16:1–2, carried Romans for example. Each letter implies a messenger; this person was often the letter’s first interpreter, who probably stayed for a few days before going home. The messenger would be given hospitality, would meet with the whole church so that they could read and interpret the letter, convey oral news that was additional to what was written down, and receive news to take back home.5 Hence letters meant written contacts, but also very tangible personal contacts, that must have established warm personal relationships. These letter-carriers forged strong

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links between churches, and even Christians who did not travel must have gained a strong sense of belonging to a much wider movement from contact with such messengers. We also see Christians urging other Christians to write letters. Ignatius writes to the Christians in Smyrna: “It is fitting for the honour of God that your church elect an ambassador of God to go to Syria and rejoice with them. For they have found peace and have recovered their own greatness, and their own corporate body has been restored to them. And so it seems to me a matter worthy of God that you send one of your own with a letter, that he may exult with them in the tranquility that has come to them from God, because they have already reached a harbour by your prayer” (Ignatius, Smyrna. 11:2–3). There had been trouble in the church in Antioch in Syria, but it has now been resolved and so Ignatius wants the Christians in Smyrna to send a letter (with a letter carrier) to Antioch to congratulate the church on the restoration of harmony there.6 In addition, Ignatius wrote to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna as follows: “Because I have not been able to write to all the churches—since, as the divine will enjoins, I am unexpectedly to set sail from Troas to Neapolis—you are to write to the churches on this side, as one who has the mind of God, that they may also do the same thing as well. Some can send messengers by foot; but others can send letters through those whom you send yourself” (Ignatius. Polycarp. 8.1). Thus, Polycarp is to finish the task of writing to “all the churches” to ask them to send representatives to Antioch, a task Ignatius could not undertake since he was suddenly moved on from Troas. By “the churches on this side,” Ignatius probably means the Christian communities of Ephesus, Magnesia and Tralles, which were churches between Smyrna (where Polycarp was) and Antioch in Syria.7 Here we see letter writing being promoted as a way to keep the network functioning. There is another interesting insight in this regard from the Shepherd of Hermas, written in the early second century.8 Hermas was a Christian prophet in Rome who had a vision. In the vision he was told to make two copies of the book he wrote. One was for someone called Clement who “will send it to the cities abroad, because this is his job” (Visions 2:4:3). Thus, “Clement was the Roman church’s secretary responsible for communications with other churches. This . . . included having multiple copies made of Christian literature produced in Rome and sending the copies out by messengers to other churches.”9 Hermas provides us with detailed evidence of the way in which Christian literature was deliberately circulated and links between groups were deliberately developed. The letter writing, letter carrying, and copying of documents fosters contact, and a sense of belonging, of being a network.

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What People Said in Letters It is not just the sending of letters, but also what authors said in letters that is significant. We see that Christian writers regularly related their readers to the worldwide Christian movement, and to Christians elsewhere and so fostered and encouraged the sense of being a network. They actively connected the network via these letters. In 1 Corinthians 1:2 Paul writes: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, . . . called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” Here Paul is intentionally connecting the Corinthian Christians to all Christians everywhere. In 1 Thessalonians 2:14 he relates the Thessalonian Christians to those in Judea: “For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.” Note the number of times in 1 and 2 Corinthians when Paul speaks of “all the churches.” For example: “let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches” (1 Cor 7:17); “But if anyone is disposed to be contentious—we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God” (1 Cor 11:16); “With him [Titus] we are sending the brother who is famous among all the churches for his proclaiming the good news” (2 Cor 8:18; see also 1 Cor 4:17; 14:33; 2 Cor 11:28). Paul often seems to be deliberately connecting the Corinthians to all the other believers. This is part of his strategy for calling the difficult Corinthians into line: take note, he says, of how all the other Christian communities conduct their lives in Christ. In addition, note all the networking involved in Colossians 4:13–16: “13For I [Paul] testify for him [Epaphras] that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. 14Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you. 15Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house. 16And when this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you read also the letter from Laodicea.” Here we see that Epaphras, who is from Colossae, is “working hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” We are not sure what is involved, but perhaps it included ensuring that other Christians visited the Lycus Valley. He is working on behalf of his townsfolk in any case. Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis were in a triangle, with 18–24 km between them. Epaphras from Colossae, has strong links with believers in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Foster writes that: “He [Epaphras] may have been a key ‘linking figure’ between these fledgling communities of believers, perhaps sharing news and encouraging stories about the success and reception of the gospel message.”10 In addition, the church in Colossae is to give Paul’s greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea, and to make sure that the letter to the Colossians

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is read in Laodicea. Paul has also written to the Laodiceans (a letter we no longer have), and he wants the Colossians to get hold of this letter and to read it in Colossae. Lots of connections are nurtured then! Accordingly, the sense of belonging together was fostered by many reminders of others, in other places, who shared the same experiences, or who did things in the same way. Again, the implication is that they all belonged together in a very active network. Prayer for Each Other across the Network The New Testament contains testimony to prayer across the network. In many ways, it is a network of prayer. Paul often tells us that he prays for the churches. Note Romans 1:9: “For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers.” 1 Thessalonians 1:2 is similar: “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly.”11 Paul also mentions that the communities to which he writes are praying for him. Note Philippians 1:19: “for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.”12 Or he can encourage them to pray for him more.13 He also writes of one church praying for another church: “while they [the Jerusalem church] long for you [the Corinthians] and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you” (2 Cor 9:14).14 This sort of language is not restricted to Paul. John, the elder and author of 3 John assures his readers of his prayers (3 John 2), and the author of Hebrews urges his readers to pray for him and those with him (Heb 13:18). Accordingly, we see not only interaction of people and the exchange of letters, but also that all this contact leads to a network of prayer for each other. A Network of Action and Love The network is not just one of prayer, but also of tangible action. The clearest example of this is the Collection that Paul organizes from his Gentile churches for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who were suffering hardship, probably because of a famine. Paul writes of this collection on a number of occasions, particularly in 2 Corinthians 8–9, but also in Romans 15:25–27 which reads: “25At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; 26for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. 27They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things.”

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This is a significant testimony to connectedness and to the reality of the network. Recall that the Gentile Christians of Philippi and Corinth had no “natural” connection whatsoever with the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem. In fact, there was a deep ethnic division between people of Philippi, for example, and Jews in Jerusalem. And yet, Gentile Christians were willing to give significant amounts of money to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:2–4 about the churches in Macedonia (that is, Philippi and Thessalonica): “2for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 3For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, 4begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints.” In addition, for Paul the Collection for Jerusalem was about building connections and making them real. For him, it symbolized the unity of the church, unity between Gentile and Jew in particular, but it did so tangibly and materially. Here we see the network in action. Other passages speak more generally of love across the network. An example is 1 Peter. It is easy to forget that 1 Peter is itself written to a network—in fact “To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Pet 1:1). When Peter exhorts them to “love the brother and sisterhood,” as he does in 1 Peter 2:17, he is speaking of love across a wide range of groups over a very large geographical area. And note 1 Peter 1:22: “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.”15 3 John is also noteworthy. In 3 John 5–8 we read: “5Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you; 6they have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; 7for they began their journey for the sake of Christ, accepting no support from non-believers. 8 Therefore we ought to support such people, so that we may become coworkers with the truth.” “Brothers and sisters” have visited Gaius’ church, to whom the letter is written. Gaius and others in his church did not know these “brothers and sisters,” but they were willing to give them hospitality, and to help them in other ways. This is what John means when he writes: “You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; 7for they began their journey for the sake of Christ, accepting no support from non-believers.” They do not need support from non-believers because they have received plenty of support from “brothers and sisters,” even though they were personally unknown to the church before their arrival. This is just one of a number of texts which points to the hospitality that early Christians offered to one another (see Rom 12:13; 1 Tim 5:10; Heb 13:2). Hospitality added another dimension to networking. Accordingly, we see much action and love across the network.

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The Language of Family I have spoken up to now of a network. I could be speaking of a family since the language of the family is regularly used in our texts. Paul and other NT texts regularly speak of all Christians as α͗δελφοί— “brothers and sisters”; this is the most common way of addressing each other in the New Testament. While it is used in the New Testament of biological brothers and sisters, the predominant sense is as a term for “Christians” or “other believers.” This metaphorical usage is found 271 times in the NT and occurs in all NT books except Titus and Jude.16 Take for example, James 1:2 and 2:1: “1:2My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy . . . 2:1My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” “Brothers and sisters” is used even of people the readers do not know personally. Note 1 Peter 5:9: “Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.” You do not know all these people—they are “in all the world”—but they are your brothers and sisters, and you belong together. The language of family, of calling each other brothers and sisters, cements these bonds of connectedness. 1 Peter is written to suffering Christians; for a small group which was experiencing suffering, the sense of being in a precarious position would be significantly ameliorated by knowing of their solidarity with other “brothers and sisters” in the family, not only locally, but also “in all the world.” This language of “fictive kinship” encouraged new Christians to replace their natural family bonds (which may have been severed by conversion in any case) with new Christian ties that encompassed family members everywhere. The universal early Christian practice of calling each other “brothers and sisters” cemented the sense of being a global interconnected movement. This language indicates that the network was not just a matter of convenience. It was rooted in a sense of being family, of belonging to each other, across the Mediterranean. Conflict and Diversity as Evidence of Networking We should not think that only peace and harmony was fostered by all of this interconnectedness and networking. There is also much evidence for conflict and diversity in earliest Christianity, but again it is testimony to interaction. The network, the “Holy Internet,” was a vehicle for conflict and disagreement, as well as for support. Think of the evidence for rivalry between leaders. Paul speaks a number of times of other teachers who were, in his view, leading his congregations

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astray; we note Galatians and 2 Corinthians 10–13 in particular. Or note Revelation with its reference to those who thought they are apostles but are not (Rev 2:2), or to the Nicolaitans, and to Jezebel (Rev 2:6, 14–16, 20–23)—all traveling teachers. We get the impression of itinerant teachers of a range of persuasions turning up in different places. There are divisions, factions, disputes; different ideas are circulating and different theological positions are being advocated or defended. The evidence for conflict and disagreement suggests, not enclaves of isolated churches, but teachers and leaders promoting different things in different places and an intense interest in conflicts happening elsewhere. This speaks of a worldwide network. The Result of Networking Late in the second century, Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus could write: “Therefore, brothers and sisters, I who have lived sixty-five years in the Lord and conversed with brothers and sisters from all over the world, and have studied all holy Scripture . . . ”17 Such a claim to have conversed with other Christians from all over the world is credible, and the evidence suggests that many Christians in the first two centuries could have made it. With this amount of contact on “the Holy Internet,” it is unsurprising that Christianity saw itself as a worldwide movement. Summary There is extensive evidence then that early Christianity was not a collection of relatively isolated, introverted communities, but rather a network of communities in close communication with each other; one dimension of their social identity was a strong, lively, and informed sense of participation in a wide-ranging network. We do not see enclaves of exclusive, self-sufficient churches out of communication with others. Rather we have quite the opposite: a network of geographically dispersed communities with close and constant communication among themselves.

CONCLUSIONS Implications for Our View of Early Christianity I will now draw out the implications of this material for our view of early Christianity and for Aotearoa New Zealand today. I suggest that one of the unifying dimensions across the New Testament was that the readers of the New Testament believed they belonged together. They self-identified as

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belonging to one network. This sense of worldwide connectedness and global vision—the Holy Internet, with a vision of the impact of their faith for all—is one of the key dynamics of earliest Christianity. There was a strong theological foundation for this sense of interconnectedness, that I cannot go into here. They believed that Christ, the Second Adam had founded a new humanity. Jesus was Lord of all, not just of some. As believers, they were all connected “in Christ.” They affirmed that there was one body of Christ, one baptism, one Lord. They were all branches of the one vine. As Jesus’ disciples and through the work of Jesus, they belonged to one family and were brothers and sisters across the known world. What conclusions and implications can be drawn from this about our view of Early Christianity? Firstly, we tend to view New Testament churches as small and isolated groups. Small, yes—isolated, no. We need to see them as small but vibrant; geographically dispersed yet forming a network of interconnected communities with a sense of participation in a global movement. They had a vision of the worldwide-ness of early Christianity which was, I think, quite amazing, given that it was held by people who belonged to a minute group, and that they met in people’s small lounges or workshops. Early Christian house churches did not see themselves as autonomous and self-contained; they saw themselves as belonging to a wider network or movement. Secondly, we should not underestimate how strange it was for people with no ethnic connections to see themselves as belonging together in the powerful worldwide-way I have suggested, particularly when they were from ethnic groups that viewed each other so negatively. Bridging the Jew-Gentile divide in the ancient world was hugely significant. This testifies to what they saw as the reconciliation that had been achieved by Jesus Christ, overcoming enmity and creating a sense of harmony and reconciliation between peoples locally and worldwide. Here we see the creation of a new community—with its faults, yes—but still with a powerful sense of belonging and of unity. Thirdly, New Testament scholars have often sought to find the unity of the New Testament at a doctrinal level; I think such doctrinal unity in the New Testament is real and important. But the material I have discussed suggests that what holds the New Testament together is also a unity of experience, the experience of belonging together as part of a network. One factor then that unifies our New Testament is that it bears witness to the life of different communities that formed a worldwide network—and so saw themselves as committed to one another as brothers and sisters. We should not think of the New Testament simply as a set of documents to geographically widely scattered groups, but rather to groups that saw themselves as cohering with one another, as belonging together in a real worldwide family.

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Implications for Theological Education and the Church in Aotearoa New Zealand How might this vision of interconnectedness and belonging-ness across a worldwide network speak to theological education and the church here in Aotearoa New Zealand? How might this impact on our theological institutions and on the church? Of course, theological education as we understand it needs to be located in some form of institution for it to survive, and this institutional framework dictates some of what we must do. We all need to be involved in some similar things then. Perhaps to some extent, different theological institutions in Aotearoa currently complement each other, but is this by design and intention, or by accident? How can we cooperate more, and see each other more as part of a network, part of the one family, and not as competitors? How can we see each other as sharing in the one task of theological education, and of participating in the same calling? As theological educators, do we see each other as sisters and brothers in the same worldwide family, working alongside each other? Sometimes, cooperation can only come when we are willing to change. Perhaps a key question to consider is what we need to give up, or to do differently or for the first time, in order to work together as theological institutions? At the Council of Jerusalem, according to Acts 15, Jewish Christians were prepared to give up the demand that Gentile Christians be circumcised (Acts 15:28–29), while Gentile Christians were prepared to do some things differently in their daily lives (such as abstaining from eating meat that had been offered to idols and from blood (Acts 15:29). In both cases, it was so that they might enter into fellowship with one another.18 This reminds us that working together, or being in fellowship, often involves negotiations about what we might give up, or what we might do in addition to what we are currently doing, and so for the first time. Are there things that, after negotiations and discussions, we need to give up, or do for the first time, in order to share more fully together in theological education, or in order to share more fully together as churches in fellowship with one another? I have also talked about a sense of networking. With communication being easier than ever before, we should foster this further. I’ve noted a number of ways in which the early Christians fostered the network to which they belonged, through letters, messengers, prayer, love and action. Networks need to be fostered, since they do not suddenly “happen.” Do we foster our networks in theological education enough? In theological education, are we intentionally preparing our students to be part of an interconnected network of communities? Do we foster that sense of belonging across the family of faith?

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I also find myself reflecting on the ecumenical movement, which has to some extent run out of steam in Aotearoa. And yet I know that local networking is often alive and well. Perhaps too in a time when people are overwhelmed by globalization, we can understand why many people simply want to feel they belong to a local group, or to a small house church meeting in someone’s lounge, with no larger commitment. For the earliest Christians belonging locally and globally (if I can use our terms and not theirs) were not alternatives but were strongly complementary. They both participated in a vibrant, lively, and caring small group and they saw themselves as a worldwide family. Why play these off each other? Surely both are important. The sense of interconnectedness of the early Christians is a challenge to the competitive model we have in theological education and to the increasing fragmentation of current-day Christianity. This is not the ethos of New Testament Christians. They are a challenge to us all!

NOTES 1. Other passages which show a similar consciousness of the “world” are Matt. 5:14; 8:11; 24:14; Mark 13:27; John 1:29; 3:16–17; 4:42; 12:47; Acts 1:8; 13:47; Rom. 9:17; 10:18; 11:15; 2 Cor. 2:14; 3:2; 5:19; Col. 1:23; 1 Thess. 1:8; 1 John 4:14. 2. See Bas van Os, “Taking the Numbers into Account” (Unpublished paper presented at the SBL, November 2006), 13. 3. See Michael B. Thompson, “The Holy Internet: Communication Between Churches in the First Christian Generation” in The Gospels for All Christians. Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, edited by R. Bauckham, 49–70 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 4. Richard Bauckham, “For Whom Were Gospels Written?” in The Gospels for All Christians. Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, edited by R. Bauckham, 32 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); see in general Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974). 5. See E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition, and Collection (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), 201–209. See also 1 Cor. 4:17; 2 Cor. 2:4; 7:5–16; Eph. 6:20–21; Phil. 2:25–29; Col. 4:7–9; 1 Thess. 5:27. 6. See Paul R. Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 707. 7. See William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 279–80. 8. Bart Ehrman dates the book “during the early part of the second century, perhaps 110–40 CE” (The Apostolic Fathers Volume II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 169. 9. Bauckham, “For Whom Were Gospels Written?” 42. 10. Paul Foster, Colossians (London: Bloomsbury T & & Clark, 2016), 433.

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11. See also 2 Cor. 13:7, 9; Eph. 1:16–17; 3:13, 16, 18; Phil. 1:4, 9; Col. 1:3, 9; 1 Thess. 3:10; 2 Thess. 1:11; 2 Tim 1:3; Phlm. 4, 6. 12. See also Rom. 15:30; 2 Cor. 1:11; Phlm. 22. 13. See Eph. 6:19–20; Col. 4:3; 1 Thess. 5:25; 2 Thess. 3:1. 14. See also Col. 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:1. 15. See also 1 Pet. 3:8; 4:8; Heb. 6:10 and many passages in Paul. 16. ἀδελφός is used 111 times as a term of address and 160 times as a designation in the NT; see the charts in Aasgaard 2004: 313–314; 2005: 314–315. ἀδελφός is found in Jude 1, but in a biological sense. The term has been the subject of considerable recent work; see e.g., David G. Horrell, “From ἀδελφοί to οἶκος θεοῦ: Social Transformation in Pauline Christianity,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (2001): 293–311; Mary K. Birge, The Language of Belonging: A Rhetorical Analysis of Kinship Language in First Corinthians (Leuven: Peeters, 2002); Trevor J. Burke, Family Matters: A Socio-Historical Study of Kinship Metaphors in 1 Thessalonians (London: T&T Clark International, 2003); Reider Aasgaard, “‘Role Ethics’ in Paul: The Significance of the Sibling Role for Paul’s Ethical Thinking,” New Testament Studies 48 (2002): 513–30; Reider Aasgaard, 2005. “Brothers and Sisters in the Faith. Christian Siblingship as an Ecclesiological Mirror in the First Two Centuries” in The Formation of the Early Church, edited by J. Adna, 285–315 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius, 16–67. 17. Eusebius, H.E. 5.24.7; LCL, translation altered. 18. I am grateful to Rosemary Dewerse for suggesting this point.

Chapter 4

Gift Exchange and pae nekeneke Learnings for Theological Education from the History of Becoming Presbyterian in Aotearoa New Zealand Steve Taylor

The future is a space not yet known. It is tempting in considering the future of theological education to write with idealism. We take our best dreams and leap to construct a better world, working with hope and aspiration. Another way to consider a future is by looking backward. It is a way of doing theology consistent with indigenous wisdom, as expressed in the Māori proverb, ka mua, ka muri. Drawing on the image of a person walking backward into the future, the proverb offers a way of moving forward, of conceiving the future, that comes through looking back. This chapter embodies this approach. It addresses the future of theological education in Aotearoa New Zealand by looking back. The grounding locus is the history of Presbyterian theological education, primarily as the Theological Hall. Begun in 1876, with essential relationships to New Zealand’s oldest University, Otago, the Presbyterian story is a significant mainline example of theological education in Aotearoa. Any talk of theological education in Aotearoa must pay attention to the interplay between tangata whenua and tangata tiriti, first peoples and recent migrants. Hence this chapter pays attention to indigenous and migrant theological education by bringing the history of the Theological Hall into conversation with the history of Te Wānanga a Rangi Māori Theological College established in Whakatane in 1953 and Te Rau College (TRC) established in Gisborne in 1883. Further illumination is provided by considering the impact of Pacific migration, particularly from the 1970s, on the history of the Theological Hall. This looking backward, to listen to the historic realities of cultural crossing thresholds, allows us to consider a future for theological 39

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education that is attentive to indigenous voices and migrant movements within theological education in Aotearoa. In seeking to interpret this historical narrative, a hermeneutic of gift exchange will be employed. This emerges in the work of Anne Salmond, an anthropologist recognized internationally for her research into engagements across cultures in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific. In examining interactions across culture, between Māori and Pākehā (European, Foreign), she called for attention to the uniqueness of cultures, the gifts of the other across thresholds and the creative experiments that can result from relationships of reciprocity. Salmond’s work will be used to illuminate the historic archives of the Theological Hall, Te Wānanga a Rangi and TRC. Her articulation of gift exchange enables us to view theology (including textbooks, thresholds crossed, processes of formation and student life) attentive to difference, the distortions of power, and the possibility of gift exchange. It offers hope and challenge, inviting theological education into a future that is uniquely of this land. In approaching this question, I am locating myself as principal of the denominational theological college that was the Theological Hall (then School of Ministry, now Knox Centre for Ministry). I have other identities, including Melanesian nurtured (born in Papua New Guinea), ministry active (church planter at Graceway Baptist), Australian accented (Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology). But in this essay, I want to inhabit the “looking back” story in which I currently find myself, within a mainline (Presbyterian) denomination in Aotearoa New Zealand. My research is thus located not in abstraction and ideal, but in a future arising from the reality of what was, what is, and what might be.

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION OF THE CONCRETE CHURCH Approaching a future by looking backward into archive and history is consistent not only with indigenous respect for ancestors. It is also congruent with contemporary trends in ecclesiology. Catholic theologian Nicholas Healy parses the study of the church into two categories. One is a blueprint “of what the church should ideally become.”1 Biblical data is synthesized to suggest an ideal church, an approach based on systematization and abstraction. For Healy, this approach obscures the particularity of ecclesial communities. For example, the particularity of the conflicts in the letter to Galatia or the particular polity evident in the collection of Corinth are overlooked in favor of being neither Jew nor Greek (Gal 3:28) or becoming all things to all people (1 Cor 9:22). God in the particularity fades in light of an abstracted, universalized blueprint.

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Healy argues for another category, that of the concrete church. This has an identity “constituted by action,” articulated through a focus on the “thoroughly human” and “grace-enabled activities of its members.”2 We look backward into the concrete actions of the past, as embodied in human interactions. The ecclesiological categories suggested by Healy shape the research of this chapter. I examine the actions of theological education in Aotearoa New Zealand by conducting archival research, into the grace-enabled activities of students of Theological Hall. It is a student-centered approach. I listen not at the front of the classroom, to the words of lecturers and the publications by faculty. Instead, I sit in the back row of the classroom, wondering about the cultures of class-mates. Student life histories can be glimpsed in the album of the Theological Hall of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, which provides a record of names, ages, and places of birth of those entering the Theological Hall to study for ordained ministry. Students’ activities become evident in the Theological Hall Students Union (THSU) minutes, an archive that provides a body politic. The minutes of the student body offer insight into thresholds. With staff not present, students wrestle with the particularities of migration, gender, and indigenous cultures. Through these records, in the archives, I can research the concrete church that is theological education in Aotearoa. I can thus look back, seeking wisdom regarding the future of theological education in Aotearoa.

GIFT EXCHANGE IN PACIFIC CONTEXTS Anne Salmond, in her monumental Tears of Rangi, locates interactions across culture in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific through a hermeneutic of gift exchange. She explains gift exchange in relation to the anthropology of the marae.3 Salmond draws attention to the understandings of thresholds and cultures embedded in the haka sung at the opening of Waipapa marae, at the University of Auckland, in a chant constructed for the occasion by Merimeri Penfold (Ngati Kuri), a lecturer with Salmond in the university’s Māori ­Studies department. Penfold was the first Māori woman to teach Māori language at a New Zealand university. He iwi kē, he iwi kē, titiro atu, titiro mai! [One strange people, and another, looking at each other!] “Strange” can be defined as difficult to understand. It can also be defined as not previously encountered or unfamiliar. In this second sense, the exchanges between peoples are defined by a respect for difference. In the midst of difference, the marae is understood not only as a place but an embodying of a set of interactions by which people who have not previously met seek to

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weave connections in the particularity of face-to-face encounter. Penfold’s chant “evokes an exchange of gazes across the marae. . . . In these recursive exchanges, identity takes shape, and shifts.”4 Salmond thus focuses anthropologically on the way the marae can establish relationships and create the possibility for gift exchange. On the marae, reciprocity occurs in multiple ways: the interplay between karanga and kaikaranga, the interchange of speakers and sharing of song, the exchange of breath in the hongi, the sharing of food and the mutuality of discussion inside the wharenui. What is happening is the establishing of a liminal zone, “across the pae” between peoples once strange.5 The result of “exchanges across the middle ground can be fertile and generative.”6 A range of historical examples is offered. One involves the initial relationship between Ruatara and Marsden. “From a Māori point of view, by caring for Ruatara during his illness, Marsden’s hau [breath] and that of the young chief had become entangled.”7 As a result of this gift exchange, Marsden called Ruatara a friend, made promises, and gave gifts of wheat and hand mill. In exchange, the missionaries were treated with care upon arrival in Aotearoa. Salmond also offers a range of contemporary examples. One involves the formation of the Waitangi Tribunal to examine historic injustice. Another is the legal decision to call the Whanganui River a legal person. In every example, there are “strange people” with different worldviews who in reciprocity experience gift exchange in which are embedded generative possibilities. It is not always like this, and the history of encounter between Māori and Pākehā in Aotearoa New Zealand is replete with examples that are neither fertile nor generative. But if both parties are committed to manaakitanga (to extend aroha, compassion), a space is opened for experiments in reciprocity. “A field of play may emerge that opens up the possibility of ontological creativity.”8 In the exchange between different cultures, gift exchange can be generative. This provides a theoretical frame by which to approach theological education in Aotearoa, whether considering past, present, or future. It is a hermeneutical framework that begins in gift exchange, as Salmond, a Pākehā, learns from a colleague, Merimeri Penfold9 and seeks to understand her gift, the creation of a chant: He iwi kē, he iwi kē, titiro atu, titiro mai! The hermeneutic is articulated in relation to the purpose of the marae and shows ways in which indigenous knowing becomes a critical framework to consider interactions between cultures in Aotearoa. Salmond’s approach to anthropology is clarified in relation to Healy’s ecclesiologies of blueprint and concrete. Salmond does not focus on cultures as blueprint entities, idealized as unchanging, uniform and self-contained. Rather, Salmond is focused on the concrete, the realities of what happens as cultures and worldviews find themselves

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entangled. She is seeking ways to respect difference and theorize the complex interplay as diverse worldviews meet. It is instructive to note that gift exchange has resonance with a range of Oceanic cultures. As an approach to theorizing theological education, it enhances a turn not toward Northern Hemispheres and Eurocentric models of theology and pedagogy, but a weaving with the liquid continent of which Aotearoa is an interconnected participant.10 Geographer Jerry Bentley describes how ocean basins are important frames by which to understand cultural exchange and how for centuries Pacific peoples have journeyed to exchange knowledge, culture, and goods.11 Anthropologist Tracey Banivanua Mar has argued that any account of development in the Pacific needs to focus not on Empire arrivals but on transnational lateral connections and the impact of Pacific peoples on Pacific peoples.12 Karin Amimoto Ingersoll has argued that for Pacific people, the ocean is an extended extension of “self, avoiding the creation of a colonial ideology founded in binary oppositions.”13 Debra McDougall’s anthropological study in the Solomon Islands is titled Engaging with Strangers. She describes how this land-based people told their story through the lens of a series of arrivals. This allows ethical analysis of identities “constructed by actions” to be a mirroring: “strangers are a focus of moral reflection in all societies.”14 These perspectives provide a “sea of readings”15 that locate gift exchange in relation to Oceanic wayfaring.16 Theologically, the gift of the pilgrim stranger is woven through scripture. Abraham is gifted hope by three strangers under the oaks of Mamre (Gen 18:1–15). Central to the birthing stories of Jesus is the visit by the Magi as strangers (Matt 2:1–12). This is followed by the experience of the Holy family becoming strangers in Egypt, experiencing gift exchange in the culture of another. Jesus is raised hearing a second tongue (Matt 2:13–15). His identity as Messiah is sharpened by encounter with strangers including the Syrophoenician woman (Matt 15:21–28). After the Resurrection, Jesus becomes stranger on the way to Emmaus, a gift unrecognized until the Eucharistic verbs of take, thank, break, give are enacted (Luke 24:13–35). The epistemologies of the Pacific resonate with strands of the Christian scripture, affirming the gift of difference, the value of surprise and the generative possibilities in exchange. He iwi kē, he iwi kē, titiro atu, titiro mai! has much to offer, biculturally, as we sit on the edge of a sea of islands. In what follows, I will use it as a hermeneutical framework in seeking to understand theological education in Aotearoa. One strange people (indigenous, women and Pacific), and another (mainline theological education), looking at each other! Is there any evidence of gifts in the exchanges across culture? How does power play out as cultures step across the thresholds of theological colleges? How might reciprocity be

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understood in the concrete church, that of Presbyterian theological education in Aotearoa New Zealand?

A DOMINANT PRESBYTERIAN STORY For Presbyterians in Aotearoa New Zealand, theological education has taken historical shape over 140 years in the Theological Hall, and more recently through the School of Ministry and Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership. In considering Presbyterian theological education, a range of archival sources are useful. One is the album of the Theological Hall of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. The album documents the annual commencement of the Theological Hall. It records the full name, date of birth, and place of birth of every ordinand that entered the Theological Hall in that respective year. The album thus yields basic demographic information on the student cohort, providing a glimpse of the “strange people” looking at each other across the pae (site, horizon) of Presbyterian theological education. The story of theological education, as told through the album, is initially a story of British migration. In 1931, of the twelve students who entered the Hall, five were from the United Kingdom.17 Over the next three decades, there was a regular flow of ordinands born in the United Kingdom.18 This was theological education shaped by British mindsets. Allan Davidson (2015) describes this cohort as “conformist, male-suited and respectably tied.”19 This “strange people” fitted Belich’s description of 1960s New Zealand society as “homogenous, conformist, masculist, egalitarian and monocultural, subject to heavy formal and informal regulation.”20 However, the album hints that theological education was never completely monocultural. During the 1950s, the Theological Hall experienced the presence of a number of students either born in Asia or with names suggesting Asian descent. N. F. Alioth Yang, born in Kuching, Sarawak, entered the Hall in 1955. Gur Bakkoh Singh Chander, born in India, entered the Hall in 1959. K. Basi Reddy, born in South India, entered in 1962, and a year later, Landino T. Yuzon, born in the Philippines, entered the Hall. The presence of these people disturbs a constructed identity as homogenous and monocultural. During the 1960s, the Theological Hall experienced the arrival of women. In 1964, the General Assembly agreed that women could be admitted into Presbyterian ministry. The first woman minister, Margaret Martin, was ordained the following year. As women began to be accepted to train for ministry, the archives suggest a set of generative encounters “across the pae” at the Theological Hall. This is evident in another archival source, the minutes of the THSU. Rather than focus on lecturers and official records, the minutes of student activity

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provide another way to consider theological education. As the student body gathered, what was their focus or to use Healy, their “thoroughly human” and “grace-enabled activities”? The arrival of women into the previously male halls of theological education brought challenge and change. One type of generative encounter was in relation to language. In 1969, the minutes of the student AGM record that an “F. Grimshaw asked that . . . ‘men’ . . . be changed to ‘people’.” In 1970, the THSU elected its first female president, Miss Page. Ironically, the same AGM requested that the Faculty of Theology “consider men of a practical or pastoral theology approach for visiting lecturers to the Theological Hall” (AGM 1970). The challenge of finding language to describe this changing world remained constant. The arrival of women also generated conflict. The Executive of the THSU, meeting on 9/20/1972, minuted the tradition in which the exiting year of students from the Theological Hall were hosted to a formal dinner at Knox College (meeting on 9/20/1971). The Executive noted that the rules of Knox College did not permit a woman to eat in the Knox dining room. Yet the exiting class of 1971 included two women (Miss Page and Miss Jacobi). The Executive agreed that “in the event of the whole third year class not being invited to the Annual Dinner, the Executive would support a decision by members of the class to refuse the invitation.” The implication is that the entire exiting year group would act in solidarity. The arrival of women at the Theological Hall was thus challenging exclusionary patterns of behavior, in language used within the Theological Hall and in the protocols of the wider Presbyterian Church. During the 1970s, the Theological Hall experienced the arrival of Pacific peoples. In 1945, according to Statistics NZ data there were fewer than 2,200 Pacific people living in New Zealand. In the 1960s, migration from the Pacific Islands began to accelerate. In 1967, two students born in Western Samoa entered the Hall.21 In 1972, seven of the sixteen students who entered the Hall were born in the Pacific (44%). It is safe to assume that Pākehā students arriving in the 1970s were expecting what Belich (2001) described as “homogenous, conformist, masculist, egalitarian and monocultural.” Instead, they encounter a classroom with significant cultural diversity. In the ten years from 1971 to 1980, twenty-eight people born in the Pacific would enter the hall. These included eighteen from Western Samoa, six from Cook Islands, four from Niue Islands and one from Ellice (Tuvalu), representing 19% of the student cohort. This changes the learning environment of the classroom. In wider society, according to Census data, Pacific peoples as a percentage of New Zealand population remained under 2% until 1986. The impact of Pacific migration was thus disproportionally experienced in Presbyterian theological education. Students were encountering “he iwi kē” in a primarily European city, well ahead of Pacific migration trends in Aotearoa.

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Given the focus of this chapter on looking back and paying attention to the concrete church, how does Pacific migration shape Presbyterian theological education? Placing the demographic data from the Theological Hall album alongside the THSU records provides a way to address this question. Through the 1970s students organized input through a forum called Student hour. In 1972, the year in which Pacific presence went from 5% to 44%, topics in Student hour included Pacific Island Customs and Learning Māori (THSU Executive 5/30//1972). The next year, the Executive organized a series of race relations seminars. In 1975, the Executive worked to secure Polynesian literature for the library, raise funds for research into Polynesian subjects, and print articles in Pacific languages in a student magazine. In other words, in the words of Anne Salmond, strange Pacific people on the pae of Presbyterian theological education was resulting in generativity. The student body was responsive to change, and the results included new experiments in scholarship. They were being prepared for the future of ministry in Aotearoa. The use of student enrolment data and minutes is a student-centered approach to theological education. Looking back as a methodology, reading archives as a method, provides a rich window onto “thoroughly human” and “grace-enabled activities.” It offers a different lens to analysis of lecturers and textbooks. What is evident is a student cohort experiencing gift exchange, embracing experimentation, entering into solidarity with women, learning from other cultures, and advocating for new resources. A hermeneutic of gift exchange makes sense of strange people across the pae, whether women in 1969 or Pacific peoples through the 1970s. But the experience of Presbyterian theological education in Aotearoa involves not only the Theological Hall. There is another essential story, that of indigenous Presbyterian theological education. Structurally, I have deep misgivings about locating indigenous theological education after the story of the Hall. It reverses the priority in which tangata whenua are the first peoples of Aotearoa. However, this approach is consistent with the historical timeline that is Presbyterian theological education. Structurally, it also gives indigenous theological education the last word and allows an illuminating set of contrasts to emerge in relation to indigenous theological education in Presbyterian and Anglican contexts.

AN INDIGENOUS PRESBYTERIAN STORY Theological education builds on a platform of general education. A person needs to read and write before they can read scripture and write sermons.

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In the relationship between the Presbyterian Church and Māori, particularly the Tuhoe iwi, education was essential. Presbyterian minister Rev. Hone Laughton is commissioned by the Presbyterian Church as a Māori missioner. He settles in 1918 at Maungapohatu, the settlement of Tuhoe prophet, Rua Kenana (1868/9–1937). He joins Sister Annie Henry, who has already established trust and worked to strengthen relationships. Kenana gives Laughton permission to start a school, on the condition that a church is never built. The relationship across the pae will be focused around education. It was some fourteen years later, in 1932, that Hemi Potatau of Nuhaka became the first Māori to graduate from Knox Theological Hall and be ordained to full-time ministry. The education offered by the Hall during this period involved a three-year degree at the University of Otago. For Māori, many of whom had only received a primary education, this form of education was simply not attainable.22 In 1952, a Roundtable Conference on Māori Affairs was held by the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.23 A commitment was made to seek a truly indigenous leadership among Māori.24 The next year (1953), Te Wānanga a Rangi Māori Theological College (TWR) was established in Whakatane. For Wayne Te Kaawa, it was a way of “transferring ministry formation and leadership from a Pākehā context at Knox Theological Hall to a Māori context.”25 The Amorangi program rejuvenated ministry through the use of traditional customs (tīkanga), protocol (kawa), language (te reo) and the reminder of the “responsibilities of the church as kaitiaki taonga (guardians of treasures) including land, language and whakapapa (geneology) [sic].”26 It made possible training in the context of relationships with local, maintaining the connection with whanau and hapu. Te Kaawa argues that indigenous Presbyterian theological education was ahead of its time in Aotearoa, given that it was years before traditional Māori knowledge foundations of te reo Māori, tīkanga and kaupapa Māori, began to emerge in ngā Whare Wānanga (Māori tertiary schools of learning).27 Then in 1971, TWR was closed and training for Māori ministry was transferred to the Theological Hall College (Dunedin). Negatively, a perception existed within both Te Aka Puaho and within the wider PCANZ, that ministers trained at TWR were “second-class ministers.”28 Positively, an education at the Theological Hall was seen as allowing students to meet he iwi kē, other strange peoples. “Studying with students of other cultures (including Pākehā, Korean, Samoan, Cook Island, Niuean, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan) extended their theological insight and ministry practice in a way that remaining in their own home setting could not.”29 This was possible only because of Pacific migration being experienced at the Hall through this decade. It was believed

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that if Māori were to be educated at the Hall, it would enhance indigenous theological education, deepening ministry skills and sharpening the ability to engage in theological reflection. However, in hindsight, Te Kaawa has argued that the shift of training, away from local communities and toward centralized modes in urban locations, did not benefit the theological development of Māori leadership. A number of obstacles were identified. These include “the rigid academic” prerequisites,30 along with the consequences that flow when a person is isolated from their community. Reading Te Kaawa, there is a sense that the processes of formation practiced at the Theological Hall were unable to work generatively with context, both in affirming the initial communities of formation and in the integration with the ongoing practices of ministry. What emerges is the reality that theological education across the pae requires not only a student body, agitating to provide resources. The pae is never neutral. Stepping across a threshold of theological education also requires pedagogical transformations in the institution. As a result, in 1981, TWR was reopened in Whakatane. For Te Kaawa, indigenous knowledge needed to be freed from “any form of external domination at all levels.”31 In the next thirty-four years, seven Māori leaders were trained in Dunedin (through the Theological Hall, which became the School of Ministry and finally Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership). In Whakatane, through TWR, during the same period, fifty-eight leaders were trained. Of these, 38% were female. “Clearly, Amorangi ministry supports and upholds the role of women leadership in the church and represents a significant achievement in addressing the issue of gender equality in ministry.”32 Despite these successes, achieved through a separation of he iwi kē, Te Kaawa remained uneasy. He does not see bicultural partnership as meaning “you in your small [cultural] corner and I in mine.” His approach is consistent with that of Jenny Plane-Te Paa (2000) who warns that a politics of difference results in two choices for indigenous theologians and church; to integrate into the Western system or to establish a parallel system.33 For both Te Kaawa and Plane-Te Paa, both are equally damaging. Looking forward, there is more work needed. “After thirty three years, it is time again to revision and re-image Amorangi ministry in order to recapture, or create anew, a Māori ministry more reflective of our contemporary world.”34 This requires partnership, first because “the PCANZ has yet to truly empower the Māori Synod by actively supporting indigeneity or even indigenisation”;35 second because “non-Māori still have a role to help shape, grow and nurture the Māori church and protect the taonga (te whenua, te reo, kawa and tikanga)36 that is reflective of an indigenised church.”37 What is instructive is how Te Kaawa understands indigenous. He argues that indigenous was being used in a specific way in the formation of TWR.

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It did not mean “home grown” or local. Rather, indigenous meant “people of the land.”38 It requires giving people a place to stand, a turangawaewae. This involves a commitment to place that is not then limited by geographic boundaries. Rather, the commitment to place, nurtured by the connection with ancestors, offers an identity through which one can then engage the world. Once rooted in an identity, a person can step across thresholds, encountering he iwi kē in an unfolding spiraling integrating of wisdom. This clarifies how he iwi kē, he iwi kē, titiro atu, titiro mai! might be understood in relation to the future of theological education. The affirmation of unique identity results not in cultural separation, but the spiral into encounters with difference. What is crucial is how the encounter is configured. When Amorangi moved to the Theological Hall, the space in between was not a space of equal encounter and mutual transformation. Rather, it was defined, despite the growing presence of Pacific peoples, by the dominant (Pākehā) culture. Recently over lunch, I found myself discussing this research with two colleagues, one Samoa-born (Kalele Chris Moresi), the other Māori (Hone Te Rire). Rev. Hone Te Rire, from the Māori iwi of Tuwharetoa, within which Te Wānanga a Rangi was nurtured, drew my attention to a Tuhoe phrase, pae nekeneke. It refers to a collective sharing of the pae tapu (speakers bench), a space of encounter that belongs to all those gathered, rather than one particular people. Pae nekeneke emerges in a concrete reality, in which a hapū might struggle to fill their pae tapu. In response, various rangatira from other hapū and iwi will share and whakamana (give authority and authenticity) to the pae (Te Rire, November 2018). This provides a way to understand the future of theological education in Aotearoa New Zealand. In this case, the concrete reality is not about the resources required. It clarifies he iwi kē, the possibility of gift exchange as a result of difference, as more likely when the places of encounter are shared. The arrival of Pacific people and woman and the activism of students did not automatically result in a more generative space for Māori at the Theological Hall. Yet separation also does not allow the spiral of knowledge acquisition that is possible when one is located in relation to tūrangawaewae. I have offered a conversation between the archives of the Theological Hall and indigenous Presbyterian Theological Education. A further conversation is possible when the Presbyterian story is placed alongside that of another denomination. What insights for the future emerge when the history of indigenous Presbyterian theological education is placed alongside the history of indigenous Anglican theological education? Methodologically, one of the generative gifts of a focus on concrete ecclesiologies is the possibility of such conversations. It allows analysis through the consideration of other identities “constituted by action” (Healy, 5).

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ACROSS THE PAE: DENOMINATIONAL COMPARISONS A comparison with indigenous theological education in an Anglican context is made possible by George Connor’s postgraduate research into the history of TRC, an Anglican theological college in Gisborne. Connor’s work clarifies two dimensions of concrete ecclesiologies, the structural interplay between cultures and public outputs as a concrete embodiment of ontological creativities. In regard to structural interplay, comparing the history of Presbyterian and Anglican denominations suggests a similar pattern of movement between centralization and separation. Both Anglicans (at St John’s Theological ­College, in Auckland, from 1844) and Presbyterians (at the Theological Hall, in Dunedin, from 1876) began training leaders in centralized, urban locations using residential modes. Education was in English. The residential habitus needs to be understood as a particular, and enculturated, way of doing theological education, shaped by the rise, in England in the nineteenth century, of the university as a pedagogical context. As a result, theology was conceived as needing to be taught in University modes, in order to achieve a particular vocational aim, of full-time, tertiary educated clergy. A by-product was that students were dislocated from context. In 1883 TRC was formed in Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne). A catalyst for its formation was the decision by the Church Missionary Society to withdraw financial support for mission in New Zealand. The need to find new ways to sustain Anglican leadership, including developing indigenous leadership in the church of Aotearoa New Zealand, became a priority. At TRC, teaching was primarily in te reo. Students were trained for a primarily rural context, in what might now be called “context-based” training. The location, in Tūranga, brought education closer to whānau networks. However, while this held benefit for students from the local iwi, Ngāti Porou, it still required Māori from other iwi to train in ways that dislocated them from their whānau networks. After nearly forty years, in 1921, TRC was closed. Māori students seeking theological education were required to attend St John’s Theological College. The stated reasons for the closure of the college and the placing of all students at St John’s was the need to broaden educational horizons for Māori.39 At St John’s, these broader horizons involved immersion in a habitus that drew from Western worldviews, valued a certain type of (university) education and valued a vocational identity shaped by English Anglican understandings of cleric practice. In being forced to “cross the pae,” Māori students inevitably lost touch with their whānau networks. They were required to learn in the language of the dominant culture. Connor notes that in the following years, the curriculum at St John’s showed little signs of adjustment, in response to the arrival of Māori

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students. The pae belonged to the dominant culture. There were few signs of “ontological creativity” at St John’s. From the 1970s, another set of structural alignments occurred within the Anglican Church. In a similar way to Presbyterian Amorangi ministry, the Anglican Church developed the minita-a-iwi (priests) scheme. This trained ministers in context, for a rural ministry. It was a response to the migration of Māori families to the cities and a diminishing of the financial base for stipend clergy. Then, during the 1990s, the separation was reinforced in the formation of Te Whare Wānanga o te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa in Rotorua, seeking to offer a “unique focus of mihingare (Anglican) mission . . . in the living contexts of iwi, hapū, and whānau realities.”40 The students were mostly minita-a-iwi in the forty-plus age group, studying part-time. These structural movements, from centralization to separation, share similarities with the story already told in relation to the history of Presbyterian theological education.41 These similarities become clear in the table below. Structural Movements

Presbyterian History

Anglican History

Central College Separation Centralization

Theological Hall (1876–) TWR (1954–1970) Theological Hall (1970– 1981) TWR (1980)

St Johns (1844–) Te Rau College (1883–1921) St Johns (1921–1970s)

Separation

Te Whare Wananga o te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa

In both Presbyterian and Anglican history, theological education begins in one college. Analysis of student records suggests a monocultural student body, strongly influenced by migration from the United Kingdom and little evidence that Māori are being educated theologically.42 Next, a separation occurs in the creation of a distinct Māori theological education institution. Third, a centralizing move back from the 1920s for Anglicans and from the 1970s for Presbyterians. This occurs in markedly different decades. But in both cases, there is little evidence of pedagogical innovation from the institution. Fourth, another separation, with the aim of more active support of indigeneity. While the decades are different, the repeated pattern of movement suggests that neither separation nor centralization is the ideal. There is evidence of gift exchange, but there are also questions regarding the power and the pae as thresholds. Theological education in the future must pay attention to whether the speakers’ bench is maintained by the strength of one culture, or whether pae nekeneke might be possible. Another dimension of concrete ecclesiology in the research by George Connor in relation to indigenous Anglican theological education concerns

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public outputs. These include the textbooks used in Māori theological education and the lectionary resources generated by TRC. As with the structural interplay, the outputs help to clarify the complexities inherent in gift exchange as “ontological creativity.” Connor examines the textbooks used during the separation phrase between 1883 and1921 at TRC. The textbooks originate from existing English resources. However, as translated works, Connor notes how they are shaped by Māori, who are teachers, catechists and tutors at TRC. This is evident in the development of liturgy and the inclusion in the textbooks of topics unique to Aotearoa; for example, the blessing of taonga, rituals for the exorcisms of people and place, and prayers to remove tapu and lift rāhui. These suggest indigenous agency in indigenous theological education in which, once separated from centralizing Eurocentric monocultures, Māori are thinking through issues in light of new knowledge and new experiences.43 Another public output, closely linked to TRC, is Te Maramataka, a Māori lectionary resource. The phrase maramataka means “months” in English. For Connor, “having a Maramataka may well have enabled the local community, the mangai reimana, kaikarakia, or other leader to have kept the weekly rhythm of the church’s liturgical year on track.”44 Te Maramataka was published each year from 1841 to 1923. It is astonishing to think of a resource, produced annually to resource Māori leadership, for more than eighty consecutive years. It represents another example of indigenous theological education making possible “ontological creativity.” As with the textbooks, Te Maramataka is influenced by English resources, including an inherited English Anglican lectionary approach to prayer. Equally, as with the textbooks, Te Maramataka shows elements of indigenization. This is particularly so in the historical notes attached to certain days of the year in Te Maramataka 1895. The notes include a range of events: civic, settler, Māori, and missionary. The type of events listed is “most unusual to find in a Church Calendar.”45 Connor suggests they are created through reciprocal relationship, most likely between Leonard Williams, “child of the CMS mission”46 and a Māori educator at TRC, Mohi. Both textbooks and Te Maramataka are public outputs that demonstrate the indigenization of theological education in Aotearoa. They are not a photocopied reproduction of English ecclesial resources. Rather, they are a demonstration of what happens across the pae, as one strange people look at another, and engage together in experiments that generate ontological creativity. It is interesting that indigenization is clearly evident in the area of liturgy, especially given the value placed on liturgy in the Anglican denomination. This is yet another manifestation of the concrete church, in which prayer is an embodiment of identity “constituted by action.”

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Indigenization is clearly evident when there is separation, during the years in which TRC has a role in theological education. At the same time, one wonders if the fact that Te Maramataka ends in 1923 is related to the closure of TRC, and thus further evidence of the impact of centralizing education on indigenous theological education.

FUTURE OF THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION In this chapter, I considered a future for theological education by looking backward. The looking backward has focused, drawing on Healy, not on idealized, abstracted blueprints, but on the concrete reality of lived practices, the identity of theological education constituted by actions, as evident in the archives and historical records as they relate to Presbyterian theological education brought into contrast through the concrete reality of TWR and TRC. A hermeneutic inspired by Anne Salmond, of gift exchange across cultural difference, has been tested first in relation to Pacific migration and the inclusion of women and second, in critical conversation with the history of indigenous theological education in Presbyterian and Anglican denominations in Aotearoa. A set of insights that could shape a concrete future emerge. First, the gift of diversity. The arrival of Pacific migrants, women, and indigenous cultures in theological education yielded multiple experiments in ontological creativity in Aotearoa. These are evident in shared acts of solidarity among graduating cohorts, library acquisitions, changes to Student Hour, textbooks, and Te Maramataka. The diversity across the thresholds of cultures generated fresh lines of theological inquiry. Monocultures are likely to be less hospitable places for gift exchange to flourish. Second, the complex relationship between geography and context in relation to theological education. A residential training program that keeps a student close to their whānau (in these case studies Tuhoe for TWA and Ngāti Porou for TRC) is inevitably a distancing for students from other locations. Context-based education has value, but in contemporary times, needs to also draw on intensives and online technologies in order to ensure the gifts of diversity are realized in theological education. Third, that theological education is never culturally neutral. There is much wisdom in Penfold’s haka, in which both peoples are “strange.” It is difficult to cross the pae of theological education when one culture (likely the minority) is being referenced as “strange,” while the dominant culture understands itself as normative. An essential first task is for dominant and centralized spaces, like St John’s or the Theological Hall, to name themselves not as neutral, but as “strange,” in this case laden with Western epistemologies that privilege certain types of theological education. The introduction of diverse voices is important

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for theological education, but the consciousness rising in relation to culture must be shared work, requiring energy from every culture present. Fourth, the insights of Te Kaawa, in which indigenous is understood not in relation to local, but as a place of belonging which enables one to engage the other across the pae, provides a different way of understanding place. Rather than dichotomies of separate and centralized, practices that strengthen spirals of knowledge acquisition are needed. Fifth, there is generativity in applying Healy’s notion of the concrete church to theological education. It has enabled minutes of student meetings to become theological resources and illuminated indigenous lectionary resources as embodiments of identity “constituted by action.” It has brought into focus the concrete actions of two denominations, exposing the limitations of tribalism, unmasking existing privilege and suggesting the potential of pae nekeneke as an essential addition to Penfold’s chant. The gift of history is that it invites us to critically examine our postures into the future: ka mua, ka muri. Theological education is not about what we know, but the practices that are cultivated. First, seek the other, for in every strange person is the gift of an experiment. Second, own our own agency. The current configurations of theological education have multiple actors, including inherited pedagogies and increasingly diverse student cohorts. Each has power, all can engage in “grace-enabled activities” of celebrating gifts and speaking truth to power. Third, nurture pae nekeneke. The speakers’ bench of theological education must belong to the cultures of the future, not the power brokers from the past. Gift exchange, across the pae must occur in spaces of encounter that belong to all those gathered, rather than one particular people. Seeking the other, owning our own agency, and nurturing the pae nekeneke return us to Healy. They suggest that theological education is “constituted by action,” focusing on the “thoroughly human” and “grace-enabled activities” enriched by gift exchange from strangers across the pae—in this is the future of Aotearoa New Zealand. These are the tasks central to the future of theological education in Aotearoa. To pretend otherwise, to deal with the abstraction and idealism of blueprints only serves to maintain entrenched privilege. No-one at the Theological Hall in 1965 could have predicted the generative impact that would result from the arrival of Pacific people or the vitality possible as Amorangi approaches to ministry became nurtured in TWR. Future hope is present in the concrete realities that were the past of theological education. PRIMARY SOURCES Gen 2. Theological Hall Students’ Union Minute Book 1962–1968. 2006/160/6 AU 6/1. Held at Archives Research Centre, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, Dunedin.

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Gen 2. Theological Hall Students’ Union Minute Book 1968–1974. 2006/160/7 AU 6/1. Held at Archives Research Centre, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, Dunedin. Gen 2. Theological Hall Students’ Union Minute Book 1974–1981. 2006/160/8 AU 6/1. Held at Archives Research Centre, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, Dunedin.

NOTES 1. Nicholas Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life. Practical-prophetic ecclesiology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 36. 2. Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life, 5. 3. Anne Salmond, Tears of Rangi: Experiments across worlds (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2017), 13–4. 4. Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 13. 5. Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 376. 6. Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 410. 7. Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 66. 8. Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 304. 9. It emerges from relationships between Penfold and Salmond over many years, including in the return of stolen taonga from Norfolk Island (Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 129–30) and the Muriwhenua Land Claim (Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 323), Te Paparahi o te Raki Tribunal (Salmond, Tears of Rangi, 263, 5), itself is a practising of One strange people, and another, looking at each other! 10. ‘Epeli Hau’ofa, “Our Sea of Islands” in We Are the Oceans: Selected Works, edited by ‘Epeli Hau’ofa, 27–41 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008). 11. Jerry Bentley, “Ocean Basins as Frameworks of Historical Analysis,” Geographical Review 89, no. 2 (1999): 215–224. 12. Tracey Banivanua Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 66. 13. Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 145. 14. Debra McDougall, Engaging with Strangers: Love and Violence in the Rural Solomon Islands (New York: Berghahn, 2016), 11. 15. Jione Havea, Sea of Readings. The Bible in the South Pacific (Atlanta: SBL, 2018). 16. Steve Taylor and Phil King, “Theological Education as Development in Vanuatu: ‘Wayfaring’ and the Talua Ministry Training Centre” (forthcoming). 17. Alexander Marshall and Angus McKenzie from Scotland, Alun Richards from Wales, Colin MacKenzie and Bruce Bissett from England. Album 1931. 18. For example, William Johnson born in Dover entered the Hall in 1933, Kenneth Evans born in South Wales entered the Hall in 1934, John Johnston born in Ballymena (entered Hall in 1937).

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19. Allan Davidson, “The ‘Heresy Trial’: Doctrinal Disputes in the Presbyterian Church 1966 to 1970,” A Lecture given to The Community of St Luke, Auckland (2015). 20. James Belich, Paradise Reforged. A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000 (Auckland: Allen Lane / Penguin, 2001), 463. 21. In 1967, Pio Sovala Field (7/19/1926). Also Pozzemas Musu (10/25/1925). 22. Wayne Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, ko te Hapai Ō ki muri (MMin. diss., University of Otago, 2015), 5. 23. John G. Laughton, From Forest Trail to City Street: The Story of the Presbyterian Church Among the Māori People (Christchurch: Presbyterian Bookroom, 1962), 50. 24. Laughton, From Forest Trail to City Street, 49. 25. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 1. 26. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 1–2. 27. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 3. 28. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 40. 29. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 42). 30. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 61. 31. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 3, 24. 32. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 62. 33. Jenny Plane-Te Paa, “Justice in Indigenous Education: A Māori Anglican Story,” First Peoples Theology Journal 1 (2000): 64–76. 34. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 75. 35. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 68. 36. Whenua = land, te reo = language, kawa = protocols, tikanga = rules and regulations. 37. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 71. 38. Te Kaawa, Ko Te Amorangi ki mua, 19. 39. George Connor, “Whāia te atuatanga: Theological Education, Textbooks, Te Rau College, Cultures and Contexts” (MA diss., Massey University, 2012), 85–102. 40. NZQA, Report of External Evaluation and Review Te Whare Wānanga o Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa (https://www​.nzqa​.govt​.nz​/nqfdocs​/provider​-reports​/8182​ .pdf, 2011). 41. Connor (“Whāia te atuatanga,” 99) suggests that Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian denominations share a similar journey, of an initial indigenous college, assimilated in later years. 42. Connor, “Whāia te atuatanga,” 20. 43. Connor, “Whāia te atuatanga,” 10. 44. George Connor, “Saintly, Sinful or Secular 1814–1985 viewed through the lens of Te Maramataka 1895 and its historical notes” (PG Dip., Massey University, 2011), 25. 45. Connor, “Saintly, Sinful or Secular,” 24. 46. Connor, “Saintly, Sinful or Secular,” 51.

Chapter 5

Whakawhanaungatanga (Doing Right Relationship), Beyond a Failure of Nerve and Imagination1 Kathleen P. Rushton

We do theology locally in Aotearoa New Zealand—a nation of islands of the Pacific Ocean2—in a global context in urgent times of climate change and poverty. Against this background, this chapter considers what God, the earth, and people ask of the church. In theological studies, we live by and are influenced by an overarching narrative with a set of assumptions, understandings, and perceptions that define or describe a group, time, or culture as a cohesive whole rooted in particular worldviews. A narrative which is not necessarily accurate creates the reality by which we live. In many ways, we are in a somewhat shadowy place because new information and experiences disrupt many long-held narratives creating new thresholds. The prayer of Jesus “that they may be one” (John 17:21) invites churches into a narrative of communion for mission. Integral to this ecclesial transformation is the ancient understanding of oikoumenē and the more recently emerging understanding of receptive ecumenism. I draw on these two understandings to reflect on my experience as a tutor and Academic Board member of the Ecumenical Institute of Distance Theological Studies (EIDTS) in which a narrative of communion functioned in tension with a narrative of diminishment in the wider churches. In the second part of this chapter, I explore how a new threshold for doing theology arises from this “emerging narrative of communion [which] is essentially a paschal narrative,”3 by interpreting the vine and branches of John 15:1–15 which is a paschal image. My interpretation is influenced by the etymological connection of three “eco” words—ecumenism, economy, ecology—and the intertwined relationships with God, the people, and earth. Both these trios resonate with whakawhanaungatanga (making right relationship happen) with Atua/God, tangata/people, and whenua/land. 57

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In summary, this chapter explores how oikoumenē and receptive ecumenism offer an emerging threshold for doing theology to empower the Church, the Body of Christ, imaged in the vine and branches, to move from a narrative of diminishment to a narrative of communion in order to complete the works of God (John 4:34; 5:36; 17:4; 19:28,30) by responding to both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. AROUND A KITCHEN TABLE After a long process which will be briefly described later, EIDTS (1993– 2014) was activated by the enthusiasm and creativity of four people sitting around a kitchen table in Wellington imagining a way forward for theological education for that time. The working party of Margaret Wood (Anglican), Jill van de Geer (Methodist), Anna Gilkison (Presbyterian) and Gillian Watkin (Methodist) that met around a kitchen table, drawing on their personal and professional experiences4 to plan what became EIDTS, attests to the wisdom and truth of that old saying—the end is in the means. The “around a kitchen table” founding image captures powerfully the context of those whom this “radical and subversive” organization (Watkin) aimed to empower and equip theologically for mission. Students, who for various reasons could not access the traditional centers of theological education, were enabled to work from home, study part-time, regardless of limited means, in local and isolated places, with and around daily life. This raises the question: Who does theology? All Christians do, all of the time, consciously or unconsciously, well or badly at three levels. First of all, well recognized are the great theologians of ages past and present whose teachings and writings shape and reshape Christian traditions. Then there are individuals with theological training such as those who research, write and teach in theological institutions and their students who have, or are, studying for various qualifications. In the past, these were those preparing for the full-time ministry of ordination. The vast majority, however, were (and are) ordinary Christians immersed in home life and work—seeking implicitly or explicitly to make sense of their experience and understanding of God in whom they profess to believe. These people had come to be seen as vital to ministry in parishes, not in their calling as laypeople but, because the pool of those offering for full-time, ordained ministry had dried up. People were needed to take up those roles. In this vacuum, EIDTS served the regions in ways tinged with ambiguity. A narrative of diminishment was underlying—involvement of others to see churches through the crisis of shortage of clergy and resources to support them, yet, there are glimmers of a narrative of communion.

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Gratitude is due to the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, the Methodist Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Salvation Army whose appointed members to the Ecumenical Board of Theological Studies (EBTS) governed Theology by Correspondence: Ecumenical Institute of Distance Theological Studies and reported back to those participating churches. The creation of, and support for the ecumenical venture which was EIDTS emerged from the seeds of the flourish of ecumenical activity, excitement and commitment which characterized the wider church in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1960s–1980s. Traditionally, theological colleges had been open only to ordination candidates. This option was available only to a few. EIDTS had the ability to adapt and meet the changing needs of the churches by providing qualifications for various ministries. The Licentiate in Theology (LTh) had a long history with the Anglican Board of Theological Studies (1874–1975). In 1968, five churches negotiating union included the LTh when they established the Joint Board of the Theological Studies (JBTS) to set up a national theological qualification for those churches.5 In 1988, six Auckland-based theological colleges established the Auckland Consortium of Theological Education (ACTE) which offered a Melbourne College of Divinity degree.6 JBTS’s request for ACTE to take over responsibility for the LTh and other qualifications was declined leading to the demise of JBTS.7 From this vacuum emerged the kitchen table meeting described above, the establishment of EBTS and the birth of EIDTS, which served the four participating churches and was open to students of all churches. EIDTS tutors formed a community of scholars attracted from across Aotearoa New Zealand’s theological colleges and universities as well as independent scholars who worked together forming a truly significant witness to ecumenism. These diverse and highly competent tutors and assessors came together formally for an annual training day, for graduations and in other valuable ways. Their interchange and connection enriched not only EIDTS but also the tutors themselves and their involvement in the ecumenical movement. A particular strength was to gather scholars together across their academic disciplines. I write as a Catholic sister invited into that community of scholars. The EIDTS Diploma of LTh and other qualifications offered affordable, accessible, ecumenical, inclusive, pastoral, practical, biculturally appropriate, some denominationally specific, grounded in Aotearoa New Zealand, serious part-time courses. The 2011 EIDTS brochure promised theological study in “Your time. Your pace. Your place” through the stated purpose of “encouraging students to develop the skills of open inquiry and critical thought.” However, EIDTS no longer exists. In another later time through a failure of nerve,8 the partner churches, influenced by a narrative of diminishment,

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reverted to their traditional denominational thresholds. One of the great strengths and, indeed, the uniqueness of EIDTS, however, was that it was ecumenical in intention and process as well as being, arguably one of the last, well-functioning ecumenical projects in this country. I shall look now at that often feared, misunderstood, ignored and gospel-underpinned “E” word, Ecumenical, in EIDTS’s name which guided and set its direction and practice by returning this term to its scriptural roots in my interpretation of the vine and the branches. FRAMEWORK FOR READING THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES Among New Testament images centering on Christ as head of the Church which is his Body is the agricultural image of the vine and branches (John 15:1–15), which I shall explore by giving attention to the interconnected relationships with God, the earth, and people drawn from three sources to seek a threshold for doing theology at this time. First, there is the etymological connection of the “eco” words—ecumenism, economy, ecological. I suggest these link with a second source because they are “grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbour and with the earth itself,” which are found in the symbolic and narrative language of the biblical creation accounts (LS §66) and permeate the Fourth Gospel. Third, when interpreting scripture, in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, this biblical worldview of interconnected relationships and the three “eco” words resonate with whakawhanaungatanga (making right relationship happen) with Atua/God, tangata/people, and whenua/land. My focus here is on what God, the earth, and people ask today of theological studies. I shall interweave my interpretation of this biblical image with my experience of the stated EIDTS values of oikoumenē and receptive ecumenism. Let us turn now to the oikoumenē. THE THRESHOLD OF THE OIKOUMENĒ Toward an Ecumenical and Ecological Economy of Life In these urgent times, I expand on the EIDTS ecumenical aspiration: “We are ecumenical in the sense of the word in the Greek language—having regard for the wholeness of [the] whole inhabited world.”9 The Greek word for “the whole inhabited world” is oikoumenē and is derived from oikos, which is found in the gospels and so often translated as “house” or “home” (e.g. NRSV, Mk 1:29; 2:1,11; 3:25; 5:35; 9:33; 10:10, 29, 30). Its fuller meaning is shaded

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as the Western mind tends to associate “house” with the individualistic concept of the nuclear family. The World Council of Churches’ Economy of Life: Linking Poverty, Wealth and Ecology directs us to its more expansive meaning: “Churches’ witnessing for justice in the economy and the Earth is founded on the biblical vision of fullness of life for all: God created the household of life (oikos), human and non-human beings to live in community with one another (Psalm 115:16 and Genesis 1–2).”10 This document states that as “noted by the Latin American and Caribbean Indigenous Statements, the biblical concept . . . finds its parallels in the Cosmo vision of Indigenous Peoples.”11 Māori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, have a wonderful expression in verbal form, whakawhanaungatanga, which in three interconnected sets of making right relationship offers insight into making-rightrelationship happen. This verb comprises a noun and a causative prefix. The noun, whanaungatanga (right relationship), as theologian Henare Tate explains, is “the complex totality” which “holds the multi-faceted identity we inherit from our tupuna (our many ancestors) and matua (parents). . . . The further we go back in whakapapa [genealogy] . . . the richer is our identity.” Being connected in this way “also connects us to their spiritual taonga (treasures) of te reo (language), tikanga (culture), matauranga (knowledge), and tapu (sacredness) and mana (spiritual power and authority).”12 This set of right relationship arising from genealogy in the generic sense of tāngata (the human being, the people) begins in another set of relationship with Io-Matuakore (the parentless one), God (Atua) the source of all whanaungatanga. The third set of right relationship with whenua (land), in all its physical and spiritual dimensions, brings a person into intimate relationship with God and the universe. In Māori consciousness, then, these three sets of right relationship— with people, God, and land—are interrelated systematically and dynamically. If one enhances or diminishes one’s relationship with God, one’s relationship with the people and with the land is also enhanced or diminished. These interconnected sets of relationships underlie the oikoumenē, which comprises the core meaning of the three “eco” words—ecology, economy, ecumenism. “Ecology,” from oikos “household” and logos “knowledge,” comes into English from the German oekologie and suggests we live in and are aware of relationships in the household of interconnected ecosystems. “Ecumenism” comes into English through Latin from the same Greek root, and “economy” comes via Latin from the Greek oiknomia (oikos plus nomia from nemein, to manage).13 In addition to its shades of meaning which cluster around human activities concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of good and services, “economy” is a “theological term used to refer to God’s activity in the world, particularly with reference to the two dispensations of the OT and NT.”14 The interconnection of the “eco” words underlies the assertions

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of the World Council of Churches that “the mission of the ecumenical movement today is about transforming the world into a place of justice and peace for all God’s creation . . . [in a] participatory search for alternatives that are centred on the people and the Earth.”15 Likewise, in Laudato Si’ Pope Francis warns: “Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (§49; italics original). The urgency of the situation returns us to the mission of the ecumenical movement: “For a Christian believer, committed to love for God’s creation and to respect for the dignity of every human person, responding to this issue will be necessarily a central dimension of the life of faith.”16 It is timely to clarify that theology is talk about God, as the etymology of the word indicates: theos—God and logos—words, knowledge, discourse. The “words about God” or God-talk indicate that the role of theology is to seek critical correspondence between doctrine and experience. Persons experience God and tell about God. What are they doing? Theology, of course. An important development in theology in the twentieth century was recovery of experience as an integral part in the exercise of theology.17 The term “the irruption of experience” is used to describe this movement which understands that life is “constantly interrupted by new experiences, both negative and positive, which can be of profound religious significance.”18 Experience presupposes some understanding of the doctrine and beliefs. A tension exists between the richness of human experience and the historicity of doctrinal expression. In this tension, experience of God entails knowledge about God. O’Connell and de Beer summed up: Theological reflection [doing theology] is the process of seeking meaning that relies on the rich heritance of our Christian tradition as a primary source of wisdom and guidance. One of the tasks of Theology is to “unpack” our human experience of this all-present God. It presumes the profoundly incarnational (God present in our lives), providential (God caring) and revelatory (source of deepening knowledge of God and self) quality of human experience.19

We need to ensure that what is implicit in the incarnational, providential, and revelatory quality of human experience is expanded explicitly to articulate the interconnection of ecumenism, economy, and ecology. Such interconnection is essential because it is at the core of the inhabited world and is necessary for the health and well-being of the Body of Christ. Receptive Ecumenism Underlying EIDTS’ values and practices was a stated commitment to “working ecumenically; respecting and learning from all traditions in pursuit of

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an authentic response to God.”20 This commitment expressed attitudes and approaches which cluster under the umbrella of receptive ecumenism. Receptive ecumenism is a process of learning in which different Christian traditions seek growth and transformation through openness to each other. It is a shift away from giving priority to overcoming differences and resolving issues from the past toward each tradition asking what they can learn from another tradition in relation to difficulties within their own tradition.21 The shift is from the question, “What do others need to learn from us?” to the self-critical question, “What can we learn with integrity from others?” What is distinct in this approach is asking critical questions of one’s own tradition and learning from that process. It means to ask with hope—hoping but not insisting our other(s) is/are asking the question. Finding a richer and fuller identity is, for me, not being less Catholic but becoming more appropriately Catholic through a much-needed process of ecclesial growth, conversion, and maturing. In turn, it enables colleagues to be more appropriately Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Salvation Army. It is not a lessening but a renewal of ecclesial identity,22 which moves beyond competitive assertion and defence. Murray summarizes: “to view the capacity for receptive learning across traditions as the necessary key for unlocking the potential for transformation within traditions.”23 Is this new? Murray acknowledges it is not but holds that if we apply the term to what is happening/already present, then, we are able to see and focus more clearly on this ongoing process.

JOHN 15:1–15 In reading and studying scripture ecumenically, Walter Kasper suggests that “attention can be paid to the mystery of unity and division as it unfolds in the history of salvation.”24 He places the image of the vine and the branches among biblical images or symbols taken from daily life which describe the nature or mystery of the church. By giving attention to the various shades of three interconnected sources outlined above, I shall explore how this image of the vine and the branches can refresh the Christian imagination to consider what God, the earth and people ask of the Church, the Body of Christ.25 On the evening of his suffering and death, Jesus prayed “that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). Kasper points out insightfully: “It is significant that Jesus did not primarily express his desire for unity in a teaching or in a commandment but in a prayer. Unity is a gift from above.”26 Ecumenical work is essentially participation in the prayer of Jesus. Spiritual ecumenism at the heart of ecumenism is, according to Kasper27 and Rowan Williams,28 about mission and prayer. Prayer, both

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personal and in common, for the unity of Christians and for personal and communal conversion has its origins in the loving communion of the Trinity. Learning to understand Jesus’ prayer is a spiritual process, a work and gift of the Holy Spirit.29 The Spirit can create a space for the exchange of gifts. God Is the Vintner In the biblical tradition, Israel is the vine planted and tended by God (Ps 80:8–16; Jer 2:21). God is the vintner, the keeper of the vineyard (Isa 27:2–3). The term “vintner” will be used for the one who tends to the beauty of growing vines for well-crafted wine rather than wine maker which suggests large commercial vineyards and mass production.30 The language of abiding in vine suggests the Trinitarian communion of God’s interrelationship, mutuality, and indwelling which is at the heart of receptive ecumenism and its first Core Theological Principle.31 When Christian ecumenical concern is regarded as “futile, washed up, log-jammed” and even irrelevant in globalized world, the key question of our age is whether we can live with the difference in mutual flourishing rather than mutually participating in destruction.32 If Christian churches who claim Jesus Christ cannot work together, what hope is there for them? In theological terms, the Church of Christ, that is, churches individually and collectively, exist in and of the communion of the Trinity and are called to “the conviction that difference well-lived is of the very essence of the Trinitarian being of God.”33 Abiding expresses Jesus’ relationship to God (Jn 15:10), Jesus’ relationship to the community (vv. 4, 9), and the community’s relationship to Jesus (vv.1, 7). Among the Core Theological Principles of Receptive Ecumenism, we find: “progress towards our ecumenical goal is fundamentally God’s work and calling into which we are being drawn rather than a human project of our creation, possession and control.”34 The search for unity to enable churches to do this together must never lose sight of Jesus and his gospel promise of a call to greater life and the flourishing of “life in abundance” (10:10), for “one flock, one shepherd” (10:16) and “that they may be one” (17:21). The search must be based on its mooring because without this, speaking afresh in this new context loses hope. Productive Where Little Else Grows Of all the plants grown as a food source the grape vine, in ways that other plants cannot, is able to grow and produce in adverse places. It flourishes in stony soils and on steep hillsides. There, where little else grows, vines are most productive. Natural and living organisms of root and soil interact to produce fruit. A great mystery is how the combination of sun, soil, rain, and vines are

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able to produce such a delightful liquid. Likewise, the great mystery of Jesus’ fruitfulness and his finishing the works of God when “he handed over the Spirit” (John 19:30, literal translation) to the women and the beloved disciple, peak in a situation where seemingly no life can be found—the cross and death. In taking seriously the agricultural image of the vine, the stony ground and steep hillsides of the historical divisions in the Church of God, the ongoing scandal of these divisions and the current retreat from ecumenical involvement of churches offers a theological and spiritual critique of the narrative of diminishment, which has a strong tendency to flavor decisions and set the ecclesial directions for ecumenism at this time. Sandra Schneiders offers a strong critique of when experiences of dying and death, which are very real and painful, are “often disfunctionally referred as ‘diminishment’.” For her, there is “something seriously wrong with our theology or our spirituality or both. Jesus was not diminished by his death. By his death he glorified God and was glorified by God (cf. Jn 17:1).”35 For Murray, the perception that ecumenical “problems now appear as insuperable divisions does not mean that they will always so appear.” Reflection on the grape vine image helps sustain growth together through encouraging a narrative of communion even in stony places. Pruning Pruning is an unsettling image. Yet, left to itself, the vine would grow in all directions and energy would be diverted from producing fruit. The purpose of pruning is not the cutting back in itself but the hope for fine, abundant fruit. Churches, like the branches of the vine, are pruned to bear fruit by abiding in the vine. It is an openness to growth, to change, examination, and conversion. For Murray, “the ecclesial dimension of conversion needs to extend beyond the doctrinal-theoretical to include also the organisational, the structural, the cultural and the broadly practical.”36 Receptive ecumenism “represents the concern to bring to the fore the prior necessary disposition to receptive transformational learning that bilateral processes presuppose” between churches.37 Living in this time requires “both active trust that we are being resourced for this and patient recognition that any real receptive learning takes time to be realised.”38 So the promise of abundance (10:10) is not without pruning of the assumptions, understandings, and perceptions of our dominant narrative. This includes a self-critical stance on one’s own tradition in order to learn from another. A journey of pruning and healing is a life-giving practice of restraint and cut back which, along with “abiding,” offers a language of love and fullness to describe discipleship. This differs from the self-sacrifice and self-denial language in the synoptic gospels—which requires taking up one’s cross to follow Jesus (Mk 8:34; Mt 16:24; Lk 9:23)—but not found in the Fourth Gospel.

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In planting and ongoing pruning, the vintner ties vines to wires which are supported by poles spread throughout the vineyard. The vines are supported by this wiring structure called “trellising” and directed in their growth.39 As the vine grows in this way, the vintner exposes the leaves and clusters of growing grapes to the sunlight to enable the fruit to ripen. This is a crucial and complex process. The vineyard wire structures are like the structures and rules in a community which guide, support, and give stability to the common life. When we live without such structures too independently, we become easily hurt and have no direction. We wither and bear no fruit. In the complex, patient work of ecumenism, the principles of receptive ecumenism40 are the wires and trellises on which new thresholds of theological studies will emerge. As Murray states succinctly, “we are responsible for the tradition’s future as well as its past.” Its future is better described “as dynamic webs rather than as inflexible structures.”41 Friends Vine and branches imagery is expanded further when Jesus declares that his followers are no longer his slaves (doulos) but his friends (philos, 15:13–14). The friendship motif is prominent in this gospel. The directness with which Jesus spoke about pruning is in line with the ancient ideal of a true friend. The opposite was the flatterer who curries favor and who would avoid commenting on another’s failings. From John 7 onward, the term parrēsia (“openly” or “frankly”) shows Jesus speaking and acting in public versus privately or secretly (7:4, 13, 26; 11:54); speaking plain against obscure (10:24; 11.14; 16:25, 29), and speaking boldly against timidity (7:26; 18:20). Jesus’ authentic friendship is both the source and norm for disciples’ relationships with others. Openness to the love of God in Jesus permits God, the vintner, to prune to bear fruit by “continuing ecclesial conversion, deepening and expansive growth within traditions by receptive learning from and across traditions.”42 As a vineyard is to grow good grapes for good wine to bring joy to humanity, so the members of the church are to love another, discover true joy, and share this in mission for the earth and the people. God’s Garden and Economy Disciples are to be grounded in God’s economy, which is not based on competition and maximum profit but on mercy, forgiveness, and love.43 Persons are not autonomous and isolated consumers but branches connected together and nurtured by Jesus and cared for by the vintner, God, who tends the vineyard by watering, pruning and protecting day and night (Isa 27:2–3), guides it to thrive and be fruitful (Hos 14:7) and grow into a fruitful nation and a blessing to others (Isa 27:2–6). The viticulture image conveys the biblical

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hope of transformation through justice for all. The neglect of the poor affects the whole vineyard. God, Isaiah warns, “enters into judgment with the elders and princes . . . you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?” (Isa 3:14–15). God’s vineyard will only flourish if the powerful and strong reach out to the poor and vulnerable. The imagery of vines declares that wars will cease. Soldiers are to turn swords into pruning hooks. The Hebrew word for the latter refers to the special knife a vintner uses to prune vines. People “shall all sit under their own vines . . . and no one shall make them afraid” (Mic 4:3–4). Religious communities of separated Christians have the capacity to go “to the very heart of the call to witness to the possibility of living reconciled difference for mutual flourishing in a world of blood-soaked conflict. . . . This is the key issue of living and dying together.”44 The paschal image of the vine pruned for new life images this ongoing ecumenical process. The culture of the Hebrew people was deeply grounded within an agricultural world in which the interaction between earth processes and human labor was familiar as was the appeal to the senses and delight in life. For why are grapes grown? Of course, to eat and most of all for wine making. Viticulture and wine were so much part of daily life that they were sources of rich imagery to describe the relationship of God with people and land (Ps 80:8–16; Jer 2:21; Isa 27:2). How different is this understanding of human flourishing from contemporary focus on competition, maximizing production and profit? Production of wine now interferes with natural organisms by the use of chemicals and fertilizers. This can tend toward a posture of working “against” something—against nature, against problems rather than working as part of creation.45 There is need to prune consumerism, including within the church, which for many is like a spirituality, giving a sense of identity, comfort and a brand.

CONCLUSION I have suggested how in another time of ecumenical flourishing, churches worked together to provide a new threshold through which to meet the needs of Christians seeking to do theology. Four churches through ecumenical practice formed EIDTS to serve the mission of the wider church. In another time, through lack of nerve and failure of imagination, the participating churches retreated into their individual, competing thresholds. I have described how EIDTS strived to operate according to ecumenical best practice in a narrative of communion aspiring to give flesh to the vision of the oikoumenē and receptive ecumenism. O’Connell and de Beer’s insight into doing theology

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as embracing “the profoundly incarnational (God present in our lives), providential (God caring) and revelatory (source of deepening knowledge of God and self) quality of human experience” was expanded to include explicitly the urgent ecumenical task of hearing both the cry of earth and the cry of the poor to complete the works of God in this world. The interconnected and dynamic language of viticulture in the image of the vine and the branches can refresh the Christian imagination for a new threshold of doing theological studies ecumenically to consider what God, the earth, and people are asking of the church today for whakawhanaungatanga/making right relationship happen with Atua/God, tangata/people, and whenua/land. This calls for those doing theology, at all levels, to be intentionally ecumenical; by forming “students” as well as church leaders, and those researching and teaching at theological colleges in Aotearoa New Zealand, in line with the EIDTS stated purpose of “encouraging students to develop the skills of open inquiry and critical thought.” To allow this new ecumenical threshold to emerge churches “need to lean-into” the promise for God’s purpose and the presence of God’s Spirit and ask “what it means in practice for us to enter into this more fully in the here and now”46 and “to be shaped in accordance with it so as to become channel of its anticipatory realisation and showing in the world.”47

NOTES 1. For the phrase, “a Failure of Nerve and Imagination,” I am indebted to Mary Caygill (2014). I acknowledge EIDTS colleagues with whom I discussed this chapter and those who read drafts. The views expressed are mine. 2. For Laban “in” and “of” are small words which have deep and subtle meaning. Aotearoa New Zealanders are of the Pacific. One can be in the Pacific and stand apart as an observer or outsider. Being “of” the Pacific “gives a much greater sense of participation, of ownership, accountability and responsibility for actions taken” (Laban, “Closing Remarks,” 191). 3. Pellegrino, “The Future Enters Us Long Before It Happens: Opening Space for an Emerging Narrative of Communion,” (2017), 9. 4. Watkin, “Graduation Address” (2001). 5. Caygill, “A Failure of Nerve.” 6. Space does not allow me to go into this ecumenical venture. See Strevens, Exploring Theology Together: A History of the Catholic Institute of Theology Auckland. Te Pūtahi Matauranga Whakapono Katorika, 1989–2012 (Auckland: Accent, 2012), 34, 38–41, 43–44. 7. Caygill, “A Failure of Nerve.” 8. Caygill, “A Failure of Nerve.” 9. EBTS, Operational Manual and Quality Management System (2012), 4.

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10. Mshana and Percalta, Economy of Life: Linking Poverty, Wealth and Ecology (Geneva: WCC, 2015), 39. 11. Mshana and Percalta, Economy of Life, 40. 12. Tate, “Stepping into Maori Spirituality” in He Kupu Whakawairua Spirituality in Aotearoa New Zealand: Catholic Voices, edited by Helen Bergin and Susan Smith, 41–43 (Auckland: Accent, 2002). 13. Oikonomia is used in NT to mean the management of a household (e.g., Lk 16:2–4) and also to refer to divine providence (1 Cor 9:17; Eph 1:10, 3:2; Col 1:25; I Tim 1:4). 14. Gros, “Economy” in The New Dictionary of Theology, edited by Joseph A. Komonschak et al. (Wilmington Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1988), 322. 15. Mshana and Percalta, Economy of Life, vii, ix–x. 16. Edwards, “Celebrating Eucharist in a Time of Global Climate Change” in The Natural World and God: Theological Explorations (Hindmarsh SA: ATF, 2017), 157. 17. Lane, The Experience of God: An Invitation to Do Theology (Dublin: Veritas, 2003), 16. 18. Lane, The Experience of God, 10. 19. O’Connell and de Beer, The Art of Theological Reflection (New York: Crossroads, 2010), xi. 20. EBTS, Operational Manual and Quality Management System (2012), 3. 21. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning: Scriptural Reasoning, Comparative Theology, and Receptive Ecumenism,” Modern Theology 29, no. 4 (2013): 78). 22. Kelly, “Receptive Ecumenism,” Diocesan Ecumenical Commissions Biennial Conference (Adelaide 2011), 4. 23. Murray (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism (Oxford: University, 2008b), 7. 24. Murray, “Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Learning: Establishing the Agenda,” Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 7, no. 4 (2007): 26. 25. For an earlier version of my interpretation of this image, see “Abiding in the Vine” (John 15:1–15). Tui Motu InterIslands (April 2018): 22–23. 26. Kasper, A Handbook of Spiritual Ecumenism (New York: New City, 2007), 10. 27. Kasper, A Handbook of Spiritual Ecumenism, 155–72. 28. Williams, “Keynote Address,” in May They All Be One ... But How?: Proceedings of the Conference Held in St Albans Cathedral on 17 May 2003 (St Albans: Centre for Christian Studies, 2003). 29. Kasper, A Handbook of Spiritual Ecumenism, 10. 30. Gisela H. Kreglinger, A Spirituality of Wine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). 31. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning,” 85. 32. Murray, “Receptive Ecumenicism and Ecclesial Learning Receiving Gifts for Our Needs,” Louvain Studies 33 (2008a): 31. 33. Murray (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning (2008b), 31. 34. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning,” 87.

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35. Sandra Schneiders, “Religious Life as a Resurrection Phenomenon” in The Occasional Papers. Leadership Conference of Women Religious, edited by Annmarie Sanders (2018), 26. 36. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning: Scriptural Reasoning, Comparative Theology, and Receptive Ecumenism,” Modern Theology 29, no. 4 (2013): 86. 37. Murray, Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism (2008b), 14. 38. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning,” 87. 39. Kreglinger, A Spirituality of Wine, 211. 40. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning,” 85–88. 41. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning,” 86. 42. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning,” 87. 43. See the essay by Paul Trebilco in this book on networking, overcoming isolation and competition in theological studies. 44. Murray (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning (2008b), 19. 45. Kreglinger, A Spirituality of Wine, 203. 46. Murray, “Families of Receptive Theological Learning,” 87. 47. Murray, “Receptive Ecumenicism and Ecclesial Learning Receiving Gifts for Our Needs,” Louvain Studies 33 (2008a): 36​.rd​s.

Chapter 6

Tough Conversations Engaging with Biblical “Texts of Terror” in Aotearoa New Zealand Emily Colgan and Caroline Blyth

We live in a global rape culture, where gender violence is regarded as an inevitable, even acceptable, feature of our social and cultural lives—a “normalized expectation” or “fact of life” that arises from mainstream cisheteropatriarchal gender roles.1 This multifaceted form of violence encompasses the subjective violence of sexual and physical assault, the symbolic violence of misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic language, and the structural violence of cisheteropatriarchal power structures.2 Rape culture, and the gender violence that it sustains, does not only affect women, but is an “intersectional phenomenon” which impacts multiple interconnecting identities, including those relating to race, class, ability, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity. Within this omnipresent and global rape culture, occurrences of gender violence have reached epidemic proportions in many countries and communities around the world, with rape, sexual abuse, family violence, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia becoming a lived reality for a great many people.3 Within this wider discourse of global rape culture and the inequities that sustain it, Aotearoa New Zealand has taken pride in its self-identification as a nation that remains at the forefront of both gender equality and socially progressive policies relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. To be sure, it was the first country to extend suffrage to women in 1883, and to date, boasts having had a total of three female Prime Ministers. Indeed, Helen Clark’s nine-year tenure as prime minister of this country (1999–2008) makes her one of the longest serving women leaders in the world. New Zealand was also a forerunner in abolishing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, introducing civil unions in 2004, and then legalizing same-sex marriage in 2013. These examples, which appear to affirm 71

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and celebrate the status of women and LGBT people within New Zealand society, are often cited to affirm the nation’s reputation as a shining exemplar of social equality within the Western world.4 In reality, however, there is a sharp disconnect between this cultural projection and the lived experience of many New Zealanders, particularly those caught in the crosshairs of violence, poverty, and discrimination wrought by the legacy of colonization.5 As feminist historian Harriet Winn notes, rather than being a “frontrunner in the worldwide race towards gender equality,” Aotearoa New Zealand “is stumbling behind on the fringes.”6 Winn’s observation here is particularly pertinent when we consider recent national statistics around gender violence. Aotearoa New Zealand has one of the highest rates of gender violence among developed countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.7 This was confirmed in a recent report by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, which suggested that domestic and family violence was the country’s “most significant human rights issue,”8 currently affecting around half a million people— about a fifth of the New Zealand population. Moreover, according to Ministry of Justice statistics, 24% of women and 6% of men in Aotearoa New Zealand report having experienced at least one incident of sexual violence during their lifetime, while 20% of girls and 9% of boys report unwanted sexual touching or being forced to do sexual things.9 Ethnic identities, (dis)abilities, age, and sexual orientations also intersect with gender identities to make certain communities in Aotearoa even more vulnerable to gender violence. Māori and Pasifika women, women with disabilities, queer people, transgender people, and young women aged between seventeen and twenty-four are known to experience disproportionately high levels of gender violence.10 These statistics are even more disturbing when one considers that only 9% of rape cases and around 20% of domestic violence episodes are reported to the New Zealand police, suggesting that the actual rates of gender violence are considerably higher than those commonly recorded.11 Aotearoa New Zealand, it seems, is a society deeply rooted within a wider global rape culture, where gender violence remains a pervasive presence that is all too often downplayed or overlooked.12 Situated within this global and national rape culture, Christianity has, throughout its history and up to the present day, played a significant and often contentious role in shaping the social imaginary—or collective consciousness—relating to gender violence. Within Christian interpretative traditions, certain biblical texts have often been used uncritically to support patriarchal gender hierarchies and cisheteronormative discourses, which work to sustain and sanctify multiple forms of gendered violence.13 Church teachings (and church leaders) have counseled women to remain within violent marriages and forgive their abusers,14 promoted intolerance and negated the full

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humanity of LGBT people,15 and sustained chronic levels of sexism and heteropatriarchy within church hierarchies,16 all in the name of the Christian faith. Equally problematic, in the past few decades, horrific levels of child abuse perpetrated by Christian individuals and institutions have come to light, despite systemic and self-preservatory attempts by these institutions to cover-up this abuse.17 It is clear that the relationships between Christianity and gender violence are complex and multifaceted, but at their heart, they are undeniably problematic, encompassing both subjective and objective forms of violence. To be sure, some Christian theologians have responded to these issues by calling out and critiquing the complicity of the church and the Christian faith in perpetuating gender violence.18 Moreover, a number of Christian communities and organizations at local and global levels have begun to develop education on gender violence prevention, as well as providing services that offer survivors pastoral care and support in their long journey toward healing.19 Laudable as these efforts doubtlessly are, they nevertheless do little to challenge the deeply entrenched structures, ideologies, and traditions within Christianity that play an undeniable role in sustaining gender violence within today’s global rape culture. It is surely time, then, that members of the Christian community recognize the vital role they can play in tackling the cultural ideologies that perpetuate gender violence, acknowledge the church’s responsibility to help survivors seek justice and healing, and admit that the voices of these survivors have been (and continue to be) ignored or even silenced by centuries of Christian teachings and traditions.20 Given the endemic levels of gender violence in Aotearoa, and the pervasiveness of the global and local rape culture that sustains such violence, our chapter contends that this issue has to become a priority for theological studies generally, and for biblical studies specifically, within seminaries and universities in Aotearoa New Zealand. We argue that there is an urgent need for scholars to disrupt the misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic discourses that continue to exist at a symbolic level within the Christian tradition, as it is this symbolism that influences contemporary cisheteropatriarchal discourses and creates an environment in which gender violence can flourish. In the following discussion, we reflect upon some of the “tough conversations” that theological educators need to have with students when teaching them about biblical “texts of terror”—texts that relate episodes of gender violence in all its forms. Within classroom spaces, we navigate a minefield peppered with resistant student voices and challenges, where there are ever-present possibilities to engage with students in ways that are either damaging or therapeutic. Reflecting on our own attempts to journey through this hazardous space, we share our thoughts, learning opportunities, and experiences of teaching biblical texts of terror. Particularly, we contemplate how to teach

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these texts responsibly, given our own cultural location within (post)colonial Aotearoa New Zealand. As we tiptoe through this minefield, we invite readers (including theological educators, academics and students) to think about their own engagements with biblical texts of terror in light of our discussion. We also throw down the gauntlet to those engaged in theological education to persist in these “tough conversations” and thereby commit to challenging rape culture and gender violence within both the pages of the Bible and our own communities and cultural contexts.

CREATING SAFE SPACES FOR STUDENTS The first step in addressing rape culture and gender violence within the classroom is a practical one—that of ensuring our training institutions are safe spaces for students to engage with these issues. The move to ensure our campuses are safe begins with an appeal for all theological training institutions to undergo a comprehensive review of their existing policies regarding sexual violence and gender-based harassment in order to make sure that such policies are in line with what is currently considered “good practice.” These include the provision of care to survivors that is accessible, culturally aware and community focused, and that prioritizes the well-being and empowerment of the victim/survivor in accordance with their ethnic, gender, and sexual identity.21 Creating safe spaces is more than just adopting good policy or responding to episodes of gender violence as and when they occur. It is also about direct education and ongoing conversation with the student body, including, for example, workshops and educational resources which empower students in their understanding of what gender violence is, the significance of consent and the right of every individual, whatever their gender or sexual orientation, not to be assaulted.22 Such education might also include training around power and gender violence for those in (or going into) positions of leadership within the church and wider community. For, it is only by acknowledging the realities of gender violence that intervention becomes possible, enabling substantial improvements to systems and institutions that sustain the normalization and pervasiveness of such violence.23 While the initial step of education and conversation is crucial in addressing the issue of rape culture and gender violence, it is, however, just the beginning of a much larger project. Central to this project is a call to consider critically the ways that Christianity intersects with contemporary cultural discourses around gender violence, specifically examining the roles that Christian texts, traditions, practices, and belief systems play in perpetuating or disrupting the myths and misconceptions that lie at the heart of rape

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cultures. Such analysis would interrogate the extent to which Christianity is complicit in the articulation of myths which enable cultural acceptance of slut shaming and victim blaming, of female sexualization and objectification, of “naturally” aggressive (cishetero)masculinity and of victims being seen as “damaged goods.” By critically assessing the ways in which Christianity intersects with these cultural discourses, we are better able to observe the role that it plays in creating or negating environments in which gender violence can continue unchallenged or even flourish.

INTERROGATING BIBLICAL TEXTS OF TERROR The Bible is a violent book. Its pages are inscribed with an abundance of traditions that bear witness to the pervasiveness of gendered aggression and abuse within biblical Israel. Its narratives attest to the commonality of wartime rape (e.g. Judg 21), forced marriage (e.g. Deut 21:10–14), and sex slavery (e.g. Gen 16). We can read stories of stranger rape (e.g. Gen 34), acquaintance rape (e.g. 2 Sam 13), and gang rape (both threatened and actualized; e.g. Gen 19; Judg 19). Turn to the prophetic literature and we are inundated with metaphorical renditions of spousal abuse and intimate partner violence, perpetrated (or at least sanctioned) by Israel’s jealous deity (e.g. Hos 1–3; Ezek 16, 23). Its laws uphold the structural violence of patriarchal power, which grants divine mandate to the rigidly prescriptive and proscriptive control of women’s (and sometimes vulnerable men’s) bodies (e.g. Lev 20:13, 18; 21:9; Num 5:11–31). In essence, both the poetry and prose of these ancient traditions testify to the subjective violence of multiple gendered abuses and grant a voice to the symbolic violence of misogynistic and heteronormative discourses, which marginalize and objectify women (and sometimes men), while normalizing their social, sexual, and religious subjugation. Bound within the pages of this sacred text, these articulations of gender violence have accrued significant authority and power across space and time; this power remains undiminished today, not only through the religious teachings and traditions of Judaism and Christianity but also by way of contemporary social discourses that (implicitly or explicitly) draw upon the ideologies inherent within biblical texts to justify multiple forms of gender violence. While it would be inaccurate to claim that the origins of rape culture and gender violence lie exclusively (or even predominantly) within the biblical traditions, we must nevertheless acknowledge that these texts are by no means blameless. For no literature (particularly sacred literature) is ever value neutral, nor does it leave the reader unaffected by the reading process. Rather, all texts invite their audience to embrace certain discourses, values and belief systems, expressed through their authors’ rhetorical strategies.

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Thus, according to Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Stories are never just descriptive but always also prescriptive.”24 In other words, biblical texts may reflect the ideologies of the ancient communities in which they are written, but they also have the potential to validate and sanction those same ideologies within communities in which they are read, even today. And when these ideologies are rape-supportive, or endorse the structural violence of gender inequality and cisheteropatriarchal hegemony, then their power to impact contemporary readers’ lives and worldviews cannot be underestimated. Thus, according to Patrocinio Schweickart, “We cannot afford to ignore the activity of reading, for it is here that literature is realized in praxis. Literature acts on the world by acting on its readers.”25 Some scholars and readers of the Bible may, however, contend that it is anachronistic to use contemporary definitions of gender violence in order to evaluate the presence or absence of such violence within the biblical texts. To do so, they argue, is to impose conceptualizations of gender and sexuality upon the biblical traditions that bear little or no relevance to those held by their ancient authors.26 Yet we would contend that, while some of the gender discourses articulated in these traditions may differ to those we encounter within our own cultural contexts, the gendered violence evoked therein is all too familiar, even today. Our ability to recognize episodes of coercive sexual behavior, sex slavery, or brutal gang rape in the biblical texts need not be hindered by our acknowledgment that Israelite women appeared to have no cognizable right of consent. The fact that the abduction and rape of female prisoners of war is mandated in the legal codes (Deut 21:10–14) ought not stop us from seeing the horrific violence inherent within this law. The gender violence is there, in the text—this is undeniable. By refusing to acknowledge this violence through appeals to epistemological rigor, readers simply become complicit in its erasure, allowing it to remain unchallenged. As Eryl Davies explains, “To accept the value statements of the [biblical] text in utter passivity, without allowing oneself the freedom to reflect critically upon its claims and to question its assumptions is merely to foster a sense of complacency.”27 Our task, then, is to contest this complacency, and to name (and shame) the multiple forms of gender violence present within the biblical traditions, in the hope that by so doing, we can undermine the influence and power that biblical texts of terror continue to have within contemporary rape cultures. Thus, according to Susanne Scholz: What is required is that readers acknowledge their interpretative interests and look critically at the social, political, economic, or religious implications of their readings. In the context of a global rape culture, it is crucial to uplift ancient rape legislation and to identify past and present strategies that continue obfuscating the prevalence of rape even today.28

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With this in mind, how, then, do we begin to engage our students in discussions about biblical texts that depict gender violence?29 This is not a step that we take lightly, or a means of attracting students to attend our lectures through the classroom equivalent of clickbait. Rather, we raise this issue primarily because, like it or not, these texts are in the Bible. It is therefore imperative to draw students’ attention to this fact if we are serious about improving their biblical literacy. For a number of Christian students, these biblical “texts of terror” come as a surprise, as they are typically omitted from church lectionaries and are thus rarely the focus of sermons or Bible study groups. For non-Christian students, there is also often a sense of disbelief that a book they acknowledge as carrying huge religious and cultural weight contains such problematic portrayals of gendered violence. To exclude these texts from our course syllabi and lecture schedules would therefore be doing our students a huge disservice; for, to properly understand the Bible, we must have the integrity to confront it in its entirety, regardless of how tough the ensuing conversations might prove.30 So how does our location of Aotearoa New Zealand—where gender violence and rape culture are so pervasive—inform the ways we teach these troubling texts in our classrooms? It is important to note that as biblical scholars and educators, we are not claiming that the Bible (or Christianity more broadly) is the sole source of the incredibly high rates of gender violence in Aotearoa New Zealand; we do contend, however, that it must be interrogated as a text that both supports and perpetuates such violence, particularly given the Bible’s colonial legacy. We cannot afford to ignore the potential for biblical traditions to contribute to the harm experienced by countless victims of gender violence who live with us upon this land. This conviction informs our classroom engagement with the Bible in three ways. First, when addressing biblical texts of terror, we must always be sensitive to the very real possibility that some of the students in our classrooms may be affected personally by gender violence. With this in mind, we always ensure some basic steps are taken to minimize our own potential to further the harm they may already have experienced (or currently be experiencing). We both take time at the start of class to alert students to the fact that we will be dealing with the subject of gender violence, acknowledging to them our awareness that this topic of conversation might be difficult or confronting for some of those present. We also invite students who do feel disturbed or distressed by the lecture content to speak to us directly or to contact appropriate support services (the details of which we provide during the lecture and add to our course syllabus). Equally important, we remind all our students of the need to ensure that the classroom remains a safe space for everyone; discussions must therefore be carried out with a sensitivity to classmates’ diverse perspectives and experiences, and a commitment to hold each other’s words

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and testimonies in confidence. What we say in the classroom stays in the classroom. Second, we acknowledge that within our lecture rooms, there may also be those who participate in the social structures that sustain gender violence. This can be incredibly challenging, particularly when our students voice rapesupportive opinions or downplay the seriousness of gender violence within both the biblical texts and their own contemporary cultures. We have heard students tell us that biblical rape victims must have “deserved” their assault or that the perpetrator of gendered violence was somehow “justified” in their actions. This is particularly common when the perpetrator is a biblical “hero” (like David) or even the biblical God himself. Trying to retain a level of professionalism while maintaining the safe space of our classroom is a fine line to walk. We are committed to calling out rape-enabling discourses expressed by our students—surely this is our responsibility as academic role models. We feel compelled to remind students that language has enormous power to sustain these violent discourses and to negatively impact the lives of sexual violence survivors. For lecturers, these situations can be difficult but they are also a teaching opportunity, where we remind the students that the gendered violence evoked in these ancient biblical texts extends beyond the words on the page to have consequences within their own contemporary contexts and communities. Third, the practices we outlined in our last two points reflect our commitment to our role as critic and conscience in the classroom. We need to stress to students that the issue of biblical gender violence matters, particularly because ancient sacred texts continue to have power in contemporary communities to sustain rape-supportive discourses. We live in a global rape culture and read the Bible within this culture. We want to remind students of this fact and invite them to stand alongside us as critic and conscience within their own communities, both inside and outside academia. Some of our students will take what they learn in the classroom back to others—congregants, Bible study groups, youth groups, or simply family and friends. We remind them that their own engagement with biblical texts of terror have the potential to impact other people’s views of gender and gender violence. As Linda Day notes, the students in our classrooms “will be responsible to a wider public, and hence must learn to be aware of how they are either serving or harming others through their methods and results when interpreting the Bible.”31 Yet, within the classrooms of Aotearoa New Zealand, conversations about the Bible and gender violence are not always easy to negotiate. We live and teach in a bicultural country, and, situated in Auckland, we are located in one of the most ethnically diverse cities within that country. Our classrooms reflect this diversity, containing students who identify as Māori, Pākehā, Pasifika, and Asian. Some of our students belong to cultures

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that embrace traditional gender roles and hierarchies, which normalize and sustain various forms of gender violence. How do we critique rape culture and gender violence, when these are recognized by some of our students as being so closely woven together with their own cultural identities? How do we challenge the unacceptable violence of patriarchy and misogyny while still being sensitive to our students’ investment in their cultural traditions? To what extent can we invite students to critique the traditional underpinnings of their own cultures, particularly when we ourselves do not belong to these cultures? These are thorny questions, which highlight that issues of colonization and marginalization constantly intersect with discourses of rape culture and gender violence. We are conscious of the fact that, as educators who self-identify as Pākehā, we always run the risk of “colonizing” our students’ own cultural contexts, of prioritizing our own Western value systems and ideologies over their own diverse worldviews. At the same time, however, we try to empower them with the courage to join us in our quest to scrutinize our own cultural traditions with integrity, and to acknowledge that all of our cultures and communities are, to some extent at least, complicit in sustaining the discourses that enable rape culture and gender violence to flourish. Another thorny issue we are often confronted with is not unique to Aotearoa New Zealand, but is likely encountered by biblical scholars teaching biblical texts of terror throughout the world. For many of our students, the Bible is not only their course “textbook”; it is also their sacred scripture. When we invite the class to interrogate its texts and identify the problematic ideologies around gender violence voiced within them, we often encounter resistance or even a refusal to do so. Some students find it too threatening to engage with any reading of a text that (in their eyes) challenges its authority or appears to undermine its “Good News.” The potential for biblical texts of terror to convey “Bad News” to people who have themselves been impacted by gender violence is something that they refuse to discuss, or even consider. Instead, they suspend their critical faculties, unwilling to recognize the violence within the text, despite the fact that they would likely acknowledge the same violence were it to appear in other literary (non-biblical) forms.32 Moreover, they often perform an impressive array of interpretive gymnastics to sanitize the text and preserve its sacred reputation in which they are so heavily invested. Prophetic re-enactments of spousal abuse are dismissed as “harmless metaphors”; biblical laws that sanction wartime rape are justified as “relatively humanitarian” compared to other Ancient Near Eastern legal codes; and biblical heroes such as Abraham and David, who perpetrate unequivocal acts of gendered violence, are excused because they are “doing God’s work,” playing a vital role in Israel’s (and ultimately Christianity’s) wider redemptive narrative.

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Yet such exegetical contortions only serve to sustain a vicious cycle of interpretation and affirmation that protects the destructive power of rape-supportive biblical texts. As critic and conscience of our classrooms, we therefore have to equip students to consider the capacity of the text to perpetuate rape culture and gender violence. While affirming our respect for everyone’s faith traditions, we nevertheless reiterate to students their responsibilities to ask searching questions about biblical texts of terror. We remind them of the power that language—particularly sacred language—has to impact the lives of real people and their experiences of violence. And, most importantly, we offer them a safe and non-judgmental space within which they can interrogate and explore their sacred texts. In all honesty, sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Some of our students have told us that they truly appreciate the opportunity to discuss gender violence, which remains such a taboo topic within their own cultures and communities. When they encounter such violence in the biblical narrative, they feel empowered to talk openly about these issues within church and family contexts. As sacred scripture, the Bible can mitigate strict cultural taboos, offering a point of entry for discussions around contemporary instances of gender violence. The Bible ceases to be an “otherworldly” text that has little relevance to everyday life, and becomes instead a means by which social praxis is fostered and enacted. For students who may themselves have been impacted by gender violence, reading texts that evoke the trauma of biblical rape victims like Tamar (2 Sam 13) and Dinah (Gen 34) can be both healing and affirming, as it allows them to see something of themselves within these texts—an affirmation that their experiences and their stories ought to be heard and taken seriously within their faith communities. Meanwhile, other students may be struck afresh by the gendered injustices evoked in some of these biblical traditions. This, in turn, encourages them to think about these injustices in their own culture, to understand gender violence from the victim’s perspective, and to critique their own complicity in the perpetuation of a culture where such violence continues to flourish. Yet at other times, our experiences of talking about biblical gender violence are far less well received. We still encounter students who disengage in the classroom, or become frustrated with the subject matter. Some even project their frustrations against us—the bearers of “Bad News”—articulating their hostility in classroom discussions, emails, and their written assignments. We have been accused of “misreading” the biblical texts, of having a “feminist agenda” in our teaching, and of being “anti-Christian” in our approach to these scriptural traditions. Such encounters can be demoralizing, distressing, and exhausting—both for ourselves, as teachers, and for other students who feel as passionate as we do about our academic responsibilities as critic and conscience. At the end of the day, though, these criticisms only serve to

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reinforce for us the importance of persisting—and persisting and persisting— with these tough conversations in the classrooms of Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond.

NOTES 1. Ann Burnett, “Rape Culture” in Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, edited by Angela Wong, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Renee Hoogland, and Nancy A. Naples (Singapore: John Wiley, 2016), 1. 2. We refer here to Slavoj Žižek’s categories of objective and subjective violence (see Violence: Six Sideways Reflections (London: Profile, 2008)). Subjective violence relates to the physical violence of crime and terror; objective violence includes the symbolic violence of hate speech and discriminatory language and the structural (or systemic) violence inherent within political and economic systems of power. 3. See UN Women, “Facts and Figures: Ending Violence against Women” (2017), http://www​.unwomen​.org​/en​/what​-we​-do​/ending​-violence​-against​-women​/facts​-and​ -figures; United Nations Population Fund United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA Engagement in Ending Gender-Based Violence (2016), http://www​.unfpa​.org​/sites​ /default​/files​/resource​-pdf​/UNFPA​_Brochures​_on​_GBV​_Prevention​_and​_response​ .pdf; UNESCO, Out in the Open: Education Sector Responses to Violence Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression (Paris: UNESCO, 2016); Human Rights Campaign, “Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2017” (2017), https://www​.hrc​.org​/resources​/violence​-against​-the​-transgender​-community​-in​-2017; United Nations General Assembly, “Discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity” (2011), http://www2​.ohchr​.org​/english​/bodies​/hrcouncil​/docs​/19session​/A​.HRC​.19​ .41​_English​.pdf. 4. Sangeeta Anand, “Unsafe Haven,” Ms. Magazine (Spring 2009), 19. 5. Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2013), 33–34. 6. Harriet Winn, “Thursdays in Black: Localized Responses to Rape Culture and Gender Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand” in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 52. 7. OECD, “Violence against Women” (2017), https://data​.oecd​.org​/inequality​/ violence​-against​-women​.htm. This was also confirmed in a report by UN Women, Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice (2011), http://www​.unwomen​ .org​/en​/digital​-library​/publications​/2011​/7​/progress​-of​-the​-world​-s​-women​-in​-pursuit​-of​-justice​#view. 8. UN Human Rights, Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice (2018), http://www​.unwomen​.org​/en​/digital​-library​/publications​/2011​/7​/progress​-of​ -the​-world​-s​-women​-in​-pursuit​-of​-justice​#view, 3. 9. Te Ohaakii a Hine – National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together (TOAH-NNEST), “What Is Sexual Violence: He Aha Tēnei” (2013), http://toah​

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-nnest​.org​.nz​/what​-is​-sexual​-violence​/prevalence; Ministry of Justice, “Sexual Violence” (2016), https://www​.justice​.govt​.nz​/justice​-sector​-policy​/research​-data​/nzcass​ /survey​-results​/results​-by​-subject​/sexual​-violence/. 10. Māori girls and women are nearly twice as likely to experience sexual violence as the general population in Aotearoa New Zealand (P. Mayhew and J. Reilly, The New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey (Wellington: Ministry of Justice, 2009)). The rates of Māori women who report child sexual abuse are also considerably higher than European women and those from other ethnic groups (Janet L. Fanslow et al., “Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse Reported by a Cross-Sectional Sample of New Zealand Women,” Child Abuse and Neglect 31, no. 9 (2007): 935–45). Māori are also three times more likely to be either the victims or perpetrators of fatal intimate partner violence (Family Violence Death Review Committee, Fifth Report Data: January 2009 to December 2015 (Wellington: Family Violence Death Review Committee, 2017), 12. Furthermore, Pasifika and migrant women are at a statistically greater risk of being victims of sexual violence (Ministry of Justice. 2009. Te Toiora Mata Tauherenga: Report of the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence (Wellington: Ministry of Justice, 2009)). For data and reports on violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender-diverse people, see Hohou Te Rongo Kahukura—Outing Violence, “Reports and Findings” (2017), http://www​.kahukura​.co​.nz​/uncategorized​/ reportandfindings/. 11. Ministry of Justice, “Sexual Violence”; cited in NZ Human Rights Campaign, “Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2017” (2018), 4. 12. Despite these statistics, only 1.5% of government spending was dedicated to violence prevention in 2017 (New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse 2017; cited in NZ Human Rights Commission 2018, 4). The New Zealand government has announced that from 2018, there will be an additional $76 million spent on frontline social services dealing with family violence. Jan Logie, Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice (Domestic and Sexual Violence), said, “An effective family and sexual violence system requires sustained leadership and coordination. It’s clear the current system is failing to prevent violence or provide the integrated responses people need. That’s why we’re creating a dedicated body to transform and lead the system (Ministry of Justice 2018).” 13. Nancy Nason-Clark, The Battered Wife: How Christians Confront Family Violence (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997); Mimi Haddad, “Dr Catherine Clark Kroeger: An Evangelical Legacy,” Priscilla Papers 25, no. 3 (2011): 4–9; Johannes N. Vorster, “The Queering of Biblical Discourse,” Scriptura 111, no. 3 (2012): 602–20. 14. Carol J. Adams, “‘I just raped my wife! What are you going to do about it, Pastor?’ The Church and Sexual Violence” in Transforming A Rape Culture, edited by Emilie Buchwald, Pamela R. Fletcher, and Martha Ross, 57–86 (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1993; Daphne Marsden, “The Church’s Contribution to Domestic Violence: Submission, Headship, and Patriarchy” in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Christian Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, 73–95 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

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15. Jo Henderson-Merrygold, “Queer(y)ing the Epistemic Violence of Christian Gender Discourses” in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Christian Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, 97–117 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); David Hare, “LGBT Affirmation and Identity in Christian Teachings and Church Communities” in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan and Katie B. Edwards, 135–44 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 16. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Boston: Beacon, 1973). 17. Kathleen McPhillips, “The Royal Commission Investigates Child Sexual Abuse: Uncovering Cultures of Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church” in Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Christian Perspectives, edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, and Katie B. Edwards, 53–71 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); Rocío Figueroa Alvear and David Tombs, Listening to Male Survivors of Church Sexual Abuse: Voices from Survivors of Sodalicio Abuses in Peru (Dunedin: Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago, 2016). 18. See e.g., Carol J. Adams and Marie M. Fortune (eds.), Violence Against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook (New York: Continuum, 1998); Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics (London: Routledge, 2000); Marcella Althaus-Reid, The Queer God (London: Routledge, 2003); Marie M. Fortune, Sexual Violence: The Unmentionable Sin (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1983); Marie M. Fortune, “Faith Is Fundamental to Ending Domestic Terror,” Women's Rights Law Reporter 33 (2012): 463−70; Roger A. Sneed, Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism. Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). 19. For example, Tearfund, a Christian international relief and development agency, have created resources and initiated projects that aim to tackle sexual and gender violence in a number of countries around the world. For further details, see their web page, “Sexual and Gender Based Violence,” https://learn​.tearfund​.org​/en​/ themes​/sexual​_and​_gender​-based​_violence/. 20. Fortune, “Faith Is Fundamental to Ending Domestic Terror,” 469−70. 21. Julie Wharewera-Mika and Kathryn McPhillips, “Good Practice Responding to Sexual Violence” (Wellington: Te Ohaaki a Hine National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together (TOAH-NNEST) (2016), http://www​.communityresearch​.org​.nz​/ wp​-content​/uploads​/formidable​/Good​-Practice​-Responding​-to​-Sexual​-Violence​-Crisis​-Support​-Services​-2016​-with​-Reports​.pdf. 22. Winn, “Thursdays in Black,” 57. 23. Ibid. 24. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001), 136. 25. Patrocinio P. Schweickart, “Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading” in Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, edited by Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1993), 615 (original italics).

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26. For further discussion of this interpretive approach, and examples of biblical scholars who appear to endorse it, see Susanne Scholz, “‘Back Then It Was Legal’: The Epistemological Imbalance in Readings of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Rape Legislation,” Bible and Critical Theory 1, no. 4 (2005): 1–22. 27. Eryl W. Davies, The Dissenting Reader: Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 46. Similar remarks are made by Esther Fuchs (“Contemporary Biblical Literary Criticism: The Objective Phallacy” in Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text, edited by Vincent L. Tollers and John Maier, 134–42 (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1990)); Emily M. D. Scott (“The Bible’s #MeToo Problem,” New York Times (16 June 2018), https://www​.nytimes​ .com​/2018​/06​/16​/opinion​/sunday​/women​-the​-bible​-metoo​.html; Caroline Blyth, The Narrative of Rape in Genesis 34: Interpreting Dinah’s Silence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 8–12. 28. Scholz, “‘Back Then It Was Legal’,” 2. 29. Some of our courses focus on a biblical text that happens to contain narratives of gender violence (e.g. Genesis, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel). Other courses consider the Bible more thematically, and our explorations of biblical “texts of terror” form part of wider discussions around the Bible in relation to contemporary understandings of gender, sexuality, violence, (post)colonialism, and popular culture. 30. Linda Day, “Teaching the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor Texts,” Teaching Theology and Religion 2, no. 3 (1999): 176. 31. Day, “Teaching the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor Texts,” 174. 32. See Day, “Teaching the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor Texts,” 176.

Chapter 7

Asking the Right Questions Noticing and Naming Sexual Abuse David Tombs

On August 4, 2016, Rachael Denhollander saw a link on her Facebook newsfeed to an IndyStar newspaper story that was trending.1 The story described multiple sexual abuses by coaches in gymnastics and an apparent cover-up by the USA Gymnastics organization (USAG).2 USAG were said to have complaints on more than fifty coaches. According to the sources, instead of contacting law enforcement, the allegations had been “filed in a drawer” at USAG’s head office in Indianapolis.3 Denhollander scanned the story three times.4 She had waited a long time for the opportunity it offered. She was a qualified attorney living in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband Jacob and their three young children.5 Sixteen years earlier, when she was fifteen and growing up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, she had been sexually abused by USAG team doctor Larry Nassar during treatment for gymnastics injuries.6 Nassar’s work for USAG included the US Olympic team, but he also saw many amateur club gymnasts like Denhollander at his clinic at Michigan State University (MSU).7 There was nothing in the story about Nassar, but Denhollander sensed that the IndyStar story offered a rare chance. She emailed the newspaper to report Nassar for sexually abusing her with his fingers during his treatments. It took two weeks for the paper to reply, but after that the process moved quickly. By the end of August, the paper had video-recorded an interview with Denhollander detailing the abuse and Denhollander had filed criminal charges with the police and registered a Title IX complaint with MSU.8 On September 12, 2016, the IndyStar published Denhollander’s allegations against Nassar alongside very similar allegations from an Olympic medal gymnast detailed in a lawsuit filed the previous week in California.9 Over the next eighteen months, Nassar was exposed and convicted of widespread sexual abuse. He has been described as “the most prolific known sex criminal in 85

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American sports history.”10 The cases involved young girls, teenagers, college students, and other young women. They had seen Nassar for treatment relating to sports injuries or similar problems. Prominent figures included well-known Olympic-team gymnasts, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, McKayla Maroney, and Simone Biles, in addition to the many club and amateur gymnasts like Denhollander. Other victims included dancers, rowers, runners, a swimmer, and a figure skater. Still others were involved in team-sports including softball, soccer, and volleyball.11 Nassar’s first known victim was Sara Teristi who was fourteen in 1988 when she was treated at Great Lakes Gym, where Nassar volunteered during his medical training.12 In October 2018, the estimated total number of victims was reported as over five hundred.13 Denhollander shares her experience and describes her struggle to bring Nassar to justice in her book What Is a Girl Worth? At the beginning of the book, Denhollander offers important words of reassurance and support for survivors: For every survivor from every background and identity, those who came before, those yet to come, and those who are no longer with us. It is not your fault. It is not your shame. You are believed.14

This chapter draws on a short Humanities elective course that I teach at the University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand, for medical students. The course explores issues of belief and disbelief in the Nassar case and lessons from the case for sexual-abuse cases more widely. We investigate the reasons that Nassar’s abuses were left unaddressed for so long and how he was able to repeatedly evade accountability when complaints were made against him. The Nassar case offers a powerful illustration of how even blatant sexual abuse can sometimes go unrecognized. It is particularly instructive, because the failure to see what was happening was so widespread and so systemic. When Denhollander—and other victims—raised legitimate concerns about Nassar’s treatments, they were repeatedly met by resistance, disbelief, denial, and dismissal from those who should have responded. The course examines the failures of authorities, and identifies the mix of fears, falsehoods, mistaken assumptions, self-interests, complicities, and collusions, which enabled Nassar’s abuses. A key message from the Nassar case is that flagrant sexual abuse can remain unrecognized, and then persist for decades, while hidden in plain sight. When concerns about Nassar were raised, they were met by an assumption of disbelief and an insistence that those who raised them must be mistaken. Those who complained were told that they were confused and mistaken. Those who spoke out, rather than Nassar, were portrayed as the problem and were silenced or blamed. As Denhollander puts it:

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Larry could have and should have been stopped. But no one did the right thing. No one even asked the right questions. Everyone assumed these women were confused—too uneducated to know what real medical treatment was. Their judgment wasn’t trusted, not even enough to ask a question.15

The chronic failure to recognize what should have been obvious in the Nassar case is a helpful contemporary case study to consider alongside recent research naming Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse. Along with other scholars, I have pointed to the stripping and naked exposure of Jesus as an unnamed— and largely unnoticed—episode of historical sexual violence in the Bible.16 The sexual abuse of Jesus is an important but confronting new threshold of theology. It ought to be recognized by theologians and biblical scholars as well as church leaders and church members. The stripping and enforced nudity of Jesus are in the text and are quite well known. Yet for many readers, the sexual abuse involved in these practices is too shocking to be acknowledged or named. The right questions about the significance of what happened are rarely asked, and the right language to describe it is rarely used. Despite publications on this subject stretching back over twenty years the churches remain hesitant about picking up the challenges involved. Those who take the time to learn more about the research come to see it as both persuasive and relevant. Furthermore, it speaks directly to some of the most difficult issues that churches are facing. Yet at first, acknowledging and naming Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse is invariably seen as an almost unimaginable step for the church to take. It is often met by incredulity and silence, and sometimes by outright denial and harsh verbal attacks. Changing these reactions will take time and effort and a sensitive educational process. Just as many people initially found it impossible to believe that Nassar was an abuser, likewise many people initially find it impossible to believe that Jesus was sexually abused. This is only likely to change when the right questions are asked about crucifixion, and when there is a willingness to follow such confronting questions in whatever direction they might lead, regardless of the resistance they might meet. In this chapter, a key passage in the crucifixion narrative is discussed alongside Nassar’s story. It examines how the Nassar case sheds light on the instinctive skepticism that typically greets the suggestion that Jesus was a victim of sexual abuse. Drawing on lessons from the Nassar case, I suggest that theological educators should do more to help the church acknowledge Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse. Embracing this new threshold in theology is an important step toward a fuller understanding of Jesus’ historical experience and will also help the church to respond to other pressing issues. For example, understanding Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse can help to address the issues of denial and neglect currently being scrutinized by the New Zealand’s Royal

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Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions.17 In addition, when the sexual side of Jesus’ abuse is discussed with care and sensitivity, it can offer a strong further reinforcement of Denhollander’s important messages to survivors, “It is not your fault” and “You are not alone.”18 ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS Larry Nassar was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at MSU in 1997.19 He spent nearly his entire career at MSU until his dismissal in September 2016. His role and growing reputation would allow him to abuse a wide range of MSU student athletes who came to him for treatment of sports injuries. In addition, because his work at MSU had a community focus, he also used his MSU clinic to treat girls and young women from outside the University. His patients initially came from local gyms and the local community, but as his reputation grew patients also came from further afield. Furthermore, Nassar’s work for USAG also made it possible for him to abuse elite gymnasts during national team training camps. Nassar’s expertise and reputation meant his medical services were always in high demand. Nassar became known as the go-to person for sports injuries. He also had a reputation for being approachable and a caring friend for gymnasts in what was often a relentless and very uncaring sport.20 Under the guise of treatment for injuries, Nassar took frequent opportunities to fondle and penetrate the vagina and/or anus of patients with his fingers and thumb during his treatments of injuries.21 Despite his claims that he was offering medical treatment, there is no question that Nassar subjected his patients to repeated criminal acts which often started during their very first visits. Even when the injury was to a different part of the body, Nassar justified his pseudo-treatment on the basis that it allowed him to access a grand-junction in the ligaments through which he claimed everything was connected. Over the years, many of his patients wondered about the legitimacy of this “treatment.” For some it was a question they asked themselves but never spoke aloud or shared with others. Nassar’s methods seemed strange, but they trusted his national reputation. Some patients were sufficiently worried to share their concerns with others who had been treated by Nassar. Regrettably, because Nassar abused so many of his patients, those who asked other patients were often mistakenly reassured that it must be okay and that all was well. Even so, some of Nassar’s patients were sufficiently concerned to raise questions with other coaches and to report Nassar to authorities. Nassar had first been reported to MSU at the start of his career in 1997. A sixteen-year-old

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gymnast, Larissa Boyce told MSU head coach Kathy Klages that Nassar penetrated her vagina with his finger during treatment. Klages told Boyce she must be mistaken and dissuaded her from pursuing a formal complaint. In 2000, Tiffany Thomas Lopez, a sophomore softball athlete at MSU, had been treated by Nassar for back pain. She complained to several MSU coaches that Nassar had penetrated her with his fingers. She was told that it was medical treatment and that filing a complaint would just create trouble for all involved.22 In 2004, seventeen-year-old Brianne Randall-Gay had made a police complaint about Nassar, after Nassar had massaged her breasts at an appointment for back pain. Nassar had also attempted to penetrate her vagina with his finger but had stopped when he encountered a tampon. A police detective interviewed Nassar, but believed Nassar’s assurance that the treatment was medical, so no further action was taken. The case record states: “The Doctor was using a medically accepted technique for the alleviation of pain. No crime was committed.”23 In 2014, MSU graduate student Amanda Thomashow had an appointment with Nassar for an old foot injury. When Nassar touched Thomashow’s breast, she became uncomfortable. Nassar went on to massage her lower back and touched her vagina. Thomashow subsequently made a complaint to MSU police and lodged a Title IX complaint at MSU. In the police interview which followed, Nassar assured the detective, “I do this on a regular basis.” Once again, his claim that it was medical treatment and okay was accepted. In the MSU Title IX investigation, Nassar’s claim that the treatment was medical was endorsed by four of his medical colleagues.24 In June 2015, Maggie Nichols, a USAG gymnast, raised questions about Nassar’s treatment during USAG training camps at the Karolyi Ranch.25 The USAG spent five weeks considering the allegations before contacting the FBI in July. The FBI heard further concerns from other elite gymnasts, including McKayla Maroney, but failed to make any meaningful progress on the investigation until after Denhollander publicly named Nassar in September 2016.26 In her interview, Denhollander accused Nassar of penetration with his finger over a series of visits, starting with the very first visit. The abuse got worse as visits progressed. Because Denhollander’s mother was present in the room, Nassar was always careful to obscure her view and to hide what he was doing. Denhollander had heard from her mother that pelvic floor treatment was sometimes used for back injuries.27 Her mother’s presence in the room provided reassurance that what Nassar was doing must therefore be okay. Eventually, Denhollander did mention the internal treatment to her mother, who was shocked to hear what had been happening without her being aware of it. However, Denhollander and her mother trusted Nassar so much they assumed that he must have started the pelvic floor therapy that they had

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heard about from another therapist. They were surprised, but they continued their visits. It was not until an appointment in the summer of 2001, when Nassar turned Denhollander away from her mother and massaged her breasts that Denhollander became alarmed by Nassar’s actions. She knew that massaging her breasts was not medical. However, she was also certain that even if she reported Nassar to the authorities, she would not be taken seriously, “no one would care about a teenage girl getting groped.”28 In the months that followed, Denhollander was unable to forget what had happened. Her mother, who had previously experienced sexual abuse herself, noticed the signs of distress in her daughter and persuaded Rachael to disclose what had happened. After consulting with physiotherapists trained in pelvic therapy, Denhollander and her mother realized that the genital penetration as well as the breast massage had been sexual abuse. Yet, despite this new awareness, Denhollander was still convinced that she would not be taken seriously if she reported Nassar. She had to wait until 2016 before the IndyStar article provided the opportunity to tell her story. Denhollander’s assumption that she would not be believed is understandable given Nassar’s skill in hiding and misrepresenting his abuse. In her late teens, Denhollander transitioned from amateur gymnast to amateur coach, assisting at a gym with young girls. When she was nineteen, she heard that one of the girls she worked with would be going to Nassar for treatment. She disclosed Nassar’s breast massage and erection to the head coach, and another assistant coach, at the gym where she worked. The head coach asked her partner, a police officer, to check Nassar’s records, but they found nothing. The head coach insisted there had to be medical reasons and was reluctant to report the concerns without further evidence. She advised Denhollander not to pursue it further.29 Nassar was both well-liked in his local community and highly respected in his professional field. A practicing Catholic, he was known for charitable works and for being a good neighbor. The victims and their parents were not the only ones he deceived and misled. Many of his colleagues found the allegations of sexual abuse impossible to believe. Throughout Nassar’s career, patients raised questions about what he was doing. They were consistently reassured that it could not be abuse. Other coaches, other doctors, police detectives, child psychologists, counselors, MSU administrators, and the FBI, all failed to see what should have been clear. Denhollander knew that those who disclose sexual abuse are often met with skeptical and hostile responses. When she was seven years old, she had been sexually molested by a college student when she was sitting on his lap during a church Bible study.30 She did not speak with her parents about this until she was twelve and was troubled by vivid memories. Her mother

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explained that following complaints from some female college students, and concerns over his behavior with Rachael and another young girl, he had been asked to leave the congregation. However, the situation had been divisive. Some church members were not convinced it was a serious problem, and some were worried about the potential bad publicity if it became known. The different reactions had created conflict in the church. Some of the families who had raised concerns and were frustrated by the poor response left the church. After a year, Denhollander’s family also left the church. The lesson that Denhollander took from this experience was: “If you can’t prove it, don’t speak up. Because it will cost you everything.”31 Denhollander’s decision to contact the IndyStar in August 2016 and speak out against Nassar was therefore not taken lightly. Denhollander knew she would be met with disbelief and resistance. Fortunately, Denhollander was helped by a serious mistake by Nassar’s own lawyer. When the IndyStar informed Nassar of the interview they were about to broadcast featuring the interview with Denhollander, Nassar’s lawyer countered, as expected, that Nassar’s procedures were medical. However, in protesting Nassar’s innocence, the lawyer went on to say that Nassar “never used a procedure that involved penetration.”32 This denial shocked many of Nassar’s other patients. They recognized the treatments described in the newspaper and knew that Nassar had “treated” them in the same way. They had previously thought that his invasive treatment was legitimately medical. The stark denial of penetration was so clearly at odds with what they knew to be true that it undermined the trust they had placed in Nassar. It became impossible to maintain confidence in the medical legitimacy of Nassar’s idiosyncratic procedures.33 Within a fortnight, another sixteen women and girls came forward with similar stories and further complaints about Nassar.34 If all Nassar’s victims had been gymnasts and athletes, he might still have been able to correct and spin the story and maintain his insistence that the complaints arose from misunderstood medical procedures that were invasive but not abusive. However, one complainant, Kyle Stephens, brought a different type of sexual-abuse charge against Nassar. In her case, the abuse had not been associated with any medical treatment. Stephens’ parents had been family friends and neighbors of Nassar in Holt, Michigan. In 1998, Nassar had started abusing Stephens when she was aged six. Stephens had tried to report Nassar previously, and reading the IndyStar prompted her to try again. Her complaint gave grounds for a police search of Nassar’s home on September 20, 2016.35 During the search, police discovered external computer drives in Nassar’s trash. The files on the drives had been deleted, but the police restored them to reveal an extensive collection of about 37,000 images of child pornography. This led to federal charges on child pornography, in addition to the existing criminal investigations. When the child pornography

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charges became known, the public support that Nassar had enjoyed up to this point started to fade and public belief in his innocence began to slip away. In March 2017, Denhollander’s complaint against Nassar was upheld in the Title IX case.36 Four months later, Nassar pleaded guilty to the child pornography charges in the federal case as part of a plea-deal. The sentencing was set for November.37 Meanwhile, state prosecutors continued to build the case in relation to the sexual assault accusations, with ten charges under the jurisdiction of two different county courts.38 In October 2017, the hashtag #MeToo suddenly became part of the cultural zeitgeist at a very timely point in the Nassar prosecution.39 As the November sentencing for the child pornography case drew nearer, Nassar’s lawyers requested plea-deals for the state cases to be held in the county courts. The state prosecutor agreed to a plea-deal to settle over a hundred investigations he was facing. This was on condition that all of Nassar’s victims could make victim impact statements at the sentence hearings. On November 22, 2017, Nassar pleaded guilty to seven state charges for criminal sexual conduct in Ingham County, a week later he pleaded guilty to a further three charges in Eaton County. On December 7, 2017, Nassar was sentenced to sixty years in the federal case for the child pornography charges, and the judge specified that this would be consecutive to his state sentences.40 In January 2018, over 200 victim impact statements were presented over nine days at his sentencing in the two county courts.41 Nassar was sentenced by the Ingham County Court on January 24 to between 40 and 175 years in prison, and by the Eaton County Court on February 5 to 40 to 125 years to be served concurrently. The repeated failure by so many people to recognize Nassar’s procedures as abusive illustrates what is readily believed—and what appears to be unbelievable—when confronted by disturbing reports. The widespread incredulity, silence, and denial that had met those who raised concerns were critical in enabling Nassar’s abuse to continue. While Nassar himself was entirely responsible for his crimes, he was not the only guilty part. He was enabled for many years by those who failed to see what they should have seen, failed to ask what they should have asked, and failed to do what they should have done.42

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS TO SEE SEXUAL ABUSE IN MATTHEW 27:26–31 The crucifixion of Jesus is one of the most often told stories in history. It is constantly remembered and retold by Christians around the world, especially during Holy Week and above all on Good Friday. The gospel texts which tell

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the narrative are very familiar. They record the well-known story of betrayal, false accusations, unjust conviction, mockery, and execution. Jesus is subjected to a journey of sorrows—a via dolorosa—which leads to his crucifixion, death, and burial. Then, after three days, the tale of suffering and defeat is triumphantly reversed on Easter Sunday. The resurrection of Jesus brings new life and hope for all creation. Because the texts are so familiar—and the final outcome so well-known— it is easy to read the biblical texts without noticing or naming some of the disturbing details which deserve attention. In particular, it is easy to read the narrative without recognizing the indications of sexual abuse which are explicitly referenced but rarely properly acknowledged. A more careful reading suggests a compelling case for recognizing elements of sexual abuse, shown in the stripping and enforced nudity.43 This is particularly clear in Matthew 27: 26–31, which includes two explicit strippings recorded in verse 28 and verse 31. There is a third stripping strongly implied in verse 26, since it was standard practice to scourge a victim while naked.44 If a victim was not already naked, the scourging would soon have achieved this. There is a fourth stripping referenced in verse 31, when Jesus is led away to be crucified. It was Roman custom to strip a prisoner for crucifixion; the shame and humiliation of the exposure added to suffering of the cross. As the South African scholar Gerald West points out, Matthew 27: 26–31 is drawing on Mark 15:15–20, but also makes redactional changes that give greater attention to the stripping. Matthew follows Mark with respect to the shift in setting and the summoning of “the whole cohort” (Matt. 27:27). However, Matthew’s focus is not primarily the ironic recognition of Jesus as “king,” as seen in Mark’s clothing of the naked Jesus in “purple” (Mark 15:17), which becomes in Matthew an ordinary soldier’s scarlet robe/cloak (Matt. 27:28). What is distinctive for Matthew is that Jesus is overtly and publicly “stripped” (ekduō): “They stripped Jesus and put a scarlet robe on him” (Matt. 27:28).45

West concludes that “Matthew, it would seem, foregrounds the embodied sexual violence against Jesus.”46 West’s discussion brings out and clearly names what is usually missed. The crucifixion narratives are often read in ways that barely notice the strippings in the praetorium and the nudity on the cross. Furthermore, even if these details are noted, it is very unusual for significant attention to be given to them. Even when the forced strippings are mentioned in passing, the language of sexual abuse is not usually applied to them. The image of Jesus’ stripping that most Christians are familiar with is the final stripping at the cross, referenced in verse 31 and recorded in verse 35. Verse 35 states, “And when they had crucified him, they divided his clothes

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among themselves by casting lots.” It is this stripping at the cross which is recalled as the Tenth Station of the Cross. Most images of this scene show Jesus being undressed by just a few people.47 Often there is minimal violence or aggression in the scene. Those around Jesus are frequently not even depicted as armed soldiers. It is often shown as more like a genteel disrobing, which presents Jesus being undressed while his serenity is maintained and even enhanced. A similar misrepresentation is common when Jesus is shown on the cross. It is a standard convention that Jesus is shown as unclothed on the cross apart from a loincloth. The inclusion of a loincloth preserves his dignity and softens the confronting impact of the scene, even though there is no mention of a loincloth in any of the gospel texts. When discussing with groups the strippings in the praetorium, a question about the number of soldiers present often prompts surprise. In many cases, the first response from a group is “we don’t know, we aren’t told.” This is to miss the importance of the words in Matthew 27:27 which refer to gathering “the whole cohort” (holēn ten speiran). There is no good reason to translate speira as a unit less than a cohort in this verse, and a whole cohort in the first-century CE would have been about 500 men. A Roman cohort (cohortis) was comprised of six centuries (centuriae). The term “century” suggests 100 soldiers, but after the first-century BCE, a century was reduced to 80 infantry. This means a cohort at full-strength would be 480 infantry. However, in addition to the infantry, there would have been the six centurions (each century was led by a centurion), probably plus their assistants, and possibly further support staff. The number for a “whole cohort” of soldiers is therefore about 500, and possibly more.48 The cohorts in Palestine were locally recruited auxiliary cohorts, probably from Caesarea and Sebaste (Samaria) rather than Italian soldiers.49 Nonetheless, an auxiliary infantry cohort would have been about the same size as an Italian cohort. Assembling a force of this size to repeatedly strip a prisoner is not a small or incidental matter. It is an organized and highly threatening act. When Matthew 27:26–31 is read carefully, it is a record of sexual violence shown in repeated stripping and enforced nudity. If the violence recorded in the text is to be understood, the stripping and forced nudity should be named and noticed as “sexual abuse” or “sexual violence.” Furthermore, given what often happens to prisoners following stripping, the passage allows for the possibility of some additional form of sexual assault as an unattested part of the mockery.50 Even if no further sexual assault took place, the stripping and enforced nudity are clearly sufficient to identify Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse. Sexual violence of this sort is especially common during torture and widely used against political prisoners in detention. While some might argue that stripping and forced nudity are not the most egregious forms of sexual

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violence and sexual abuse, they clearly meet the threshold to be recognized under these terms. A World Health Organization report provides a helpful definition of sexual violence which includes any acts directed against “a person’s sexuality.”51 In line with this, the UN Glossary (2017) identifies “forced public nudity” as a form of sexual violence.52 The UN Glossary defines sexual abuse as “Actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature,” and notes that this might be carried out through force or under unequal or coercive conditions.53 Elaine Heath discusses the invisibility of the sexual abuse of Jesus in church memory and notes the silence that goes with this.54 It is only recently that scholars and theological educators have started to name the obvious. For example, Michael Trainor discusses the ridicule and shame of naked exposure during crucifixion in his book The Body of Jesus and Sexual Abuse. He writes, “In a powerful and public way, it was an act of sexual abuse.”55 Likewise, Christopher Greenough makes clear, “Enforced nudity, is without doubt, sexual abuse. It has the strategy of shaming, humiliating, and disempowering its victim.”56 Carolyn Mackie notes, “The Gospel writers tell us that Jesus was stripped naked publicly, a form of sexual abuse by any standards.”57 Hilary Scarsella writes: “We can say confidently, then, that Jesus’s crucifixion was sexually violent. Jesus was a victim of sexual violence.”58 This understanding is not a case of reading contemporary Western attitudes toward nudity back into the text anachronistically or fabricating sexual abuse.59 It simply makes clear how events would have been seen at the time. Both Romans and Jews would have readily understood Jesus’ enforced nudity as demonstrating the power and control of the soldiers in contrast to the humiliation and weakness of Jesus.60 The soldiers used stripping and forced nudity as sexualized weapons to attack the sexual identity and expose the sexual vulnerability of those they crucified.61 Naming the sexual abuse in Jesus’ experience is not to suggest that there is an exact comparison between the abuse of Jesus and the abuse of girls and young women by Nassar. A first-century political prisoner at the mercy of Roman soldiers is not an exact match to a young gymnast subjected to abuse by a medical doctor in the twenty-first century. One obvious difference is clear in the intentions behind the abuse. Nassar’s abuse was for his own sexual gratification. Abuse against political prisoners is less likely to be driven by sexual gratification and more likely to be motivated by simple humiliation. It is possible that some soldiers found sexual gratification in the abuse of Jesus, but this would not have been necessary. The mockery and humiliation would have been sufficient motivation in its own right. While this difference should be acknowledged, it should not be overstated. The abusive display of power that is clear in the crucifixion abuse is instructive for understanding other forms of abuse. Feminist analysis has

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shown that sexual abuse should be understood primarily in relation to power and control.62 Nassar was unquestionably motivated by sexual gratification, but this was closely linked to his sense of power and control. Denhollander recalls that as a sixteen-year-old: “I didn’t know then that sexual abuse is not about sexual appeal. It is about control.”63 Recognition that power and control should be central to any understanding of sexual abuse is an important connection between the abuses committed by the soldiers and the abuses committed by Nassar. The failure to identify and name sexual abuse in the crucifixion is as striking as the failure to recognize and name sexual abuse in the Nassar case. What should be obvious remains unacknowledged because it is readily misrepresented as something else. In the Nassar case, sexual abuse was misrepresented as a medical procedure. In the crucifixion texts, the abuse of Jesus is easily misrepresented through generic language of suffering that omits any mention of the sexual element. Although the suffering of Jesus is often readily named by churches, the language of suffering typically conceals the sexual element. Even when Jesus’ suffering is presented in graphic detail, and not just left as a vague abstraction, the sexual element in his mistreatment is invariably ignored. Sometimes the language of shame and humiliation is used, and this is a step in the right direction. However, even speaking of shame and humiliation falls short if the nature of the shame and humiliation remains unspecified. Speaking of the strippings of Jesus in generic language as “suffering,” or as “shame and humiliation,” is not wrong, but it is not enough, and when it is used consistently, and to the systematic exclusion of the more honest language of sexual abuse, it becomes misleading. Of course, a sensitivity to audience and an awareness of context is always important. Discussions of sensitive issues like sexual violence need to be handled with extreme care and recognition that in any group it is very likely that people with personal experience of abuse are likely to be present. Intentionally omitting reference to the sexual element of crucifixion will often be an appropriate choice. There are likely to be times when the more abstract language of suffering is preferable and more appropriate, especially in a church context. There will often be good reasons to leave the sexual abuse of Jesus unnamed, but questions needed to be asked if the choice of language always detracts from the reality. If the truth of Jesus’ experience is never spoken about, it will not be adequately recognized. At least sometimes the more honest and accurate language of sexual abuse should be used in theological education. Describing strippings as suffering or humiliation in some general or abstract way is not sufficient, if this is the only way the mistreatment of Jesus is described, the true nature of the abuse is left unacknowledged.

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RESPONSES TO THE NAMING OF SEXUAL ABUSE Denhollander’s childhood experience of exclusion, when her family were forced to leave a church because of conflict within the congregation over responses to sexual abuse (see above), was repeated in her adult life. In February 2016, media and social-media stories featured a controversy surrounding the handling of sexual abuse reports in the Sovereign Grace Church (SGC) network of churches.64 The Denhollanders attended Immanuel Baptist Church in Louisville and the leaders at Immanuel were strongly supportive of the SGC leadership. Denhollander’s social-media posts on SGC’s handling of the case were criticized by leaders at Immanuel as being divisive.65 In August 2016, at the very time Denhollander most needed understanding and support from her church as she went public on Nassar’s abuses, she experienced opposition and rejection in her church. In early 2017, the family left Immanuel to find another church.66 Denhollander commented on this painful experience in her victim impact statement to the court: My advocacy for sexual assault victims, something I cherished, cost me my church and our closest friends three weeks before I filed my police report. I was left alone and isolated. . . . When I came out, my sexual assault was wielded like a weapon against me.67

Speaking about Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse can also give rise to resistance and hostility. However, honest acknowledgment of the abuse experienced by Jesus is an important new threshold in theological education for at least three reasons. First, what is recorded in the text matters. The text in Mark 15:16–20 and Matthew 27:26–31 is clear and explicit that Jesus was repeatedly stripped in a humiliating mockery involving about 500 soldiers. He was then displayed naked during crucifixion to die in a degrading way in front of a hostile crowd. Recognizing this, and using the honest language of “sexual abuse” and “sexual violence,” makes a difference to how we think about the text and how we think about Jesus. Second, recognizing sexual abuse matters. There is growing public awareness of sexual abuse as an endemic problem in churches and in wider society. The Nassar case makes clear that extensive abuses can sometimes be hidden in plain sight if the right questions are not asked. The evidence, which should give cause for concern is often not taken seriously and frequently minimized or dismissed as unimportant. Abusers can readily take advantage of this to continue their abuse. Recognizing the stripping of Jesus as sexual abuse shows how easy it is to misunderstand evidence of sexual abuse, even when it is in the open and should be obvious. The churches, and especially church leaders, and anyone involved in safeguarding and protection, can take lessons

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from how the sexual abuse of Jesus has gone unrecognized and unacknowledged for so long because the right questions are not asked. Third, responding to sexual abuse matters. In many conversations about crucifixion over the years, there has been strong resistance to thinking of Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse. The reasons for this often vary, but frequently there has been a sense that Jesus would be lessened or demeaned if seen in this way. There is a perception Jesus would no longer be the same or have the same status. The shame and stigma associated with sexual abuse diminish his standing. Discussing Jesus’ experience of abuse often surfaces these negative attitudes. These discussions can therefore give good opportunities to explore and challenge the negative assumptions behind these harmful perceptions and thereby promote positive change.68

CONCLUSION At the outset of her book, Denhollander offers an important message to survivors, “It is not your fault. It is not your shame. You are believed.” To suggest that Jesus himself was a victim of sexual abuse—and that the abuse of Jesus has been in plain sight but gone unrecognized for so long—may seem scandalous and offensive. Yet, the Nassar case shows that serious sexual abuse can remain unrecognized, unnamed, and unbelieved, even when it is in plain sight and should be clear. Nassar avoided accountability by misrepresenting his abuses as medical treatments. Those who sought to challenge this misrepresentation were blamed, shamed, and disbelieved. For many years, organizations and authorities who heard reports about Nassar’s abuses failed to take concerns seriously. They repeatedly upheld Nassar’s lies and dismissed the concerns of his victims. In a similar way, the sexual abuse of Jesus has been in plain sight but unrecognized and ignored for centuries. His stripping and naked exposure have not been named as sexual abuse, even though the term is surely appropriate and accurate for what is recorded in Mark 15:15–20 and Matthew 27:26–31. So much of what is seen depends on the assumptions that the viewer brings to the seeing. The Nassar abuse case is a contemporary and salutary reminder that egregious sexual abuse can still go unrecognized and remain hidden in plain sight. The failure to see Nassar’s abuse for what it was shows theological educators why asking the right questions is so important, and why honest answers need to be pursued despite initial dismissal and resistance. This is not just a matter of correcting the historical record. As the churches in Aotearoa New Zealand face up to the challenges posed by the work of the Royal Commission, the lessons from the Nassar case for addressing disbelief and denial could not be more relevant or timely. In addition, recognition of

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Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse can expose mistaken and damaging attitudes toward survivors that are still common in churches. This can provide a transformative opportunity for churches to critique and re-orientate their responses to survivors. Recognizing Jesus’ experience of sexual abuse should help churches to examine their responses to sexual abuses. The sexual abuse of Jesus should remind churches to ask the right questions, to be persistent in the quest for answers, and to offer an emphatic message of assurance and support to all survivors of sexual abuse. NOTES 1. Rachael Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2019), xi. 2. Marisa Kwiatkowski, Mark Alesia and Tim Evans, “A blind eye to sex abuse: How USA Gymnastics failed to report cases,” IndyStar (4 August 2016); see also Mark Alesia, “Why Coaches’ Hugs Make Becca Seaborn Cringe,” IndyStar (4 August 2016). 3. In a Georgia case, a coach abused young female athletes for seven years after USAG had failed to take action on a warning. In a lawsuit, brought by one of the victims in 2013, two former USAG officials “admitted under oath that the organization routinely dismissed sexual abuse allegations as hearsay unless they came directly from a victim or victim’s parent” (Kwiatkowski, Alesia and Evans, “A blind eye to sex abuse”) 4. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 142. 5. In 2012, Rachel Denhollander and her family had moved to Louisville, Kentucky, so that her husband Jacob could attend Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. 6. Denhollander started seeing Nassar for a hip and back injury in February 2000, two months after her fifteenth birthday in December 1999, and subsequently returned for a foot injury in 2001. She remembers her last visit being shortly after the birth of Nassar’s daughter in 2001; Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 277. For convenience, the surname Denhollander is used throughout this essay. However, at the time of the abuse her name was Rachael Moxon (her maiden name). In August 2009, she married Jacob Denhollander. 7. Nassar had worked at MSU since 1997 and served for many years (1996– 2014) with USAG, first as a volunteer and subsequently as a team doctor. For detailed accounts of the Nassar abuse case, see especially, Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith, Believed (NPR Michigan podcast, 2018); At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal (HBO documentary directed by Erin Lee Carr, 2019); Abigail Pesta, The Girls: An All-American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down (New York: Seal, 2019); Mary Pilon, Carla Correa, et al. Twisted: The Story of Larry Nassar and the Women Who Took Him Down (Audible Originals, 2019); John Barr and Dan Murphy, Start by Believing:

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Larry Nassar’s Crimes, the Institutions that Enabled Him and the Brave Women Who Stopped a Monster (New York: Hachette, 2020). 8. Prior to her contact with the newspaper, Denhollander had assumed that the statute of limitations had passed for her to report Nassar to the police when she turned twenty-five in 2009. However, in her preparation for the IndyStar interview she discovered there was no longer a statute of limitations for first-degree sexual assault, and her complaint would likely be allowed under the new provisions (Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 149–50). At Denhollander’s first police interview, she also learnt about the opportunity to file her Title IX case. Title IX of the federal Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits gender-based discrimination in Higher Education institutions. In January 2017, she also joined with seventeen others in a civil case against MSU, and more survivors would join later in 2017; Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 189–90, 233–35. 9. Tim Evans, Mark Alesia, and Marisa Kwiatkowski, “Former USA Gymnastics doctor accused of abuse,” IndyStar (September 12, 2016). The story ran in the print version of the newspaper the next day (September 13, 2016). The California gymnast, who was not named in the lawsuit or the newspaper, subsequently proved to be Jamie Dantzscher. Nassar had started abusing her when she was twelve or thirteen and continued until she was eighteen years old. Dantzscher’s lawyer, John Manly, filed her lawsuit on September 8, 2016 under the name Jane Doe. Dantzscher competed as a member of the US team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney in which she came fourth. In 2010 the team were retrospectively awarded the bronze medal after third-placed China was disqualified because they had falsified the age of one of their gymnasts; CNN, “China stripped of 2000 Olympic bronze,” CNN (28 April 2010). 10. Abigail Pesta, “An Early Survivor of Larry Nassar’s Abuse Speaks Out For the First Time,” Time (18 July 2019). 11. Carla Correa and Meghan Louttit, “More than 160 women say Larry Nassar sexually abused them,” New York Times (24 Jan 2018). 12. Pesta, The Girls, pp. 21–29. 13. Catherine Shaffer, “Number of Nassar accusers approaches 500,” Michigan Radio (19 October 2018). 14. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, vii. 15. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 233. 16. See David Tombs, “Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 53 (Autumn 1999), 89–109; Elaine A. Heath, We Were the Least of These: Reading the Bible with Survivors of Sexual Abuse (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2011); Michael Trainor, The Body of Jesus and Sexual Abuse: How the Gospel Passion Narrative Informs a Pastoral Approach (Melbourne: Morning Star Publishing; Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014); Jayme R. Reaves and David Tombs, “#MeToo Jesus: Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse,” International Journal of Public Theology 13, no. 4 (2019): 387–412; Chris Greenough, The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men (London: Routledge, 2021); Jayme R. Reaves, David Tombs and Rocio Figueroa (eds.), When Did We See You Naked?: Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse (London: SCM, 2021); Luis Menndez-Antua, “The Book of Torture:

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The Gospel of Mark, Crucifixion, and Trauma,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming). 17. See Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu: From Redress to Puretumu Torowhānui (Vols 1–2; Wellington: Crown Copyright, 2021). 18. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, vii. 19. Nassar first started volunteering as an athletic trainer when he was in high school in Dearborn, near Detroit. He helped with the school’s sports teams, and later assisted with girls gymnastics. In 1981 he graduated high school and started his degree at the University of Michigan in kinesiology (how bodies move). In his spare time, he was a voluntary assistant with the football team and track and field team. After graduation he moved back to Detroit in 1985, to study at Wayne State University for a master’s in athletic training. Alongside his studies, he volunteered as a medical assistant at a local gym. The gym owner introduced him to Jack Rockwell, the US national team trainer. Nassar’s willingness to volunteer soon gave him opportunities for high-level involvement in gymnastics. In August 1987 he helped out at the Pan-American Games in Indianapolis. In August 1988, he volunteered at the USAG Olympic Trials in Salt Lake. He was rapidly building his experience, reputation, and network with USAG. In September 1988, Nassar switched his graduate studies and enrolled at Michigan State College of Osteopathic Medicine at MSU. Osteopathy is a medical specialism focused on massage and physical manipulation of bones and muscles. He finished his studies in 1993, and after completing his residency he was appointed to MSU. In East Lansing Nassar met gymnastics coach John Geddert at Great Lakes Gym, and started volunteering for Geddert as a medical assistant. In 1996, Geddert left Great Lakes and opened his own gym called Twistars. Nassar moved with Geddert to Twistars, and at about the same time, Nassar started working as team doctor at Holt High School in his local community. 20. In her statement at Nassar’s sentencing, Jayme Dantzscher said that when she was competing, Nassar had seemed the exception, the doctor who appeared to care in a largely uncaring sport; Bill Hutchinson, “Olympic star says her gymnastics dream took nightmarish turn after sexual abuse by Larry Nassar,” ABCNews (27 January 2018), https://abcnews​.go​.com​/Sports​/olympic​-star​-gymnastics​-dream​-nightmarish​ -turn​-sexual​-abuse​/story​?id​=52605067. During her interview with IndyStar Denhollander explained: “He’s not just a normal sports med doc. . . . He’s extremely personable. Extremely gregarious. Very warm. Very caring.” Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 162. 21. His pseudo-treatment had the appearance of an internal massage to manipulate the patient’s pelvic floor. Pelvic floor treatment can be a legitimate medical procedure for adult women, in some circumstances, and this provided a perfect medical cover for his abuses. However, pelvic floor treatment is not recommended for younger patients, nor should it ever have been done in the way Nassar did it. Denhollander notes that Nassar did not include it on any of his records for her appointments and did not cite pelvic floor treatment in his defence. Even if Nassar was familiar with pelvic

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floor treatment, he was not certified to perform it. See Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 180, 199, 206–209, 216, 244–45, 251. 22. Bill Hutchinson, “Former Michigan State University softball player says she gave up the sport she loved in the wake of Larry Nassar’s sexual assaults,” ABC News (27 January 2018); see also, Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 232. 23. Wells and Smith, “How He Got Away,” Episode 2 in Believed podcast (29 October 2018), https://believed​.michiganradio​.org​/how​-larry​-nassar​-got​-away/. See also What Is a Girl Worth?, 193. 24. Thomashow says that she told police that she had seen Nassar had an erection but this is not recorded in police records. Although MSU did not uphold Thomashow’s complaint, a separate internal report on their investigation identified risks inherent in Nassar’s treatments, and required that in future whenever he used the procedure he should always have a colleague present and limit skin-to-skin contact. Nassar was informed of these requirements by his dean, but the dean took no measures to enforce them. See Wells and Smith, “Gaslighting,” Episode 4 in Believed podcast (12 November 2018), https://www​.npr​.org​/2018​/11​/09​/666227595​/gaslighting. 25. See the HBO documentary Athlete A. Nichols was known as Athlete A because she was the first gymnast to complain to USAG. The reasons for the FBI failure to adequately investigate are discussed in Department of Justice, Investigation and Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Handling of Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Former USA Gymnastics Physician Lawrence Gerard Nassar 21–093 (July 2021); see Juliet Macur and Michael Levenson, “Inspector General Says F.B.I. Botched Nassar Abuse Investigation,” New York Times (14 July 2021); Juliet Macur, “Biles and Her Teammates Rip the F.B.I. for Botching Nassar Abuse Case,” New York Times (15 September 2021). 26. The IndyStar article which included the interview with Denhollander (12 September 2026) noted that the USAG had also been aware of concerns about Nassar for over a year; Evans, Alesia, and Kwiatkowski, “Former USA Gymnastics doctor accused of abuse,” IndyStar (12 September 2016). 27. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 33. 28. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 56. Denhollander’s fear of being disbelieved meant that she did not speak out but focused on how to bring the abuse to an end as quickly as possible. She decided to tell Nassar at her next appointment that her back was better and only her wrists needed treatment. As it turned out, for whatever reason, at the end of her next appointment Nassar did not suggest further appointments and so her treatment ended anyway. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 60–61. 29. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 72–78, and p. 174. 30. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 57. 31. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 59. 32. Evans, Alesia, and Kwiatkowski, “Former USA Gymnastics doctor accused of abuse,” IndyStar (12 September 2016). 33. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 211. 34. Marisa Kwiatkowski, Tim Evans, and Mark Alesia, “16 More Women Accuse Former USA Gymnastics Doctor of Sexual Abuse,” IndyStar (25 September 2016).

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35. Another patient had also complained that Nassar treated her in the basement of his house, and this provided further grounds for the search warrant for his property. 36. The report found that Nassar “engaged in sexual harassment” and stated: “[Nassar] committed these acts in a sexual manner regardless of whether it was done for sexual purposes”; Tracy Connor, “MSU Abuse Scandal: MSU Finds Doc Sexually Harassed Teen Gymnast,” NBCNews (23 March 2017). 37. Nassar had taken his work laptop to be professionally erased the day before; Tom Goldman, “Doctor Accused of Molesting U.S. Gymnasts Pleads Guilty to Porn Charges,” NPR (11 July 2017). 38. Nassar’s offending had taken place in Ingham County (at MSU and in the basement at his home) and in Eaton County (at Twistars gym). The Kyle Stephens case started as a separate complaint but was subsequently linked to the sexual assault charges against minors in Ingham County. 39. In 2006, the activist Tarana Burke start using the phrase “Me Too” in her work with survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault. In 2017 #MeToo became a global phenomenon following revelations of sexual assaults and harassment by Harvey Weinstein, and others in Hollywood and the entertainment industry. On October 15, 2017, actor Alyssa Milano encouraged women who had experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault to retweet #MeToo. This prompted a tsunami of disclosures that quickly spread to other industries and other countries. See Johanna Stiebert, Rape Myths, the Bible, and #MeToo (London: Routledge, 2019), 14–42. 40. Justin A. Hinkley, “Ex-USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar sentenced to 60 years in federal child pornography case,” IndyStar (7 December 2017). Nassar was convicted on three counts, each of which carried a sentence of twenty years, to be served consecutively. The judge also stipulated that the sentences would be served consecutive to the state charges for which he was awaiting sentencing. 41. Sarah Rahal and Kim Kozlowski, “204 impact statements, 9 days, 2 counties, a life sentence for Larry Nassar,” The Detroit News (8 February 2018). Most (156) were given in Ingham County (16–23 Jan), and the rest (48) in Eaton County (31 Jan–2 Feb). Many statements were given in person, and others were via videoconference; some were anonymous, but many more made their names public than had been expected. 42. In May 2018, MSU paid $500 million to Nassar’s victims in a collective civil case involving 322 women; Mitch Smith and Anemona Hartocollis, “Michigan State’s $500 million for Nassar Victims Dwarfs Other Settlements,” New York Times (16 May 2018). In December 2021, U.S.A. Gymnastics and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee agreed a $380 million settlement covering more than five hundred victims; Juliet Macur, “Nassar Abuse Survivors Reach a $380 Million Settlement,” New York Times (13 December 2021). 43. See Tombs, “Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse,” 100–107; David Tombs, “Prisoner Abuse: From Abu Ghraib to The Passion of The Christ” in Linda Hogan and Dylan Lehrke (eds.), Religions and the Politics of Peace and Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Monograph Series, 2009), 175–209. 44. See Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary (trans. James E. Crouch; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 512.

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45. Gerald West, “Jesus, Joseph and Tamar Stripped” in Reaves, Tombs and Figueroa (eds.), When Did We See You Naked?, 121. 46. West, “Jesus, Joseph and Tamar Stripped,” 121. West describes how the strippings in Matthew 27:26–31 can be explored further through a contextual Bible study, and also notes trans-textual links between the stripping of Jesus and the implied strippings of Tamar (2 Sam. 13:14 and 18–19) and of Joseph (Gen 37.23), 116–24. 47. This may reflect the suggestion in John 19:23 that soldier’s divided Jesus garment into four, which might be taken as suggesting only four soldiers were involved in the stripping at the cross. 48. Luz suggests 500–600 men; Luz, Matthew 21–28, 513. 49. See Christopher B. Zeichmann, The Roman Army and the New Testament (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2018). 50. David Tombs, “Reading Crucifixion Narratives as Texts of Terror” in Monica Melanchthon and Robyn Whitaker (eds.), Terror in the Bible: Rhetoric, Gender, and Violence (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2021), 139–60. 51. “Sexual violence is defined as: any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work”; Etienne G. Krug, et al., World Report on Violence and Health (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2002), 149. 52. “Forms of sexual violence include rape, attempted rape, forced prostitution, sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, child pornography, child prostitution, sexual slavery, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, forced public nudity, forced virginity testing, etc.”; United Nations, Glossary on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Thematic Glossary of current terminology related to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) in the context of the United Nations (New York: United Nations, 2017), 8–9. 53. United Nations, Glossary on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, 5. 54. Heath, We Were the Least of These, 123. 55. Trainor, The Body of Jesus and Sexual Abuse, 42. 56. Greenough, The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men, 62. 57. Carolyn Mackie, “Review: When Did We See You Naked?,” Women in Theology (4 August 2021). 58. Hilary Scarsella, “Bearing Witness to Jesus, Resurrected Survivor of Sexual Violence” in Elizbeth Soto Albrecht and Darryl W. Stephens (eds.), Liberating the Politics of Jesus (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 156. 59. Valerie Hobbs, “When Did We See You Naked? Response” at “Symposium on When Did We See You Naked?,” Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, Bristol Baptist College (15 June 2021), https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​ =vkGCAWQ2ShY. 60. See Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 15–34; Craig A. Williams, Roman

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Ideologies: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 61. See Trainor, The Body of Jesus and Sexual Abuse, 148. 62. On rape as a crime of violence rather than sex, see Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will. Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975); see also, Liz Kelly, Surviving Sexual Violence (Cambridge: Polity, 1988). 63. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 55. 64. Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) had started as Covenant Life Church (CLC) in the 1980s with a commitment to growth and church planting. It developed into a large and affluent network of evangelical churches, led by CJ Mahaney. In 2012, a news story featured reports on sexual abuse at SGM, in Virginia, Maryland and the Washington DC area. SGM had allegedly discouraged reporting of sexual abuse to authorities and insisted on internal reconciliation within the church. Following the negative publicity, SGM was renamed as Sovereign Grace Churches (SGC). In the same year, Mahaney moved to Louisville to establish a church plant. Immanuel Baptist developed a friendly relationship with the church plant and SGC. See Tiffany Stanley, “The Sex-Abuse Scandal That Devastated a Suburban Megachurch,” The Washingtonian (14 February 2016); Elizabeth Dias, “Inside the Investigation into Child Sexual Abuse at Sovereign Grace Ministries” TIME magazine (16 February 2016); Mark Galli, “We Need an Independent Investigation of Sovereign Grace Ministries,” Christianity Today (22 March 2018). 65. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 140–48. 66. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 202, 219, 250. More positive relationships were restored with Immanuel Baptist through open conversations following Nassar’s conviction; Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 320–21. Immanuel ­Baptist Church acknowledged its failures in a public statement “Our Pastors’ Statement to The Washington Post” (31 May 2018). 67. Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?, 306. See also, Lee, “My Larry Nassar Testimony Went Viral.” Denhollander’s victim impact statement concluded with a statement of her personal forgiveness for Nassar, alongside a request to the judge to impose the maximum penalty available in the interests of justice. For Denhollander thinking on faith and forgiveness as she thought about her abuse, see What Is a Girl Worth?, 99–104. 68. See especially, David Tombs, “Confronting the Stigma of Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Violence” in Clive Pearson (ed.), Enacting a Public Theology (Stellenbosch: SUNMedia, 2019), 71–86; Rocío Figueroa and David Tombs, “Seeing His Innocence, I See My Innocence” in Jayme R. Reaves, David Tombs, and Rocío Figueroa (eds.), When Did We See You Naked?, 287–312.

Chapter 8

Thresholds of Alternatives Re-imagining the Vocation of Theological Educators George Zachariah

Anniversary, in the Christian tradition, is not only an opportunity to celebrate God’s faithfulness in the life of individuals, communities, and institutions but also the occasion to engage in critical introspection to contextually reimagine and re-vision our purpose and vocation. Even as we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Trinity Methodist Theological College and the 175th anniversary of theological education in Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa (Methodist Church of New Zealand), in our festivities and celebrations, we should not forget the need for radical self-examination. Theological educators play a major role in the ministry of theological education, and hence it is imperative for us to initiate a process of critical evaluation and auditing of our understanding and practice of the vocation of theological educators. Discerning our vocation as theological educators, introspecting critically our pedagogical philosophy and practices, developing alternate models of being theological educators through transgressing the time-honored models and practices, and re-imagining the content and practice of theological education are essential to transform our teaching ministry into a vocation of equipping the people for God’s mission and ministry in the world. As Paulo Freire rightly reminds us, “Nobody becomes an educator on a Tuesday at four in the afternoon. Nobody is born an educator or marked to be one. We make ourselves educators, we develop ourselves as educators, in the practice and reflection upon practice.”1 So the practice and reflection upon practice is that which makes us authentic and relevant theological educators. This chapter is an attempt in the spirit of self-reflexivity to discern anew our vocation in our times, reflecting upon our practice.

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My reflections and proposals in this chapter were formed in my experience in teaching in different theological colleges in India and Aotearoa for over fifteen years, and I offer them here with the hope that they will contribute to our search for thresholds of alternative theological education in Aotearoa (specifically, but also in other lands). LISTENING TO THE SILENCED VOICES It is the students who respond to God’s call and commit their lives to the mission and ministry of God that make theological education a reality everywhere. Without seminarians we cannot think of theological education. But in many of our theological institutions, theological educators (several of whom imagine that we know more than the students) seldom listen to their voices. Any attempt at re-visioning theological education, therefore, should start with the voices of the students, and it requires a radical shift in the existing power relations within our institutions. We should always remember that the students are not voiceless; they do have voices. But their voices are unheard (which is a passive way of silencing their voices). Voices of the Students The following observations and visions about theological educators were shared by my students from different theological colleges in India (during the twelve years that I was a lecturer there):2 A teacher is expected to create a “positive atmosphere” for learning. The teacher should create a “physically, socially and emotionally safe classroom environment” for students by developing and maintaining clear expectations for academic and social behavior. The teacher has to transform the classroom into a community, “creating structures and practices that emphasize collaborative accomplishments and collective problem-solving methods.” A safe classroom is a space “where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.” Of course, teachers should try to equip the students with different perspectives, but without imposing (oftentimes in a subtle way) their own narrow ideological/theological positions. “Many a time, I felt that I, as a student, am not free to say what I wanted to say and think the way I wanted to. This, I feel, is because, even though teachers appear to be open outwardly, the way class discussions go suggest a different thing.” There is a growing tendency among teachers “to intimidate the students with their knowledge and make them feel insignificant.” There are teachers who seem to show-off their knowledge by creating an environment where students are afraid to ask questions because of the fear of being treated as

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knowing too little. “I expect teachers to create an environment where students can ask even what appears to be the silliest of questions if those questions are dear to them.” In theological colleges, teachers tend to consider us as infants. There is a tendency to “infantilize” us with many restrictions and rules and surveillance. “I expect them to help us grow as mature human beings who are responsible enough to handle our lives even if full freedom is given. In one of the colleges where I studied, the teachers believe that the indigenous people need discipline, as we can’t handle freedom. The saddest part is that I too internalized this social construct about my community that I need strict discipline otherwise I would end up in the wrong place.” “Teachers are not infallible, and as human beings they may also make mistakes. But they never accept their fallibility.” It is very common among theological teachers that they intellectually discriminate against students based on race, gender, region, and color. There are teachers who give grades to the students on the basis of physical appearances, economic standards, ecclesiastical standing, and ideological similarities. A teacher is expected to learn from the learners. Teachers are part of the learning community. Their vocation is to work with the students, providing them support, fellowship, friendship, encouragement, reinforcement, constructive and honest feedback, as well as wise counsel. A teacher should encourage a caring and supportive non-judgmental relationship with his/her students. A teacher should be able to link the classroom with the church and the wider society. For example, “I believe that it is the task of a teacher to be able to present Feminist Theology not solely as a women’s issue, but as a matter of faith, where it is presented as a Gospel imperative for all who believe in Jesus Christ to believe in gender equality and to reject patriarchy.” Reflecting upon these voices of the students, let us introspect ourselves and re-vision our vocation.

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATORS AS MIDWIVES A genuine attempt to engage with the voices of the students will invite us to critically evaluate our pedagogical understandings and practices. In this process we need to draw inspiration from transformative pedagogies such as critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy refers to theories and pedagogical practices that are committed to create critical consciousness about the prevailing social realities. “Critical consciousness is positioned as the necessary first step of a larger collective political struggle to challenge and transform oppressive social conditions and to create a more egalitarian society.”3 That

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means critical pedagogy is a political praxis to contest and disrupt regimes of oppressive power prevalent in the academic institutions, classrooms, and teacher-student relationship, which is echoed in the testimonies of the students. This transformative praxis will change our classrooms and academic institutions into new sites of alternative power relationship and epistemology. That means critical pedagogy is much more than curriculum revision and changes in teaching methods and practices. Teaching is a political activity, and it is the commitment of the teachers that determines the politics of our teaching. Let us engage in a critical evaluation of our pedagogical practices, informed by the voices of the students, and search for alternative practices that transform our theological institutions. From the “All-Knowing-Professor” to a Participant in the Learning Community Classroom hierarchy is a great impediment to liberative learning practices. It always reinforces a top-down power relation, which disables and silences the agency of the students. Most of us are reluctant to perceive ourselves as part of the learning community, recognizing the richness of the knowledges and perspectives that exist in the classroom, which can widen our own horizons of knowledge. The very architecture of the classroom further reinforces a hierarchical power relationship that unsettles democratization of teacher-student relations. The architecture of the classroom always positions the teacher at the center of the learning process, reinforcing the culture of dependent self-formation in the students. Assessment, class attendance, and the annual reports to the sponsoring churches further increase the sense of dependency and culture of silence and fear among the students. As a result, the students opt for the rather comfortable Freirean identity of passive receptacles. The arrogant self-description of “I-am-a-scholar,” claiming scholarship in everything under the sky is an occupational temptation for theological educators. We come across such colleagues in each institution. They disseminate a model of academic leadership which does not respect the cognitive potential of the other. They tend to convince the students that when you speak using your authority given by your title, nobody can question that authority, and your words become the truth and the final answer. A good number of our autocratic church leaders internalized this style of abusive power using authority, from their theological teachers. We have lost the courage and humility to admit publicly that we don’t know everything. Rather, we find pleasure in making ex cathedra statements using our power and authority, destroying the potential of the classroom to create knowledges in a democratic way. Laura Beres’ creative attempt to engage with the students from a position of “not knowing” is a good example for

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us. In her teaching she tried to unsettle the traditional power relations of the classroom by not fulfilling the traditional expectations of the teacher. Let us listen to Heidi, a student from Beres’ class reflecting upon this pedagogical experience: Our professor refused to take the expert position, thus removing herself from a power position over the students. As someone used to the typical university professor who has a vast expanse of knowledge and graciously imparts particles of this knowledge unto her poor, unknowing students, this was naturally shocking to me. As time went on, I began to realize the method behind this madness, so to speak. Our professor’s tentativeness in answering questions as well as presenting new ideas allowed me as a student to feel free to accept or reject what she was saying. This tentativeness was an attempt to problematize the notion of expertise. When a professor stands in front of the classroom and declares that what she or he has to say is truth, the knowledge and experience of the students are negated and deemed inconsequential. By being tentative with new ideas and in her responses to questions, our professor encouraged students to put forth their own ideas and in doing so, our conversation created shared meanings and new experiences within the classroom. This classroom experience offered me the opportunity to reflect on my experience, and critique the value I had placed on traditional pedagogy and the acquisition of knowledge. I have walked away from this experience feeling empowered, not because someone gave me power, but rather I feel powerful knowing now what I can give.4

Such a pedagogy listens to students, and enables them to reclaim their agency, voice and role in their own learning, by affirming the classroom as a site of collective learning. Repressive Pedagogies and Regressive Formation A critical look at our dominant pedagogical practices reveals that we tend to follow comfortably “a pedagogy of stupidity and repression” that is geared toward memorization, conformity, and passivity. Rather than enabling the students to emerge as creative, autonomous, critical, and committed ministers, our pedagogy of repression kills their imagination. We baptize them into a culture of obedience, dependency, profit, success, and power. Our pedagogy of repression defines students largely by their shortcomings rather than by their strengths, and in doing so convinces them that the only people who know anything are the experts. Under the pedagogy of repression, students are conditioned to unlearn any respect for democracy or justice, and they are told that they have no rights and that rights are limited only to those who have power. This is a pedagogy that kills the spirit, promotes conformity, and is more suited to authoritarianism.5 Our pedagogy of repression is the major cause for the authoritarianism that we find in our churches today, as

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our church leaders have internalized the culture of repression as the most convenient form of church administration and governance. We, as theological educators, are really blessed with the presence of our senior colleagues who have been our own gurus and mentors who continue to accompany us through their lives and wise counsel. But at the same time, our hierarchical mindset and administrative policies, elevate seniority to the level of unquestionable authority, which destroys the imagination and potential of younger faculty colleagues. The hegemony of seniority and the attempt to block all initiatives from new colleagues, quoting minutes and precedence, kill their creativity and as a result they either internalize the hierarchy and the pedagogy of repression and graduate themselves into authoritarian leaders and educators or they get into the mood of resignation and withdraw from active creative participation in the total life of the institution. This dynamic calls us to understand pedagogy as a moral and political practice that is always implicated in power relations. It legitimates particular ways of knowing, of being in the world, and relating to others. We need to reject the notion of students as passive containers who simply imbibe dead knowledge. Rather as Henry A. Giroux observes, “we should discover and develop pedagogical practices that offer students the challenge to transform knowledge rather than simply ‘processing received knowledges’.”6 That will transform our theological institutions into safe spaces where our knowledges, identities, differences, and gifts are respected and celebrated. Paulo Freire is instructive here: “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”7 Theological education is not about memorizing dead knowledge and learning pastoral skills to become efficient clerics, but engaging in a deeper spiritual journey of discerning our space in the slavific mission of God and equipping ourselves for that mission. Settling Down: Our “Occupational Hazard” According to Maria Arul Raja, the temptation to settle down is the biggest “occupational hazard” for people engaged in Christian ministry. Once we get into a ministry we tend to assume that God wants us to be in the same ministry till our retirement. We are reluctant to engage in critical self-evaluation of our vocation or to take seriously the feedback from our students and colleagues that we have become irrelevant. Instead, we tend to hang on till our retirement without being a creative and transformative presence in the life of the institution and the students whom we serve. This is not an observation of only senior colleagues; it can happen even at a younger age when we refuse to

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listen to the still small voice within us. The inner voice always challenges us to pack up our tent to move on to become a blessing to others. We see this spirituality of unsettling in the life of people who turned the world upside down. For us, settling down is a societal expectation in order to become successful in our life. A steady linear progression in our career graph is essential to become successful. In our rat race to become successful, we always forget to evaluate whether we are relevant or meaningful in our vocation. If our lives and vocation are not helping new life to sprout, we need to rethink our vocation so that the movement of life will continue to flourish with us, without us, and in spite of us. Paulo Freire’s vision of the radical human being is an alternative model for us to consider: The radical human being, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a ‘circle of certainty’ within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side.8

THRESHOLDS OF THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION: BIRTHING ALTERNATIVES “I expect a theological teacher to have a faith commitment, one whom the students can see as someone who doesn’t teach theology simply as a profession but rather as a vocation or as a ministry.” This is a statement that a student of mine shared with me. I am sure that we all must have heard similar observations from our students, and it categorically describes where we stand today. Addressing a group of newly consecrated bishops, Pope Francis made a similar statement: “Careerism is a cancer.” Admonishing his bishops, the pontiff urged the bishops to remain rooted in their dioceses and spend less time seeking the spotlight. “You are betrothed to your community, deeply bound to it. I am asking you, please, to remain among your people. You must stay, stay! Avoid the scandal of airport bishops.”9 For many of us who are engaged in theological education, Pope’s admonition is relevant. The vocation of the theological educators is more than a job or a career; rather it is the creative response of committed individuals to the discernment

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of a divine call to be engaged in the ministry of equipping the saints for God’s mission and ministry. It is a vocation to enable new generations in their discernment process; to mentor them in their academic journey; to inspire, motivate and accompany them in their faith journey, to help them to explore and initiate alternative patterns of Christian mission, ministry, and leadership; to encourage and enable them to dream new visions; to challenge them to transgress unjust and sinful traditions in church, society, and the academy and to re-imagine them contextually; to provoke and enrage students to become prophetic in their public witnessing, and to surround them with prayer, friendship, fun, food, and fellowship. The vocation of the theological educators, therefore, involves responsibility toward the church, the wider society, and the academy. Academic Commitment of the Theological Educators Theological education is an academic activity. Unfortunately, this aspect of theological education is often forgotten and neglected in our context. As a result, the general perception of theological education is to “mold” the future pastors and priests of the church. Here ministry is understood exclusively as ordained ministry, and as a result, theological education is primarily about developing the pastoral “skills” of the candidates and teaching them the doctrines and liturgies of the church. There is also a misconception that deeper engagement with theological issues will affect the “simple faith” of the congregation. Indeed, some church leaders earnestly believe that academic interest is a threat to ministerial formation. Independent theological thinking, they believe, is detrimental to the interests of the church. This is the context in which we need to revisit the academic commitment of theological educators as part of their vocation because research and writing is crucial for not only the academy but also for the church. However, one can identify a gradual decline in the academic interests and capabilities of theological educators. Not many of us are interested in research and publications. It is also a fact that there is no motivation for us to engage in rigorous academic research and writing as there is no encouragement or recognition by the institutions. The culture of lethargy and the non-recognition of academic work are serious issues that need to be addressed. Public Commitment of the Theological Educators Theological educators are more than teachers who impart knowledge to the students. In a context where time-honored practices and role models in the church and society seem to be losing their credibility and becoming irrelevant and reactionary, theological educators should be committed to instill new hope

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in students. This is a costly commitment as it requires from us the nerve to live out our faith. Theological teachers, through their lives, social and ecclesial interventions and engagements, and their witness in the community, should be role models and be able to convince their students that alternatives are not only possible but often needed/necessary and that one needs to strive toward them. We live in a context where theological teachers in general tend to play the safe game of detaching themselves from controversial issues in the church and society; to ensure smooth elevation into higher positions of power and recognition. The world of the theological educator has become the fortified campuses of the institutions, sanitized from the cries and lamentations from the streets. People at the margins have become an empirical category for research and publications. Theological educators have become insensitive and dead to the injustice prevailing in the church. Ecclesiastical control of our theological institutions seems to inhibit this further. It is nonsensical to expect that theological institutions would reward the teaching faculty who question current church practice or engage prophetically in the church and society. An unwavering commitment to stir the conscience of the church and its leadership, therefore, should become a faith imperative for all who are involved in the vocation of theological education. We as theological educators are no longer engaged social activists, but rather disengaged scholars and careerists. When apathy toward the survival struggles of the subalterns, and disengaged career interests lead us in our academic journey, it is next to impossible for our theological institutions to enable new life to sprout. Rather, peoples’ organic visions and dreams are commodified for our career interests. Sugirtharajah’s observation about the teaching of liberation theologies in theological institutions is relevant here: Liberation theologies are not just a collection of neutral texts. Their intention is to subvert the system that marginalizes people. When such theologies are introduced neglecting the historical and political circumstances of their production and contextuality of their development, then liberation becomes a commodity which can be theorized, talked about, traded and exchanged among many other interesting theological commodities that are on offer. . . . When liberation becomes a commodity, involvement is kept at a minimum and a cloak of neutrality is maintained without the need to take sides. In other words, the vocabulary of liberation is appropriated devoid of its liberative content, treated as an object to be studied and categorized.10

Given the way our theological institutions are committed to perpetrate and perpetuate the prevailing order, the way we disseminate knowledge as a commodity for upward mobility, contextual theologies tend to lose their transformative essence and become a commodity for academic careerism.

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Ministerial Commitment of the Theological Educators Ministerial formation is an important objective of theological education. Theological educators need to have instilled in them a deep understanding of the vocation of Christian ministers. Theological education should first enable students to develop a passion and commitment to ministry and also have a critical understanding of ministry, so as to perceive and develop relevant and contextual forms of ministry in their particular ministerial settings. The teaching faculty needs to facilitate this process and hence, this requires a deep commitment on the part of theological educators to interrogate current models of ministry and to explore alternative patterns of ministry through organic engagements. That means, teaching faculty in theological education should have closer association with communities and allies outside of the theological institution with whom they could engage in diverse forms of ministry.

CONCLUSION Let me conclude with an optimistic note. Genuine attempts to bring about transformation in our learning settings are happening within the theological community, at least in a limited way. All of us are committed to become relevant and meaningful educators through constantly reflecting upon our practices. This is how a student testifies her experience of a theological educator: “She has taught me that it’s not wrong to ask questions, to shake one’s faith and to delve into the unknown. She has guided me and my classmates through the murky waters of theological debate not leaving us stranded in the pond nor throwing us a life vest, but bravely swimming alongside. She encourages students to poke, probe and prod their convictions; to evaluate whether they are genuine, but also to be willing to change their minds. Her sense of duty and responsibility towards her students extends beyond the marks we earn to the life lessons learned and the stronger, more comprehensive and deeper sense of conviction that she seeks to instill in each of us.” Let her tribe increase! When our theological colleges reverberate with similar living testimonies, witnessing the ministry of theological educators who are committed to become alternatives in their vocation and pedagogical practices, our theological institutions will become fertile land for new life to sprout.

NOTES 1. Paulo Freire et al., The Paulo Freire Reader (New York: Continuum, 2000), 232.

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2. This section is a compilation of the observations of my students about theological education in India over a period of twelve years. 3. http://mingo​.info​-science​.uiowa​.edu/​~stevens​/critped​/definitions​.htm. 4. Laura Beres, “Professor as ‘Not Knowing’: Unsettling the Expected in Social Work Education,” Radical Pedagogy, 2008. http://radicalpedagogy​.icaap​.org​/content​ /issue9​_2​/Beres​.html. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), 83. 8. Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 57. 9. http://www​.ucanindia​.in​/news​/pope​-francis​-warns​-prelates​-not​-to​-be​-airport​ -bishops​/22038​/daily. 10. R. S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Reconfigurations: An Alternative Way of Reading the Bible and Doing Theology (Danvers, MA: Chalice, 2003), 166–67.

Chapter 9

Digital Technologies and Theological Education Stephen Garner

Theological education has a long and varied history stretching back over centuries through various religious traditions, institutions, and communities. At times it focused upon explaining and defending religious faith to those outside of that tradition; shaped the lives, worship, and practices of those within religious communities; and critically investigated the interaction of faith and the wider world.1 In doing so, particular conventions of theological education have developed emphasizing what is significant in the content of that education, how that content is communicated by teachers, and how students appropriate that content. These rhythms of teaching and learning might be described as signature pedagogies or “types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions.”2 Digital technology is commonly associated with information and communication technologies (ICT), often exemplified in personal computers, digital audio/visual systems, mobile technology, software, games consoles, and digital communications infrastructures.3 It also encompasses new media, a more slippery term, which for some is simply to describe anything connected to technologies associated with that amorphous beast known as “the Internet.” Email, social networking systems, web sites, blogs, electronic commerce, video-sharing sites, and other systems all get lumped under “new media,” regardless how they function as mediated communication or if they bring something new to the mix. Moreover, new media has also been in the sense of “cyberculture,” where the focus is upon the different social phenomena that internet technologies engender and the ways in which these challenge, form, and reshape notions of human community.4 This chapter focuses particularly upon how digital technologies might shape the signature pedagogies located within theological education. It does 119

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this by examining several places where the traditional way of teaching theology and ministry has been both challenged and augmented by digital technologies, and asks the question to what extent do we think deeply about the signature pedagogies of our discipline. Ideally, signature pedagogies produce students who have learned to integrate critical thinking, performance and ethical dimensions of their discipline, which in the case of theology has traditionally meant the formation of clergy or other ministry professionals. These particular pedagogical rhythms can be useful, though regular review is needed to make sure that they do not atrophy or stagnate and that they remain relevant to the changing contexts in which students, teachers, and institutions find themselves. One of these changing contexts is the increasingly ubiquitous presence of digital technology within the academic world, raising questions such as: to what degree does this changing context both support effective signature pedagogies within theological education; to what extent does it challenge them; and how might it open the door to new forms of pedagogy?

SIGNATURE PEDAGOGIES AND THEOLOGY The term “signature pedagogy” was coined by Lee Shulman to describe certain characteristics of teaching and learning common within professional disciplines, such as law, healthcare, and clergy. Providing a framework for the education of new practitioners, these pedagogies support the instillation of modes of thought, performance, and behavior relevant to the profession in question. The examination of how teaching and learning is expressed in these contexts not only provides information about the kind and efficacy of the methods being used but also about the culture of each profession. Shulman summarizes this as follows: Signature pedagogies are important precisely because they are pervasive. They implicitly define what counts as knowledge in a field and how things become known. They define how knowledge is analyzed, criticized, accepted, or discarded. They define the functions of expertise in a field, the locus of authority, and the privileges of rank and standing.5

The training of clergy will engender signature pedagogies appropriate to that professional context, but more broadly theological education within the various forms of higher education will also want students moving beyond acquiring theological knowledge to developing themselves fully as biblical scholars, systematic theologians, pastoral theologians, and church historians. This development operates within the life cycle of the educational process,

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and Shulman characterizes signature pedagogies as having three key interdependent structural dimensions—surface, deep, and implicit (or tacit). The surface structure defines the most obvious way in which pedagogy is encountered through the tangible experience of teaching and learning. In theological education teaching and learning is typically centered around particular “texts,” such as the Bible, creeds and confessions, or hymns and liturgies. Students then reflect upon and interpret those texts, which in turn, shapes forms of practice. Mostly this is a cognitive engagement through set reading lists and written assessments. Surface learning occurs when students gather facts and information about these texts, but without necessarily incorporating that into their existing knowledge, connecting them to each other, or developing an affective dimension with them.6 The second element of deep learning contains assumptions that shape the practice in the surface structure. In the theological context this might be the requirements of stakeholders or governing bodies such as a church denomination, as well as an inherited tradition that mandates what knowledge and skills are deemed relevant and the traditional way they have been taught. For example, there may be resistance to distance or online theological education because of a tradition that sees the formation of students needing to take place in a physical community. As Nichols notes, This objection is usually linked to students’ perceived lack of community experience while studying at a distance (often expressed in terms of disembodiment), and poor affective outcomes. Some form of on-campus contact, critics of theological distance education maintain, is required for formation to be considered valid.7

Thus, this dimension is concerned with both cognitive and performative aspects—thinking and acting in a manner identifiable with doing “good” theology not just in the final place of practice, but in processes shaping the practitioners. The final dimension, implicit structure, conveys the elements that support the assumptions embedded in the deep structure, especially the moral framework within which the practitioner will be required to work. It forms a deep, personal commitment to a particular way of doing things that students pick up from the examples they are set by others in their training. This might be embodied in an institution’s statement of belief, a profile describing the character of graduates, or a set of core values that orients the ethos of the learning community in both thought and practice. The implicit structure also defines what is considered non-negotiable in the education of students, and therefore may define what some call the “null curriculum,” where students’ recognition of what is relevant or important in a subject is shaped as much by what is excluded as that which is included.8 This

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null curriculum is sometimes identified as the fourth dimension of a signature pedagogy, alongside the surface, deep, and implicit dimensions.9 In the wider theological education landscape, particularly within those that focus upon the development of clergy, often a variety of signature pedagogies coexist. Pedagogies of interpretation focus upon teaching the analysis and interpretation of texts, while pedagogies of contextualization engage with the complicated everyday world within which those acts of interpretation are embedded. Vocational knowledge, skills and habits are captured in pedagogies of formation, and pedagogies of performance instruct students in professional practice through the integration of interpretation, contextualization, and formation.10 These various pedagogies reflect what Seymour and Miller refer to as the dual educative purposes of passing on a tradition and participating in the recreation of that tradition. The interplay of these pedagogies is realized in praxis, where ideas are worked out in considered action, and action shapes critical reflection. The ultimate goal is the production of reflective wisdom through which “persons continually seek to understand the meaning of the faith in the world and decide how to organize their lives in relation to it.”11 Pedagogically, Seymour and Miller see theological education falling into instruction about a religious tradition; developing a community of faith; personal development; theologically-informed transformation in the wider world; and interpreting the tradition in the language of the day. The particular strength of signature pedagogies in Shulman’s experience is their pervasiveness across all elements of a profession’s training, providing consistent rules of engagement with material, reinforcing core values and skills, and developing not only habits of the mind, but also other sorts of affective and performative habits. However, routine and pervasive ways of doing things, while capturing something of the essence of a discipline, have several identifiable disadvantages. For example, signature pedagogies, by necessity, simplify complex materials and skills in order to provide an overall structure and rhythm to learning that stretches across the discipline. This generic approach can mean that it does not always fit nicely into a particular topic or skill set, rendering it inappropriate for that context. It is not that the pedagogy should be done away with, but rather practitioners need to be aware that “one size does not fit all.” Furthermore, a teacher often appropriates signature pedagogies through the observation of his or her own teachers, often with no rationale given for why things are done this way. This uncritical inheritance can lead to pedagogical inertia, and as Shulman puts it, “they persist even when they begin to lose their utility, precisely because they are habits with very few countervailing forces.”12 Thus, resistance to the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning might not be the result of identifiable objections but rather a

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pedagogical inertia that leads to a lack of imagination as to how things might be done differently. That inherited rigidity may also prevent genuine critiques of digital technologies in education that also need to be made. However, pressure from a variety of circumstances can cause signature pedagogies to be re-examined. The conditions in which practitioners function might alter radically, requiring updated training in new skills and knowledge. Similarly, institutional issues, perhaps through financial pressure or changing student demographics, might also occasion change. For example, in my own context the recent need to be able to teach simultaneously between campuses by video link has required faculty not only to rethink their default teaching approaches but also to wrestle with questions of physical and remote presence and intercultural hermeneutics when teaching across diverse, distributed communities of students. This situation is picked up by Shulman who notes that technological developments such as the Internet, presenting online teaching and learning options, as well as changes in how information is sought and organized, can also present new opportunities and challenges.

CONNECTING SIGNATURE PEDAGOGIES AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY The typical theological signature pedagogy described previously is a model that Mary Hess aligns with an objectivist approach to teaching theology.13 Drawing upon the work of Parker Palmer,14 Hess contends this approach identifies particular theological concepts or texts as “objects” of learning to be mediated to learners by an expert who has selected and distilled what is important and provides that to the students to imbibe. Hess’ concern here is that the teaching process can become mechanized, characterized by a unidirectional linearity from teacher to student, which removes the “life” from the subject. Against this model, she places Palmer’s “community of truth,” where a community of learners, each with different levels of expertise, gather around the subject in question. These learners share their knowledge with each other, creating a deeper knowing across individuals and the community as understanding is constructed relationally. This particular emphasis underpins Hess’ assertion that “we need our teaching and learning in communities of faith to be about knowing how, not simply knowing that.”15 Approaches to using digital technologies and new media in theological education often fall on a spectrum between the two approaches that Hess identifies as objectivist and constructivist. Digital technology can support a model of education where information is channeled to students, via a mediator such as a teacher or web site. Conversely, it can also support a dynamic environment that facilitates students collaboratively constructing their own

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understanding of a subject.16 Technological aids, such as a learning management system, may enforce a particular pedagogical approach, or they may support a number of approaches and let the institution or teacher select which will be implemented. However, regardless of the pedagogy being used, is digital technology being employed in such a way that aligns both the pedagogy and technology for effective teaching and learning? Additionally, how are students being supported, at a curriculum level, in developing the skills and literacies needed to get the most out of the approach being used? The pressure to incorporate technology into teaching is not driven purely by pedagogy; factors such as institutions being seen to be educationally innovative, as well as technologies relevant for academic management are also present. In addition to these “top down” pressures are “bottom-up” pressures as well, where new technologies might be seen by practitioners to alleviate perceived problems in traditional pedagogies, to focus more on “studentcentered” learning, and to allow teachers to create reusable (and shareable) teaching resources.17 In the following sections, four different aspects of digital technologies being used in the teaching of religion and theology are highlighted. These include facilitating web-based research into religious topics, integration of on-campus and online students, digital storytelling, and photography as spiritual practice.

CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH THE INTERNET AS AN ELEMENT OF TEACHING RELIGION One question that arises with the ubiquity of Internet search engines is how to help students develop wisdom in processing online information. Nyasha Junior and Amy Edwards highlight this in their description of how they incorporated web-based research in an introductory religion course.18 Using criteria such as authority; sources; content; accuracy; objectivity; and currency, students were required to search the Internet for web sites related to a particular religious tradition and identify ten sites that would be particularly useful for conducting research on that tradition. Initially, the educators started with a variety of assumptions that underpinned this project including that this kind of web project would be less demanding than a research paper; the students would develop a set of transferable skills useful in their program; and that students already possessed information literacy skills derived from familiarity with the Internet, mobile technologies, and social media. However, these assumptions didn’t always hold true. The project was run over three successive semesters, with refinements made to address issues that arose out of previous times it was offered. In

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particular, Junior and Edwards noted that the assumptions they made about students’ information literacy—the ability to effectively locate, critically evaluate, and use information in a digital context—was problematic. They had assumed that their students, having grown up within a culture permeated with the presence of home computers, video games, the Internet and participatory media, and would demonstrate key information literacy competencies. However, they found that: Students were ill-equipped to use the web for research purposes. While the tech-savvy digital natives are comfortable with texting, chatting, poking, tweeting, downloading, and uploading, many students lacked the analytical skills necessary to engage fully in our technology-based society. Most used Google as a blunt instrument and expected simple searches to provide easy answers.19

Over the successive iterations of the project, the teaching staff had to provide additional training and guidance to students related to searching the Internet and critically evaluating web materials. This was also supported by a list of relevant print resources that gave students a basic background in the language and content of the respective research topics. The educators blended a variety of approaches to the task and its content to align pedagogical practices and digital technology more clearly, as well to clarify the diversity of students’ ability to use the Internet to support scholarly engagement. The result is an admixture of traditional interpretative pedagogy, with the teacher supplying material selected to aid the task and guidelines on the interpretation of that material, and knowledge and skills that supported critical interpretation and evaluation of web-based material beyond just textbased reflection. Furthermore, their recognition of information literacy issues clearly highlights that, in this case, new literacies did not supersede the old literacies, but rather both kinds were needed for students to be engaged constructively and critically with new media and digital technology. In this case, we see an oscillation between the objectivist and collective pedagogical approaches. The acquisition of interpretative skills pertinent to studying theology and religion has been filtered through a variety of teaching and information contexts. The traditional signature pedagogy of reflection upon set texts and ideas is connected constructively to collective and collaborative investigation of those ideas using both traditional and digital literacies. As such, the deep and implicit signature structures were adapted to the new environment, reflecting a commitment to the original pedagogical goals but nuanced by a deeper understanding of the student body and the digital environment and resulting in a continually revised surface structure.

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BLENDED LEARNING Blended learning, sometimes known as flexible or hybrid learning, seeks to capture both teacher-led and student-led teaching and learning typically through a mixture of classroom teaching and self-directed activities. As such, it brings together both objectivist and constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, with the self-directed component typically being provided by digital resources. In the late 2000s, I co-developed an undergraduate university course focusing on Christian spiritualities and their relationship to personal, community and societal well-being, covering material relating to spirituality in general, the inculturation of Christianity in indigenous Māori spirituality, and themes relating to peace and peacemaking. This course was designed to be offered to both on-campus students and students taking the course by distance in online mode. Inherent in the course redesign was a desire to engender a sense of community between the on-campus and online students. Some material was delivered in a traditional interpretative format, where key texts and concepts were presented both as lecture and written web content linked to set readings. Other content and learning was structured through a series of investigative and reflective tasks that drew upon the set reading material, as well as specially created multimedia resources, and which promoted collaborative and interactive work among students physically in computer lab sessions and via online discussion. In presenting the course this way, one of the issues we encountered was discomfort experienced by a number of on-campus students when faced with a course that stepped outside their expectation of the signature pedagogy for theological education. Instead of a single three-hour lecture once a week, a reading list, and a set of essays to write individually, the introduction of shorter lectures, collaborative, discursive work, and having to use various digital technologies disrupted the dominant signature pedagogy. Thus, it was important to make sure that students could articulate this experience and have the work they were doing in the new context formally recognized and affirmed by teaching staff (and informally by fellow students). It was also important to provide support for the acquisition of new web-based skills, which were able to be transferred across courses, and also for students to demonstrate the skills and literacies they already possessed. When these were attended to, students performed well in this new environment. An interesting side-effect from the various times the course has been taught was the formation of co-mentoring relationships between different students in the class who would not normally have interacted with each other. Younger students with higher levels of information literacy mentored other students in technical skills, while those other students, typically older, brought key

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questions and insight from life experience to the set tasks and challenged the younger students to think more critically about the course content. This has been reflected in the depth and quality of the critical reflection presented in the material produced by students each week. Furthermore, the reflective nature of the collaborative and reflective tasks, allowed some of the quieter and less confident students, whose voices are often lost in the larger lecture discussions or who culturally found it inappropriate to share their views, to contribute more deeply through online forums later in the week, and to be affirmed in that by their peers. In developing this course in its blended form, it has become increasingly clear that combining familiar pedagogies of interpretation and contextualization (that maintain the rhythm of academic life across the curriculum) with approaches that engage new interpretative challenges of theology in higher education, shows promise. However, in doing this one needs to be careful how to best align those pedagogies with the technology available, to consider what assumptions are made about students’ information literacy, and to be realistic about the need to support new approaches using established content and skills. Digital Storytelling The development of “digital storytelling” demonstrates an attention to pedagogies of interpretation and contextualization through the production of critically reflective personal narratives in digital format. Rina Benmayor goes as far as stating that she believes that “digital storytelling is a signature pedagogy of the ‘New Humanities’, engaging an interdisciplinary integration of critical thought and creative practice.”20 Its power, she claims, lies in its empowering of students from the margins of society to find their voices and speak out. While Benmayor is concerned primarily with disciplines such as ethnic studies and cultural studies, there is significant overlap in the approach she describes here with theological subjects such as hermeneutics, contextual theology, pastoral studies, and spirituality. Benmayor’s approach to digital storytelling combines the development of identity narratives, created digitally using audio and visual software, with student theorizing about the construction of those stories from their lived experience, and producing new sociocultural understandings of themselves and the world around them. Students, often supporting each other technically and academically in the process, identify a significant identity-shaping moment in their lives that they then use to create written, audio, visual, and musical narratives that combine to produce a three-minute digital film. Students are then required to reflect critically upon both the process and the final product, drawing upon both their personal experience and relevant academic materials.

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This is a good example of pedagogy and technology being aligned, recognizing core strength of the digital technology in question and purposefully incorporating it into the curriculum. Moreover, the production of these new digital narratives does not supplant the students’ own narratives and literacies, but rather allows them to be recontextualized through the collaboration of student, teacher, and media. As noted earlier, this kind of approach is applicable to a variety of different theological areas. For example, in a hermeneutics course, students might be asked to critically develop their own ­hermeneutical perspective, and demonstrate how it will shape their interpretation of biblical texts, theological traditions, collected data, or other sources used in a theological discipline. A digital storytelling approach could be useful in identifying key elements of the student’s own personal hermeneutical position as part of that task. Recently, pastoral theologian and educator, Mary Hess, has developed digital storytelling as a key tool in religious education and faith formation. Taking her lead from the foundational work carried out by the US-based Center for Digital Storytelling, Hess explains: This form of digital storytelling, then, is not a loose umbrella for any and every story to be found in any digital format. It is not shorthand for film and tv, or even much that can be found on YouTube or Vimeo. It is, rather, a community of practice that focuses on helping people to find their own voices, to hone stories from their own experience, and then to craft and share their stories using digital tools.21

One dimension of digital storytelling that Hess highlights is that it makes us think about time differently. In order to reflect, narrate and create a digital story, one needs to slow down and listen to oneself and others, and to become more aware of the world around us. This is also a trait that will be encountered when we consider photography as a location for spiritual practice. Hess also notes, that having produced one or more digital stories, typically in the range of 3–5 minutes, participants became more critical in the engagement with other media. It also brings to the fore that theology is a communicative event that demands not just articulation of information, but also critical reflection, interpretation, and understanding of faith. The process and outcome of digital storytelling is participative for those narrating, as well as for others who then encounter the story and reflect upon it.22 Moreover, this particular approach might also reflect a kind of resistance to the globalizing power of digital technology in education noted earlier. Here new technologies are used to engage locally and globally, but in such a way as to reinforce the voice of the local. Within my own context this could be used to support and enhance the deep and implicit structures in our curriculum that seek to support and develop the local Māori and Oceanian

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theological communities, aligning digital technology with our own signature pedagogy. Students have moved from being passive consumers of a pedagogical product, to being more active producers of digital content in a guided pedagogical context. While Benmayor’s students only display their films to each other, there is no technical reason that students using combinations of web publishing and social media might engage with a wider context, albeit with appropriate guidelines. Digital Photography as Spiritual Practice Digital photography provides an interesting medium for theological education and spiritual formation. The ubiquity of cameras in mobile phones and tablets, as well as compact and more sophisticated digital cameras, which can capture both still images and video, connect to what Roman Catholic pastoral theologian Eileen Crowley identifies as our increasingly participatory culture. In this environment, media-art-making and media-art-sharing become a normal and natural part of the mundane world, with people perceiving that their contributions matter and elements of social connectivity emerge from engaging with others’ production and consumption.23 Crowley contends that intentional use of photography in the everyday world can aid in the development of religious imaginations, connect individuals into communities, and form a part of spiritual practice contributing to discipleship. She works with people to recognize and articulate both visual and verbal metaphors through the practice of photography which open people’s eyes to the world around them, their own location, and where God might be present. In this, she echoes Stanley Grenz, when he says: The acknowledgment that theological language is metaphorical alters our understanding of the task of the theologian. Rather than a scientist who discovers truths about God waiting to be discerned, the theologian is a poet who crafts meaningful pictures about our world and our relationship to the transcendent.24

Various approaches to the use of photography are used by Crowley depending on the target audience. In one example, she works with theology students to expand their religious imaginations through photographing their everyday world. Sometimes that is directed around a particular reading or topic for a week, at other times the students can pick what they want. In this activity, students might be asked to produce a short reflection in response to their own and others’ photographs, and to a starting phrase such as “In God’s eyes, the world is . . .,” “God is . . .” or “A community of faith is . . . ” Students are also sometimes asked to create a narrative that connect their photos across a week or a term, to present their work as a form of installation, and to explore how

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visual metaphors present in their work helped them articulate an experience or understanding of the divine in relation to the world.25 In another example, Crowley works with parishioners to use photography as spiritual practice. People are taught a number of basic skills about photography and then spend an hour or so a week taking photos in their everyday world. Those photos are brought back to the group where they share the connections between their own and others’ pictures with their faith journeys. One of the significant themes that comes through in this practice is that of slowing down and really looking at the world around them, of discovering things that they hadn’t noticed in their neighborhoods, and how the discipline of photography had spilled over into disciplines like prayer and contemplation.26 Crowley has also worked with church groups to assist them to make communal media for liturgical events, such as the Easter Vigil, where she facilitates a process of communal co-creation that links biblical imagery with contemporary photography to produce a locally developed visual liturgy.27 Additionally, working with local groups, Crowley extended the use of photography as a way of building online community between students through exploring the notion of public space in their own context and sharing photographs and reflections on that, as well as having them explore their local spaces photographically to evaluate how inclusive they were for people with disabilities.28 One of the key things Crowley stresses is that the camera allows people to look again at their everyday world and to think creatively about how that re-looking at things connects with their following Christ. This was an aspect in a block course on youth culture, popular culture, and theology that I was co-teaching at Laidlaw College. The course coordinator, Jason Clark, had been exploring with students the way that wider society constructs patterns of living outside of religious communities that might be considered cultural liturgies which serve a purpose similar to organized religion in providing meaning, identity, and community. These might be located in sport, ethnic or national identity, media consumption, and particular forms of consumerism.29 To emphasize this point, students were organized into small groups and sent out from the classroom for the afternoon to photograph aspects or forms of cultural liturgies. We set up a closed Facebook group for them to post their photos, along with their comments on their own photos and those of their classmates. When that was done, the students came back to class to discuss what they experienced. One of the significant insights that students brought back echoes Crowley’s observation that by having to slow down and pay attention to the everyday world in order to photograph it, they discovered all manner of things about the world that they previously were unaware of, which in turn fed back into their theological and spiritual reflection on these cultural liturgies.

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CONCLUSION Signature pedagogies reflect the way disciplines shape “habits of mind, habits of the heart, and habits of the hand.”30 Mostly these habits provide routine and familiarity to the teaching and learning experiences of teachers and students, aiding in the organization, interpretation and acquisition of knowledge, skills, and meaning. At times, though, these pedagogical approaches can become disconnected from the context they serve, create overly simplistic frameworks for complex subjects, or develop an inertia that resists innovation in teaching. The cases examined earlier show how digital technology might be both incorporated into existing signature pedagogies of theological teaching, as well as how they might realign those pedagogies. The use of web-based investigations highlights that there is continuity between core literacies present in existing pedagogies and those that might be re-envisaged and communicated as practices in a digital world, a conclusion also supported by the blended learning case study. Furthermore, both the digital storytelling and photography examples highlight the possibilities for new directions to be taken in teaching, while remaining aware of issues of contextualization, the essential humanness needed in learning, and for local voices to be heard under the pressure of globalizing digital technology. These examples demonstrate that the use of digital technologies does not necessarily mean the abandonment of signature pedagogies that may be working effectively in some contexts. Rather those approaches can be enriched through creative and judicious use of digital technologies that takes into account issues of pedagogical alignment, the strengths and weaknesses of the technologies involved, and teacher and student experiences and welfare. NOTES 1. Jack L. Seymour and Donald Eugene Miller, “Openings to God: Education and Theology in Dialogue” in Theological Approaches to Christian Education, 7–24 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990). 2. Lee S. Shulman, “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions,” Daedalus 134, no. 3 (2005): 52. 3. Neil Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates (New York: Continuum, 2011). 4. Lev Manovich, “New Media from Borges to HTML” in The New Media Reader, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, 13–28 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). 5. Shulman, “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions,” 54.

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6. Don Saines, “How Do Students Learn Theology?” Teaching Theology and Religion 12, no. 4 (2009): 336. 7. Mark Nichols, “A Comparison of the Spiritual Participation of On-Campus and Theological Distance Education Students,” Journal of Adult Theological Education 12, no. 2 (2015): 122. 8. Mary Hess, “Listening and Learning to Teach in Theological Contexts: An Appreciative Inquiry Model” in Revitalizing Practice: Collaborative Models for Theological Faculties, edited by Malcolm L. Warford (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 72. 9. Charles R., Foster, Lisa E. Dahill, Lawrence A. Golemon, and Barbara Wang Tolentino (eds.), Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), 33. 10. Lee S. Shulman, “From Hermeneutic to Homiletic,” Change 38, no. 2 (2006): 28–31; Foster et al., Educating clergy, 32–34. 11. Seymour and Miller, “Openings to God,” 13. 12. Shulman, “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions,” 56–57. 13. Mary Hess, Engaging Technology in Theological Education: All That We Can’t Leave Behind, Communication, Culture, and Religion Series (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). 14. Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (Audiobook, 1998). 15. Hess, Engaging Technology in Theological Education, 5. 16. Avril Loveless, Glenn L DeVoogd, and Roy M Bohlin, “Something old, something new . . .: Is pedagogy affected by ICT?” in ICT, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum: Subject to Change, edited by Avril Loveless and Viv Ellis, 63–83 (London; New York: Routledge, 2001). 17. Selwyn, Education and Technology, 22–28. 18. Nyasha Junior and Amy Edwards, “‘There is a Lot of Junk on the Web!’: Using Web Site Evaluation in an Introductory Religion Course,” Teaching Theology and Religion 14, no. 2 (2011): 175–181. 19. Junior and Amy Edwards, “‘There is a Lot of Junk on the Web!’,” 180. 20. Rina Benmayor, “Digital Storytelling as a Signature Pedagogy for the New Humanities,” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 7, no. 2 (2008): 188. 21. Mary E. Hess, “A New Culture of Learning: Digital Storytelling and Faith Formation,” Dialog: A Journal of Theology 53, no. 1 (2014): 19. 22. Hess, “A New Culture of Learning,” 19–21. 23. Eileen D. Crowley, “‘Using New Eyes’: Photography as a Spiritual Practice for Faith Formation and Worship,” Dialog 53, no. 1 (2014): 30. 24. Stanley J. Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei, Matrix of Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 8. 25. Eileen D. Crowley, “‘Now I See’: On the Creation of Media Arts in Religious and Theological Studies,” ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies 23, no. 1 (2011): 34–37. 26. Crowley, “‘Using New Eyes’,” 31–32.

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27. Crowley, “‘Using New Eyes’,” 32–38. 28. Crowley, “‘Now I See’,” 37–38. 29. Jason Clark, “Consumer Liturgies and Their Corrosive Effects on Christian Identity” in Church in the Present Tense: A Candid Look at What’s Emerging, edited by Kevin Corcoran (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2011), 39–51. 30. Shulman, “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions,” 59.

NATIVIZING THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

Chapter 10

Māori Theology Unavoidable, Priority Arapera Ngaha

Whakatōkia, ruiruia, he purapura pai ki te whenua pai kia tupu ake, he hua pai1

The predominant oral tradition story about the naming of Aotearoa is that, upon first sight of land, Kuramarotini, wife of Kupe exclaimed “he ao, he ao, he aotea roa” (a cloud, a cloud, a long white cloud).2 That was the cloud that lingered over the land in the far north as Kupe and his crew approached Aotearoa, later named “New Zealand” by Abel Tasman in 1645.3 Kupe and his crew had voyaged over many arduous days and many miles, arriving in this new land to a new way of life, one that would pose a wide range of challenges. Those challenges included a much colder climate than the semitropical Hawaiki they had come from; there were different foods to discover, different plant, fish and bird life, and new discoveries about housing and clothing materials. Here was a vastly different world from that they had known. These intrepid voyagers were on the threshold of a new way of life. In many ways, as the title of this book suggests, thresholds can signal new beginnings, beginnings of new and different ways of thinking, exploring, practicing, engaging with, and so we ask, what are the catalysts for these beginnings? The story of Kupe’s arrival has all the elements of adventurous and intrepid voyagers, leaders seeking out new horizons. But, behind that our traditional stories speak to economic need being a major factor that drove these adventurers and explorers to seek out new lands to settle.4 Narratives such as the story of naming of this land as Aotearoa, are what Māori consider to be part of a Māori theology that speaks to our identity, our values and our spirituality, based in and of our land. We have no other place to call home! 137

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Sometimes our stories have become “colonised” and “sanitised,” that is that their meanings may have been misrepresented and therefore tell only part, or perhaps only one layer of meaning belonging to that story. For e­ xample, as Māori astrologer Rereata Makiha explained in private c­ ommunication, the meaning of Aotearoa is not simply a long white cloud, it is a translation of the words “aotea” (white cloud) and “roa” (long). But “ao” can also mean “light” (compared to ‘white’) in some contexts and so on a deeper level, Aotearoa can also mean never-ending light. This second understanding is congruent with the story of Māui slowing down the sun. That story depicts a demigod, superhero perhaps, lassoing or snaring the sun with a woven rope, in order to slow its passage across the sky. On another level, the understanding of “ao” as “light” helps explain why in Aotearoa it is much lighter before the sun rises and after the sun sets compared to the Hawaiki that Kupe and his crew set sail from, a land much closer to the equator. In this work, I aim to explain how contextualizing Christianity might be addressed and why students of theology in Aotearoa ought to engage in this exercise. It is important to understand Māori values and Māori spirituality in order to begin to explore a theology that speaks to the context and the people of Aotearoa. To do that it is important to have an understanding of te reo Māori (the Māori language), for within the language are indicators of the depths of understanding. The nuances of the language are a lifelong journey; but with no language knowledge, there is no way one might even begin to understand what lies behind the words and what hidden gems in understandings may be revealed. I explore some of the literature around Māori theology seeking ways for students of theology to explore and understand what Māori theology may be and how knowing this will set students of theology in good stead. It is important to understand that I refer to Māori here not as an homogenous group, but rather a nation of hapū and iwi whose baseline values are the same as they stem from a Māori worldview and mātauranga Māori (knowledge acquired over generations of understanding Māori world). The narratives and experiences that develop have come from within hapū and iwi contexts, hence the variations noted in the story that I began this chapter with. Exploring the concepts and values that stem from a Māori worldview takes us through a cyclical process where one concept links to another or others and such is the nature of te Ao Māori (Māori world, the world as Māori understand it). How these concepts might be viewed in a framework of other theological understandings is briefly explored, but I begin with a discussion on views around the validity of oral traditions versus Western ideas around evidential knowledge and therefore legitimacy of thought and academic knowledge.

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MĀORI TRADITIONS, HISTORY Historians, anthropologists, and many traditional academics have long deliberated the validity and place of oral traditions, not only of Māori but of other Indigenous peoples throughout the world. Their skepticism was often directed toward peoples who were considered not to have had forms of longterm record-keeping such as the written chronicles of European civilizations, the written works of the Chinese, or even Sanskrit of the Indian continent. Oral narratives, in their Eurocentric view, could not be trusted to reveal historical facts. There was no consideration of value at all in these oral narratives and they were usually relegated to the domain of myth and storytelling, devoid of factual evidence. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that the tide began to turn and “memorised experience was recognised as a valid historical source.”5 Anthropologist, Jan Vansina claimed that as long as oral traditions were regarded with the same scrutiny as that applied to any other contribution to history then there was indeed a place for oral tradition among historical sources. Narratives such as Kupe’s arrival story could then be considered as a valid source of history. And so, the stories, the oral histories of Māori and other Indigenous nations, have begun to be recognized as having deep levels of understanding and truths, albeit in the context of each Indigenous people’s worldview. No longer can such narratives be dismissed as simple myths and legends. Despite not having a written language, it was not long before the role of the carvers and their carved works were also acknowledged as having a story to tell, stories based on people, leaders, and events. Within the traditional tupuna whare (meeting house) carvings adorning the house are considered artifacts, one more valid source of historical evidence. Kōwhaiwhai (painted patterns) between the pou (posts) of the walls, between the rafters of the ceiling and on the pāpaka (carved pieces along the bottom of the pou), all have a place in the telling of the stories of the people to whom the tupuna whare belongs. All these decorative elements together tell their stories, their links to the environment, their whakapapa (ancestry), stories of their geographical area and their histories. These stories are imbued with the spirituality of the people, elements of a Māori theology, the ways in which Māori view and understand the world, beginning with creation stories told through the lens of a Māori worldview. So, how does one “read” these stories? Are the interpretations of these accounts true to the context from which they are derived? And, in the telling of these stories in a language other than that of the original creators of these works, what nuances are missed?

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INDIGENOUS THEOLOGY Indigenous peoples globally have at the heart of their understandings of God a sense of their own identity. Colonization has been proactive in removing, altering elements of indigenous identity to alienate their former selves and replace it with a pseudo-identity, one that creates a mirror image of the colonizer within the indigenous persona. In so doing, indigenous theology too has been somewhat supplanted. Ruawai D. Rakena (1971) suggests that “identity” has two components which bring Māori together, or pulls them and holds them together as a people. Those two elements are “belonging” and “selfhood.”6 “Belonging” suggests that people are joined in the way that they have a whakapapa (genealogy) that links them inextricably to one another and no-one can change that. For Māori this includes whanaungatanga (kin relationships). Belonging also includes those people who have a shared culture, language, spiritual, economic, and political struggle in their shared collective history. The interrelatedness of creation is central to a Māori theology and is in concert with all indigenous theologies.7 That sense of “belonging” is the glue that binds the Indigenous people in common and is indicative of indigenous theology as being communitarian rather than individualistic.8 Of particular note is the indigenous view of the land as core to their being. For Indigenous peoples, life begins and ends in the land and it is central to our struggles and resistance against oppression. “Selfhood,” Rakena suggests, is an understanding of the self, or “partially shared representations of the self and its relation to others, created and maintained through interactions and practices within a given cultural context.”9 Humans take on board the attitudes of others in our development a process that is not always consensual. For Māori, much of who we are as Māori has become subsumed by various means, most particularly by the imposition of colonial rule in the first instance, and the ongoing racism and denial of Māori rights as espoused in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The New Zealand education system, government political system, government agencies, and indeed churches have denied and denigrated Māori over many years and so understandings of oneself, as Māori, have to some extent been diffused or watered down. For Māori theology to blossom, Māori ourselves must reclaim our place, our own being, our own Māori self.10 Numerous organizations such as Te Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Māori, Māori businesses, Māori academic forums, Māori Health Advocacy initiatives, the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal, Māori political parties as well as churches have made it their business to reclaim that “selfhood” for Māori. The Methodist Church of New Zealand: Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa, in 1983, embarked on a Bicultural Journey which reflects that reclamation of Māori selfhood. That Bicultural Journey gives

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substance to a partnership process within the realm of “church” and Methodism where Māori theology and spirituality is embraced.

MĀORI THEOLOGY—INDIGENOUS REALITIES To consider what a Māori theology is, we first define what is meant by theology in the first instance. Alister McGrath speaks to theology being “talk about God” and thus Christian theology is “talk about God from a Christian perspective.”11 When Christians explore their faith and their understanding of that faith, then that is exploring or doing theology. It is a process that involves discussion and reflection and results in sharpening up of understandings about their faith. John Roberts cites John Cobb (1993) who states that theology is “intentional Christian thinking about important matters”12 and theologian Douglas Hall, suggests that “theology is that ongoing activity of the whole church that aims at clarifying what gospel must mean right here and now.”13 In this definition is the added idea of gospel, time, and context. In this way, considerations of conversations about God might be enhanced by adding culture into a context and herein is where a Māori theology might fit in the definitions. Wati Longchar talks to the relationships of Indigenous people and their lands when he suggests that all struggles endured by Indigenous peoples relate back to the desire of others, most often the colonizers, to own, control, manipulate, and manage their lands.14 He notes that the treasures within the earth have become commodified, tradeable resources that are sought after for their value in a modern world where wealth is measured in terms of monetary gain. For Indigenous peoples mining the earth is tantamount to desecration of their mother, their beginning, their life, and all that is within creation. Longchar suggests that all theologies are based in the context of their time and he cites the work of Barth and Brunner in the context of crisis in post– World War II Europe, and the so-called failure of Liberal theology. Theologies developed in this time period reflect the social, economic, and political realities of that time. But Longchar warns that the dominant theologies, while they stem from scripture and tradition, take the realities and contexts of dominant groups in society and community. These ways of doing theology thus have become “the paradigm for doing theology.”15 For Indigenous peoples their realities and experiences reflect the world of the poor, the underprivileged, the marginalized, and spiritually bereft. Longchar describes it as a theology from “below” from the “underside” of history.16 Tate suggests that Māori theology is communal rather than individual, has its basis in our creation stories, and is spatial rather than temporal—Māori theology is based in and of this land, rather than in particular phases of time.

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Māori theology speaks to the presence of Christ in the world, in the world that we inhabit, where we live, breathe, and experience life. That life is situated in the context of Aotearoa. Rakena and Rangiwai both speak to a fluid process or framework for understanding Māori theology where God, humanity, and the earth are in relationship both with and of each other.17 So how do Māori understand that notion of thinking about God, creation, nature, the land and all that lies within it? We begin from a mātauranga Māori baseline and address theology from within the culture, the waiata (songs), stories of our beginnings, our creation stories and the stories of our lands, all the animals, bird and fish life, flora and fauna, and our people through the ages. These stories, to be clearly understood, should all be communicated through the medium of te reo Māori in all its nuanced beauty. Rakena notes that it is through the language, te reo Māori, that our theological understandings and realities are best understood. Rev. D. T. Niles, one-time president of the World Council of Churches has spoken eloquently on evangelism and the need to develop a contextual theology, one that would speak to the people in their own places, their own spaces. He used the illustration of what has been described as the “Flowerpot Theology” to explain contextual theology. Rev. Ruawai Rakena, theologian and first Tumuaki of Te Taha Māori,18 took this illustration and instilled it within Te Taha Māori to affirm the place of developing a Māori theology in Aotearoa. The flowerpot described by Niles was the Gospel brought by the early missionaries; an alien concept held in a pot for safe keeping and protection from the elements. It was nurtured, watered by the missionary zeal that encased it, and it continued to grow. However, in order for that Gospel to truly flourish in this land, its new context, the pot itself needed to be broken. Only then might that plant have the ability to grow roots into the good soil of this land of Aotearoa—infused with Māori concepts and ideology so that it may flourish, albeit in a different form, one born of this land and its environs. This then might be a truly Māori response to that Gospel: the whakatauāki (proverbial saying) that heads this chapter speaks to planting (whakatōkia) the good seed (see also Matthew 13:1–23, Mark 4:1–20, Luke 8:4–15), and spreading (ruiruia) it widely in the good soil of this land through a medium belonging to this land, namely through our own indigenous understandings.

KARAKIA MĀORI19 Māori whakapono (belief systems) begin with the interconnectedness of various streams of whakapapa. “Tuia ki te rangi, tuia ki te whenua, tuia ki te moana, e rongo te po e rongo te ao.”20 These whakapapa relate to all the elements of nature, and each of these was named. Today we hear talk of the

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various gods (atua) of the Māori world such as Tangaroa, whose domain was the sea and all the waterways; Tane Mahuta, has the domain of the forests; and Tawhirimatea’s domain was the realm of the atmosphere above the land, where the wind is king. These atua may be considered as natural phenomena which appear in various guises. Our whakapono (belief systems) recognize these many variations, gives them a persona of their own and so they are named accordingly. “So you get a hau (wind) that blows around your feet [and] lifts the leaves up it’s a hau tutu.”21 Haututu is also a word used to describe the nature of playful or naughty children, not willfully naughty, but playful. It is the wind that gently blows around, disturbing small and lightweight matters. Then there are winds such as described in te hau mangere o te pane o Mataoho (the lazy winds that blow around the head of Mataoho), those slight breezes that wind their way around Mangere mountain.22 And then there is te hau wawara, the wind that can be heard and seen to bend saplings and plants. There are even names of the winds that carry the birds such as the godwit on their journey from here to Siberia and back again in their seasons. These birds wait for the signs to be right and rise up to meet the jetstream wind that Māori know as Tawirirangi which carries them safely on their journey without them having to expend a lot of energy. They are a relatively small bird with vast oceans to cover and they know how to ride Tawirirangi to their destination. So how do we know these elements are at play? They are not visible, they are mata ngaro, invisible and unseen, but they can be felt, they are known by the impact they make on something else. Observation of the natural world around us will show us these phenomena. They carry a lifeforce, a mauri of their own which is sometimes described in their name, their personification. They are illustrations of a Māori theology, ways in which we know and understand God. TE TIRITI O WAITANGI In 1840, the British Crown, through their agent Captain William Hobson, signed a document known as Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) with a number of Rangatira (Māori Chiefs)—a treaty that sought peaceful settlement in this country. It was seen by Māori to be a settlement of peace and goodwill and the Māori language document “Te Tiriti o Waitangi” was that which they signed. However, these two documents—Te Tiriti o Waitangi and The Treaty of Waitangi—are not compatible; that is, they are not translations of each other. The Rangatira signed the te reo document; the one that they understood, the one that affirmed their continued control over their land and all matters important to them. This included their language and other intangibles such

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as their mātauranga, their tikanga and whakapapa. Te Tiriti also allowed the British to settle in Aotearoa under the mantle and protection of the Rangatira.23 The British Crown understood this document differently and proceeded to take over and govern this land citing Māori’s handing over of sovereignty to the British as espoused in the Treaty of Waitangi,24 a very different understanding of this document. For more than 180 years it has been an ongoing battle for Māori to regain their place, their autonomy, their sovereignty over their lives in their land. Much has been written on this matter of Treaty/Tiriti understandings and in 2011 the Waitangi Tribunal found that Northern Chiefs did not cede sovereignty to the British Crown through signing this treaty document.25 It is incumbent on students of theology in Aotearoa to have a thorough grasp of these matters in order to gain an understanding of the place of Māori in Aotearoa. For too long, cultural suppression resulted in Māori ways being denied to us. Reclamation of our mātauranga Māori, our karakia Māori, our tikanga is advancing our Māori theology. Spreading it widely is giving expression to who we are as Māori in this land and it allows for others resident in this land to find ways to determine their place here in juxtaposition to Māori. CONCLUSION Every day is a threshold to new and different understandings. This chapter has merely scratched the surface of much deeper understandings of theology in Aotearoa and in particular understandings of Māori theology. Colonial and patronizing attitudes are not what is needed. The story of the naming of this land is an illustration of how that happens; only part of the story is taken and used to perpetuate a romanticized version that becomes ingrained in our society as a part of our New Zealand history. What is needed is support for Māori to explore theology for ourselves and then to be able to share what is with others around them. All too often such opportunities are altered, turned into a convenient “truth,” according to a theology that is not Māori. As a very first step to understanding a Māori theology is to understand that which underpins our existence here in Aotearoa and te reo and mātauranga Māori is fundamental to that. Committing to the teaching of these matters within theological training institutions has to be a given, not an option, and an absolute priority. NOTES 1. This whakatauāki (proverbial saying) speaks to planting (whakatōkia) the good seed and spreading (ruiruia) it widely in the good soil of this land through a medium belonging to this land, namely through our Indigenous Māori understandings.

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2. There are variations to the story of Kupe and his reasons for coming to Aotearoa, but all maintain the naming by Kuramarotini. Some say Kupe arrived here in pursuit of a giant octopus. The northern tribe called Ngāpuhi have an alternative story of Kupe’s arrival in these lands, one that involves adultery and the fleeing from the whānau (family) by Kupe and his companion Kuramarotini. See further Hone Sadler, Ko Tautoro te pito o tōku ao: A Ngāpuhi narrative (New York: Auckland University Press, 2017). 3. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman is considered to have named this land Staten Land, mistakenly thinking it was part of land off the Argentinian coast. Dutch Cartographers named it Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch Province Zeeland and in 1769, when James Cook arrived, he anglicized the name to New Zealand. 4. Hawaiki is the land from which our ancestors set off to venture here. Overcrowding and economic reasons were the primary catalyst for their departure. See Ranginui Walker, Ka whawhai tonu mātou: Struggle without end (Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin, 2004). 5. Atholl Anderson et al., Te Ao Tawhito: the Old World 3000 BC–AD1830: Tangata Whenua An illustrated History Part One (Auckland: Bridget Williams ­ Books, 2014), 42. 6. Ruawai D. Rakena, Maori Response to the Gospel: A Study of Maori-Pakeha Relations in the Methodist Maori Mission from Its Beginnings to the Present Day (Auckland: Wesley Historical Society, 1971). 7. Henare Tate, He puni iti i te ao mārama: A little spring in a world of light (Auckland, New Zealand: Oratia, 2012); Wati Longchar, “Teaching Third World Contextual Theologies from Ecumenical Perspective—Tribal/Indigenous People’s Theology.” International Journal of Theology 44 (2002): 9–19. 8. Tate, He puni iti i te ao mārama. 9. “Beyond the ‘east-west’ Dichotomy: Global Variation in Cultural Models of Selfhood.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 145, no. 8 (2016): 966–1000. 10. Rakena, Maori Response to the Gospel. 11. Alister McGrath, Theology the Basics (Malden: Blackwell, 2004), vii. 12. John Roberts, Thinking Theologically in Aotearoa (Paihia, New Zealand: Colcom, 2000), 4. 13. Douglas John Hall, “What Is Theology?” Crosscurrents 53.2 (2003): 171. 14. Longchar, “Teaching Third World Contextual Theologies from Ecumenical Perspective.” 15. Longchar, “Teaching Third World Contextual Theologies from Ecumenical Perspective,” 9. 16. Longchar, “Teaching Third World Contextual Theologies from Ecumenical Perspective,” 9. 17. Byron Rangiwai, “The Atuatanga Model: A Methodology for Researching Māori Theology,” Te Kaharoa 11 (2018): 181–94. 18. Te Taha Māori is the Māori partner in the Methodist Church of Aotearoa. 19. Incantations of Māori spirituality and in te reo Māori. 20. This karakia seeks to bind the heavens to the earth and the sea throughout the day and night, for all time.

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21. R. Makiha, Māori astrologer, in private communication. 22. Mangere is a suburb of Auckland city; Mangere mountain is located on the Manukau Harbor. Mataoho was the chief of the iwi who inhabited this area prior to colonization and the naming of geographical points are acts of claiming dominion and right of occupation. 23. Margaret Mutu, “Constitutional Intentions: The Treaty of Waitangi texts” in Michael Mulholland and Veronica Tawhai (eds.), Waitangi: Weeping Waters and Constitutional Change, 13–40 (Wellington, New Zealand: Huia, 2010). 24. I. H. Kawharu (ed.), Waitangi: Maori and Pakeha Perspectives of the Treaty of Waitangi (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1989); Claudia Orange, Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The treaty of Waitangi (Wellington, New Zealand: Book Havean, 2015); Ranginui Walker, Ka whawhai tonu mātou: Struggle without end (Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin, 2004). 25. Waitangi Tribunal Northern Report, 2011.

Chapter 11

Biculturalism and Democratic Decision-Making Models for Theological Education Moeawa Callaghan

E hara taku toa i te toa takitahi, he toa takitini My strength is not as an individual, but as a collective

Democracy that favors the majority (majoritarian democracy) worked effectively against indigenous peoples during the process of colonization and continues to undermine tangata whenua (indigenous ‘people of the land’)1 in Aotearoa, as it does against other indigenous minority peoples. Using a tikanga2 lens, this chapter discusses three bicultural3 democratic decisionmaking models based on practices I have encountered in theological colleges that claim a commitment to bicultural partnership under the Treaty of Waitangi (hereafter: ‘the Treaty’). This reflection explores ways in which the models might influence changes in societal attitudes and institutional commitments to bicultural partnership. Before presenting the models, I draw briefly on historical and contemporary understandings of democracy, democratic decision-making in Aotearoa, and insights on democracy from scripture and tradition. The essay does not argue that majoritarian democracy is unsuitable across the board. There are historical backgrounds and circumstances where it is a fair and just political (voting) system. My focus here is the impact of majoritarian democracy on minority indigenous peoples in their (now) colonized lands and I do this through the context of Aotearoa. To explore the effects of the concept of democracy as it is generally understood in Aotearoa, I apply key values that form a tikanga Māori framework 147

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for theology and a method for assessing situations that challenge our thinking, values, and practices.4 Tikanga can enhance the inherent and relational tapu and mana of all God’s creation. A tikanga way of contributing to the democracy conversation for theology is to apply the foundational practices of tika and pono, two practices that enhance tapu and mana. The understanding of what it means to be Christian shared by members of the World Council of Churches fosters a similar view: Human beings are to be in relationship with God, with each other, and with the whole of creation; this requires respect and responsibility toward all creatures and the whole created order. Within these two systems we encounter the juxtaposition of two belief systems, Christian and Māori.

HISTORY The church’s role in the signing of the Treaty, and the subsequent colonial settlement and inevitable diminishing of mana Māori in the country’s decision-making, requires a moral, ethical, and spiritual commitment from the churches and theological colleges in Aotearoa to address the historical injustices and current injustices that continue to ignore, or at least minimalize, Māori participation. A response from the churches and theological colleges committed to bicultural development has been to embrace tikanga Māori decision-making values, which in turn provide these institutions with a language for doing so. The hindering of Māori participation in the country’s decision-making was evident in New Zealand’s first election in 1853 with the introduction of the Westminster first-past-the-post (FPP) majority voting system. In 1853, when Māori were still the majority, legislation disqualified most Māori from voting. A voter had to be male, a British subject, at least twenty-one years old, and own a certain amount of Crown-granted land in individual title. Prior to 1853, Māori lands were owned communally (as iwi, hapū or whānau groups). To facilitate the purchase of Māori land the government set up the Native Lands Act and the 1865 Native Land Court which allowed the transfer of tribal lands to individual titles. Because a maximum of only ten owners were allowed, all tribal members were dispossessed of their land, economic access, and spiritual well-being. According to Judith Binney, the Native Lands Act was an “act of war.”5 By negating the mana of the iwi and ignoring the practice of tika and pono, a new battlefield was established. When matters ended up in court, the beneficiaries were Pākehā—thus further negating tika and pono. Māori were the largest ethnic group until the 1860s, yet the majority vote system advantaged the settlers.

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Further negation of tika and pono occurred through the government’s confiscation of land (raupatu) from Māori believed to have participated in wars against the government. The New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 was introduced to facilitate raupatu; as Māori appeared in court to argue their case for the return of land, the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 prevented dealing fairly with Māori and their land. For example, raupatu dispossessed all members of an iwi regardless of whether they had fought against or with the government. This was partly addressed when Parliament in 1867 set up four Māori electorates. Until 1893 Māori men aged twenty-one or over could vote in these electorates and the European ones could stand for Parliament. This system was similar to the “special representation” introduced for gold miners earlier that decade. The FPP voting system continued until the introduction of Mixed Member Proportion (MMP) in 1996. Clearly the Westminster FPP model and majoritarianism worked well for colonial settlement and effectively resulted in the diminishment of mana Māori decision-making and rangatiratanga. The journey of bicultural awareness and responsibilities under the Treaty started with the Māori renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s. The government acknowledged the history of the country and through the public sector began a discourse on biculturalism and through its own departments began to officially recognize both Pākehā and Māori cultures. Today, the political voting system continues to operate as MMP, yet tangata whenua are still not guaranteed the partnership implied in the Treaty. Furthermore, the appropriateness of Māori seats continues to be debated today. Democracy and Christianity The original meaning of democracy, namely “power to the people—demos kratos,” in early Greek society reflected a poor concept of equality. Early Christianity contributed the ethical concepts required for equality and the basis for a just democratic society. Thus, Christianity would support limitations on the power of the majority and obligations to others as necessary for societal flourishing.6 However, Christianity too failed in its mission for true democracy as Christians struggled to bridge the gap between ideology and pragmatism, and between unity and diversity. One of the key tensions was how to rightly interpret democracy in light of belief in “a transcendent divine order whose rule is by definition righteously absolute and rightfully unchallenged.”7 Engaging a range of theorists and theologies, Hickman summarizes problematic contradictions between theory and practice in nineteenth-century American theology and the problem of determining who was saved and who was not.8 Since there is ultimately an unbridgeable gap caused by the fall, who could know for sure when a scriptural interpretation or revelation was of the spirit?9 According to Hickman:

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By simultaneously offering divine redemption and defining the divine as ideal and absolute, it fosters the perennial emergence of a self-appointed “spiritual aristocracy” that will upstage genuine democracy by claiming to articulate and embody transcendent, objective knowledge. As long as such knowledge remains the ultimate measure of the True and the Good, Richard Rorty has argued, democratic discourse will inevitably be truncated and trumped by theocratic pronouncements, whether those of God or Reason.10 The ultimately antidemocratic implications of theologizing American democracy are nowhere more evident than in its continuing conception of power— even the power of the people in a democratic society—as the function of a transcendent divine order whose rule is by definition righteously absolute and rightfully unchallenged.11

Democracy as majoritarianism allows the majority of 51 percent or higher to decide for all members of a group and their vote entitles their representative to govern. Theologically, that suggests the majority alone know the “truth” and the majority voice in effect remains absolute and thus unchallenged; there is little room for the minority voice. As Tocqueville argues, “The very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the majority.”12 In the United States, legislature authority reigns supreme and contributes most powerfully to democratic instability. Of all countries in the world, its laws last the shortest time.13 The question arises, what form of democracy is majoritarian democracy. Macedo aligns with Hickman in arguing that interpretations of democracy are often too abstract. He highlights the “interpretive” gap between principle and practicality and “the more concrete rules and norms that structure decisionmaking in particular institutional settings.”14 Importantly, majority rule is not a fundamental principle of either democracy or fairness, nor is it required by any basic principle of democracy or fairness. Rather, it is one among a variety of decision rules that may, but need not, advance the project of collective legitimate self-rule based on political equality. Majority rule is a decision rule that has some nice properties, for example it is decisive when there are only two options, but its virtues, both practical and moral, are easily and frequently exaggerated.15

Macedo further argues that majority rule is simply a voting rule that is employed in certain settings and suggests that in some situations consensus is the more sensible option.16 The conclusion drawn from these political theorists is that no one system is clearly superior; but in many indigenous settings, and certainly for Māori, consensus is considered tika for decision-making. Perhaps this conclusion explains why there is a dearth of material on theology and democracy. It is complex and challenging. For Hickman, democratization

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is an outgrowth of experience rather than an intervention of ideas.17 Democracy as a lived concept needs to evolve over time, and to be interpreted and applied in different ways in different contexts. Indeed, Christianity continues to struggle today to bridge the gap between ideology and reality. INDIGENOUS DECISION-MAKING A tikanga Māori process for decision-making on community issues follows the tradition of consensus where matters are discussed openly. The outcome of the hui is then disseminated to members and other interested groups (usually iwi, hapū groups) who provide feedback for the next hui. Discussion continues until a consensus is reached. If consensus cannot be reached, status quo usually prevails until the issue is revisited at a later stage. Consultation, participation, and consensus are central to decision-making among many indigenous cultures. The traditional Zulu/Xhosa indaba consensus decision-making process, for example, is proclaimed to have brought the 2015 Climate Change negotiators in Paris to agreement, and prior to that, the Lambeth Conference 2008 successfully applied the same process. Indigenous peoples are revisiting the process as a challenge to historical and current understandings of democracy. In Latin American, indigenous peoples seek political systems that accommodate “diverse identities, units of representation, and state structures” in order to reform democracy. Inguanzo similarly argues that democracies would be deficient if indigenous concerns and interests are not reflected in legislative bodies.18 Such arguments from a range of indigenous perspectives around the world point to the need and desire for different democratic decision-making processes. Māori and Christianity There are various reasons for why Māori identified with Christianity. The prophetic movements of the nineteenth century identified with the Old Testament prophetic tradition and the stories of protest and liberation. From the New Testament, Luke’s Gospel in particular and the parables about hospitality, communal responsibility for misdemeanor, solidarity for those in need and horticulture resonated well with Māori.19 The holistic nature of Māori life means that tapu and mana (through the values of tika and pono) are implicit in all of creation and need to be addressed in all decisions. It was the absence of a holistic approach to government policies that led to the far-reaching and negative impact on Māori life. Paul’s gentle appeal points to a way of avoiding tyrannical majoritarianism:

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I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (1 Cor 1:10)

The passage presents a union that majoritarian democracy, as it was practiced in Aotearoa in the past, cannot achieve. Majoritarian democracy divided and conquered under the guise of misrepresented Christian oneness. Paul requires that Christians profess the same truths, the same laws, the same intentions with one heart and with one soul, different parts of the one body of Christ. Yet, within the worldwide Christian community are many areas of contention and disagreement that threaten to divide the body. The test is whether the parts of the body can continue to function successfully based on a single overarching belief and the associated values and principles. For Paul this is essential for a community’s well-being and suggests to me that even though some parts may not agree, it asks that the (disagreeing) parts may agree to walk together (Amos 3:3). Walking together in democratic agreement could arguably point to consensus. BICULTURAL DEMOCRACY In light of the history and views on democracy briefly presented above I now turn to bicultural democracy, drawing on political theorist Richard Mulgan’s insights on democracy in Aotearoa.20 The Treaty agreed to Māori maintaining sovereignty over natural resources and all other taonga, and granted responsibility of settlement and government to the Crown. “The Treaty thus established principles for a bicultural relationship between Māori and Pākehā and in light of the colonial past provide a way forward toward a postcolonial society.”21 Mulgan argues that in order for a bicultural society to be properly birthed, political institutions will themselves need to be bicultural in structure.22 While he argues that the starting point for the political system must be a “united” system, as opposed to separate Māori institutions, he does not disclaim the appropriateness of separate institutions or separate procedures to deal with specifically Māori interests. As an example, he contends that the separate parliamentary representation for Māori and a separate roll for Māori voters are quite compatible with single parliamentary sovereignty. So too is a separate government department for specifically Māori matters, such as the ministry of Māori Affairs. The key point from Mulgan is that the principle of equality before the law does not require uniform treatment in all circumstances.23 Those who have been marginalized and dispossessed need greater social and economic institutional support and protection. What he rebuffs is the idea of separate parliaments or laws, arguing that these are too unmanageable, and the

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idea might suggest that there is no need for social interaction between Māori and Pākehā. The aim is “to adjust the common system so it functions biculturally and guarantees equal protection of Māori interests as well as those of the Pākehā majority.”24 Bicultural Theological College Models I have argued that majoritarian democracy diminished the tapu and mana of Māori in the country’s political decision-making processes. This section discusses ways in which biculturalism is expressed in theological education and bicultural democracy practices. The following three models are derived from my experiences within institutions that have hopes and dreams of becoming a truly bicultural educational institution. I have experienced other models, but these are the most recent: 1. The Integrated College Model 2. The Rangatiratanga Model 3. The Combination Model In the first and second models, biculturalism is explicitly embedded in the institution’s church constitution and members are bound to live in tikanga partnership. Church membership, and by implication college membership, is determined according to a member’s cultural worldview and values. There are ongoing challenges about the theological and ethical implications of such an arrangement by those who see only a race-based organization. Granted, questions, and challenges are necessary for a healthy relationship. Nevertheless, the tikanga structure is not a form of apartheid as some would claim. Rather, it is an opportunity to correct the injustices of the past by affirming different worldviews, cultural identifications and through that well-being. It offers the right to belong to the cultural place of the individual’s choice. In these two models, and in line with their church’s constitution, decisions affecting the whole body are made by Tikanga consensus. One Tikanga group can withdraw from the decision-making process if the issue relates solely to the other group, and consensus can also agree to a different voting style on an issue, for pragmatic reasons. I name the first model the integrated (college) model. The Integrated Model ​ he integrated model (figure 11.1) has two constituent colleges, each funcT tioning with limited autonomy under the umbrella of one college, one principal. Each college upholds its particular culture or tikanga.25 This model aligns

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Figure 11.1  The Integrated Model. Source: Created by the author.

with Mulgan’s shared social institution, in which members of both peoples interrelate and contribute as shared community. “To be bicultural, such institutions will need to be adapted to the values and conventions of both cultures so that both Māori and Pākehā can feel at home in them.”26 In this model, Tikanga consensus operates in the overlapping shared space with the intention that as the bicultural relationship ebbs and flows, the system can provide for a fair and just avenue for the minority indigenous group. The reasoning and theological objective of this model is that cultural intermingling will, with hard work toward understanding and participating in Māori culture, flourish into a rich and healthy bicultural community, a community that shares in the joys and the sufferings of both Tikanga together (Romans 12:15). Relationally, this model can be extremely difficult for people who live in a close community where the potential for confrontation and cultural clash is high and competition for resources likely. Instinctively, the majority culture will continue to dominate in the arena of leadership, courses, pedagogy, housing, buildings, library, and hospitality. The voting system is tika in accordance with indigenous systems, but to sustain the bicultural intention is a challenge on a day-to-day basis when one partner is a substantial majority. The minority Māori staff and students have a constant struggle to maintain momentum for positive outcomes. The positive side of the integration model is that Tikanga Pākehā staff and students are exposed to Tikanga Māori values, principles and practices, and the benefit is openness and historical awareness of the

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partnership when in mission and ministry in the community. Unfortunately, however, the benefits are unlikely to be immediate. The danger in this model relates to Mulgan’s concern that when Māori presence and issues are spread too thinly, Māori concerns become so diluted that they are ignored.27 The Rangatiratanga Model ​ he second model (figure 11.2), like the first model, is formed from the Tikanga T consensus democracy of the large organization. A willingness to share power and authority makes this option possible. With a vision of justice and fairness, a separate national educational college is established to serve those who identify with tikanga Māori. I call this a rangatiratanga (self-determining) model. In this model, the whare wānanga (college) functions as a separate institution with significant autonomy over the life of the institution. One of its functions is to acknowledge and rebuild the mana of Māori. Other terms for the same model are negatively slanted as “silo” and “ghetto.” This also applies to streams within mainstream as in the third model below. The whare wānanga is arguably monoculturally Māori, but Ranginui Walker points out that Māori learned to inhabit two social worlds and in that sense are bicultural.28 The whare wānanga operates under tikanga Māori values and practices of which Māori language and therefore worldview is central. The focus of the institution is to foster a safe learning environment of indigenous knowledge and scholarship for both staff and students. In terms of the value of assuming tikanga Māori, student participation and academic success is high. As Mulgan points out, groups such as these need to be

Figure 11.2  The Rangatiratanga Model. Source: Created by the author.

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monocultural in order to fulfill their vision. The problem with this model is in the potential for the wider organization to distance itself from Māori concerns and therefore from inter-relationship with other cultural groups. The Combination Model ​ he third model (figure 11.3) has aspects of the first two. In this college, as T in the first model, staff are predominantly Pākehā while the Māori staff and students are a minority. The college establishes a Māori advisory unit to the governing board as part of its constitutional bicultural commitment to ensure the institute increasingly serves the educational needs of Māori Christians and churches. The institution is not structured biculturally, and it is not required to do so under the constitution. In partnership with college leadership, the Māori advisory unit establishes an indigenous program as a separate stream within the institution. The program enjoys a certain level of autonomy, but it functions within the structure, governance, and management of the whole college and thus autonomy is limited.

Figure 11.3  The Combination Model. Source: Created by the author.

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This college operates on a majority rule democratic voting system. This is quite different from an institution being constitutionally bicultural, and being structurally bicultural, but it is closer to Mulgan’s preferred combination model. He argues that neither the ghetto (my rangatiratanga model) nor the mainstream integration approach alone is adequate. He advocates “a designated Māori unit acting as a watchdog for Māori interests while also ensuring that everyone has an incentive to take Māori interests into account.”29 The positioning of the Māori unit itself is the critical aspect of this scenario. As in the first model, biculturalism is worked out through dialogue and day-to-day relationality. The advantage of the combination model is that it relies on the full support of all college leadership. This is a good thing for inter-relationship, but it is also a disadvantage for precisely the reason that it “does” rely on the relationship between leaders of the college and the Māori advisory unit members. Should the two groups not work in a healthy relationship, there is little guaranteed protection for Māori. Another problem with this model, as with the second, is that if the unit takes direct responsibility for Māori concerns it may become inward focused and the larger organization may not take any responsibility. In order to minimize this possibility, Mulgan suggests the Māori unit takes on a “scrutinizing” role that encourages the institution as a whole to support and encourage Māori concerns.30 Summary The three models practice democracy in different ways and the enhancement of tapu and mana of respective groups is addressed differently. The first model follows the indigenous model of consensus at the common life level but may function differently on a daily working basis. Even though decision-making at the common life level is group consensus, living in a bowl adds pressure to an already contestational community. With this model, the journey itself reveals what biculturalism might be rather than a pre-visioning of the end. The second model and aspects of the third model have good potential for positive outcomes because tikanga Māori students and staff learn in their preferred tikanga and cultural environments. Only the third model did not emerge by formal consensus decision-making of the larger governing body but rather through dialogue and good relationship. Of the three, this model most relies on good relationship and goodwill. It has the potential to be successful for both partners while at the same time potentially harmful for Māori, depending on the success of leadership relationships. On the other hand, good relationship relies on sound tikanga, theology and faith-based practice (1 Pet 4:10; Matt 22:37–40), so bicultural development could be a space for testing that. All models above rely heavily, if not completely, on trust between parties. The Treaty is a relational document, so redress of the political, social,

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and economic injustices within the partnership is essential for justice and redemption of both parties. Māori understood the Treaty as a covenant and therefore about tika and pono behavior. Likewise, biculturalism is based upon a relationship of trust with explicit edicts and with implicit terms and understandings to guide behavior. The above models are based on attempts to address the relational and the political aspects of the Treaty. The models reflect the gradual societal shift in this country toward justice and fairness and the Tikanga models, in particular, go so far as to challenge the status quo by reshaping its own democratic voting system and structures. At a national level, the MMP voting system continues to be the preferred option. Mirroring the democracy arguments presented by Hickman and Macedo, all three models are praxis-based and require time and effort to achieve transformation. However, as much as institutions might practice tika and pono in addressing the bicultural relationship, financial distribution is a major challenge for all three models. Since the signing of the Treaty, Government and other institutions have been established and set up to provide for the majority Pākehā society. As a result, any cost for Māori development is likely to be considered “extra” cost and a cause of contention as all parties position themselves for funds. The underlying government requirements around systems, processes, and structures for funding continue to hinder positive bicultural relationships in tertiary education. Theological educational institutions understand not only the cost issue, but the justice implications of non-provision.

CONCLUSION As a theory of government, democracy has been problematic. As a lived reality, it has evolved over time and continues to be interpreted and applied in different ways in different contexts. In the theological education context of Aotearoa, the struggle is over moral and faithful application of the Treaty promise of guaranteed rangatiratanga of a minority partner. Fiscal equity is crucial element in such a context. From this brief survey I conclude that in some contexts there are strong historical arguments for fairness and justice outweighing majoritarian democracy. I have not argued that consensus democracy will suit all political situations. But it is important to recognize and acknowledge the negative effects on indigenous people, and that political systems can also be manipulated to ensure that majority democracy continues to support colonization and its values. Clearly, the appropriateness of majoritarian democracy needs to be evaluated. I have discussed the background, vision, and practices of democratic bicultural partnership. I have questioned the fairness of majoritarian democracy, the effects of democratic majoritarianism on the mana and rangatiratanga of

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Māori in the process of colonization and presented similar experiences and responses from other indigenous contexts. I have explored early Christianity and democracy and drawn on biblical interpretations from the New Testament. The sources I consulted contribute to the Aotearoa endeavor for a positive democracy of justice and fairness, which could contribute to consensus decision-making in some contexts until such time as true biculturalism becomes the norm and affirmative actions no longer required. That will be the time when tika and pono are addressed. Whichever style of democracy is practiced, the proverb at the start of this chapter points to a way toward transformation and a partnership where all partners celebrate and weep as one (Romans 12:15). GLOSSARY Aotearoa original Māori name for New Zealand aroha love hapū subtribe hui gathering, meeting iwi tribe mana authority, influence Māori indigenous people of Aotearoa Pākehā European pono true, truth rangatiratanga autonomy, principality raupatu confiscated land tangata whenua first people of the land taonga things highly prized tapu sacredness tika correct, right tikanga culture, customs, principles etc. whakapapa history, genealogy whānau family whare wānanga university, tertiary institution NOTES 1. See glossary at the end of the essay for definitions of the Māori terms. 2. There are several meanings for tikanga, but acknowledgment of the tapu and mana of people and of all creation is central to any understanding of tikanga. In other words, it is primarily concerned with relationships. In this essay it refers to just, correct, and fair practice (upholding the values of tika, pono, aroha). Knowledge of whakapapa, of Māori values and beliefs, and of the history and awareness of injustices—is essential for considering what is just and fair.

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3. In Aotearoa, biculturalism refers to the relationship implied in the Treaty of Waitangi whereby two peoples, Māori and the Crown (as representative of the settlement and colonization by Britain and British settlers, known today as Pākehā and earlier as tauiwi), have a special relationship. In addressing the injustice and disparity caused by colonization the Crown have a responsibility to decolonize, compensate and redress wrongs against Māori, and to protect Māori interests. 4. Hirini Moko Mead, Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori Values (Wellington: Huia, 2016), 368. 5. Ministry for Culture and Heritage, “Native Land Court created 30 October 1865” (2017), https://nzhistory​.govt​.nz​/page​/native​-land​-court​-created. 6. Joseph M. De Torre. The Influence of Christianity on Modern Democracy, Equality, and Freedom (Catholic Education Resource Centre, n.d.). 7. Jared Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” The New England Quarterly 81, no. 2 (2008): 194. 8. Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” 183. 9. Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” 186. 10. Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” 193. 11. Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” 194. 12. Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1998), 98. 13. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 100. 14. Stephen Macedo, “Against Majoritarianism: Democratic Values and Institutional Design,” Boston University Law Review 90 (2010): 1030. 15. Macedo, “Against Majoritarianism,” 1030. 16. Macedo, “Against Majoritarianism,” 1037. 17. Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” 183. 18. Isabel Inguanzo, Indigenous Peoples, Democracy, and Representation: The Cases of Bolivia and Guatemala (Boletin PNUD & Instituto de Iberoamerica, 2011). 19. David Moxon, “The Treaty and the Bible in Aotearoa New Zealand” (Vaughan Park Retreat Centre, n.d.). 20. The book was written some time ago, but his early analysis is applicable for today. Perhaps that suggests society’s cautious progress in regard to biculturalism. 21. Richard Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1989), 159. 22. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 133. 23. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 133. 24. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 135. 25. Each college is identified by culture as “Tikanga Pākehā” or Tikanga Māori’ where Tikanga is used as a proper noun, not to be confused with Tikanga the common noun. 26. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 123. 27. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 142. 28. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 11. 29. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 142. 30. Mulgan, Māori Pākehā and Democracy, 143.

Chapter 12

Once Was Colonized Jesus Christ Te Aroha Rountree

(NGAI TUTEĀURU, NGĀ PUHI) Jesus has been made and remade in the image of man, most specifically white man, for what seems like time immemorial. Humanity has reveled in the good news of this Jesus, while committing unimagined violence against one another and perpetuating unthinkable destruction upon creation. Jesus has been made to justify injustice and inequity the world over. Jesus has even been made to emulate the oppressive colonial imperialists who have carried him/her beyond the territories of Europe. HE WHAKAUTU: CONFRONTING A COLONIZED THEOLOGY In Oceania, Jesus has been cast as the colonizer, imposed upon the native peoples, disregarding all that made them distinctly and uniquely Oceania nations. This is wholeheartedly true here in Aotearoa (the land now known as New Zealand)—Jesus is considered as much a part of the colonization of tangata whenua (people of the land) as like Governor’s Hobson and Grey or founding Pākehā missionaries like Marsden, Williams, and Leigh. BUT: What if Jesus was not the colonizer, but rather among the colonized? What if Jesus, Once was Colonized? What if Jesus was a forced immigrant stowed away in the baggage of Pākehā Missionaries? Theology in Aotearoa and Oceania has been made and remade by colonial institutions of school and thought since the arrival of the Church Missionary Societies. Theology has been used to justify and perpetuate white oppression 161

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and dominance over tangata whenua since our first encounters. Pākehā— including missionaries—spread the good news, while stripping us of our language, culture, and land. Theology has been used as a tool of exclusion, segregation, and discrimination. In Oceania, theological institutions have become places of privilege and influence. Theological discourse has imposed itself upon the freedoms and liberties of native peoples to engage in theology of our own making. BUT: What if theology was not the dominant, but rather the dominated? What if theology was Once a Native wisdom? What if theology was forced into Eurocentrism, institutional racism, and academic biases? The subject of this essay is derived from the images of Jesus captured in a single sculpture, he mahi uku (clay sculpture; see figure 12.3). This Jesus has been sculpted from the one (earth) of Papatūānuku (mother earth). This Jesus was formed by a corrupted colonial experience and informed by the native wisdoms of tangata whenua of Aotearoa. This clay sculpture has been rendered with a silver glaze and has been dressed with a bow tie (see figure 12.1) and a hei tiki (pendant; see figure 12.2). This sculpture has lived many lives and has worn many faces. Originally the weather-worn face of a kaumatua (elder), then the tethered and torn reflection of a taurekareka (slave), and now a Colonized, Token, Savage, Ihu Karaiti (Jesus Christ). This Jesus Christ, Once Was Colonized. The sculptor, much like this piece was born of this land, but also bares the whakapapa (lineage) of her European ancestors. The artist, Gillian Laird is of Ngā Puhi and Kotimana (Scottish) descent and has worked largely with mahi uku and raranga (flax weaving). This particular sculpture was photographed by the teina (younger sister) to the artist—me, the author of this essay. This sculpture was originally photographed for the purposes of a Wesley Day Panel on Methodism, Slavery and Colonization in Aotearoa, and was part of a broader conference theme entitled “Legacies of Slavery in Oceania” hosted by Council for World Mission and Trinity College (in 2021). The sculpture has since been reconstituted for this essay and presents three separate and conflicted poses. Firstly, with a bow tie, then wearing a plastic hei tiki, and lastly without any adornment. Subsequently these images became the subject of a theological discourse about Jesus Christ, not as the typical white colonizer of the Pacific, but rather Jesus who was among the colonized. This essay responds to three images of Jesus Christ that are an interpretation and depiction of the tumultuous phases of theological discourse in Aotearoa and wider Oceania. Finally, the biblical text in Māori and English, and the brief comments alongside each image are intended as a prelude to the kōrerorero (discussion) that follows.

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A COLONIZED JESUS What if Jesus Christ was not the colonizer, but among the colonized? What if Jesus Christ was a forced immigrant stowed away by Pākehā Missionaries?

Ko te kupu tenei a Ihowa, Whakaritea te whakawa me te tika, whakaorangia te tangata e pahuatia ana i te ringa o te kaitukino: kaua e mauria kinotia, kaua e whakatupuria kinotia te manene, te pani, te pouaru, kaua hoki e whakahekea te toto harakore ki tenei wahi. (Heremaia 22:3)

This is what the LORD says, Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. (Jeremiah 22:3)

An initial reading finds this text, on the surface, to be justice-seeking and engages those in positions of power to uphold duty of care for the people. In a closer reading, the text suggests that power which dominates and oppresses must be dismantled, that their own positions/institutions of power and authority must be decentralized. In our Aotearoa context the church and its institutions are equated with the kings of Judah, who had the power to do what is just and right. This essay challenges theological academia to be just and right, to recognize the implicit role of church/colleges in perpetuating colonialism, to encourage developing tangata whenua theology and to seek transformative change for church and society. The images capture three phases of theology, that imitate the phases of experiential change for tangata whenua as we have encountered and entrenched Christian faith and theology into our existing God understandings. The first image (figure 12.1), portrays the Jesus (theology) that was colonized by imperial England, before being packed into the baggage of the Church Missionary Societies and transported to Oceania. The commentary here responds to both the historical context of a colonized theology and the contemporary dialogue of white privilege in church and society. It begins with the following statement, What we might nowadays call white privilege is not a new concept. The missionaries were unaware that they brought a culturally conditioned reading to their sacred texts; they simply assumed their reading and theology was supracultural and universally valid. Christianity, as expressed through the Bible, is actually always “translated” into a culture. So, while the missionaries read it as English(men) influenced by centuries of European thought, Māori were always going to read the Bible as Māori.1

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Figure 12.1  A Colonized Jesus: Bow Tie and All! Artist: Gillian Laird. Photo by Te Aroha Rountree.

This statement from Dr. Hirini Kaa reflects upon nineteenth-century Eurocentrism embodied in early Church Missionary Societies. Kaa further makes a comparative comment about the Eurocentrism manifest as modern-day White Privilege. Pākehā missionaries were both sent and invited here to Aotearoa by Rangatira (chiefly leaders) like Ruatara, in the hopes of establishing missions among Māori and securing economic trade. Stowed away in the figurative baggage of the Pākehā missionaries, tidied away in their cultural identity, stored in their language, and crammed into their internal dialogue, existed Eurocentric views and ideologies that influenced and helped to shape church, society, and theology in Aotearoa. Turi Hollis in his unpublished thesis, Developing a Maori understanding of the Christian God: Must the Christian God Remain Pakeha? described the nature of Pākehā missionaries and the theology that informed their ministries stating,

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The Pakeha Missionaries who brought the Gospel to Aotearoa were usually full of enthusiasm for their work, but the message which they brought was a message which was dressed in the theology, language and trappings of the culture to which they belonged. Because these missionaries were all from Britain, the language they used was English, the theology they adhered to was theology inherited from the schools and universities of Europe and England, and the trappings were those that the British had inherited from their diverse cultural ancestors.2

The theology of those early Pākehā missionaries was founded upon the religious understandings of England, and the presumed superior, colonial and imperial ideologies of the West. Hollis identified a particular missionary ideology: The majority of these missionaries, however, were unaware that the Christianity which they brought to these islands was shrouded by their culture. They believed that the message they preached and the religion which they taught had been unaffected by time, history, culture and/or geography. They assumed that their culture and Christianity were synonymous.3

Metaphorically speaking, the Jesus Christ (theology) that missionaries brought with them had been colonized. The telling of colonial history in Aotearoa has often been kind to Pākehā at the expense of Māori, and when we consider who has controlled the narrative we should not be surprised. Where missionary journals are concerned, we as Māori were wanting and in need of intervention, socially, politically, and spiritually. Pākehā histories often tell of encounters with savagery and debauchery among Māori that precipitated Christian intervention. The rumors and innuendo of sinful repute that led to the naming of Kororāreka in the Bay of Islands as “the hellhole of the Pacific” gave cause for missionary intrusion into Māori life, often idealized as protection. We as Māori have often been deafened by the rhetoric of our ancestors having been a native people in darkness. Our forebears had to endure the ridicule of our language, traditions, and values by Pākehā missionaries. Many Pākehā saw themselves as the great White Saviors of colonial England who had arrived to civilize and christianize the heathen savages. The Pākehā missionaries of the time had a pre-occupation with the traditional practices of cannibalism. The remedy for such savagery was always the same, conversion, uplifting or ascending from the heathenistic savage to the enlightened and morally superior Christian, but still not quite as superior as Pākehā. The late Dr. Ranginui Walker commented that “The Empire’s expansion at the expense of indigenous people in the New World was driven by trade, capitalism and consumerism.”4 According to Walker, the British Empire,

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“Like its Greek and Roman predecessors [. . .] portrayed itself as civilised and painted the people it encountered in the New World as savage, uncivilised and inferior. The British racial hierarchy placed Europeans at the top and ‘natives’ at the bottom.”5 If the ever-expanding empire was responsible for the relegation of Māori and other indigenous peoples to mere beasts or savages, then the Pākehā missionaries served only to perpetuate such persuasive diatribes. Māori, like most peoples encountered by the British empire, were demonized and ostracized as the unfortunate other, lesser than the virtuous colonizer. The traditional way of life for Māori was disrupted and corrupted by Pākehā intervention. Walker further states, “Although the culture of New Zealand’s tangata whenua, with its hunting, fishing, gathering and gardening economy, was a sustainable design for living, it was almost destroyed by the colonial enterprise of converting the natives from barbarism to Christianity and civilisation.”6 The British Empire, it could be said, was built on the backs of heathens, natives, and not-so-noble savages. Walker argued that cultural invasion by Pākehā missionaries caused significant upheaval within Māori society, in large part, because their “Pākehā world view” was one of the greatest impositions. Walker’s argument of a cultural invasion by the prevailing Eurocentric attitudes of Pākehā missionaries toward Māori, serves only to highlight the broader context of Empire-building and its implications for the colonized. Colonization offered some method or mechanism for the domination of every aspect of Māori life, including identity and spirituality. This essay contends that the over-exaggerated and over-emphasized nature of the “heathen Savage” by early Pākehā traders and missionaries fuelled the propaganda of the day, and provided opportunity and justification for the invasion of Māori, both body and soul. It could be argued that the more savage the Māori, the more pious and virtuous the missionaries who were able to rescue or retrieve them from their heathen state and convert them to Christianity. The heathen savage was a well-constructed threat to the reverent and dutiful missionaries, a threat that needed to be pacified through the Gospel. The colonized theology of the early missions to Aotearoa was couched in the trappings of European high society and served only to infiltrate and replace any spiritual or theological understandings that existed among tangata whenua. Jesus Christ had already been remade and dressed in the colonial attire of Europe, meaning theology had already been refined for and by church institutions of England. Therefore, the colonized theology that our ancestors encountered, is that same theology that we as Māori continue to grapple with today.

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The labels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are thought to be a thing of the past. However, the remnants of Eurocentrism continue to permeate within both theological and mainstream academic institutions and discourse in Aotearoa. Pākehā missionaries are part of the legacy of the established churches of today. Therefore, responsibility lies on us to challenge and confront the Eurocentric views of the past that often manifest as stereotypes, institutional racism, and biases in church and society today. Morgan Godfrey discusses the implications of colonial ideologies of Māori stating that, “Settler Colonialism needed to manufacture the myth of a ‘heathen savage’ who must be subdued or destroyed. Without the myth, what’s the moral justification for dispossession and genocide?”7 Godfrey highlights the stereotypical colonized views that continue to pigeon-hole Māori, suggesting that if we subscribe to the view that Māori are no longer considered heathens, but they are better suited to the rugby field than the boardroom, we are simply buying into Justified Colonialism. He comments, “If we accept the stereotype that Maori are better athletes than they are thinkers, then Maori underachievement in school can be explained by some innate failure in the Maori character, not a century of systematic under-investment in Maori education.”8 The myth-making or white-washing continues with the theory of the warrior gene which Godfrey explains is used to justify the high rates of violence among Māori, conveniently ignoring the implications of poverty and dispossession. Perpetuating the rhetoric that Māori are no longer considered savages, they simply have a predisposition for violence due to their “warrior gene.” Godfrey continues, “If Maori carry the ‘warrior gene’ then violence in Maori communities can be explained by ‘nature’ rather than circumstance. In other words, violence is a result of that innate failure in the Maori character rather than a century of manufactured poverty and the human pressures that come with it.”9 Professor Richard Jackson, previous acting director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Otago University further supported the idea that the image of Māori as a warrior race is misplaced and a colonial construct.10 The same rhetoric and propaganda now serve the agenda of white supremacists masquerading as New Zealand patriots/nationalists. The keyboard warriors who hide behind their social media posts. The Internet trolls who no longer live under bridges but rather exist under pseudo-identities. People who feel justified in calling for the subjugation of Māori and the burning of marae. As churches and theological institutions in Aotearoa today who purport to be ethically and morally conscious, how might we respond? As a theological academy that has inherited a colonized theology and that lives with the implications of that colonial construct, how might we bring about positive, life-affirming change?

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A TOKEN JESUS Kia puaki tou mangai mo te wahangu, i te whakawakanga o te hunga katoa kua waiho mo te mate. Kia puaki tou mangai, whakaritea te whakawa i runga i te tika, tohea te tohe a te ware, a te rawakore. (Whakatauki 31: 8–9)

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly: defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31: 8–9)

The Book of Proverbs, in the wisdom literature, reveals the words of a king who is guided by his mother’s advice to speak for the defenceless against the powerful, to speak for all who are left behind and to be just and fair in his judgment of others. A contemporary reading of this text invites those in power, particularly in leadership, to be advocates of justice. The text invites individuals and institutions of power to be the voice of those unable to be heard, to defend the rights of the powerless and to judge fairly without prejudice. This essay is on the hunt for collaborators who recognize the colonized Jesus/theology we have inherited and seek to decolonize and/or liberate both. The second image (figure 12.2) reveals a fabled Jesus (theology), a remnant of our colonial past that we continue to emulate, perpetuate, and propagate throughout Aotearoa. Traditionally, hei tiki were made of pounamu (greenstone) and represented fertility and symbolized the human form. However, the hei tiki worn in figure 12.2 is plastic and was made in China. The hei tiki is a replica, a copy, a version of the original, much like the Eurocentric theology that was introduced to our ancestors and continues to be espoused among our people. The symbolism of the plastic tiki also speaks to the colonization of Māori, the colonization of body and mind. The plastic tiki and its symbolism are multifaceted and speak most specifically of the implications of being disempowered, dislocated, dispossessed and disassociated from Māori culture, language, and tradition. There are also the derogatory connotations of a plastic Māori, essentially someone who is tokenistic, fake or not considered to be a “real” Māori, because they do not exhibit the common characteristics, traits, or cultural capital (te reo Māori, tikanga, whakapapa, etc). Theologically, the Jesus adorned with the plastic tiki represents a theology not of our people, but a replica of the Pākehā. This image invites us to consider the contextualized, decolonized, re-indigenized Jesus. This image provokes us to move away from the theology of our colonial past (in all its forms) to what might be considered a native or indigenous theology derived from our own wisdoms. This essay elicits the liberative theologies of Black American and Hispanic theological scholars, who have radicalized Jesus for their contexts.

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Figure 12.2  A Token Jesus: Plastic Fantastic Artist: Gillian Laird. Photo by Te Aroha Rountree.

James Cone, black scholar and theologian, when discussing Karl Barth’s interpretation of the black-white context wrote, “Blacks need to see some correlations between divine salvation and black culture. For too long Christ has been pictured as a blue-eyed honky. Black theologians are right: we need to dehonkify him and thus make him relevant to the black condition.”11 Cone’s approach to contextualizing Jesus for the black milieu was to “dehonkify” the dominant white Jesus. We as tangata whenua are undertaking a similar process with slow and stifled success. There has emerged recently a shift in Māori theology, a move toward a kind of dehonkifying of our own. If we were to follow Cone’s lead, we would need to explore and understand Jesus not just as our colonial history might dictate but as ourselves, colonized and seeking to be decolonized and/or re-indigenized. In seeking to decolonize or re-indigenize Māori theology, we must address the liberation of Ihu Karaiti from colonization. The late Dr. Ranginui Walker, Māori scholar, author and activist, discussed the pivotal role of education in

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the colonization process stating, “It is of course well-known that education is fundamental to the colonising process, because in order to dispossess us of our lands, lives and power, the colonisers had to educate us to think that what we already knew, or might know from our own traditions, our own education and our own cultural understanding of the world was not worthy.”12 The same could be said for Māori experiences of theology. The missionaries and subsequent church institutions have had the same detrimental impact on our theology that they have had on our education. Theological colleges and academia have often taught us that what we knew or know from our own traditions, education and cultural understandings of the world is not valid, valuable, or worthy as theology and has no place in colleges and institutions of theological education. The shift from a colonized theology for Māori requires a radical change, which might well begin as many other colonized, indigenous peoples have, with a Jesus-centric focus that brings to light the contextualized Jesus of our place and time. Rev. Dr. Miguel De La Torre, professor of Social Ethics and Latinx studies, in his book entitled, The Politics of Jesús–A Hispanic Political Theology, describes the rejection of the Eurocentric Jesus for the Hispanic Jesús, Hispanics (as well as Euroamericans) must avoid the Jesus of history that launched crusades to exterminate so-called Muslim infidels; the sexist Jesus that burned women seeking self-autonomy as witches; the genocidal Jesus who decimated indigenous people who refused to bow and kneel to the European White God; the capitalist Jesus who justified kidnapping, raping, and enslaving Africans; and today’s neoliberal Jesus that is ignorant to the pauperization of two-thirds of the world’s population so that a small minority of the planet can consider themselves blessed.13

De La Torre suggests a full-scale shift from the Eurocentric Jesus to a familiar Jesús that disassociates from the political history of a colonized Christianity. The Hispanic Jesús is then liberated from the sexist, genocidal, capitalist, neoliberal Jesus. We as tangata whenua might look to reconcile the Eurocentric Jesus for our own more familiar Ihu Karaiti. To identify and liberate Ihu Karaiti, we need to strip/unburden ourselves of the colonial/political history of Jesus in Aotearoa and to re/discover or take ownership of our theology. De La Torre’s Jesús responds to the contemporary Hispanic condition, as a migrant, “Jesús, theologically speaking, chose to be a border crosser as an act of solidarity with the least of these. The biblical text reminds us that, although divine, Jesús became human, assuming the condition of the alienated.”14 Following the Hispanic Jesús exemplar, Māori proclaim our Ihu Karaiti as one of the least, derived from both te ira Atua (divine principle) and te ira tangata (human principle). We identify clearly, Ihu Karaiti of our making, who

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became human and assumed the role of the colonized, who continues to come among the dispossessed and the marginalized. De La Torre elaborates upon the Jesús of his context who by taking the path of the “wandering migrant” is able to speak truth to the condition of the marginalized poor and the ignorance of the privileged empire that continues to disempower the migrant. The radicalness of the incarnation is not so much that the Creator of the universe became human but rather that God chose to become poor, specifically a wandering migrant. This reveals a God willing, through Jesús, to assume the role ultradisenfranchised. Because God incarnated Godself into marginalisation, being born a migrant who lived and died in poverty, Jesús signifies a political ethics lost on those accustomed to the privilege of citizenship within the empire who miss the significance of a Jesús who is an “illegal.”15

For Māori to identify with Ihu Karaiti is to begin a journey of liberation from the colonial oppression that exists within church and society both for ourselves and our theology. To identify Ihu Karaiti as one of the colonized speaks to our truth, to Ihu Karaiti’s experience of the Māori condition. Like De La Torre’s Jesús we see Ihu Karaiti as ourselves rather than the dominant colonizer, bringing about a freedom of theological expression and liberation. We open ourselves to radical and transformational change in our theological ways of knowing, being and becoming.

A NATIVE JESUS Na ko te Ariki, ko te Wairua ia; ko te wahi i noho ai te Wairua o te Ariki, kei reira te tikanga herekore. (2 Koriniti 3: 17)

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3: 17)

Paul established a church in Corinth, and once it was flourishing, he moved on. Paul received a word that the church was in crisis, so he wrote letters to the people who had been distracted from the teachings of Jesus. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul sought to turn the people back to Jesus by reminding them of their spiritual freedom. In this text, Paul indicates a spiritual freedom, a freedom beyond human understanding, and a liberty that allows people to see God’s glory, salvation. In the context of this essay there is a spiritual freedom, a kind of salvation found in the liberation of Ihu Karaiti and tangata whenua/Māori theology. This essay suggests that salvation of the mind from colonized theology is

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Figure 12.3  A Native Jesus: Savage and Untamed Artist: Gillian Laird. Photo by Te Aroha Rountree.

possible in Aotearoa, though not quite as glorious as God’s salvation. Figure 12.3 reflects the Jesus (theology) of the people of this land, rooted in our native wisdom and worldview. In this final image Ihu Karaiti appears bare, naked, and unincumbered. Ihu Karaiti is no longer dressed in the oppression of empire and is no longer adorned with the vestiges of colonial hegemony. The ways in which we describe our colonized experience is often diminished and minimalized to hide or rationalize the impacts of Pākehā. The activist theologian Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza explains how struggle is approached by dominance and power: “Struggle is one of those elements of life that the dominant culture minimizes, often sweeping pain and suffering under the rug for the appearance of wholeness. But struggle as a technology for social change not only helps us be more honest in a world that threatens all of the flourishing but also deepens our work in meaningful ways.”16 This Ihu Karaiti who once was colonized, is now conditioned to the frontline of a Māori land protest, to welfare dependency and living below the poverty line, to sociopolitical debates on negative Māori health and education statistics, to institutional and overt racism and biases against Māori, to

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the denial of residual white privilege, and to margins/peripheries of church and society that continue to discriminate and prejudice Māori. However, this image offers a vision of hope and opportunity for Māori. We recognize Ihu Karaiti as one of us, as someone who has been alongside our people for generations, and who has been a part of our inter-generational struggles and trauma. Henderson-Espinoza describes the fundamental principles of a movement. She refers to the movement as “activist theology” which she defines as she outlines the implications of colonialism in her context, Activist theology is a movement grounded in the politics of becoming that takes protest, revolution, and radical social change to be at the heart of what it means to follow the ways of Jesus, and it is also a theological commitment. Activist theology confesses that the yoke of empire illustrated by and through the parasitic relationship of militarism, racism, and capitalism has curated the public religion of white nationalism that is deployed through technologies of Christian supremacy and whose liturgy is a cultural of violence, which is often State-sponsored.17

The activist theology movement that Henderson-Espinoza expresses is a commitment to theological transformation. This explanation of activist theology suggests that when applied to our Aotearoa/Māori context, it means that to be revolutionary and radical is to follow Ihu Karaiti. In Aotearoa, our defiance and determination for freedom and liberation from colonization and colonized theology is the true essence of what it means to be a follower of Ihu Karaiti. Therefore, when we are challenging colonialism, when we are defying and dismantling systems of empire, and when we are declaring our tangata whenua theology, we are following Ihu Karaiti. It also means that even ordinarily when we are worshipping, when we are debating theological issues, when we are ministering to our people, in our own language, using our theologies in our papa kainga, and on our marae, we are following Ihu Karaiti. Henderson-Espinoza explains that activist theology is a catalyst for radical social change and transformation: “Activist theology looks to the stories of Jesus as a means of confessing that resistance to power structures that dominate, oppress, and extinguish human flourishing is the theology and social practices (ethics) that enact radical social change.”18 In activist theology, the parables of Jesus become the instructional guides to resistance and social change. For Māori, kōrero o neherā (narratives) are similarly used as directives for sociopolitical organization and change. There is potential for a dialogue or conversation between the Jesus parables and Māori narratives that could bring about radical theological thinking and inspire significant social change.

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However, perhaps true freedom and liberation is not quite as simple as liberating Ihu Karait/Māori theology, as the author and scholar Dr. Ramantswana describes the continuation of colonialism in the South African context: The colonisation of the mind is not something of the past, something we can just undo and move on; it remains a current reality with which we live and have to wrestle. The idea of a postcolonial world deceives us epistemically into thinking that we are free of the colonial structures. We are not yet free; we continue to live within the global structures of coloniality. Colonial systems continue to shape our traditions, religious inclinations, languages, politics, fashion, ideology, education, and so on.19

The plastic tiki symbolically implies a continued colonization of the Māori mind as Ramantswana conveys in the South African experience. The illusion of a postcolonial or even decolonized reality is brought to the fore in Ramantswana’s delineation of freedom from colonialism. The challenge is to see ourselves beyond colonization, to be free from colonization which Ramantswana suggests is a fallacy. If it is freedom to express our theology in our own ways that we seek, that has already been happening since Māori theologians, scholars, and clergy started studying and writing about theology. However, we need those writings to be widely accessible and we need to continue the research and publication of new works. If it is liberation from dominant colonial understandings and expressions of theology that we seek, that too is already happening in varying ways across the Māori theological community. However, the dominant Pākehā theological institutions need to recognize and deconstruct that dominance to relinquish power that keeps non-Pākehā theology under the heel. If colonial systems continue to shape our religious inclinations as Ramantswana suggests, how might we move beyond it? If it is liberation of the colonized mind and the dismantling of systematic colonialism that we seek, that may require patience and perseverance.

HE KAUPAPA KŌRERO: FURTHER DISCUSSION 1. What does it mean for theological academia to relocate Ihu Karaiti among the colonized and the oppressed? 2. How might those same institutions seek the liberation of Ihu Karaiti? 3. How might we dismantle or deconstruct this colonized theology?

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NOTES 1. The Spinoff, When Christianity Came to Aotearoa: 150 Years of the Bible in te reo Māori (26 September 2018). 2. Turi Hollis, “Developing a Maori Understanding of the Christian God: Must the Christian God Remain Pakeha?” (BTheol, Melbourne College of Divinity, 1992), 2–3. 3. Ibid. 4. Ranginui Walker, “Reclaiming Māori Education” in Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, Research, and Practice, edited by Jessica Hutchings and Jenny Lee-Morgan (Wellington: NZCER, 2016), 19. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Morgan Godfrey, “Warrior race? Pull the other one,” E-Tangata (August 22, 2015), https://e​-tangata​.co​.nz​/comment​-and​-analysis​/warrior​-race​-pull​-the​-other​ -one/. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Robin Martin, “Worries over the Warrior Image,” RNZ (August 14, 2015), https://www​.rnz​.co​.nz​/news​/te​-manu​-korihi​/281352​/worries​-over​-the​-warrior​-image. 11. James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (New York: Orbis, 2018), 29. 12. Jessica Hutchings and Jenny Lee-Morgan, Decolonisation in Aotearoa: Education, Research, and Practice (Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 2016), 39. 13. Miguel A. De La Torre, The Politics of Jesús–A Hispanic Political Theology (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), 7. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Activist Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2019), 43. 17. Ibid, 66. 18. Ibid. 19. H. Ramantswana, “Decolonising Biblical Hermeneutics in the (South) African context,” Acta Theologica 36, no. 24 (2016): 188.

Chapter 13

Taniwha, Guardians in Creation Thresholds for Māori Theology Keita Hotere

He Taniwha, He Atua He Taniwha, He Tangata Guardians in creation, (and the) Divine Guardians in creation, (and the) Humans

The opening words and title of this essay, He Taniwha,1 He Atua,2 He Taniwha, He Tangata,3 tells a taniwha pūrākau.4 It describes the inter-relationships between our understandings of the divine and of humans. These are our understandings of God (Atua), our understandings of Guardians in creation (Taniwha), and ultimately these shape our understandings of ourselves as humans (Tangata). This taniwha pūrākau derives from oral tradition and is the theological premise which has influenced how I engage in this theological exploration. I acknowledge that my social location and experiences have been influenced from a Māori5 Christian upbringing within Te Taha6 Māori o Te Hāhi7 Weteriana8 o Aotearoa.9 Therefore, I bring the perspective of a Ngāpuhi10 female Presbyter beginning the task of exploring new thresholds for institutional theological education of our times. This chapter grew out of my first recollections of just one taniwha story told to me by my paternal grandfather and the exploration comes through my Weteriana lens. Another elder of mine, the former Tumuaki11 of Te Taha Māori, Rev. Ruawai Rakena (1974) talked about the theology of our Māori tupuna,12 which reflected on life from conception with the birth of a baby through adulthood until death. Rangatahi13 of my generation gravitated toward the many stories Uncle Rua shared about the Jesus who challenged the injustice of his time, and the all-seeing God stories, along with the stories he compelled us to discover about our own tupuna Māori. Rakena reflected 177

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that it was important that Māori give account for the world in which they lived, the world they could see, feel, and reflect on. He notes the belief in the spiritual realm was present in all daily life activities. In surviving natural phenomena, warfare, pandemics, migration and settlement, Māori origins and their creation stories of life developed.14 Of equal importance was the remembering and retelling of these stories for the future. It is in this spirit that I present our taniwha pūrākau.

ORAL NARRATIVE Names are important. Every naming in a story has significance my name is no less different. I am known by many names: Puhi15 Kai16 Ariki,17 Puhi Moana18 Ariki, Puhi Taniwha Rau.19 The events around the story of my birth talks of taniwha and is taniwha in making because it births a people. This is a story about my naming and how it is remembered. Arikitapu20 my mother wanted the people to remember her great lineage. My father Tama-ki-te-ra21 obeyed her commands without question, so deep was his love for her. When she was carrying me my father asked, “What are you craving for?” And my mother responded, “I crave the heart of The Puhi.”22 The Puhi was my mother’s younger relative. The Puhi was taken out to the moana rua23 where karakia24 took place and she was killed. Her body was fed to the taniwha in the moana rua. Her heart was taken back to my mother to be eaten and satisfy her pregnancy craving. When I was born my parents took me to the moana rua to the place of the taniwha where I was dedicated in prayer to the Gods. From then on, I was named after those events. I was named after the Puhi, my mother’s great craving, the place, Moana Ariki, where the taniwha lived, and the many taniwha on the island of Hawaiiki.25

This chapter offers entry points for decolonizing several myths about tangata whenua26 (lit. “people of the land”), in this case the Māori—the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand worldviews. Taniwha are important to the people because they have their own socially constructed reality. Belief in taniwha is a uniquely Māori response. Māori view taniwha as divinely inspired; taniwha are our guides, our guardians in creation who are to be mutually respected. How might Māori narratives such as these be explored in our institutional theological explorations today? First: Our oral stories have ancient beginnings. This essay affirms the place of Māori indigenous narratives/pūrākau as a valuable contribution to the growing body of theological literature. It supports a tangata whenua led approach to curriculum content and delivery. The taniwha narrative of this chapter is one such account that introduces and announces the taniwha. In doing so, we explore what is entailed in tangata whenua worldviews and oral traditional

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storytelling within theological institutions of the future. I employ pūrākau as methodology; embracing of pūrākau storytelling to unpack the meaning behind a Ngāpuhi narrative about taniwha. From sharing this Ngāpuhi narrative emerges a deeper exploration and conversation about Ngāpuhi wisdom truths, and what it means as Weteriana engaged in theological education in Aotearoa. As a methodology, pūrākau opens the reader to the possibilities of exploring a Māori indigenous approach to pedagogy. Second: Our Māori gospels value seeing something in the unknown, the unseen, and in everything everywhere. God(s) understandings are everywhere, and the domain of theology is not limited to Western views of theology alone. This essay counters the argument that tangata whenua worldviews hold no validity or embody any kind of theology, and so the remembering and reflecting of the story begins. Our institutional theological stakeholders hold a vested interest in determining theological content and its application. The stakeholders—academy, church community, and wider public opinion—help create transformative change in theological spaces. The challenge before us is to work at how we might collaboratively bring tangata whenua worldviews into teaching practice. It is my contention that the insights and opportunities gained through a collaborative approach ought to be explored and developed further in all theological institutions within Aotearoa. For some, a shift toward the embodiment of tangata whenua worldviews in theological institutions may appear to be a big step. For Māori, a shift in this direction is long overdue. Third: This Māori oral narrative is presented in written form. For some, moving from the Māori oral voice into the written medium may seem an easy task. However, the narrative contains cultural codes and worldviews that must be understood in its own context. Rendering this version in the English language, it becomes necessary to not only tell the story but to trace the transmission of the story so that the world in which Māori knew of taniwha is better understood. This particular tribal account of taniwha naming reflects the role and influence taniwha had on the lives of the people on Hawaiiki. And this pūrākau offers one of the many explanations for the origins of my people, Ngāpuhi. Retelling and retracing this taniwha story come with a sense of obligation to share the story with a wider audience and to give the story a contemporary voice. In the telling of the story, we add to the body of literature already produced about taniwha. I was told once, every pūrākau is a construction ready to be crafted and refreshed to educate a new generation. Sometimes pūrākau lie dormant waiting to be brought to life again, arising at crucial times to remind us of old ways of doing things and the learnings they had back then that might be of use today. These lessons may provide or suggest new ways forward.

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Pūrākau Pūrākau is story. For Lee, “Pūrākau, a traditional form of Māori narrative, contains philosophical thought, epistemological constructs, cultural codes, and world views fundamental to our identity as Māori.”27 This taniwha pūrākau is of ancient times and speaks to us of a world where the interplay between the human and supernatural was a normal part of life. Pūrākau are significant historical narratives identifying people, places, and events. One of the tenets of a traditional Māori-based system was the oral voice and transmitting knowledge to successive generations. Our tupuna often gathered to wānanga,28 to think, to discuss our tribal histories and the various interpretations and learnings.29 The participants of the wānanga decoded the symbolism and language contained within the various narratives. The practices of whakapapa,30 karakia, waiata,31 whaikōrero,32 and pūrākau maintained and kept alive our knowledge, our way of being in relationship with one another. This knowledge formed the basis of Māori faith in our own context. It is a living faith that values communal life and the diversity of Māori spiritual expression. There is a profound sense of loss when oral traditions, knowledge, and experience of this nature are not retained by the next generation. This highlights the importance of recording through written works, audio and visual recordings of the many voices for the next generations. Taniwha Rau Cooper challenges us to see the importance of taniwha in our lives and what they serve to teach us about how to cope with life’s hard lessons. He argues that “in Māori tradition taniwha (divine interlocutors) are harbingers or message bearers of impending change. Like those who use intellectual freedom they bring messages that are not always welcome. The presence of taniwha signals an impending calamity or one that has occurred.”33 All Māori communities have stories about taniwha and share their unique ways of telling these taniwha stories. The collective wisdom sharing of ancient and modern stories of taniwha and what they have achieved helps us to decode what it means to share in a Māori spirituality. Taniwha have featured in many creation stories of Oceanic nations highlighting their migratory journeys to guide waka34 and bring peoples across the seas from Hawaiiki to Aotearoa. Taniwha have been the arbitrators between the supernatural and the human. As the intermediaries they play a monitoring role, providing guidance and warning the people of impending danger or sometimes signposting new pathways for learning.

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Hawaiiki Hawaiiki, our original homeland, is the place of belonging for Māori. It is commonly believed that Hawaiiki possesses a life force of its own where our treasured resources—the lagoons, rivers, swamps, and oceans—have the power to sustain life and transform communities. This connection to Hawaiiki remains with us, and in our traveling throughout Aotearoa many Māori are conscious of the presence of the local taniwha wherever they may dwell. Karakia regulated traditional Māori society and played an important role in sanctifying various acts. Speaking to the taniwha through prayer we were brought directly into connection with the Gods. Today we are mindful of the presence of taniwha, and we offer prayer for safe passage through different territories taking extra precaution to be more careful around certain areas in our journeying. A TANGATA WHENUA WORLDVIEW One tangata whenua worldview is expressed by Tate (2012) in his conceptualizing of a Māori indigenous theology. It is Māori faith seeking Māori understanding. It is a theology developed by Māori for Māori in the first instance, and in the second instance for all those who share the same land and context, and thirdly for all others. The starting point is rooted in the faith-filled contemporary experience and culture of the Māori people, taking into account their own analysis of their culture, symbol systems, stories, myths and values that were a part of their culture in the past and that continue to have significance in the present.35

Tate highlights the very relational nature of Māori in their daily interactions with the world and the ongoing conversations of the dichotomy between gospel and culture. Colonial Mission Taniwha pūrākau have always been present and woven into the life of a Māori faith community. Pākehā36 missionaries viewed our carvings depicting our taniwha with distaste; they reacted swiftly. Within Northland, the people were chastised for their belief in these representations. Missionaries believed our people were worshiping idols and these carvings were often taken down, either buried or destroyed by fire. Today the resurgence of pou whakairo,37 symbolizing representations of ancestors, dot our state highways and signpost passage through new

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territories. Some of these pou whakairo depict taniwha and are visible, concrete expressions of our Māori world. Taniwha continue to maintain their currency in Māori communities because their symbolic, religious, and historical significance to the people encouraged discussion of their spirituality. Without the collective consciousness of our people in the existence of taniwha, the tangible expressions evident in our culture would not have evolved. Explicitly, a tangata whenua worldview encompasses a taniwha consciousness and signals impending cultural change. Māori Gospels / Theological Institutions Questions may be asked: Have you ever seen a taniwha? What does embodying of a tangata whenua worldview mean for theological education? What is it about the stories of taniwha that either engage our God understandings, challenge them, reflect them, or reflect an understanding of our world? These questions help us to re-imagine what significance a tangata whenua worldview might look like within theological spaces in Aotearoa. What are the identifying markers of theological institutions in Aotearoa? Likewise, for what purpose and for whose benefit do these places serve? Our shared relationship as Māori and Tauiwi38 in Aotearoa reveals that historically theological institutions have been colonial institutions exercising wisdom truths for all. Embedded within New Zealand society has been a history of white privilege influencing the way theological institutions have operated and engaged with Te Ao39 Māori. Whoever becomes the arbitrators of the truth becomes crucial to the progression of meaningful theological expressions in Aotearoa. How we change this reality is crucial for the Māori gospels of tangata whenua to be accepted. Is it time for a stocktake of all our theological institutions, their current and past emphases and practices? What beliefs and values guide the delivery of teaching and learning, and who determines the framework for that delivery? What expressions of a Māori faith are present in current-day theological institutions, and do they serve our Māori communities? Do our theological institutions reinforce or break down dominant colonial practices in society? Covenants For Māori, it is fundamental to look at the status of tangata whenua in Aotearoa and then to embed those learnings of a tangata whenua worldview in theological education. The status of tangata whenua is acknowledged and affirmed in New Zealand’s historical covenants. How do the documents He Whakaputanga O Aotearoa40 (1835, The Declaration of Independence) and Te Tiriti O Waitangi41 (1840, The Treaty of Waitangi) contribute toward

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long-term relationship building between Māori and Tauiwi? What have been the strategies, approaches, or efforts to embodying Māori indigenous knowledge in our theological institutions? The taniwha pūrākau is one such a response, a Māori way of explaining the origins of my people, the Ngāpuhi people. Exploring Māori indigenous ways of reading the world and giving voice to our own pūrākau was commonplace. This is how many versions of stories of taniwha shaping the land and the people came to be. Māori ways of reading the world, their creation stories, and ways of transmitting knowledge, adapted and grew to meet the demands of the people in their natural environment. Nothing has changed. Taniwha pūrākau continue to be a communal text on life, life as it was then and how it has relevance today. Biculturality Entering into dialogue around the importance of Māori oral narratives shared by Māori, told in Māori voices, enriches institutional theological education in Aotearoa. Being willing to engage with Māori in their meeting spaces, in wānanga, augments relationships. Shaping these engagements and experiences depends on all stakeholders in theological institutions taking seriously their commitment to issues of social justice, inclusiveness, and power sharing. In addressing these issues, some denominations have already begun efforts in this direction and what learnings might we gauge from their progress? Some theological institutions have created entry points, acknowledging the tangata whenua voice in their decision-making processes, employing some Māori bicultural understandings and practice. What further insights have we learned on the road to “indigenising the gospel” in the Aotearoa context? It is not so easily defined, as there has been no one consistent sustained approach. Instead, there have been different adaptations of the first bicultural encounter between Māori and Pākehā told in the different churches. All versions differ. Some say we have allowed our denominational blind spots to dominate our thinking, thereby weakening our commitment to social justice, and the honoring of our historical bicultural understandings. Articulating a common tangata whenua worldview becomes problematic. It is incumbent on all of us to engage in ways to create safe inclusive spaces for a deeper appreciation of Māori culture and traditions. Only then can theological shifts occur. Gospel transformation shifts power imbalances to enable Māori expressions of faith to be faithfully applied in the Aotearoa context. Remembering It seems like a long time ago that I was first introduced to this taniwha pūrākau. Strange how memories work, some are coerced others not, but

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when triggered you are easily transported to another time and space. I can still see the weatherboard house on the carbon-copy street, the place where my grandparents, Nan and Gan, called home. As long as the curtains were drawn, nobody took much notice of what happened at this place. I recall the musty lounge where my grandfather took center stage, with its rambling French wallpaper and archaic radio. We, his mokopuna42 were the only ones privy to this his inner sanctum. You could tell he had told this taniwha pūrākau several times, animated when in action he spoke with unwavering purpose. In such an intimate space between the storyteller and the listeners, you can feel like you are the only person in the room. Storytelling invokes a multitude of memories. These memories have the power to cascade generations. Retracing Listening to Gan I had imagined my grandfather as a young boy being told this story, by his tupuna. I imagined the scene being different to our urban setting, much less bounded, fire-light, and thundering rollers in the background. Despite these obvious differences, the storyline and characters remained the same. Someone triumphed and someone lost. I wondered which elder taught this story, or did all elders share a part in the story? I can picture my grandfather in full flight mimicking his tupuna and their portrayal of the characters. Regardless, watching the characters in play it was exciting and made for great night-time entertainment. Every storyteller has their own unique way of truth telling, characters and events. My belief is that in any performance embellishments were made to make the story memorable, so we would never forget. To remember our whakapapa connections to the ancestors was something that our Gan valued and considered important. As mokopuna we were unknowing participants in the task of retaining memory and making sense of it all. In my upbringing, Gan’s house was a place where it was normalized to hear the stories of war and the many pakanga.43 There were the stories of migrating tupuna and inter-tribal warfare, then there were the stories of the internal battles between British colonial forces and Māori tribes or stories of the Māori Battalion. Many of the battalion named their children after significant people and places. My father was given Italian names; he was named in remembrance of an Italian whānau44 who had sheltered my grandfather while serving during World War II. It is one example of how important names contributed to retaining our Mātauranga Māori.45 The transference of knowledge and memories from one time to another helped to merge worlds, and cement new memories for the next generation.

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Reflecting Sitting in my own lounge I began retracing the story as I remembered it and sought advice from my sister. “Do you remember the taniwha story?” “Of course, I do” was her response. Immediately I felt a sense of relief, for it had been well over thirty years since we had discussed this taniwha pūrākau in any great depth. I felt reassured that I wasn’t the only one who would be responsible for the remembering and there would be another who could tell the story in her way. I was also reassured that the link, the connection between us, Gan, and our ancestors would not be severed. Our lounge is another meeting ground, a stop-over point for travellers— relatives, friends heading further north—usually on their way to visit relations, attend a tangihanga46 or some other whānau related activity. One day, an aunty called in on her way through to the Hokianga.47 Being Aranga,48 she was going to pay her respects with relatives at whānau gravesites. She in her own way was reconnecting and renewing her relationship with God and whānau members long past. When we were finished catching up on the latest whānau news in wānanga mode I shared this taniwha pūrākau. She asked, “What impressed you the most about this story?” Collective Memory I was drawn to the story because of the storyteller. As a kaumātua49 my Gan was the keeper of our whānau tribal histories and connection to our tupuna. The violent act portrayed in this taniwha pūrākau conveyed that this was certainly not a bedtime story. Yet, he shared. Moreover, as a teenager I was intrigued by the dramatic events described because I thought it was all theater, surely not real life. Yet, it was life. A Māori belief in taniwha teaches that knowledge and wisdom is a collective enterprise, part of a collective consciousness. It is not new—bringing together the godly and human traits into our relationships with one another. In the Sadler (2014) version of the ancient narrative, the child born of Arikitapu and Tama-ki-te-ra is male. He writes there were two manifestations placed on the boy, a god as well as a man. That is why we Ngāpuhi are the descendants of the gods as well as of man, Ngāpuhi descend from Ranginui50 and Papatūānuku.51 We are more than just the indigenous peoples of this land. We were born of the land. Our mana52 comes from the land. We are autochthonous people.53

In reclaiming Māori indigenous ways of reading the world through tangata whenua worldviews we discover a whānau storyline describing provocative leadership, loyalty and betrayal, identity shaping in changing times, and the

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dynamic interplay of revelation between the human and the divine. I draw meaning from the pūrākau and see how this story of lived whānau experiences have enriched my view and understandings of the world. I also see the wisdom truths it reveals about our identity as Māori, as whānau, as Ngāpuhi, and the struggles we encounter as people of journeying.

CONCLUSION This essay explored the entry points for several myths about tangata whenua worldviews and its contribution to theological education for the future. Nevertheless, I realize the shifts toward the embodiment of tangata whenua worldviews cannot be achieved alone. Full stakeholder commitment and ongoing support is required to provide any sustained approach with meaningful shifts and transformation in society. There are many untold stories about taniwha. The stories are varied depending on the storyteller and the wisdom truths revealed; each story is equally contestable and valid. There is no denying that taniwha stories exist because the collective consciousness of an oral tradition remains with us today. The opening pūrākau is a tribal account reflecting the origins of my Ngāpuhi people. It is the very personal expression of the experience of one elder sharing with his mokopuna spirituality. In the sharing of this narrative, I found it was necessary to retrace how this story was passed down. And in reflecting on the thinking of that time we see Māori had very different ways of looking and responding to life’s trials, tribulations, and triumphs. Our shared Pākehā missionary heritage reflects how the thinking of people in that time also impacted on the regulation of Māori communal life. Missionary influence led to devaluing of tangata whenua worldviews, our symbols, and cultural constructs. To reclaim our identity as tangata whenua we have been compelled to challenge the belief that our ways of reading the world have no validity. In living out our faith in contemporary Aotearoa as tangata whenua we have a voice on the position we hold which is unique to this place in the world. For in our identity making, we have so much more to learn from the past that gives value and understanding for our living today. For many Māori, the embodiment of tangata whenua worldviews in theological institutions is imperative in Aotearoa. Ultimately, the myths around tangata whenua worldviews require ongoing education and a shift in power. Theological institutions as places for embodying justice have the capacity to transform the space and invigorate church and community life. In doing so, the oral traditions of my people, their

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faith-seeking and faith understandings of old are brought to life for another audience and generation to discern.

NOTES 1. Taniwha — Guardian in creation. 2. Atua — ancestor, divine being; a Christian appropriated term for God. 3. Tangata — person, humans. 4. Pūrākau — story. 5. Māori — indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. 6. Te Taha — Division. When used with Māori as in “Te Taha Māori” it refers to indigenous body (e.g., within The Methodist Church of New Zealand). 7. Te Hāhi — The Church, denomination. 8. Weteriana — Wesleyan, a transliteration and modern translation for Methodist. 9. Aotearoa — name for New Zealand literally “land of the long white cloud.” 10. Ngāpuhi — Name of a Northland, North Island Māori tribe of Aotearoa New Zealand. 11. Tumuaki — Title for the Leader of Te Taha Māori o Te Hāhi Weteriana o Aotearoa. 12. Tupuna — ancestors. 13. Rangatahi — young people. 14. Rua Rakena. Towards a Māori Theology (Auckland: Personal Paper, 1974), 1. 15. Puhi — a virgin, a young girl of high rank. 16. Kai — food. 17. Ariki — a leader among the tribe. 18. Moana — ocean. 19. Rau — one hundred, many. 20. Arikitapu — name of the senior woman in this story. 21. Tama-ki-te-ra — name of the husband to Arikitapu. 22. In Hone Sadler’s account of this story, the Puhi is named Rangiūwhinga (Ko Tautoro Te Pito O Tōku Ao: A Ngāpuhi Narrative (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2014)). 23. Moana rua — lagoon. 24. Karakia — incantations. 25. Hawaiki — name of the original homeland of Māori. 26. Whenua — land, placenta. When used with tangata as in “tangata whenua” it refers to “people of the land,” “born of the land.” 27. Jenny Lee, “Decolonising Māori narratives: Pūrākau as a method,” MAI Review 2, Article 3 (2009): 1. 28. Wānanga — learning forum, thinking. 29. Marae — courtyard, place of gathering. 30. Whakapapa — genealogy. 31. Waiata — song, chant. 32. Whaikōrero — oratory, formal speech-making.

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33. Garrick Cooper, “What is Intellectual Freedom Today: An Indigenous Reflection,” Continental Thought and Theory, A Journal of Intellectual Freedom 1, no. 1 (2016): 94. 34. Waka — canoe. 35. Tate Henare, He Puna Iti I Te Ao Marama (Auckland: Libro International, 2012), 14. 36. Pākehā — term applied to white New Zealanders of European descent. 37. Pou whakairo — carved wooden posts. 38. Tauiwi — Within the Methodist Church of New Zealand, Tauiwi are the partner to Te Taha Māori. 39. Te Ao — The World. 40. He Whakaputanga O Aotearoa — The Declaration of Independence. 41. Te Tiriti O Waitangi — The Treaty of Waitangi. 42. Mokopuna — grandchildren. 43. Pakanga — battle. 44. Whānau — family. 45. Mātauranga Māori — Māori indigenous knowledge. 46. Tangihanga — Māori funeral. 47. Hokianga — name of a northern region of Northland. 48. Aranga — Māori Christian term for Easter. 49. Kaumātua — term for a male elder. 50. Ranginui — name for Sky father, the heavens. 51. Papatūānuku — name for Mother Earth, the grounds. 52. Mana — authority. 53. Hone Sadler, Ko Tautoro Te Pito O Tōku Ao: A Ngāpuhi Narrative (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2014), 45.

Chapter 14

Wheiao, a Threshold Where Māori and Pākehā Meet Beverley Moana Hall-Smith and Rosemary Dewerse

Over recent years, theological colleges in Aotearoa New Zealand have become much more aware of their need to engage well with tangata whenua—the indigenous people of this land.1 Expectations of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, through whom many gain their accreditation, help in this; but also the reality that the bicultural engagement of Pākehā with Māori—each original signatories to a Tiriti/Treaty—is the crucial foundation for a thorough-going response to cultural diversity.2 It is the quality of ongoing and unfolding meeting-in-relationship that determines how truly and how well we are traveling together. Policies and theologies reflect what we are learning. In the space between, on the threshold, the wrestling of identities born in assumptions and worldviews, offering potential for good or for ill in meeting and hope of transformation, will shape what can be. In Māori worldview, that space-between is wheiao and it needs our attention because it holds the sacred and makes innovation possible. Wheiao has resonance in the biblical narrative, and so as theological educators it is good for us to pause there, listen, and be inspired. As Jenny Plane Te Paa, a Māori researcher and theologian, once observed “all [interactions] at their simplest level are an engagement between two people.”3 This chapter seeks that simplest level in meeting for ideas toward bicultural journeying. It draws wisdom from the story of the writers, a Māori woman and a Pākehā woman who are theological educators, and friends. A note: Māori elders have long been wary of sharing knowledge with their own people if they cannot hold it, let alone with Pākehā. Much is tapu (sacred), deep language of the heart.4 What is written here is thus necessarily limited—knowledge only shared in books; it touches upon dimensions and understanding far greater than Moana, and certainly Rosemary, know. We write being aware that this is so. 189

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WHEIAO In Te Ao Māori (the Māori world), “wheiao” is a term for the transitional or liminal space, “that state between the world of darkness and the world of light, but it is much closer to the unfolding of the world of light.”5 It is a place, a time, a state of being; the turning point, a transitional pivotal point or moment in time. Wheiao is thus a threshold, that moment between what is and what will be in which truth and struggle, hope and possibility form. It can be a space of tension and grief; it can be a space of recognition, of wonder, of awe. Teaching and learning take place there, seeding life, art, culture, and relationship. As such, wheiao is a sacred space; what emerges from wheiao is new and holds great potential. In Māori creation myths, when our primordial parents Ranginui (Sky Father) and Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) “came forth they were locked together” in a tight embrace.6 They had many children, all of whom were male and gods. As a Māori chant records: Kua puta mai te kukune ki te Pupuke, te hihiri Te mahara, te hinengaro, te manako Ki te pū ko te weu, ko te more, ko te aka, E takoto ana nga atua nei Then came conception, followed by increase, then thought Remembrance, consciousness, and desire Shooting forth, as a taproot, a shoot, a sapling Planting all the guardian forces of nature.7

All this occurred in the space between the bodies of Ranginui and Papatūānuku. The children, in wheiao longing for more, separated their parents, pushing Ranginui away from Papatūānuku into the distance. From a period of darkness, the world passed directly into a period of light, and knowledge, according to scholar, Ranginui Walker, came into the world.8 From the liminal space—a sacred space full of the divine—as light touched darkness, the fowl of the air, sea and land creatures, plants and, later, humanity, were birthed. Mindful of this, according to kaumatua (Māori elders), Māori rituals such as the opening of a new carved house or the launching of a new canoe are to be performed in the liminal space just before te atapō (the dawn)—the period when night (pō) has not yet gone and the morning (ata) is only beginning, between the darkness and the light. This is so because at this time, with no disturbance from the rising sun, the gods and the ancestors who have passed on are powerfully present. It is believed that the gods and spirits take leave of this world before the sunrise.9

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“In nearly every facet of life there exist various conditions of wheiao, both on this earth and throughout the extent of the universe.”10 In nature, wheiao is where sea becomes sky on the horizon, and where sea becomes land on the foreshore. The phases of the moon and the stages of development an embryo goes through are wheiao; any experience of human learning moving from a state of ignorance to one of knowledge is wheiao. Wheiao is found as a baby travels from the womb and, moving through the birth canal, the waters having broken, emerges into the world of light. When the cord is cut and the baby begins to breathe, so the saying: Tihei mauri ora ki te wheiao, ki te ao mārama The breath, the energy of life to wheiao, to the world of light

“In this instance, the wheiao refers to the actual birth process from the time the labour pains are felt until the time the baby begins breathing.”11 At the end of life, a similar journey happens as a person, dying, enters darkness and waits to journey through wheiao to the spiritual world of light. The divine is present; “Hine-nui-te-po is the goddess who dwells in wheiao between life and death.”12 She welcomes and accompanies the traveler. In the creation stories, Māui tries to attain immortality for humanity by traveling through the body of Hine-nui-te-pō and remaining alive; his arrogance is his downfall. Pā Henare Tate (1938–2017), profoundly steeped in tikanga Māori (Māori culture), as well as being a Catholic priest and theologian, taught that in Te Ao Māori there is an eschatological goal that draws humanity on through each stage of wheiao experienced in and toward te wā (time). Te wā in its eschatological sense is the time when te tapu (the sacredness) of Atua (God), tangata (people), and whenua (land) is restored. “While te wā [his italics] is the goal achieved and possessed in the present time, the fullness of te wā points us forward to intermediate goals, to distant goals, and, ultimately, to the eschatological goal. There is thus a tension that draws us forward” to a life beyond this world.13 This tension is often to be found at the thresholds, in wheiao. Along life’s journey, encounter with others offers one such threshold, for example, when two groups of people meet—the tangata whenua (people of the land) and manuhiri (visitors). In Te Ao Māori such encounters are carefully shaped by strict kawa (protocol) in the ritual known as pōwhiri.14 Pōwhiri enables the two groups to become one group, bound by a relationship that enhances each of their respective authority. During the ceremony, in this space of liminality, different voices emerge creating new sites of meaning,

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informed by experience, expressed with truth in all its complexity to those who listen, talk, and eat with the other. The pōwhiri begins with an exchange of formal speeches that follow the karanga (call). According to Māori lecturer and scholar Cleve Barlow, when people enter a marae (meeting house), built over the body of Papatūānuku, they enter wheiao—the womb—where the ancestor gods dwelt before moving into the world of light.15 Oratory is the main part of the hui (meeting), a place where conflict enacting the conflict of atua (gods) in the movement from te pō (the darkness) to te ao mārama (the world of light and understanding) is offered.16 After the speeches, the harirū (shaking of hands) takes place where the visitors physically engage with the tangata whenua before they hongi (press noses and share breath), which signifies the joining of the two groups. Because of the presence and acknowledgment of ancestors, the sharing then of food—restoring of balance—at the end is important to the whole process. It brings about a balanced state and the ability to engage together in everyday settings. The pōwhiri is a space for genuine transformation. As two distinct groups gather in ritual before becoming one, it teaches us to listen to the silences in the spaces between people and to create space for listening, storytelling, creativity, resistance, and process. As Malksoo has claimed, liminality “as a threshold situation, is also a vital moment of creativity, a potential platform for renewing the societal make-up.”17 In 2001, portraits of Māori painted by Charles Goldie (1870–1947) arrived from Auckland, New Zealand, for an exhibition in Sydney, Australia. At the pōwhiri, held at dawn, many Māori residents living in Sydney and Aboriginal artists, along with the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, welcomed the New Zealand visitors, the spirits of their ancestors and the Goldie paintings into the Art Gallery. From a Māori perspective it was important that a relationship was formed between the ancestors of the visitors and those of the tangata whenua (people of the land). The pōwhiri included all the ceremonial rituals of encounter complete with a full Māori church service. In wheiao, as it existed here, it is intriguing to note the presence together of Te Ao Māori and the Christian world.

THE BIBLE AND WHEIAO The Bible was birthed in cultures very different and distant to Te Ao Māori. In the creation stories presented in the Hebrew scriptures, one God is understood to have created the world by separating its elements—darkness and light; water, earth, and sky—and populating them with vegetation, heavenly bodies, creatures of the air, sea, and land, and finally with humans, made in the image

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of their Creator (Genesis 1). In contrast, in the creation stories of Te Ao Māori “each form of life came together with another to make something new in a network of genealogical connection,” and the gods of such things as the forests (Tāne), sea (Tangaroa), wind (Tāwhirimātea or Tāwhiri-mātea) and war (Tūmatauenga) are, and do not just represent, their domain. This may be very different from the Hebrew account, but arguably wheiao is nonetheless present in the moments before each of the phased separations, as the Spirit hovers. Key to wheiao is that moment in the journey just before darkness becomes light—the word for “light” in the Māori language, mārama, also means “understanding” or “clarity.” In separation—at the moment of birth, at the moment of death, as Papatūānuku and Ranginui are flung apart—is knowledge. And yet wheiao is also true in the pōwhiri as those who are separate move through rituals that will, for a time at least, make them known to one another in unity of purpose. Perhaps Christian theology grounded in the biblical account of creation can add its insights here, alongside. Clare Amos, a biblical scholar, notes the series of bifurcations that weave through the Genesis 1 account of creation, culminating in the creation of “male and female” (v. 27) made in the image of “us” (v. 26).18 Humanity reflects the divine in relationship; otherness— the result—invites knowledge. To be human is to embrace difference, our separateness. Theologian Miroslav Volf puts it thus: “My being centred in distance [difference] is not a negative act of exclusion but a creative act of separation. The Book of Genesis describes creation as successive divine acts of separation. Because I and the other can be constituted in our mutual otherness only by separation, no genuine openness to the other is possible without it.”19 In reflecting on the push for sameness that underlies genocides of all kinds, Volf notes that “identity without otherness—this is our curse.”20 So in the moment before meeting, with its promise of new relationship or new depth in relationship, it is in recognition of difference that hope for truth, and deepening humanity, lies. Then, in the movement to embrace the other, a space and time and state of being is found that opens the possibility of true reconciliation, of profound belonging, to us. In that space, on that threshold, truth-telling, as in the rituals of the pōwhiri, builds toward respectful and empowering connection. In Christian theology, there is also an eschatological pull in these moments and movements. The goal is new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). With new creation comes ever-enriching complexity, a catholicity of personhood, to borrow from Volf, that grows precisely because of and through encounter.21 Attention is required because it is possible to miss invitations to such growth, if self and a desire to make another like us looms large. Across biblical texts, encounters recorded between the divine and human hint at wheiao—a liminal space, often a turning point, that leads to the

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revelation or experience of sacred knowledge. To compare, the encounters reveal hearts in differing states; possibility and transformation take many pathways. In Genesis 32:22–32, for example, Jacob wrestles with God with determination and departs with a limp, blessed, and newly named “Israel.” In 1 Chronicles 21:15–17, David encounters an angel of the Lord about to bring punishment for his holding of a census and is convicted of his wickedness. In Isaiah 6:1–8, the prophet sees and is touched by the Lord; he moves from awe through grace to empowerment as a messenger of God to the people. In Luke 1:26–38, Mary welcomes the divine into her womb. Her new state of being is recognized and celebrated by Elizabeth and the unborn baby John (Luke 1:39–45) and she bursts into prophetic song (46–55). Each of these encounters result in expanded identity and deepened understanding of self and o/Other, human and divine. In and through each, the person advances from one state of being to another in their journey toward new creation. EXPLORING WHEIAO In any bicultural encounter, worldviews will clash. What one culture understands will likely have little or no exact equivalent in the worldview of another. In Aotearoa New Zealand where a British Cartesian worldview arrived in the late 1700s with an agenda of greed and colonization accompanied by Christianity, and still dominates the “woven universe” of Te Ao Māori, a reality of “identity without otherness” curses bicultural journeying in theological education.22 But it is Moana’s belief that the concept of wheiao—limited though its explanation here may be—offers a way to pause on the threshold as two people—two peoples—approach one another. In the liminal space between, ignorance has the chance to become understanding ignited by hope, struggle, truth and possibility, and new states of being can thus be realized. The rest of this chapter explores that belief. When Worlds Meet Moana, a Māori, and Rosemary, a Pākehā, met at a conference in July 2011. Moana was then the Kaihautū (leader) of a school in Rotorua that belonged to a Māori theological college, Te Taapapa ki Te Manawa o Te Wheke o Te Wānanga o Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa. Rosemary had just handed in a doctoral thesis on intercultural engagement for examination. During the conference, Moana had the opportunity speak about her work and made an appeal for help to develop courses and put material online.

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Rosemary realized she had experience in what was being asked for and introduced herself. Beverley Moana’s Story I am woman and Māori, and, through whakapapa (genealogy), I have connections to Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi ancestry that flow from tupuna such as Whatoi Pomare II, Te Ruki Kawiti, Nuku Tawhiti, Waimirirangi, Rahiri and others whose lineages can be traced from numerous Pacific locations to their living descendants today. I was raised in the Manukau Valley, a small rural community on the West Coast in the Far North of Aotearoa, New Zealand. It is a place steeped in wairuatanga (spirituality), mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge)23 and pain—the pain of poverty, isolation, disease, inequality, and oppression brought about by the effects of colonialism.24 As a child I attended Manukau Native School. Here I experienced the assimilation policies in which Pākehā (European) values and custom were embedded into Māori thinking and practices. I was taught by a Pākehā teacher named Mr. Shanks and nurtured by an education curriculum steeped in the English language, histories, books, and values. Because of my family’s commitment to my education, I entered a Pākehā (European) secondary boarding school. As a Māori student in a Pākehā world, I was expected to act humbly and submissively and always to treat Pākehā as superior to myself and deserving of special treatment. My growing-up years never changed this dilemma imbedded in my soul and my world, so at times while working with Rosemary I felt a sense of “not quite good enough.” Why not? Well, here was one of the English women from the storybooks I had read as a child with white skin, blue eyes, and long blonde hair, living in big houses surrounded by white picket fences. Somehow people with white skin were deemed good looking and treated with respect and worthiness. A New Relationship: A Painful Process When I met Rosemary at the conference in 2012, she was right there at the right time when I needed a multi-skilled teacher and theological educator. At that time, it was not the accepted move to employ a Pākehā for a Māori Whare Wānanga (tertiary school of learning), but she ticked all the relevant boxes. Employing Rosemary for Te Whare Wānanga o te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa, I discovered later to be a gift. During her working tenure at the school, there were challenges for us both. We entered into a liminal space of negotiation, interrogation, and new possibilities. There were no visible boundaries, and the limitations on the existing boundaries were easily blurred. Some students

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were apprehensive about having a Pākehā teacher, as they felt they could form a better relationship with a Māori lecturer. There were moments when the space posed danger and fear, but Rosemary was motivated by the desire to improve relationships between herself—the Pākehā woman—and Māori. I have no doubt her love for teaching helped her students achieve a sense of success and harmony. Meanwhile, I continued to hold the view that white middle-class women had inherited benefits due to the social structures of racism and classism. When I was asked to take up the position of Kaihautū by Bishop Katene of Te Manawa o Te Wheke, I felt an enormous sense of pride and joy. I was received well by the staff and students of the Whare Wānanga. After Rosemary was contracted, I was asked to leave Rotorua for a few months to head the Postgraduate Centre at Palmerston North, which would mean leaving Rosemary in charge of the Whare Wānanga in Rotorua. I found myself very reluctant to let any of my power go to Rosemary, after all—in my head anyway—she was from a position of privilege with a kind of superior intelligence. The perception in the Wānanga was that Māori were not particularly intelligent, nor were they hardworking or academically successful. I realized having to choose an acting Kaihautū had placed me in a very awkward situation. I found I was being pulled into the deeply entrenched stereotypes that connect racial identity to academic ability. At some stage I realized I was sending a message to my students and staff that the Pākehā woman was more suited for the position. After many discussions with staff, Rosemary did not get the position. At the beginning of the relationship, I tried to maintain a strong sense of self. I experienced an inferiority complex, particularly when my intellectual capacity did not seem to match Rosemary’s. Take the Western way of learning where the emphasis is on writing and research, which are both analytical tools. They have a way of silencing Māori students who often feel whakamā (shy) and/or a sense of not belonging and will not speak out for fear of sounding kūare (unintelligent). With perseverance I realize I have tribal mana (authority), and although it may not be “academically” astute it carries with it mātauranga Māori, defined as the knowledge, comprehension, or understanding of everything visible and invisible in the universe, often used synonymously with wisdom. By sharing our gifts, I believe we both carried a sense of respect for each other’s tūranga (standing place). In that liminal space it was Rosemary who provided me with a sense of achieving academically. In return, I provided her with much of my ancestors’ knowledge on mātauranga Māori. Rosemary worked with Paraire Huata, a very notable elder/lecturer in the field of Addiction and Mental Health. Together they designed a Chaplaincy program for the Māori Bishopric of Aotearoa, New Zealand.25 That Paraire

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sat and worked with Rosemary in a private and public forum signaled his acceptance of the Pākehā woman. From that moment the staff fully accepted Rosemary, and I accepted the space between us. I discovered this gap, this space, this phase between us was filled with challenges: the challenge of difference, the challenge of our own brand of socioeconomic, political, and historically conditioned locations. In 2013, I was accepted by Flinders University to complete my PhD. Rosemary and her family had already moved to Adelaide. Rosemary became my PhD supervisor, landlady, mentor, family member and, most of all, my friend. At this point, I acknowledge Rosemary and her family for housing me while living in Adelaide. Moving in with the Dewerse family, I discovered my years of living alone as a single woman had not prepared me for sharing a home with a family. Maybe this was the turning point for our walking the journey and recognizing the space between. In her home I discovered a new space, new whenua (lands), and new tangata whenua (people of the land) where I could switch between different mindsets, and the space enabled me to dislodge myself from long-established patterns of colonial thinking. Rosemary’s supervision motivated and inspired me, giving me purpose by adding clarity and definition to my thinking and writing. When I first entered the corridors of Flinders University, I felt a sense of powerlessness being surrounded by so many white students and teachers who spoke with skill and confidence. Fortunately, having lived in other countries, and holding both a New Zealand and Australian passport, my life experiences have broadened my worldview. This enables me to more easily enter the worlds of other people who have strengthened my thoughts, and in some ways inspired my thinking. On reflection, I realize one does a lot of waiting around living in the city . . . waiting for the bus, waiting for the lights to change, waiting in queues, waiting to eat, waiting for the rain, waiting for my supervisor. Rosemary’s gentle prompting helped me spend my waiting time by fuelling my imagination, reshaping my doctoral path, and fostering my dream. I realize now that waiting and walking with the other (in this case a Pākehā woman) is at times like learning a new language, with that fear of making mistakes, that focus on new experiences and dislodging oneself from long-established patterns of thinking. Looking back, having to confess this was difficult and culturally unsafe. Interestingly, Rosemary helped me to evaluate my own identity more positively, to find a voice for articulating self, for defining my Māori identity. Yet it was not always like that. I had to cross between my home in New Zealand and in Adelaide, and to continue connections with both homes with their vastly different worldviews. The relationship Rosemary and I shared prepared me for a state of ignorance and loneliness to one of enlightenment.

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There was a time when Rosemary wanted to tell her side of our PhD journey. I had to explain to her it was not her story to tell; this is a relationship that allows us to walk together instead of walking ahead of or behind another. It is a relationship in which we need to listen for each other’s joys, and burdens. This journey together enabled communal experience and plenty of opportunities for dialogue. What is important to me is how transformation came about from the liminal state of the relationship. Between us we created a PhD thesis, we shared a journey of transformation, we shared a home and family together. Walking together we formed a relationship through story and an authentic relationship with another—God. We became aware of our thoughts and feelings and how they affect the other person. We began to reveal our true selves, to speak with integrity, compassion, and honesty. On reflection, I regret the opportunities I missed at that time in getting to know Rosemary on a more personal level where I could explain the scars I received from racism. At the same time, I do wonder if Rosemary herself was ever at the receiving end of racial abuse. Today, I am grateful that I had a working relationship with Rosemary that has developed into a close friendship. In hindsight, walking beside Rosemary had deep-rooted significance for my theological journey and if I was honest moving through wheiao into the light was about “disengagement from the colonial syndrome which takes many forms and disguises.”26 Rosemary’s Story Something propelled me forward at that conference to speak to Moana. At the time I had just completed my PhD thesis, was unemployed, and was struggling to find my place and my courage in theological education. Moana’s willingness to listen to what I could offer was miraculous for me. She took me to meet her Bishop and drove me upcountry and back to meet a colleague. A week later she offered a fixed-term contract and a house on site where the school was based in Rotorua. I was incredibly grateful. I was the only Pākehā at the local wānanga (school); my ancestry lies in Ireland and colonizing Britain. I sensed that was a risk for Moana, though I had no idea how much. I was determined to practice everything I had learned in my research into genuinely intercultural theological education, to practice care for identity; listen to silenced voices; nurture new understandings (mainly in myself); and help dismantle discrimination. Wima was my first student, a kuia (female elder) of Te Arawa. Nervously I waited for her arrival. Knowing I knew nothing, I quietly asked her questions and heard the story of her work in Rotorua Hospital in the 1970s. At a time when midwives were getting sick and having random accidents, Wima was

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asked to help. Her kaumātua (male elder) advised that whenua (placentas) be buried rather than binned. The ward was then cleansed, and everything settled down. That story was significant for me because I was born in that hospital during that period. Was my placenta buried? Something inside me felt it was. Until then, whenever I had spoken my pepeha (introduction to build connection) in te reo (Māori language), I had felt I should speak of the South Island as my home because I had spent most of my early years there. After Wima’s story, I experienced a profound and spiritual sense of connection to Rotorua, my birthplace, as my tūrangawaewae (standing place). Ko Ngongotaha te maunga. Ko Rotorua te awa.27

Months later Moana would buy a pounamu (greenstone necklace) as the role ended. As the Bishop blessed it and it was placed around my neck, I felt the connection sealed. Permission (a year later) to retell some of the incredible mission stories of the ancestors of these people confirmed it; Moana passed on the words of a kaumātua—“You can write these if you give full credit where due because we whāngai [adopt] you; you are our daughter.”28 Wima later told me she was so offended that she would be tutored by a young Pākehā woman that even though she arrived on time, it took her a long time to calm her anger and get out of her car. Moana lived the values of the Wānanga with great integrity. I listened. I watched her triumphs and her struggles as she worked hard to raise confidence and ability in her students and fight for the credibility of her school. She was impressive. I struggled myself. What were the rules for my engagement? I was to write courses for these students; I was to lead when Moana was absent. For months I was in constant states of ignorance, learning and enlightenment, humbled and conscious of my strange-ness. What was I learning? Not to presume—I knew so little!—and to hold myself open. There was hopeful talk of my continuing with the wānanga. We prepared as a family to move to Rotorua longer-term and then Moana told me there was no money. I got a job in Australia and, knowing that Moana had been struggling to find welcome for her proposed PhD in Aotearoa, suggested she study in Adelaide. We offered her our home; it was an opportunity to reciprocate. Many conversations over what would be one year, and then another four months when we had both returned to Aotearoa, of having Moana living with us, opened something of her world to us. She offered insight into our children out of her sensitivity to the spiritual realm, she became an important part of

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their lives. We learned about many Māori concepts as she read and processed them aloud for her thesis; our world grew much bigger. It seemed I was learning bicultural journeying well. But our relationship was in a different space. When I am in the majority—a white woman in a white-dominated world—privilege subtly but profoundly weaves presumption back in. Wheiao holds a different kind of darkness then, and the light of knowledge—should one pause long enough to receive—can be painful. Chastening. I was passionate about helping Moana find a way to meet Western examination requirements while not losing her voice—its language and expression. Along the way we encountered situations where a scholar wanted her to be something she is not or was happy to speak for Māori as their voices have yet to be heard in published biblical scholarship. I struggled with this, deeply disappointed, because I knew “we” must let be and wait, that this is vital if Māori are to contribute in their own way and in their own time. The irony was that I fell into this trap myself. A danger in seeking justice for others is that an outside advocate can overpower and disempower in so doing. Six months after Moana’s thesis had been submitted, I was asked to keynote at a conference reflecting on lessons from indigenous thinking for theological education. While living in Australia I had also traveled a ­remarkable journey with another indigenous woman.29 (I have continued to do so since.) ­Suddenly, my friendships gave me an “expert” voice.30 As I prepared to speak, I thought that I would include reflection on my experience of Moana’s PhD journey. Then I realized I really should check with her. Moana answered, “No. The knowledge is not yours to tell.” Her response was difficult to take. But I had invested so much! In writing this chapter, Moana and I met over dinner one evening to compare notes. What she told me revealed further the power trap a Pākehā like me can fall into, and that wheiao is (that is, is not always consciously so). In my family, I do a number of the inside chores, including vacuuming, and so I had continued to do this when Moana lived with us. But each time I vacuumed her room, I shamed her. Was she not capable of caring for the one piece of private space she had in our house? I had no idea what I had done. While such learning is painful—worse because I know how long Moana carried this—her words took us over a new threshold in our friendship. Knowledge can be horridly sobering. Colonization comes in many guises. Honoring difference, so I have been discovering, requires a journey first into not knowing, into not presuming, and there is wheiao. Many are the times I have valued Moana’s persevering friendship. For both of us our journeys in theological education and in the church have held opportunities in leadership and times of marginalization. I have not always known

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how best to navigate these, particularly where those I am interacting with have been Māori. So often Moana has been the one to step into my questions and struggle and bring enlightenment. Her straight-talking common sense and worldview wisdom, jolting me out of that peculiar self-absorption one can develop when intercultural engagement goes wrong, has been invaluable. The korowai (cloak) of her friendship is sustaining, inspiring, and empowering my journey into a catholicity of personhood. Toward new creation.

LESSONS FROM WHEIAO FOR CROSSING THRESHOLDS IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION In an educational system that prioritizes achievements and likes to see boxes ticked, wheiao invites remembrance that knowing is reached only by traveling the spaces between. Thresholds capture the pause before light dawns and then a new journey from ignorance begins. Bicultural journeys never arrive; our friendship testifies to this. Neither of us had appreciated just how pervasive the destructive legacy of colonization is—Moana for instilling a sense of inferiority, even when she holds authority, and Rosemary for affirming privilege whatever the setting—and thus its power to distort self-understanding in emerging relationship. We wonder how many of us do appreciate this legacy. We have realized that we cannot ignore it. Yet in naming it somehow its power is being challenged and we are discovering that it can birth creativity. Our differences invite profound connection across worlds bringing new ways of seeing and larger ways of being. True also is that understanding cannot be forced. Trust and honesty, vulnerability and conversion will happen if the fullness of Te wā is the vision, but in their own and in the right time. Our friendship has certainly experienced phases. These have been held by a thread of commitment sourced in our identities in God—te aho tapu (the sacred thread). We have shared and risked with one another things we would not with others, and that bears remembering. Relationships cannot run to a formula. We have each known what it is to be the stranger. The gift is in the pain of this. Who will we become when language and worldview, culture and values are not our own? What taonga (treasures) from our own must we keep? For Māori, finding and claiming their unique voice, particularly in the academy, is a vital struggle requiring courage and community. For Pākehā it is easy to avoid strange-ness, but it must be chosen if the danger of sameness is not to curse people and systems. This requires immersion and letting go of control. Deep within Te Ao Māori lies utu, the concept of maintaining balance and harmony. What is given, if truly valued, should be returned. The opportunity to give one another a home—in Rotorua, in Adelaide—has both tensioned

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and deepened our friendship, providing wheiao for enlightenment. Living into such spaces and opportunities together is critical for bicultural journeying. Wise guidance is needed; however, if Pākehā are not to fall into the trap of thinking they have done their piece by offering opportunity from their tower or, in thinking they are doing the journey well, take and appropriate knowledge that is not theirs to manipulate, not their story to tell. Relationship offers elders, in time; waiting requires patience. Writing this chapter has been a revelation, teaching us of the importance of making space together for reflective storytelling. It is in listening and in being heard that the spaces between us as Māori and Pākehā, the tensions and the possibilities of wheiao, can be brought into the light in ever-expanding journeys toward new and restored creation.

NOTES 1. Moeawa Callaghan’s chapter in this book critically discusses three approaches to this by colleges in Aotearoa New Zealand. 2. “Pākehā” refers here to those specifically of British descent, whose sovereign in 1840 signed a Treaty with Māori. For the argument for biculturalism as a foundation for multiculturalism see, as an example, the work of the NZ National Commission for UNESCO. Multiculturalism New Zealand, “Our Multicultural Future: New Zealanders talk about Multiculturalism” (Wellington: New Zealand Federation of Multicultural Councils, 2015, http://cdn​-flightdec​.userfirst​.co​.nz​/uploads​/sites​ /multiculturalnz​/files​/pdfs​/NZFMC​_Talking​_about​_Multiculturalism​_Hi​-Res​.pdf, accessed 5 June 2018. This report, drawn from workshops with thirty-four government and community groups across Aotearoa New Zealand, records that biculturalism is founded in “the Treaty of Waitangi, [which] is central to our understanding of ourselves as a nation” (9). 3. Rosemary Dewerse, “Toward Becoming Intercultural in Theological Education” (University of Auckland: Unpublished PhD Thesis, 2011), 5. 4. Ngoi Pewhairangi of Ngati Porou, “Foreword: Learning and Tapu” in Te Ao Hurihuri: Aspects of Maoritanga, ed. Michael King (Auckland: Reed Publishing, 1992), 11. 5. “Wheiao (Transitional or Liminal State)” in Tikanga Whakaaro: Key Concepts in Māori Culture, ed. Cleve Barlow (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1991), 184. Te Ao Māori is conceived of metaphorically, so to read wheiao literally is to delimit it. 6. Anne Salmond, Between Worlds: Early Exchanges Between Maori and Europeans 1773–1815 (Auckland: Viking, 1997), 401. 7. Refer to Michael P. Shirres, Te Tangata: The Human Person (Accent Publications, Auckland, 1997), 24. 8. Ranginui Walker, “The Relevance of Maori Myth and Tradition” in Te Ao Hurihuri: Aspects of Maoritanga, ed. Michael King (Auckland: Reed, 1992), 171.

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9. Barlow, Tikanga Whakaaro, 185. 10. Barlow, Tikanga Whakaaro, 184. 11. Barlow, Tikanga Whakaaro, 184. 12. Beverley Moana Hall-Smith, “He Whatunga Kete: A Maori Woman’s Framework for Reading Biblical Text” (Unpublished PhD Thesis: Flinders University, Adelaide, 2017), 85. 13. Henare Tate, He Puna Iti i Te Ao Marama: A Little Spring in the World of Light (Auckland: Libro, 2012), 224. 14. Pō is “night,” “darkness,” whiri is “to choose, gather together.” Metaphorically it is the gathering of the things of the ancestors. 15. Barlow, Tikanga Whakaaro, 185. 16. Anne Salmond, Hui: A Study of Maori Ceremonial Gatherings (Auckland: A.H. and A.W. Reed, 1975), 176. Speeches are often political rather than ritualistic. 17. Maria Mälksoo, “The Challenge of Liminality for International Relations Theory,” Review of International Studies 38, no. 2 (2012): 481. 18. Clare Amos, “The Genesis of Reconciliation: The Reconciliation of Genesis,” Mission Studies 23, no. 1 (2006): 12. Anne Salmond suggests these bifurcations should be understood as the product of a Christian dualism but fails to take into account the fact that Greek binaries were not part of the Hebraic worldview in which the creation myths emerged, which arguably in its greater wholism is closer to Māori understanding. Salmond, Between Worlds, 403. 19. Miroslav Volf, “Exclusion and Embrace: Theological Reflections in the Wake of Ethnic Cleansing,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 29, no. 2 (1992): 274–275. 20. Volf, “Exclusion and Embrace,” 267. 21. Volf, “Exclusion and Embrace,” 271–273. 22. “Woven universe” is taken from the title of a book edited by Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, The Woven Universe: Selected Writings of Rev. Māori Marsden (The Estate of Rev Māori Marsden, 2003). In Aotearoa New Zealand too often “Square intelligence”—so named by Chellie Spiller, Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr and John Panoho—with its priority for individual, linear, literal, printed, gridded and divided maps focused on a material, seen and “rational” world of outcomes, leaves little room for “sphere intelligence” with its wholistic and woven universe bedded in “we,” spiraling space time, and metaphorical orality prioritizing relationships. Chellie Spiller, Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr, and John Panoho, Wayfinding Leadership: Ground breaking Wisdom for Developing Leaders (Wellington: Huia, 2015), 23. 23. When referring to mātauranga Maori, Professor Whata Winiata, explains Māori have an ancient history of knowing and creating knowledge in physical, energy, and spiritual domains. He adds “In the years after 1775 and the arrival of tauiwi (foreigners) Māori were confronted with a new kind of knowledge that substantially and rapidly changed their worldview. It was a worldview created in pre-history and quite different from today.” Refer to Winiata, Accounting and Reporting for the Hapu—A Working paper (Otaki, New Zealand Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa, 2005), 1. 24. Refer to B. Moana Hall-Smith, He Whatunga Kete: Whakapapa, a Māori Woman’s Framework for Reading Biblical Text (Flinders University: Unpublished PhD Thesis, 2017).

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25. Kaumātua Paraire Huata, of Ngati Kahungungu, passed away in 2014. 26. Anita Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism: The New Cultural Idiom (London: Routledge, 1999), 19. 27. Ngongotaha is the mountain. Rotorua is the lake. These ancestors for Māori— one’s mountain and (awa) river or water source—are first. 28. These stories were published as Nga Kai-rui i te Rongopai: Seven Early Maori Christians, stories retold by Rosemary Dewerse (Rotorua: Te Hui Amorangi ki Te Manawa o Te Wheke, 2013). 29. This was Rev. Dr. Denise Champion, an Adnyamathanha woman from the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. For her thinking see, Denise Champion, Yarta Wandatha (Adelaide: Denise Champion, 2014) and Anaditj (Port Augusta, Denise Champion, 2021). 30. It happened again in being asked to write a chapter on “Christian mission and indigenous peoples” for an Oxford Handbook on Missions. I have had the privilege of working with a third indigenous (Māori) woman on that, Dr. Gina Colvin.

Chapter 15

Moana and Qoheleth Futility in Diaspora? Brian Fiu Kolia

Moana, for Pasifika people, is the name of the ocean in which our island homes are located. The same term is also used for the color “blue” (of the ocean), but Moana is much more than just a body of “blue water.” In Samoan, the root of Moana is moa, which means “center” or “middle.” The moa can also refer to the person’s heart, implicating one’s innermost being. Moana for Pasifika people therefore represents the center, the middle, or the heart of all existence. All things are connected through Moana—a bridge between (is) lands, a source of nourishment for fish, animals, and people. Indeed, Moana gives life (and it also takes life)! For tagata Pasifika (people of the Pacific), Moana is the center place: the heart of their cosmic existence. This notion of place associated with the creative order is conveyed in wisdom traditions through the Hebrew word ‫( מקום‬māqōm). Though ‫ מקום‬is a multivalent word, its connotation in wisdom is commonly denoted as “designated place.” Norman Habel writes that in Job: Everything, it seems, has its appointed “place” in the order of things. Precious gems have a “place” in stones ([28]v. 6); gold has a “place” in the earth ([28]v. 1); rocks too have a “place” in the earth (14:18; 18:4); the earth has its “place” in the cosmos (9:6); the east wind has a “place” in the vens (27:23); darkness and dawn are assigned their “place” (38:12, 19); and each mortal has a “place” on the earth (7:10; 8:18; 27:21; cf. Ps. 103:16).1

In Proverbs 27:8, the same meaning is implied: “Like a bird who strays from its nest is one who strays from home (‫( ”)מקום‬NRSV). In Ecclesiastes 1:7, Qohelet speaks of the waters running to its place (‫ )מקום‬in the sea:2 All the streams run to the sea and the sea is not full, towards the place where the rivers go, there they flow again.3 205

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Ecclesiastes 1:7 speaks of the futility of the actions of the streams running endlessly toward the ‫( מקום‬place). However, the word ‫ מקום‬in ancient Israelite wisdom thought might imply more than just being a “designated place.” As a Pasifika reader, I cannot help but think of the absurdity of Moana as just being a place where rivers flow to again and again. There are more to the sea as a ‫ מקום‬which I believe is worth pursuing further. This view of water is based on the premise that the oceans are just seamless masses of water. But Moana is anything but seamless. The waters of Moana can be serene and peaceful, but they can also be rough and unforgiving. Unfortunately, the influence of Hollywood and mainstream media is particularly troubling in promoting a romanticized view of Moana. They depict it as a post-card backdrop waiting to be explored. But the complete picture of reality is far from romantic. Moana gives life and takes it, even more so with the harsh realities of climate change. Ironically, Hollywood has taken the “life” out of Moana and manipulated it for its own purposes. In this essay, I re-read Ecclesiastes 1:7 with a Pasifika lens that draws back the celebratory and utopian notions of Moana. First, I engage the image of the sea in Ecclesiastes 1:7 with the rest of the Hebrew Bible, in order to gauge various understandings of the sea in antiquity. Second, I provide an alternative perspective of Qohelet’s idea of futility through a Pasifika perspective that perceives Moana as the connection between lands.4 Third, I highlight the changing ocean-face of the Moana in light of rising sea levels in Pasifika in response to Qohelet’s idea that “the sea is not full.” Lastly, I explore how Moana is an avenue for migration for Pasifika, and as a second-generation Australian-Samoan, I consider implications of this reading of Qohelet, for Pasifika migration and diaspora.

THE OCEAN IN ECCLESIASTES Most commentators speak to the futility of the natural process, where streams run endlessly into the sea, and despite how often this happens, the sea will never be full. In keeping with the “futility” (‫ )הבל‬theme of the book, 1:7 is “the counterpart to human effort that never comes to fulfillment.”5 Garrett states that “the implication here is not cyclic motion but futile activity.”6 Seow points out that this view of natural phenomena is congruent with the worldview of the ancient Near East,7 in particular, as Crenshaw notes, the observation of “the Dead Sea offered a particularly striking instance of such a phenomenon, for this small body of water demonstrably had no outlet and still it remained unfilled.”8 Crenshaw then continues that “from this observable instance, the same conclusion could be reached about other seas.”9 But can the same conclusion be made of other seas?

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The view of the seas as never being filled implies that the seas are unchangeable and cannot be manipulated. However, in the Hebrew Bible, the image of the seas varies. The seas can be chaotic (Gen 1) and on the other hand the seas can be controlled, as the Red Sea is manipulated to provide salvation for the Israelites and death for the imposing Egyptians (Exod 14).10 This hostile nature of the sea is seen by some scholars as reflective of the Chaoskampf theme. This theme envisions a war between a warrior god and other deities as seen in ancient Near Eastern literature, to which some scholars argue had influenced Old Testament texts. In particular, the stories of Baal’s victory over Yam and Marduk’s defeat of Tiamat have been linked analogously to the creation story in Genesis.11 The sea also has metaphorical value as it often signals eschatological significance in prophetic literature.12 While the association with Chaoskampf cannot be denied, it can also be problematic as Peter Trudinger has shown: In any formulation of Chaoskampf, the enemies of God are water-beings. Invariably, the major water-beings, Sea, Rivers, Leviathan, and so on, are presented as villains and suffer defeat. In other words, the Chaoskampf pattern precludes any intrinsic value being ascribed to a significant component of Earth community.13

Thus, reading through the lens of Chaoskampf would subscribe to a deifying of the sea and casting it as an opponent to God. Trudinger prefers a different way to understanding the sea and water-beings in the Hebrew Bible, by envisaging them as “component[s] of the glorious appearance of God.”14 In reading the sea in Psalm 93 for instance, Trudinger suggests that the noise and actions of the water-beings “mimic people raising arms then falling prostrate before YHWH; the sound of the rivers and waters, cries of praise.”15 When read this way, the hostility of the sea is perceived not as the malevolent response of a deified being toward the primary God, but as the created water-being responding in awe to its Creator. This reading is preferable for Pasifika readers as it pays respect to the Moana. Moving away from a Chaoskampf understanding privileges the Moana by acknowledging its intrinsic value and “place[s] a more positive valuation upon the Earth and Sea.”16 For Pasifika readers, the real phenomenon facing island nations is tumultuous and at times disorderly, for its oceans do not constitute a small body of water that remains unfilled, but a huge mass of water that connects lands. In recent times, Moana is viewed with fear due to rising sea levels and in the process threatening the very existence of its (is) lands. How then does Qohelet’s statement make sense for readers who do not hold an oversimplified and romanticized view of the sea, especially when the Hebrew Bible accounts for a variety of perceptions? How could we utilize Moana to re-read Ecclesiastes 1:7?

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RECLAIMING MOANA: RESURF(AC)ING THE SEA IN THE HEBREW BIBLE The view of the ocean as a seamless body of water is flawed. Not all seas are the same. In fact, not all seas in the Hebrew Bible are the same. There is no evidence that Qohelet is talking specifically about the Dead Sea and, as Crenshaw had alluded, Qohelet could be talking about any sea. Interestingly, Seow states that “the point of the text is simply that the channels keep flowing. The source of the water is quite beside the point.”17 However, the images of the sea elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible are diverse and if Qohelet is not specific, then how can we be certain of his image of the seas in 1:7? Ancient readers must have surely been aware of all the different images within the Hebrew Bible of the sea. How then could we reimagine 1:7 in light of what the sea represents in other parts of the Hebrew Bible? Primordial Chaos In Genesis 1, the waters are one of the elements in the primordial chaos.18 God in creation reorganizes the waters by inserting a dome that separates the waters above from the waters below. God then calls the waters below the dome, the “seas” (v. 10). In these acts we see God exerting authority over the created order. Ironically, the fact that God needs to control the sea by way of reorganizing and naming signifies the chaotic nature of the waters. Yet in the Hebrew Bible, the “warrior god” YHWH is not in battle with other gods, but with a hostile member of YHWH’s created order: the sea. Levenson argues this point: Here the Sea does not seem to be a many-headed monster whose destruction creation necessitates, but neither is it disenchanted and inanimate … Rather, we have a sense of the Sea as a somewhat sinister force that, left to its own, would submerge the world and forestall the ordered reality we call creation.19

By implication, creation is “inherently unsafe.”20 YHWH’s power is therefore required to restrain it from harming the rest of creation. YHWH would eventually re-order and name the hostile waters. In naming the sea, “the deity responds to the creation” which points to a process of action and interaction with what God created.21 Furthermore, Fretheim adds that “in this process, naming entails knowledge of and relationship with the thing named.”22 In this sense, humans as stewards to creation must also express themselves in relationship to their fellow beings in creation. It is clear here that the ocean is a volatile force that needs to be acknowledged and respected, which informs the way one responds to it. In

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other words, the ocean is a living element in the created order that reacts to how the rest of creation acts toward it. The idea of the sea not being filled ignores the relationship between the elements of creation. Genesis 1 proclaims this notion in its creation narrative. The different bodies of creation are interconnected, highlighted by the connection between sea and land. Ironically, such a link is depicted through separation, where one element makes way for the other to appear. We could picture this in the language of Genesis 1:9, where “the creative word functions as an ordering word . . . where the dry land appears after the waters have been gathered into seas (the earth is already present in v.2).”23 Furthermore, as Westermann notes, in the organizing of the waters, we see the earth being “set free by being separated from the water.”24 The elements are not created individually; they were originally united and later separated through the power of God. The vision in Ecclesiastes of the seas not being filled seems problematic in light of the primeval understanding of the seas. Genesis 1 views the ocean as chaotic and in need of order to subdue its raging effects. It also vindicates a view of the ocean in relationship with the rest of creation, whereby the land resides deep within the ocean and only appears later through God’s ordering.25 This view of the ocean seems to create hermeneutical chaos for ancient readers of Ecclesiastes who were likely aware of the Genesis depiction of the seas. Sea of Life and Death I turn to the drama of the Exodus story unfolding at the Red Sea, to further draw out the changeable nature of the sea. The sea represents both life and death in Exodus 14, specifically, life for the Israelites and death for the Egyptians in pursuit. As Brueggemann notes, “that single core act of the defeat of the ‘horse and rider’ becomes the elemental claim from which all else in Israel’s doxological tradition derives.”26 In the next chapter, the events at the sea receive celebratory emphasis in the “Song of the Sea.”27 The Song paints a picture of the sea in association with the images of the sea in creation, particularly YHWH’s actions in controlling the waters. Brevard Childs notes: “First of all, the poem also describes a double action of the waters. With his breath Yahweh heaps up the waters (v. 8) and with his breath he covers the enemy (v. 10).”28 This image is intriguing because the waters do not run aimlessly into the sea, but they fulfill the purpose of “covering” (‫ )כסה‬the enemies. The violence of the sea as depicted in the creation narrative is revisited here, and as such, it requires YHWH to control as in Genesis 1. The way the sea is controlled by YHWH might speak to YHWH’s reign, but as YHWH has to regulate the waters (vv. 8, 10) it also highlights the

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power of the sea. The sea is a force that cannot be controlled by humankind and requires the agency of YHWH. As such, we see two forces in conflict, similar to the conflict between Baal and Yamm/Nahar in Canaanite mythology.29 And as we see in Exodus 14 and 15, YHWH is victorious. Thus, as Thomas Dozeman contends, “Exod 15:1–12, 18 is a celebration of Yahweh’s salvific power conceived as a holy war event.”30 It is not a rebuke of the Egyptians, but a regulation of the sea. Eschatological Significance in Deutero-Isaiah In Deutero-Isaiah, the salvific connotations of the sea as espoused in Exodus 15 are accentuated further. In Isaiah 43 for instance, as the prophet preaches messages of hope for the nation in exile, the introduction of the exodus theme carries importance as a “‘former thing’ to which appeal can be made,” in order to “bolster the announcement of Babylon’s defeat and Israel’s anticipated release (vv. 14–15).”31 On the other hand, the sea also means prosperity as conveyed in Isaiah 48:18. Interestingly, the description of the sea here specifies the waves. The waves of the sea are metaphorically representative of peace and righteousness (cf. Isa 66:12). The image of the river and the waves of the sea suggests that peace and righteousness are abundant and unceasing, “like the steady flow of a river and the unstoppable action of the waves of the sea.”32 Intriguingly, Gary Smith notes, “no further explanation is provided to identify the point of comparison. Was [Isaiah] thinking of . . . the breadth of the sea, or the neverending coming ashore of wave, after wave, after wave?”33 Perhaps we could wonder the same thing about Qohelet’s thinking as he penned 1:7.

THE CHANGING OCEAN-FACE OF MOANA Was Qohelet dismissive of the reality of the seas, because of the obvious dangers of ocean waters as depicted in the rest of the Hebrew Bible? The idea of the waters running to the place, does not reflect the danger associated with rising sea levels with which Pasifika people are all too familiar. A reading of Qohelet which imagines the sea as representative of futile action does not account for people who fear the oceans and have seen its life-threatening effects due to climate change. As Levinson implies, the sea is “inherently unsafe.” Ironically, even positive meanings are withheld as eschatological messages of hope, peace, and righteousness represented by the seas in Isaiah are also ignored. The various meanings of the ocean are congruous with the reality of Moana. Moana is unpredictable and cannot be controlled by any form of

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human will. Such is the power of Moana that like YHWH, she exerts divinelike authority; an aqueous force who takes life but also gives it. But due to the irresponsible lack of care and stewardship, the Moana sea levels are rising and pose danger and uncertainty to fellow beings in creation. As mentioned before, the romanticized depictions of Moana by Hollywood are dangerous but even more significant is the fact that such depictions reflect that such privileged attitudes do exist. For instance, certain world leaders have given dismissive responses to the realities of Kiribati, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands losing inches of their lands by the day. In fact, a highly ranked Australian politician was reported by The Guardian as saying: “Pacific island nations affected by the climate crisis will continue to survive ‘because many of their workers come here to pick our fruit’.”34 Such attitudes ignore the seascape of Pasifika natives who rely on Moana for its resources; who decipher its tides for the right hour to fish; who observe the wave currents in order to cross safely between (is)lands. The attitudes of Pasifika people are founded on respect and care, acknowledging that while Moana is generous with its resources, it can also turn on its people at any time, much like it did in the Tsunami in Samoa in 2009, and the numerous cyclones throughout the years across Pasifika. Perhaps Qohelet was not dismissive of the unpredictable realities of the sea. Qohelet may not be making a passing judgment about the waters and the sea but conducts an intentional analysis of the four elements of the universe in 1:4–7: earth, air, fire, and water.35 The futility of the natural processes is clear, but perhaps there is more to Qohelet’s observation, especially if we are to consider the idea of “place” (‫)מקום‬. According to Job 28:23, God is said to understand the way of the birds of the heavens and knows their place (‫—)מקום‬ which implies that divine wisdom is elusive to human cognition.36 Could this be what Qohelet implies in the ‫ מקום‬of the sea? MOANA: RECONFIGURING ‫מקום‬ The understanding that only God knows the place (‫ )מקום‬of creatures and elements of creation, have implications for the place (‫ )מקום‬of the sea in Ecclesiastes 1:7. It seems that ‫ מקום‬in wisdom reckoning is not just a designated place, but a place beyond human reckoning. In a sense, the wisdom writers are saying “[that place] over there” but the exact location of “there” is not defined. Only God knows where “there” is. The depictions of the sea elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible seem to articulate this same idea, and that is, only God can control the ocean waters because only God knows their ‫מקום‬. This could be what Qohelet is intimating: he knows the process is futile but adding to his skeptical outlook is the fact that he does not know exactly the ‫ מקום‬to

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which the streams flow. Perhaps this is Qohelet’s challenge to the reader, that in his analysis of the four elements of creation (1:4–7), we should continue to search for meaning. The natural processes continue while the “earth remains forever” (1:4) and it is up to us to search for wisdom in the Earth/Sea/Ocean to counter the notions of futility.37 For Pasifika people, their engagement with creation allows wisdom to be discovered in the sea. Within their own ‫ מקום‬they are able to retrieve the message of Moana that beyond the “futile” process, lies the reality of the Sea as the moa (center) of existence. While streams run endlessly into the ‫—מקום‬it is only one of many processes that typifies the interconnectedness of the creative order—through the center: the moa of Moana. In the search for wisdom, it might be that Qohelet is aware that the process in 1:7 may be futile but only if one’s search for wisdom ends there, and if we allow ourselves to be content with the notion that only God knows. Habel argues that “Wisdom is connected with Earth and to be found in Earth.”38 This is true of Moana. The way Pasifika people navigated Moana revealed that the Sea is connected with the stars. The way Pasifika people fish revealed that the Sea is connected with the villages. The way Pasifika people move from land to land, revealed that the Sea is a bridge between islands (local) and also to other lands (diaspora). Sadly, the way Pasifika people are losing their lands, reveals that the Sea is being hurt by the destructive effects of climate change. In their search for wisdom, Pasifika people could be heard singing in the spirit of Habel: “Wisdom is connected with Moana and to be found in Moana.” MOANA: FUTILITY IN DIASPORA? I draw further implications for re-reading Ecclesiastes 1:7, from an Australian-Samoan Diasporic perspective. As mentioned, Moana is a bridge between lands. This particular wisdom of Moana speaks to the mobility of Pasifika people that expands the Moana beyond its ‫ מקום‬into diaspora. The picture of expansion sees the growing of social networks which connect through Moana from the south in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand to the north in Hawaii and the United States and Canada. The running of the streams to the place where the river goes and keeps flowing, resonates with this movement of Pasifika bodies beyond the moa of the Moana, moving to diasporic locations only to keep flowing, moving, growing. For Qohelet, the movements of water and other elements of creation (1:4–7) have no discernible purpose or result.39 This reflects a similar attitude of those in the diaspora, who often harbor feelings of disillusionment and skepticism in a new context. Their disconnect from the home place (‫ )מקום‬leads them to question their existence in a foreign place (‫)מקום‬. However, discerning

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wisdom through Moana helps Pasifika people in diaspora to understand that Moana connects lands—homeland to foreign land, and back to homeland. For diasporic Pasifika peoples, the Sea is evidently the home/place, because they are in movement between lands, existing in between spaces.40 Qohelet’s skepticism might be a result of his limited understanding of the Sea as a connection between lands, but he inadvertently points us toward understanding our spaces (‫)מקום‬. His observation of the streams running endlessly to the place, may well be an invitation for us to seek wisdom in our own places. CONCLUSION This essay is an exercise in Pasifika hermeneutics which seeks to highlight the ecological implications of Ecclesiastes 1:7 as well as its implications for Pasifika diaspora. Indeed, it seems that Qohelet had not only been pointing to the natural processes as metaphors for futility but, through a Pasifika reading, it also seems that Qohelet is pointing us to search for meaning within the Earth, the Sea (Moana), and within our own locations. As such, we understand that the processes we observe in the natural world define the interconnectedness of its elements. Moana is the moa (center) to which the streams run endlessly, but it is also the bridge to which its people mobilize—connecting one ‫ מקום‬to another. NOTES 1. Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 395. 2. I use “sea” to refer to the smaller divisions of the ocean—where I capitalize the ‘s’, I highlight the Sea as a character in the biblical text and also as a major player in the created order; and I use “ocean” to refer to the larger mass of seawaters. For Samoans, “sea” is known as “sami.” And “Moana” is the term that many Pasifika natives call the ocean to which non-Pasifika scientists imposed the title “Pacific Ocean.” 3. Capitalizations of “Sea” are mine. 4. ‘Epeli Hau’ofa perceives the islands not as “islands in the sea” but as a “sea of islands.” See Hau’ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 32. 5. Roland E. Murphy, Ecclesiastes, WBC 23A (Dallas: Word, 1992), 8. 6. Duane A. Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, The New American Commentary 14 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1993), 285. 7. Choon-Leong Seow, Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 18C (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 109.

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8. James L. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes: A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 65. 9. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 65. 10. Mari Joerstad, The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics: Humans, Nonhumans, and the Living Landscape, trans. The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 118. See also Tremper Longman and Daniel G. Reid, God is a Warrior (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 83–86. 11. For the link to Baal and Yam, see John Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 4–7. For the connection to Marduk and Tiamat, see Hermann Gunkel, Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12, trans. K. William Whitney Jr (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006), 11–12, 75–77. 12. See Benjamin Sargent, “‘The coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope’: The Sea and Eschatology in Deutero-Isaiah,” The Expository Times 126, no. 3 (2014): 122–30. At the same time, God’s relationship with the Sea in prophetic literature might also seem to echo the Chaoskampf theme where “in Habakkuk 3:8–15, Isaiah 50:2, and Nahum 1:4, the relationship between God and the Sea remains tense and conflictual” (Joerstad, The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics: Humans, Nonhumans, and the Living Landscape, 118). 13. Peter L. Trudinger, “Friend or Foe? Earth, Sea and Chaoskampf in the Psalms” in The Earth Story in the Psalms and the Prophets, ed. Norman C. Habel. The Earth Bible 4 (Sheffield: Academic, 2001), 30. 14. Peter L. Trudinger, The Psalms of the Tamid Service: A Liturgical Text from the Second Temple (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 143. 15. Trudinger, “Friend or Foe?,” 38. 16. Trudinger, “Friend or Foe?,” 30. 17. Seow, Ecclesiastes, 108–09. 18. David M. Carr, Formation of Genesis 1–11: Biblical and Other Precursors (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 8. 19. Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988), 15. 20. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence, 17. 21. Terence E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis” in NIB 1, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 344. 22. Fretheim, “Genesis,” 344. 23. Fretheim, “Genesis,” 344. 24. Claus Westermann, Genesis 1:11—A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 121. 25. Cf. Norman Habel, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening of Earth: An Ecological Reading of Genesis 1–11, The Earth Bible Commentary 1 (Sheffield: Phoenix, 2011), 98. It is interesting to note here that Habel (compared to von Rad) does not see the primeval Sea as chaos. 26. Walter Brueggemann, “The Book of Exodus” in NIB 1, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 799. 27. The “Song of the Sea” is also referred to by some as the “Song of Moses.”

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28. Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 245. 29. Thomas B. Dozeman, “The Song of the Sea and Salvation History” in On the Way to Nineveh: Studies in Honor of George M. Landes, ed. Stephen L. Cook and Sarah C. Winter (Atlanta: Scholars, 1999), 101. 30. Dozeman, “Song of the Sea,” 100. Dozeman argues that the Song of the Sea was not originally a unified poem but consisted of a pre-exilic hymn (Exod 15:1–12,8) with a Deuteronomistic addition in verses 13–17 intended to refashion the hymn into an event of salvation history by adding details of wilderness wandering and conquering motifs. 31. Christopher R. Seitz, “The Book of Isaiah 40–66” in NIB 6, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 378. 32. Graham S. Ogden and Jan Sterk, A Handbook on Isaiah, vol. 1 & 2, United Bible Societies’ Handbooks (Reading UK: United Bible Societies, 2011), 1354. 33. Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 40–66, The New American Commentary 15B (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2009), 330. 34. Ben Smee, “Pacific islands will survive climate crisis because they ‘pick our fruit’, Australia’s deputy PM says,” The Guardian (August 16, 2019), https://www​ .theguardian​.com​/australia​-news​/2019​/aug​/16​/pacific​-islands​-will​-survive​-climate​ -crisis​-because​-they​-can​-pick​-our​-fruit​-australias​-deputy​-pm​-says. 35. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 62. 36. Cf. Mark G. Brett, Locations of God: Political Theology in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 126. 37. Norman Habel, “The Implication of God Discovering Wisdom in Earth” in Job 28: Cognition in Context, ed. Ellen Van Wolde (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 294. See also Katharine J. Dell, “Plumbing the Depths of Earth: Job 28 and Deep Ecology” in The Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions, ed. Norman C. Habel and Shirley Wurst (Sheffield: Academic, 2001), 124. 38. Habel, “The Implication of God Discovering Wisdom in Earth,” 294. 39. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 62. 40. Cf. Hau’ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works, 32.

Chapter 16

Calling for CONversion Jione Havea

Texts are not confined to the material world. Many texts are not visible, or touchable; some lurk in the realms of the unconsciousness where they inspire, distract, haunt. Some texts are vocal—uttered and heard in the realms of consciousness—and are storied in the folds of memory, but they are not “made flesh” with any property. The invisible and nonmaterial texts are among oral texts, and in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Pasifika (Pacific, Oceania)—orality is tightly linked to oratory (instead of textuality1). Sacred texts are not confined to the written or scripted. Many written texts are not considered sacred (that is, as scripture), which involves the sublime political processes of canonization. Among the texts that failed the canonization standards are the apocryphal books, in Christian circles, and many Vedas and Mishnah tracks. Moreover, there are written texts that have been declared to be anti-sacred (including controversial religious texts such as Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Nikos Kazantzakis’s The Last Temptation of Christ). In these regards, textuality is not a proviso for scripturality. At another level, many scriptural texts (re)present oral events (e.g., texts that narrate revelation events) and the scripturality of those written texts are owed to the workings of orality. Such texts are scriptural not because they have been written, but because they were oral and oratorized. Following on these aspects, many oral texts are sacred independent of the workings of textuality. INVITATION This essay interweaves the gifts of orality with oratory, by engaging poetic reflections by two natives of Pasifika—Tau‘alofa Anga‘aelangi (“Ko e Fonua 217

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mo e Moana”—the Land and the Moana/sea, 2019) and Mariana Waqa (“Paradise,” 2019). Because of who they are (young, women) and their location (in the diaspora), this reflection invites stepping through several thresholds, with two twists: First, honoring the preference of Moana people2 for orality and oral texts, this essay invites the scripturalizing of native, poetic texts. Since poems (so lyrics and proverbs) are more affective and more effective when they are spoken and heard, in comparison to them being written and read, my invitation interweaves orality with oratory. Sacred texts are not limited to the written (scripted, scriptures), and oral texts need to be oratorized (heard). Therefore the verses of the two poetic texts are offered herein with the permission of the poets, whose voices may be heard first, in the readings stored on YouTube— Anga‘aelangi: https://youtu​.be​/X2yvIvj2LwE; and Waqa: https://youtu​.be​/ vGn0QJDrsc4. Second, honoring the dispersion of Moana people—since the days of our voyaging ancestors—across the diaspora, i reflect on poems by two young women migrants and thus de-romanticize the expectation that old men living in the home(is)lands, with traditional pre-contact views, represent the views and matters of natives. Sacred texts and scripturalization are not artifacts from the long past. On the other hand, young, diasporic, women too can represent the natives and create native sacred texts in Aotearoa and Pasifika. Caveat: The poetic texts by Anga‘aelangi and Waqa speak for themselves, and my comments unpack some of the native terms and thoughts in order to encourage and facilitate readers to hear the words (maybe differently) as well as the voices of the poets. My comments do not finalize what the poems say or do, and i humbly encourage readers to let the oratorizing spirit of orality take flight. For this purpose, i also include the written words of the verses below because it also helps to “see” the words that one hears. But in my humble opinion, the words should be heard first (via the YouTube links provided above) before they are seen and read. Fonua mo e Moana The tone of Anga’aelangi’s voice is prayerful, and she closes with “Amen.” This is a prayer, but to whom is the prayer offered is not obvious. In general, the prayer is confessional. And overall, Anga‘aelangi apologizes because she has inherited the “sins of anthropocentrism” and not nurtured (tauhi) her relationship (vā) with Fonua (land, mother, guardian) and Moana (sea, teacher). There is no separation or barrier between Fonua and Moana, and Anga‘aelangi prays that fellow humans would tauhi (keep, nurture, respect) their relational responsibilities with the alliance of Fonua and Moana—who

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exist in relation with each other, and together extend hospitality toward all living creatures. You knew me,3 before You formed me in my mother’s Fonua Through the pito, You, nurtured and nourished me, with all that sprouted from the fonua, But it was i, i who did not realise. . . . You are my mother, You are the Fonua, You are the Giver of life, But it was i, i who did not realise . . .

This prayer may be heard as addressing a god(s), as one prays in religious circles. But it may also be heard as a prayer to “Fonua” (as capitalized in the first verse) and this is the option that i favor in the following comments. Fonua is the name for two bodies: the land, and the womb (which nourishes and nurtures unborn lives through the umbilical cord: pito); the intersection of—that is, the threshold between—these two bodies is the Fonua to which the prayer is offered. As the name for the land, Fonua is a metaphor for location and home; and as the name for the womb, Fonua is a metaphor for sustenance and mothering. Fonua is a threshold between dirt (in the land) and blood (in the womb), and this first verse of the prayer celebrates the revelation that dirty and bloody Fonua (land, womb) is giver of life. That revelation draws Anga‘aelangi to a confession (uttered twice in this verse): she did not realize that Fonua was her creator. By hovering over two registers—land, womb—and by conjuring up the nourishment for an unborn baby, Fonua is both intersectional and fluid. The topsy-turvy state of fluidity, a key characteristic of orality, invites hearing this prayer as flexible; in the currents of orality, the term “flexible” invites also hearing flax-able (the stuff of weavings). Whereas textuality seeks to fix and pin down, and leave out, the interweave of orality with oratory flexes strands, registers, and references. In this connection, the confession at the end of this first verse may be heard as admission that Fonua is also flex/flax—the stuff of and at thresholds. Thousands of years ago, You led my ancestors to set sail across the world into the deep blue seas of Moana, You paddled with them through the fluidity and its powerful forces And it was there—they first encountered You, through the Moana, the Ocean. I took a sip of my disposable coffee cup and tossed it into the ocean, She spits it right out and says: Do you not remember? It was I who taught your ancestors, how to read the stars,

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feel the warmth and coolness of the Moana for directions. I am the Moana, I am your mother, I am sacred, My waves are embracing they ripple to bring you all together, As the Fonua and I the Moana are co-creators4 you are my family, Your tears fell into the saltiness of the Moana, It lamented together with the communities known to others as the canaries of climate change, But it was i, i who did not realise . . .

I hear the “You” addressed in the second verse as plural: they are Fonua, continuing from the first verse, and in the course of the second verse they are also Moana (sea). They are plural not because they are two bodies, but because they are wide, connected, and one. Fonua extends into Moana. Thousands of years ago, Fonua inspired Anga‘aelangi’s ancestors to navigate and even paddled with them to Moana, who taught the ancestors the ways of and around the sea, the land, and the skies. Fonua and Moana are not separate, but sacred—co-mothers and co-creators—despite the rubbish that humans throw into them. Together as one, Fonua and Moana brought “you all together” as family. And as family, and this is the revelation of the second verse, humans are polluters and “canaries of climate change.” Fonua and Moana knew, but we— together with Anga‘aelangi—it was we “who did not realise.” You graced our islands and people with the gift of hospitality, The grace and bonding between humanity and nature. That very bonding is a relationship we now call tauhi vā. The space you and i symbolised as a connection that is tabu and it is to be reciprocated. I look to the narrow interpretations of the Holy book, it said, humanity is superior to nature, trees, water and animals, shall serve you human creatures. The Moana, Fonua, animals, water and all of creation groan her pain. From the sins of anthropocentrism, Kuo angatu’u mo tauanga’a ‘a e Fonua he angahala ‘a e fanautama ‘o tangata.5 They all lamented together with their Creator. She said, they said: Do you not remember the bonding I made with your ancestors in the fonua and the moana . . . I formed you, nurtured you, protected you, taught you how to read, I graced you with hospitality, created a relationship between you and all creation… It was i, i who did not realise . . .

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Tauhi vā—keep, mend, nurture empowering relations—is the drive of the third verse. Tauhi vā is the reason why Fonua and Moana extend hospitality and engender relations that are reciprocating. With respect to the ecological concerns of the previous verses, tauhi vā can help reaffirm the tabu (alt. tapu; taboo)—limits, prohibitions, sacredness—of creation and put a check on the generating of climate change. And with respect to the direction of my reflection, relationality, and reciprocity are two flaxes in the weaving of orality with oratory. Tauhi vā is a native alternative to the anthropocentric, supremacist cultures of the Holy book. The Holy book teaches behaviors that lead to sin, to which Fonua responds appropriately: Kuo angatu’u mo tauanga’a ‘a e Fonua he angahala ‘a e fanautama ‘o tangata—Fonua rebels and mourns the sins of the sons of men. In the shadows of the second verse, the Holy Bible is part of the problem; alternatively, the native practice of tauhi vā is part of the solution. Fonua and Moana know how tauhi vā works—they remember, and they have done so—for thousands of years. Hospitality. Climate change is evidence that humans, including Anga‘aelangi, do not (know how to) tauhi vā. And even more sadly, humans do not realize that we have sinned . . . under the direction of the Holy book. Your change of heart for me, is not the change of heart i think about, As if you’re a God whose wrath needs to be turned into love and compassion. But rather love, compassion, patience, forgiveness, and graciousness is already within you, for you alone are the source of all these things. You bring us into a vā of wholeness and restoration. And, so as i go from here today, i now realise that i will embrace the land-fonua, ocean-moana, my relationship—the tauhi vā6 all that you’ve created as a part of me and i am a part of them. Amen.

Fonua and Moana had a change of heart, but that was not what Anga‘aelangi expected. She was not looking for “a God whose wrath needs to be turned into love and compassion.” All the expected godly qualities—love, compassion, patience, forgiveness, graciousness—are within Fonua and Moana, who “bring us into a vā of wholeness and restoration.” The final revelation of the prayer is binding: Anga‘aelangi realizes that in embracing and performing tauhi vā with Fonua and Moana, the creation becomes part of her and she becomes a part of them. To that she says, “Amen.” Paradise The tone of Waqa’s voice is defiant. She slams the leaders of her home(is)land community, the Fiji Islands, for (in the spirit of Anga‘aelangi’s confessions)

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not realizing how bad the situations are in Paradise. Fiji is disintegrating, and the same observation applies to other idealized islands in Pasifika, but people are choked up, stunned into silence. Why? Because Fijians think that their island home is Paradise. Choking sensation of the disintegration of society. Like a backhand to the face we are stunned into silence; ignorance or apathy being the coping mechanism of many. Masked smiles of the Bula spirit. Put on a happy face you simpletons, be grateful for what has been done for you. Wave the flags, be distracted by the convoluted parade of distractions and smoke screens ushered in by a pedigree of leaders who don’t give two fucks about you. Meet the new line of colonisers, they’d sell their mothers to save their own interests.

“Bula” (pronounced: mboo-lah) is the Fijian term used for greeting and welcoming others. The term translates as “life” and so, at a deeper level, the “bula” greeting acknowledges, and at the same time wishes for, bula/life in(to) the person(s) who are being welcomed. Uttering “bula” is therefore a blessing. Waqa’s defiance is against the use of the “Bula spirit” to mask locals so that they do not realize that the people (visitors, leaders) whom they welcome/bless are duping them. This is especially clear with respect to the leaders of Fiji. In this modern time, the colonizers of Fiji are iTaukei—native, indigenous, local people. The colonizers are not foreigners who have come from afar, but from within—and they too “don’t give two fucks” about local people, and local interests; they too would “sell their mothers to save their own interests.” Speaking of interest, how much does Fiji really owe? No not to China, but how in-debt are we to the next generation? Birthed into a Fiji, where dead reefs spit out skeletons of their former selves. A Fiji drowning in its own filth—have you walked by the Seawall lately? Low-tides revealing a graveyard of sins for our descendants to drown under. A paradise narrative of all things good and sanitised. But are your children reading? Your graduates employed? Are workers compensated fairly here? Or are they merely fodder for foreign multinationals to exploit?

The local leaders / colonizers silence dissidents and demand loyalty from the local normal people. And like faithful Christian worshippers, the local normal people comply, silently; the local normal people don’t question their leaders because they imagine Fiji as Paradise, and they dare not give the impression that Fiji is not. In Pasifika, the myths of Paradise are rooted in the Holy book, sustained by Christian institutions, and harvested by the tourism industry. Paradise—as

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symbol, metaphor, depiction, representation for the Fiji Islands—brings big bucks to Fiji. Paradise—through the commodification of things native for the interests of bula-seeking leaders—has also brought devastating bugs to Fiji. Vanua (Fijian for Fonua) and Moana are sickened by the bugs of Paradise, and the local normal people are “merely fodder for foreign multinationals to exploit”—thanks to the modern, local leaders / colonizers of Fiji. Fiji—hub of the Pacific. Center. A cataclysm of modern aspirations, a keeping up with the rest of the world. Paradise, where royals and dignitaries are paraded to the awe of the people. Subtle whispers to the Collective conscience that ours is a place of subjugation. Always looking beyond ourselves for inspiration. As if we have not come from bloodlines that cracked open the break of dawn. Spilled sunlight onto the course of this earth, and tempered the seas to their liking. Forget the talk of warriors, have you ever seen the ocean kneel? Soften its waves at a command? Moses might have parted the Red Sea, but our ancestors swallowed the oceans whole. Saltwater gushing through my veins, we are living memories of time forgotten. Shut up you fool. Your nonsense talk of mythical feats have no place in this new Fiji. Silence the dissidents and stab your neighbour in the back. Loyalty? Fuck loyalty. Look at those who came before us, they wrote the handbook for disloyalty. Filling up their deep pockets, manipulating the Mana to do their corrupt bidding—there’s no remorse, only the re-grab for power. You wanna talk justice? It’s a dish best served without hypocrisy. Stir up fear, demonise your enemies, and have the looming threat of violence sprinkled​.into​.every​.single​.​word.

In the silence and silencing of the local normal people, the leaders / colonizers fill their deep pockets and “manipulate the Mana to do their corrupt bidding.” Mana (energy, power, authority) is the lifeline for bula/life. To have mana is to have life; to manipulate mana is to manipulate life. In manipulating mana, the local leaders / colonizers appear to have mastered the tools of the former, European masters. And the local leaders / colonizers succeeded without violence because the local normal people have swallowed whole the myths of Paradise. The hypocritical leaders of modern Fiji also manipulate the narratives of the former, foreign masters (e.g., Moses and the Red Sea), but have forgotten the mana of Moana and the mana of the ancestors. The hope for modern Fiji is obviously not in the local leaders, for they are no different from those who came before (and “wrote the handbook on disloyalty”). The hope for Fiji stands on the local people in whose veins saltwater still gushes, and who are “living memories of time forgotten.” There may be no hope for the leaders, but there is hope for the Vanua of Fiji. The hope of the people is lassoed by false promises, they don’t see it’s all a fucking game. One where candied hope for a better life is sweetened by words of the

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oppressors . . . oppressors who look like you and me, talk like you and me, but don’t give two fucks about you and me . . . unless you’re a puppet. Pinocchio. The puppet who became a boy. Only in this case the boy became the puppet. His nose grew and grew, his heart became hard as wood, and the strings pulled by his masters, now deadlock across the nation. Tightening its grip, censoring those who dissent, middle fingers up to the notion of freedom. It was all a dream, so Fuck your free speech, we’re the mouthpieces now. Come tomorrow you better be singing with those Bula smiles. Strum those strings and wave those flags high. Put on a show for everyone to see, worry nai this is the way the world should be.

Like Pinocchio, the local colonizers / leaders are “the boy[s who] became the puppet[s].” Their noses “grew and grew,” and their hearts become “hard as wood.” They wiggle to the pulls of their masters, “censoring those who dissent, [with] middle fingers up to the notion of freedom.” In modern Fiji: local leaders occupy the proverbial master’s house, and they are ruthless and deceitful. As Waqa’s forbearers let the former master deceive them, through the power of the myths of Paradise, so have the people of modern Fiji bowed to local colonizers—“singing with those Bula smiles” and “put[ting] on a show for everyone to see.” Waqa’s challenge is sharp: Paradise is “nonsense talk of mythical feats” that have no place in Fiji. What she desires is real justice, which is “a dish best served without hypocrisy.” Caveat Anga‘aelangi and Waqa engage two of the subjects that preoccupy traditionalist natives—home (Anga‘aelangi) and culture (Waqa)—from diasporic positionalities. My comments on their verses, which are suggestive rather than conclusive, are controversial at the very least for recognizing them as representing native wisdom even though they and their verses have not met the test of time nor the processes of canonization. MEKE Meke is the name for a traditional Fijian group dance, performed during festivals and cultural events (in the old days, that is; nowadays, they are also performed for guests and tourists). There is energy in the singing and movements of the Meke that, when the performers are carried in the spirit and energy of the rituals, the Vanua / Fonua dances in and through the event: Something happens in the life of the dancer when dancing that can only be described as a transformation . . . all meke or dances, song and chants, are

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integral parts of the Vanua. They are iyau ni Vanua (Property of the land). Through these meke, a Vanua exhibits itself; what it constitutes and what it stands for.7

In the event of the Meke, the dancers embody and become extensions—feet, hands, hips, eyes, voices—of the Vanua. Through their beats and movements, the Vanua dances. This “transformation” is a platform and a portal, a threshold, for Tuwere to invite an alternative doxological move (see his essay). I take advantage of Tuwere’s lead to invite a turn into affirming native scriptures and doing native theologies, in the context of the invitations extended in the section above. The native turn that i take involves two steps: first, i name some of the theological barriers that prevented the native turn from taking place in the past and second, i encourage stepping through into Meke.8 Barriers Several barriers discourage engagement with native wisdom and local theological gifts. To invite further talanoa (story, telling, conversation) concerning these barriers—which stand upon ecclesial, academic, and cultural groundings—i name five of those: First, pākehā / pālangi superiority. The dominant modes of theological education in Aotearoa and Pasifika are more Western than local. One could pass a thesis from one of the theological schools in Suva or Upolu, Auckland or Otago, without showing any signs of those contexts, or of Pasifika in general, in their theological arguments. And one could pass without even consulting works by authors from, and/or published in, one’s home(is)land. There is a preference for Western resources written by white academics over against local wisdom, and along with this is the preference for the written over against the spoken and oral. I do not lay all the blame on the students. Many lecturers prefer pālagi over against local wisdom—i expect this tendency from pākehā lecturers, and it is very painful when i find the same among native lecturers also. As long as native Māori and Pasifika lecturers do not honor local wisdom, the theologies that we do remain bonded to what Bob Marley calls “mental slavery”—to the myths of European/white superiority. And hence, to the pain of Audre Lorde and their collaborators, the master’s house remains erect. Second, nativism. This barrier comes from the other direction: it refers to when the so-called indigenous reference points are so fundamental and aggressively protected that they are non-negotiable. There are many examples of this among my own Tongan colleagues—tipping the contextual balance toward what used to be called “indigenization.” Culture is taken as gospel and there is no critical analysis of the nativist ways and values of our

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ancestors. I have observed this tendency in the works of native students also who, when they receive permission, overuse and over-consume “native capitals.” For instance, the same student passed his MTh thesis according to the first barrier (no evidence of local context) above and his PhD according to this second barrier (full-fledged nativist). The shift is dramatic, and time will tell if the shift is purely academic or organic. Third, exoticism. This refers to when theologians and biblical scholars— native and non-native9—exoticize the local and the native to the extent that those become sanitized. One of my early English theological publications is an example of being stuck in the mucky grounds of exoticization.10 I argued for survival as a mark of Pasifika realities that can have a creative and healthy impact on the developing of Pasifika theologies: theologies of survival was my Pasifika alternative to theologies of liberation rising out of Latin America, Asia, and Africa in the 1980s when i was a seminary student. I exoticized in the sense that i did not take into account how difficult survival is for many natives, and my proposal is being tested every day with the rising temperatures of climate change and the exodus of refugees. Survival is not easy, or always possible. The challenge here is for native thinkers to be self-critical, and to be forthright in our assessment of the implications of our theological constructions. Fourth, cultural appropriation. This is where theologians and biblical scholars hijack the voices, talanoa, and memorialization(s) of others. I am guilty of several instances of cultural appropriation; for example, i hijacked the talanoa behind the All Blacks’ “Ka mate, ka ora” haka without seeking permission.11 I am thus guilty of both exoticizing as well as cultural appropriation. My point here is not to hide behind the mask of false humility nor to beg for pardon, but to illustrate the fourth barrier around which local theologians and biblical critics in Aotearoa and Pasifika operate. The irony is that when a minority culture is hijacked, we call it cultural appropriation; but when a dominant culture (like Christianity or Scripture) is appropriated, we call it contextualization. Go figure! Fifth, who. This barrier relates to the subjects involved in the construction of theology. In Pasifika, “who” matters. Subjectivity is thick, always. Complete objectivity is an illusion, in the halls and corridors of theology as well. There are theological precedents for why “who” matters. For instance: i learned from my systematic theology professors at seminary that our theological interlocutor—our conversation partner—is important. There is no theology without conversation (talanoa) and exchange. The critical issue then is the kind of interlocutor(s) that we respect and engage, and that will show which of the four barriers above we are prepared to defend, cross, or level. In systematic theology, the preferred interlocutors are the “traditional academics”; I on the other hand prefer “organic intellectuals” as my theological interlocutors.12

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Organic intellectuals draw one to the underside of history13 and to the margins of modernity,14 to find emancipation for and from below. The underside and margins are the places of the poor and the organic intellectuals, who also matter. Moreover, as i have learned from feminist and postcolonial theologians, no interlocutor is innocent. One should therefore exercise the hermeneutics of suspicion with theologies and readings that come from the centers of power, but this should not mean that one casts patronizing/exoticizing eyes toward the poor and organic—they too deserve critical engagement. Māori and Pasifika cultures are extremely relational,15 and so who constructs theology matters in the business of theology. In other words, both what one says and who says what matter in the ears and eyes of Māori and Pasifika interlocutors. To close this section, i call attention to three challenges in the foregoing musings for reading scriptures and doing theology in Aotearoa and Pasifika, and beyond: first, the procedures for hermeneutical and theological construction as well as the body of they who do them matter; second, providers of biblical and theological education in Aotearoa and Pasifika need to engage local and native wisdoms and bodies. We have been journeying through states of confusion and identity crises and we are, so to speak, at the verge of being moved into Meke. At this verge, the third challenge becomes easy: to realize that the barriers presented above are thresholds also. Conversion Transformation (as in Tuwere’s explanation) will not be effective without a change of heart (as in Anga‘aelangi’s experience), without a conversion, and a dose of defiant talkback (as in Waqa’s slamming verses). In the various decolonial movements across Aotearoa and Pasifika, there has been attention to land, resources, languages, and the need to decolonize our minds. There is ambiguity, however, whether “minds” refers to intellect and intelligence as well as to the heart. For many natives, these faculties are not separable—to decolonize the mind is to also decolonize the heart and faith. To decolonize the mind requires conversion. Along the same lines, to decolonize Aotearoa and Pasifika requires conversion. This reflection has been, so to speak, a call for hermeneutical and theological conversion. There are five “key colonial sins” from which i invite conversion through this essay, and i summarize them here “at the verge” of this work: First, conversion is needed from the cultures that inspire and justify the demonizing and rejection of natives, rife during the missionary era and preserved in Christ-over-culture circles. Natives have wisdom and theologies to teach non-natives, along with many natives who have been missionized

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according to Western civilizations. This is not to say that all native wisdoms and all native civilizations are productive and beneficial, but rather to say that the barriers identified above need to be opened up and, equally important, crossed.16 Second, conversion is needed from the mindsets that uncritically favor the scripted and pākehā modes of reading and doing theology. Natives have scriptures, and ways of understanding and unpacking scriptures, that are oral and oratory. Unset. Fluid. Unsettle. Relational. Unsettling. Drifting. Inviting. Third, conversion is needed from the expectation that natives are old, traditional, island-based, and male. The ancestors navigated Oceania since the days of old, and modern natives continue to migrate across and beyond the paths of the ancestors. For many of the Pasifika islands, there are more natives outside than at the home(is)land. Fourth, conversion is needed from the traditional topics and themes for theological reflection. Christology, trinity, pneumatology, and the like, are like thieves in the night—lurking to hijack some unsuspecting local, native principle or teaching. There are other topics for hermeneutical and theological Meke in Aotearoa and Pasifika: Fonua. Moana. Leadership. Bula. Defiance. And so forth. Fifth, conversion is needed from the collaborating sins of apartheidism (acting as superior to others) and ghettoism (not mixing or sharing with others). Put directly, this call to conversion is for knocking down the doors that apartheidism and ghettoism have nailed shut, and for stepping through. My engagement with the verses by Anga‘aelangi and Waqa goes to show that it is not only possible to step through those openings, but doing so is freeing. Many conversion experiences are temporary. They rush in, then die down. For the roots of conversion to hold and grow, nourish and nurture, transformation is needed. Put another way: if conversion is the chicken then transformation is the egg. And with respect to the tasks of theological education, the context for this work, hermeneutical and theological Meke need to take place. Vakarau!17 NOTES 1. I call attention to the relation and distinction between orality, oratory, and textuality, in order to problematize the privileging of materiality and textuality, and the assumption that one can appropriately conceive orality through written texts. In the matter of orality, there are limits to the capacities of textuality. 2. “Moana people” refers to the natives of Aotearoa and Pasifika. 3. Anga‘aelangi’s note: I am a first-generation Tongan-Australian with ecological imagery. This poem reflects on one’s limitation in understanding God. There is unawareness and not seeing the attributes of God in our lives. This poem started as a

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response to Hosea 11:1–11, which presents indirect speeches of God’s voice. Hosea presents God reflecting on his relationship with Israel as a father and his son; however, it is a vulnerable side of God, a piece that permits us to listen into God’s own interiority. God turns inward in a moment of acute critical reflection. This poem is my critical reflection on my relationship with creation. 4. Anga‘aelangi’s note: this echoes Jione’s reading of the waters and the land being co‑creators with God in Gen 1:26. 5. Fonua rebels and clothes in mourning outwear, for the sins of the sons of men. 6. Tauhi vā in this context means having a reciprocal relationship. 7. Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere, “Sa Meke Tiko na Vanua [The Land is Dancing]: A doxological approach” in Talanoa Ripples: Across Borders, Cultures, Disciplines . . ., ed. Jione Havea (Auckland: Massey University, 2010), 121. 8. I thus step into the shadows of Te Aroha Rountree, “Jesus Does a Haka Boogie: Tangata Whenua Theology” (47–62) and Maina Talia, “Kauafua fatele for Christ’ Sake: A Theological Dance for the Changing Climate” (63–75) in Doing Theology from the Pacific, ed. Jione Havea (New York: Palgrave, 2021). 9. While nativism is the transgression of natives, exoticism is a temptation for non-natives also. 10. Jione Havea, “A reconsideration of pacificness in search of south pacific theology,” The Pacific Journal of Theology Ser. II, no. 10 (1993): 5–16. 11. Jione Havea, “Numbers” in Global Bible Commentary, ed. Daniel Patte, 43–51 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004). 12. See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Books (New York: International, 1971) and Gerald O. West, Academy of the Poor: Towards a Dialogical Reading of the Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999). 13. Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983), 169–221. 14. See R. S. Sugirtharajah, Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991). 15. See Upolu Vaai and Aisake Casimira (eds.), Relational Hermeneutics: Decolonising the Mindset and the Pacific Itulagi (Suva: University of the South Pacific and Pacific Theological College, 2017). 16. The canonization processes—deciding which native matters qualify and are acceptable—are for later. 17. As a group prepares to perform a meke, one of the leaders would shout, “Vakarau!” It is a signal to the group that they are about to begin the meke. The group then reply in unison, “Meke!” Then the event begins to happen.

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Index

abuse, xii, 5, 6, 71, 73, 75, 79, 85–99, 198 ancestor(s), xi, 8, 10, 40, 49, 61, 62, 165, 166, 168, 181, 184, 185, 190, 192, 196, 199, 218–20, 223, 226, 228. See also tupuna anthropocentric(ism), xi, 218, 220, 221 anus, 88 apartheidism, 228 archive(s), 40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 53 atua, ix, 5, 8, 57, 60, 61, 68, 143, 170, 177, 190–92 authority, xii, 16, 17, 19, 49, 61, 75, 79, 110, 112, 120, 124, 150, 155, 159, 163, 188, 189, 191, 196, 201, 208, 211, 223 barbarism, 166 belonging, 26, 29, 31, 33, 36, 37, 54, 138, 140, 142, 181, 193, 196; belonging together, 31, 35 bicultural(ism), 3, 8, 9, 15, 48, 78, 140, 147–59, 183, 189, 194, 200–202 bigotry, 22 blended learning, 126–27 blood, 36, 67, 163, 219 blue-eyed honky, 169 capitalism, 20, 165, 173 careerism, 113, 115

ceremony, 191 chaos, 208, 209 cisheteropatriarchal, 71, 73, 76 climate change, 9, 20, 57, 151, 206, 210, 212, 220, 221, 226; climate justice, 20 colonization, 8, 72, 79, 140, 147, 158, 159, 161, 162, 166, 168–70, 173, 174, 194, 200, 201; colonialism, 163, 167, 173, 174, 195; coloniality, 174; colonizer(s), 1, 140, 141, 161–63, 166, 171, 222–24 communion, 5, 57, 58, 64, 65, 67 competition, 25, 66, 67, 154 conflict(s), 33, 34, 40, 45, 67, 91, 97, 167, 192, 210 consensus, 150–55, 157–59 consumer(s/ism), 66, 67, 129, 130, 165 conversion, 17, 33, 63–66, 165, 201, 227–28 covenant(s), 158, 182 creator(s), xi, 139, 171, 193, 207, 219, 220 cyberculture, 119 dance, 224 death, 21, 22, 63, 65, 93, 177, 191, 193, 207, 209 decolonization, 20 deep learning, 121 249

250

Index

delusional, 16, 17, 21 democracy, 8, 111, 147–59 diaspora, 10, 205, 206, 212, 213, 218; diasporic, 10, 212, 213, 218, 224 digital storytelling, 124, 127–31 digital technology, 6, 119, 120, 123–25, 128, 129, 131 dirt, 1, 219 discernment, 113, 114 dissemination, 15 diversity, 33, 45, 53, 78, 125, 149, 180, 189 dream(s), 15, 20, 39, 114, 115, 153, 197, 224 ecology, xii, 5, 57, 61, 62 economy, 5, 57, 60–62, 66, 166 ecumenism, 5, 57–67 enlightenment, 197, 199, 201, 202 environmental racism, ix, xv envision(s), 15, 20, 22, 207 epistemology, 110 eucharistic, 43 fallibility, 109 family. See whānau famine, 31 festivals, 28, 224 flexible, 16, 66, 126, 219 flowerpot, 142 fonua, 217–21, 223, 224, 228. See also vanua; whenua futility, 9, 205–13 gender(ed) violence, 72, 76–79 genital penetration, 90 Gentile(s), 26, 31, 32, 35, 36 ghettoism, 228 gift exchange, 39–54 gospels, 60, 65, 179, 182 graveyard, 222 guardian(s), xii, 16, 47, 177, 178, 190, 218 haka, 41, 53, 226 hapū, 47, 49, 51, 138, 148, 151, 159 haukāinga, 9 haunt, 217

Hawaiki, 137, 138, 187 heathen(s), 165–67 heaven(ism), 17, 19, 26, 211 heritage, 2, 15, 186 hermeneutic(s), 40–42, 46, 53, 123, 127, 128, 213, 227 hills, x holy internet, 4, 27, 33–35 home(s), xii, 1, 10, 19, 28, 47, 49, 58, 60, 137, 154, 184, 197–99, 201, 205, 212, 218, 219, 221, 222, 224, 225, 228; home(is)land(s), 10, 218, 221, 225, 228; homeland, 19, 181, 213 homophobia, 71 horizon(s), 9, 44, 50, 110, 191 household, xii, 61 hypocrisy, 223, 224 ideology/ideologies, 5, 43, 73, 75, 76, 79, 142, 149, 151, 164, 165, 167, 174 illiteracy, 17 imagination(s), 57, 63, 67, 68, 111, 112, 123, 129, 197 imperialism, 20 indigenous people. See native(s); tangata whenua infantilize, 109 information literacy, 124–27 injustice(s), ix, 11, 20, 22, 42, 80, 115, 148, 153, 158, 161, 167, 177 insects, x intersection(s), 1, 2, 219 isolation, 3, 25, 195 iwi, xii, 41–43, 45, 47–51, 138, 148, 149, 151, 159 justice, xii, 3, 16, 20, 22, 61, 62, 67, 73, 86, 111, 155, 158, 159, 163, 168, 183, 186, 200, 223, 224 kaupapa, ix, x, 47, 140, 174 kitchen, 5, 58–59 land, See fonua; vanua; whenua letter(s), 4, 28–32, 36, 40, 171 liminal(ity), 4, 5, 9, 42, 190–96, 198

Index

link(s), 7, 21, 29, 30, 60, 85, 109, 123, 130, 138–40, 185, 209, 218 linking, 30 literacy, 17, 77, 124–27 mana, x, xi, 61, 148, 149, 151, 153, 155, 157–59, 196, 223. See also sacred(ness); tapu manaakitanga, 42 manuhiri, 9, 191 marae, xii, 41, 42, 167, 173, 192 margin(s), 3, 15–22, 115, 127, 173, 227; marginality, 15, 16; marginalization/ marginalize(d), 5, 19, 75, 79, 115, 141, 152, 171, 200 massage(d), 89, 90 media, 3, 6, 97, 119, 123–25, 128–30, 167, 206 memory/memories, 90, 95, 183–85, 217, 223 midwives, 109, 198 misogyny/misogynistic, 5, 71, 73, 75, 79 moana, ix, xv, 7, 9, 10, 142, 178, 205– 13, 218–21, 223, 228. See also sea mokopuna, 184, 186 mother(ing), 8, 89, 90, 141, 162, 168, 178, 190, 218–20, 222 mountain(s), x, xi, xii, 143 myth(s), 74, 75, 139, 167, 178, 181, 186, 190, 222–25 nation, 5, 57, 66, 71, 138, 210, 224 nationalism/nationalists, 167, 173 native(s), 1–3, 7, 8, 10, 125, 161, 162, 165, 166, 168, 171, 172, 211, 217, 218, 221–28. See also tangata whenua nerve, 5, 57, 59, 67, 115 networking(s), 4, 25–27, 30, 32–34, 36, 37, 119 nuclear, 4, 61 nudity, 87, 93–95 oikos, xii, 60, 61; oikoumenē, 5, 57, 58, 60, 61, 67 oppression, xii, 140, 161, 171, 172, 195

251

orality, 10, 217–19, 221 oral tradition(s), 137–39, 177, 180, 186 oratory, 10, 192, 217–19, 221, 228 ordination, 4, 58, 59 otherworldly, 18, 80 Papatūānuku, 8, 162, 185, 190, 192, 193 partnership, 8, 48, 141, 147, 149, 153, 155, 156, 158, 159 pedagogy/pedagogies, 3, 6, 7, 43, 54, 109–12, 119–31, 154, 179 perseverance, 174, 196 placenta, 199 pluralistic, 3, 15 poem(s), 10, 209, 218 poetry, 75 poverty, 16, 32, 57, 72, 167, 171, 172, 195 practice and reflection, 6, 107 praxis, 76, 80, 110, 122, 158 puppet(s), 21, 224 rangatira, 49, 143, 144, 164; rangatiratanga, xii, xiii, 149, 153, 155, 157–59 rape, 5, 21, 71–81 regressive, 111 relationship(s), x, xi, 4, 5, 7, 18, 25, 28, 39, 40, 42, 47, 52, 53, 57, 60, 61, 64, 66–68, 73, 109, 110, 126, 129, 140– 42, 148, 152–54, 156–58, 173, 177, 180, 182, 183, 185, 189–93, 195–98, 200–202, 208, 209, 218, 220, 221 remembering, 178, 179, 183, 185, 201 repressive, 111 restoration, xii, 29, 221 retelling, 178, 179 retracing, 179, 184, 185 river(s), x, xi, 42, 181, 205–7, 210, 212 sacred(ness), x, xi, xii, xiii, 5, 17, 61, 79, 80, 159, 189–91, 194, 201, 217, 220, 221. See also mana; tapu sacred text(s), 10, 75, 78, 80, 163, 217, 218 safe space(s), 74, 77, 78, 112

252

Index

same-sex marriage, 71 savage(s)/savagery, 162, 165–67, 172 scripture(s), 8, 10, 16, 34, 43, 46, 60, 63, 141, 147, 192, 217, 218, 225–28 sea, x, xii, 9–11, 17, 20, 27, 43, 143, 190–93, 205–13, 218–21, 223. See also moana secularism, 4 settler(s), 4, 52, 148, 167 sex slavery, 75, 76 sexual abuse(s), 6, 71, 85–99 sexual violence, 72, 74, 78, 87, 93–95, 97 signature pedagogy/pedagogies, 6, 7, 119–27, 129, 131 silence(s), xii, 21, 87, 92, 95, 110, 192, 222, 223; silenced, x, 73, 86, 108, 198 skeletons, 222 slavery, 22, 225; slaves, 20, 28, 66 sovereignty, xii, xiii, 144, 150, 152 stranger(s), 32, 43, 54, 75, 201 stripping(s), 6, 8, 87, 93–98, 162 struggle(s), 9, 49, 86, 109, 115, 140, 141, 151, 154, 158, 172, 173, 186, 190, 194, 199, 201 subjugation, 5, 75, 167, 223 supernatural, 8, 180 talanoa, ix, 2–3, 6, 7, 20, 225, 226 tampon, 89 tangata whenua, 8, 39, 46, 147, 149, 159, 161–63, 166, 169–71, 173, 178, 179, 181–83, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192, 197. See also native(s); whenua tapu, ix, x, xi, 49, 52, 61, 148, 151, 153, 157, 159, 189, 191, 201, 221. See also mana; sacred(ness) Te Tiriti o Waitangi, 7, 8, 140, 143–44, 182

tikanga, 8, 47, 48, 61, 144, 147, 148, 151, 153–55, 157–59, 168, 171, 191 token(istic), 15, 162, 168, 169 transformation(al), 21, 48, 49, 57, 63, 65, 67, 112, 116, 122, 158, 159, 171, 173, 183, 186, 189, 192, 194, 198, 224, 225, 227, 228 tribe(s), 116, 159, 184; tribal(ism), 54, 148, 179, 180, 184–86, 196 tupuna, 8, 61, 139, 177, 180, 184, 185, 195. See also ancestor(s) utopian notions, 9, 206 vagina, 88, 89 vanua, 223–25. See also fonua; whenua vineyard, 64, 66, 67 vintner, 64, 66, 67 vocation(al), 2, 3, 6, 50, 107, 109, 112–16, 122 vulnerability, 95, 201 weaving(s), x, 43, 162, 219, 221 whakapapa, 47, 61, 139, 140, 142, 144, 159, 162, 168, 180, 184, 195 whānau, xi, xiii, 47, 50, 51, 53, 148, 159, 185–86; whakawhanaungatanga, 5, 57–68; whanaungatanga, x, xi, 5, 7, 61, 140 wheiao, 9, 189–202 whenua, ix, 5, 48, 57, 60, 61, 68, 137, 142, 147, 191, 197, 199. See also fonua; tangata whenua; vanua white saviors, 165 wisdom(s), xv, 1, 2, 7–9, 39, 41, 49, 53, 58, 62, 122, 124, 162, 168, 172, 179, 180, 182, 185, 186, 189, 196, 201, 205, 206, 211–13, 224, 225, 227, 228 wisdom gifts, 7 worldly, 18

Contributors

Caroline Blyth is senior lecturer in religious studies at the University of Auckland. Her research interests encompass exploring the Bible in popular culture, focusing in particular on representations of gender and sexuality in biblical and contemporary narratives. Her recent publications include The Narrative of Rape in Genesis 34: Interpreting Dinah’s Silence and Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale: The Lost Seduction. She is managing co-editor of the Bible and Critical Theory journal. Along with Johanna Stiebert and Katie Edwards, she is a project lead in the Shiloh Project, an interdisciplinary research group exploring the intersections between rape culture and religion. Moeawa Callaghan (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Whānau-a-Apanui, and Ngāti Porou) is the Indigenous Theology Programme coordinator and a lecturer at Laidlaw College (Te Wananga Amorangi), Auckland. She has a particular interest in Māori and indigenous theologies and contextual theologies— methods, models, and applied, particularly from minority indigenous and majority world contexts. Overarching her interest in indigenous and contextual theologies are issues to do with justice, equity, and empowerment, and an interest in the relationship between theology and spirituality, particularly in the context of Aotearoa. Emily Colgan is a lecturer in theology at Trinity Methodist Theological College in Auckland. Her research focuses on the relationship between the Bible and contemporary social imaginaries, asking about the degree to which the ideologies contained within biblical texts continue to inform communities in the present. She is particularly interested in ecological representations in

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the Bible, as well as depictions of gender and violence. She has published a number of essays and articles in this area of scholarship. Rosemary Dewerse is a research fellow at Thornton Blair Research Fellow, Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand; doctoral supervisor; freelance writer and lecturer; and chair of historical/innovative mission organization Interserve, based in Auckland. Her PhD interviewed liminal people, asking what it would take to realize genuinely intercultural theological education in this context. The thesis was published, redirecting the discoveries at church life, as Breaking Calabashes: Becoming an Intercultural Community. Stephen Garner is head of theology at Laidlaw College, Auckland, New Zealand. With a background in both computer science and theology, his teaching and research focuses upon theology, technology, media and popular culture, as well as public and contextual theology. Current research projects include exploring video games as a site for spiritual formation and angels in popular culture. His most recent book (co-authored with Heidi Campbell) is Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in Digital Culture. Beverly Moana Hall-Smith earned her PhD from Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia. She is well-versed in Māori spirituality and now serves as an ordained Anglican priest in the Far North region, Aotearoa, New Zealand. She also works on the Crisis Line for the Kaitaia Women’s Refuge, and is a volunteer worker for NZ Victim Support. She is also involved in the development of training programs for Rau Matatini—the National Centre for Māori Health—and she sits on He Korowai Trust Board as a spiritual advisor. Jione Havea is co-parent for an eight-year-old daughter, native pastor (Methodist Church in Tonga), migrant to the unceded Wurundjeri lands and waters, and research fellow with Trinity Methodist Theological College (Aotearoa New Zealand) and with Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture (Charles Sturt University, Australia). An activist-in-training, on the ground and in the classroom, and easily irritated by bullies and suckers, she authored Jonah: An Earth Bible Commentary (2020) and Losing Ground: Reading Ruth in the Pacific (2021); and edited Bordered Bodies, Bothered Voices: Native and Migrant Theologies (2022). Keita Hotere, Minita-i-tōhia (Presbyter) Taitokerau Rohe (Northland region) of Te Taha Māori o Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa (Māori Partner in the Methodist Church of New Zealand). An advocate for Māori theological

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education, my passions include Te Reo Māori language education and the role of indigenous theology in community transformation. Hokianga nui a Kupe Hokianga Whakapau Karakia Hokianga Te Puna i te Ao Marama. Brian Fiu Kolia is an Australian-born Samoan ordained minister of the Congregational Christian Church Samoa. As an emerging scholar, he is interested in postcolonial and diasporic theory, as well as utilizing native Samoan wisdom and indigenous knowledge to engage with the biblical text. His PhD dissertation engaged a number of themes in the book of Ecclesiastes from a diasporic Samoan perspective and is being revised for publication. Arapera Ngaha, senior lecturer, Māori Studies, Te Wānanga o Waipapa, University of Auckland, New Zealand Ka mimiti te tai o Hokianga, ka tōtō te tai o Taumarere Ka mimiti te tai o Taumarere, ka tōtō te tai o Hokianga. When the tide is low in Hokianga, the tide is full in Taumarere When the tide is low in Taumarere, the tide in Hokianga is full. This proverbial saying identifies the two sides of my genealogy (from the Hokianga region and the Bay of Islands) and how they support each other in times of need. My research interests include matters around being Māori and church, indigenous theology, and the revitalization of te reo Māori (the Māori language). The relationship between language and identity and how it underpins concepts and understandings of the Māori world are integral to my work. I advocate strongly for indigenous modes of research, engaging with the community, involving them right from the outset and hearing their voices. Te Aroha Rountree: He uri no te hapu o Ngai Tuteauru, no te iwi o Ngā Puhi. Ko Puhanga Tohora te maunga tapu, ko Mangatawa me Otaua ngā awa e rere nei, ko Pukerata te marae e tu tika ai, ko Rahiri te matua tupuna. He Kaiwhakaako ki te Kāreti o Trinity, he Kaikarakia mo te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa. I mua rā, he Kairangahau, he Kaiako hoki mo te Whare Wananga o Tamaki Makaurau me te Taraipunara o Waitangi. Tihei Mauriora! I am descended from the tribal groups of Ngai Tuteauru and Ngā Puhi. Puhunga Tohora is my sacred mountain and the rivers of Mangatawa and Otaua that cascade below, Pukerata is the marae that stands erect, Rahiri is our eponymous ancestor. I am a senior lecturer at Trinity Methodist

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Theological College and I am a lay preacher for the Methodist Church of New Zealand. In the past I have worked as a researcher and lecturer for the University of Auckland and the Waitangi Tribunal. Life be abundant! Kathleen P. Rushton of Nga Whaea Atawhai Sisters of Mercy lives in Otautahi Christchurch. She is an independent scholar who delights in making sound biblical scholarship accessible. Her PhD and publications are in the gospel according to John. Her research interests center on the influence of ancient cosmologies on the prologue and the implications for ecology. As a 2017 residential scholar at Vaughan Park, Auckland, she explored using a whakawhanaungatanga/make right relationship framework for hearing both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. She writes a monthly lectionary gospel reflection in Tui Motu InterIslands. Steve Taylor is principal, Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership, Dunedin, New Zealand and senior lecturer, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Prior to that, he was principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology. He is the author of Built for Change and The Out of Bounds Church and more than twenty-five peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His current research includes indigenous theology, practical theologies of innovation, pedagogies for innovation in higher education and missiology of popular culture. David Tombs is the Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, at the University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand. He has a long-standing interest in contextual and liberation theologies and is author of Latin American Liberation Theologies. His current research focuses on religion violence and peace, and especially on Christian responses to gender-based violence, sexual abuse and torture. He is originally from the United Kingdom and previously worked at the University of Roehampton in London (1992–2001), and then in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin (2001–2014). Paul Trebilco is professor of New Testament Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Otago. He studied chemistry at the University of Canterbury, and then did a Bachelor of Divinity at Otago before completing his PhD in the New Testament in 1987 at the University of Durham under the supervision of Professor James Dunn. He has written Jewish Communities in Asia Minor; The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius; Self-designations and Group Identity in the New Testament and Outsider Designations and Boundary Construction in the New Testament:

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Early Christian Communities and the Formation of Group Identity. He is an ordained Methodist Minister. Nāsili Vaka‘uta is the current principal & Ranston lecturer in Biblical Studies, Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, New Zealand. He earned his PhD in 2008 from the School of Theology, University of Auckland, New Zealand, where he also served as a faculty member (2008–2014). He is the author of Reading Ezra 9-10 Tu’a-wise: Rethinking Biblical Interpretation in Oceania, editor of Talanoa Rhythms: Voices from Oceania, co-editor of Bible and Art, Perspectives from Oceania, and contributed to various academic journals and book volumes such as Bible, Borders, Belonging(s): Engaging Readings from Oceania, Islands, Islanders and the Bible: RumInations, and Voices from the Margin. George Zachariah is the Wesley lecturer in Theological Studies at Trinity Methodist Theological College (Auckland, New Zealand). He was previously a lecturer in ethics and theology subjects at Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute (Chennai, India) and United Theological ­College (Bangalore, India). He has published in the areas of subaltern and earth theologies, and his recent works include The Word Becoming Flesh (2021), Faith-Based Health Justice (coeditor, 2021) and Decolonizing Ecotheology: Indigenous and Subaltern Challenges (coeditor, 2022).