Papers by Jonathan Te Rire
Mission Studies, May 18, 2020
From space, the Pacific glitters in ocean blue. What might the world’s largest ocean contribute t... more From space, the Pacific glitters in ocean blue. What might the world’s largest ocean contribute to missio Dei? A spiral methodology is used to trace connections between the baptism of Jesus, early Christian art, recent legal (Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal) research and indigenous knowing, including ocean voyaging, ancestor understandings of whirlpools, Māori water rites and oral history of river beings (taniwha). The argument is that indigenous Oceanic (Māori) understandings of water, in conversation with baptismal narratives, present missio Dei as an immersion in God. Mission is located not in the activity of the church – and hence mission expansion as part of European colonisation – but in the being and becoming of God. Creation and redemption are interconnected and an environmental ethic is expected. Children of the waters (ngā tamariki o te Moana nui a Kiwa) listen to creation’s voice (taniwha speaking) and act for the life (waiora) of water.
Mission Studies
From space, the Pacific glitters in ocean blue. What might the world’s largest ocean contribute t... more From space, the Pacific glitters in ocean blue. What might the world’s largest ocean contribute to missio Dei? A spiral methodology is used to trace connections between the baptism of Jesus, early Christian art, recent legal (Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal) research and indigenous knowing, including ocean voyaging, ancestor understandings of whirlpools, Māori water rites and oral history of river beings (taniwha). The argument is that indigenous Oceanic (Māori) understandings of water, in conversation with baptismal narratives, present missio Dei as an immersion in God. Mission is located not in the activity of the church – and hence mission expansion as part of European colonisation – but in the being and becoming of God. Creation and redemption are interconnected and an environmental ethic is expected. Children of the waters (ngā tamariki o te Moana nui a Kiwa) listen to creation’s voice (taniwha speaking) and act for the life (waiora) of water.
9508153 CHAPTER ONE He whare korero, the talking house of Māori christological reflection. Ka hok... more 9508153 CHAPTER ONE He whare korero, the talking house of Māori christological reflection. Ka hoki nei au ki te mauri o tōku iwi Kei Kawerau ko te Kete Poutama ko te Atua-reretahi. Let me return to the life principle of my people In Kawerau is the Basket of the Highest Spiritual Knowledge where God moves as one. 1 The above quote is the opening of a karakia 2 that is unique to my Iwi, 3 Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau 4 taught to me by my father, Hepeta Te Kaawa 5 in 1980 when I was sixteen years old. The karakia talks about Tuwharetoa, the founding ancestor of our Iwi who lived in the 17 th century in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Of his seventeen children he had twelve sons and 7 The word Atua has been translated as God but this will be further examined in this thesis using a kaupapa Māori analysis. 8 Ngatoro-i-rangi is an ancestor of the Te Arawa people and is a celebrated figure as the navigator of the Te Arawa double hulled canoe that traversed the Pacific from Rangiatea to Aotearoa New Zealand in the thirteenth century. 9 http://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/38098. 10 The word repeated intensifies the word.
This thesis report examines a theory that Christianity has contributed to the dissipation of Māor... more This thesis report examines a theory that Christianity has contributed to the dissipation of Māori culture including their form of religiosity. Pākehā missionaries preached the biblical view of one God, eventually erasing and supplanting the many gods concept of Māori spiritual beliefs. The missionaries had initiated and severed the spiritual relationships of Māori with their lands, and contributed to the disintegration of Māori society. 1 This research report also studies the role of Māori ministers as leaders of the parish community as well as leadership of whānau, hapū and iwi, and the interaction of taha Māori and religion and the challenges, if any, faced by Māori clergy. In answering the thesis statement this paper begins by discussing challenges faced by Māori in particular living according to the tenets of the Christian church alongside tikanga Māori. In addition this report looks at responses from Māori towards Christianity and the application of tikanga Māori within and outside of their church activities. Towards this end research focuses on Māori clergy, more so on what they now do and how they think, and how their taha whakapono impacts on their taha Māori with particular emphasis on those people who work as priests, ministers and lay workers in the Presbyterian, Catholic, and Anglican churches of the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
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Papers by Jonathan Te Rire