OPINION
Buzz
The archbishop of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa*, the Most Reverend Donald Steven Tamihere, has spoken at the Kingitanga hui. @AotearoaLib on X had this to say.
They were not his exact words but that was the gist: AotearoaLib (video).
Let me clear one thing up from the outset – Rev Tamihere is NOT a diversity hire. He has a Masters in Theology and serves the Anglican and wider Gisborne community well. When he was installed, he was the youngest Anglican archbishop in the world. He is also Maori, which is appropriate for the Archbishop of the Aotearoa stream of the Anglican Church. He deserves his position and meets the criteria for his ordination. He is a man I could easily sit down and have a pleasant chat with over a coffee.
Rev Tamihere represents the Maori stream of the Anglican Church, a church that was pivotal in the missions to Maori through the legacy established by Samuel Marsden.
Here is what is agreed on and what needs to be challenged:
Jesus was indigenous
Regarding indigenous people, the United Nation states:
“Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them.”
un.org
Indigenous Peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.
un.org
Amen! Jesus was born a Jew! Into a people who have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, considered distinct [a culture based on God, Land and Torah] from those prevailing [Romans, under the Kingship of an Assyrian].
It is pleasing to see he did not fall into the, ‘Jesus was a Palestinian Refugee,’ lie.
Jesus did not fight against the Romans
Besides preaching the Gospel and the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus spent a fair amount of time fighting against the religious leaders of the time – the Pharisees (who were the experts in the Law of Moses and other law interpretations) and the Sadducees (responsible for the Temple activities and protocols). Jesus referred to them as a “brood of vipers”, as you can read in Matthew 23. There he gave a rousing rebuke including bestowing on them seven woes.
Jesus overturned the tables into the Temple compound in his “Father’s house”, because the Pharisees had turned the temple offerings into a money-making activity.
But all that was the result of the Pharisees rejecting Jesus as the Messiah and in Matthew 22 they had “laid plans to trap him in his words”.
They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
(Matt 22:16-17)
The plan was simple: Jews in those days under Roman-occupied Judea (not Palestine) could not sentence someone to death for civil matters, so they had to come up with a way to get the Romans to sentence him to death and that was by proving sedition. Hence they took Herodians (soldiers from King Herod) probably either to arrest or to witness. If they could get Jesus to tell them not to pay tax to Caesar, that would do.
But Jesus replied:
“Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription? “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Pilate and Herod both found that he was not a rebellious person.
Pilate summoned the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion, and behold, having examined Him before you, I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against Him. “No, nor has Herod, for he sent Him back to us; and behold, nothing deserving death has been done by Him.
(Luke 23:13-15)
And that is it! That is the whole substance of Jesus’s comment on the Romans and the Roman authority’s verdict. Tamihere is speaking outside the Bible.
Jesus did not denounce the whitewashing of Christianity
This has no logical sense and the Bible does not support this view. Christianity at the time did not exist. Believers back then were followers of Christ. Christianity was a religious construct that came along well after his death, resurrection and ascension. Christians were first called Christians in 43AD, at Antioch – the religious centre of Eastern Orthodoxy (which did not exist in 43AD either). Christianity as such did not exist for another 300, or so, years. So how could Jesus denounce the whitewashing of Christianity?
Summary
What the primary representative for Maori Anglicans allegedly stated is very disappointing but illustrates why church leadership should be very careful when engaging in politics. Without wisdom it is too easy to have words twisted and an intended word of unity has been interpreted as a call for divisive activism.
The hope is that he didn’t succumb to tickling the ears of his audience at the expense of sound apologetics, but the fear is he did – caught in the moment. But then this sort of thing was predicted by Paul and is indicative of the established churches today – at its peril. The Apostle Paul said this to Timothy the Evangelist:
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
2Tim 4:3-4
On Christmas Day 1814, Samuel Marsden gave the very first sermon held in the Dominion that was to become New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay – 10 km as the tui flies from where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The title was “Behold I bring you tidings of great joy.” The Master of Ceremonies at that service was Chief Ruatara (Ngapuhi), uncle of Hongi Hika. Back then the missionaries spoke the Word, the Truth and, as per the title of Marsden’s sermon, the Gospel. Back then the message was a blessing and symbolic of the unity between Maori and Pakeha. I wonder what Marsden and Ruatara would think today.
The churches need to get back to speaking the Truth (secular and religious connotations intended). And concentrate, as Marsden did, on the “Good News”, that is the Gospel: that is their commission. For them to focus on the reality that we are all treated equally in the eyes of God and, for all New Zealanders, no matter what your belief or disbelief, to also focus on us as one people.
*There are three archbishops representing the three streams of the Anglican Church – Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. So the title Archbishop of Aotearoa is correct.