Within days aid in various forms was coordinated and distributed to those who needed it most. The success of this group becomes even more evident in light of the scathing review of the Civil Defence’s response to Cyclone Gabrielle.

The review, authored by ex-police commissioner Mike Bush, criticised Civil Defence’s leadership, lack of preparation and lack of engagement with iwi Māori, hapu, marae or Māori organisations. Check out some of the responses to the review here and here

Bush’s review details opportunities missed and the high price that was paid for it. Getting disaster leadership right is an urgent issue as climate change increases the likelihood of severe weather events. Until we lead differently the outcome won’t change. Hāpaitia offers a model of mātauranga-grounded leadership that focuses on the flourishing of all people.

Hāpaitia met regularly – daily initially – to provide nimble and responsive leadership from the Church. Though the members of the group were diverse, bringing their unique skills, experience and viewpoints, a commitment was made to prioritise mātauranga-grounded leadership. It was decided unanimously to trust that on the ground iwi and hāpu were the hāhi and could respond most effectively.

“In a dynamic situation, we trusted that communities needed what they said they needed, and we responded as requested, rather than burdening them with paperwork and process.” Archbishop Don Tamihere.

The post Hāpaitia was leadership in a crisis appeared first on Kurahautū.

It is with mixed emotions that we announce that our Director, The Venerable Dr Hirini Kaa, has been appointed as the next Manukura of Te Whare Wananga o Hoani Tapu te Kaikauwhau o te Rongopai | The College of St John the Evangelist.

Part of this mix is sadness upon hearing the resignation of Dr Emily Colgan. Emily is our friend and we respect the work that she has done and her commitment to a church whose hallmarks are justice and love. In this light, we can think of no better successor than Dr Kaa.

Hirini has been integral to the vision, direction and mission of Kurahautu and we will miss him. We recognize, though, that he will bring those same gifts to bear at Hoani Tapu and will continue to shape the future of the church in this new role.

Every blessing for the new season ahead. Ma te Atua koe e manaaki

You can read the announcement letter from Te Kaunihera by clicking the link below.

Hoani Tapu Manukura Announcement

The post New Manukura for Hoani Tapu appeared first on Kurahautū.

This Land

Where’s the name from?

The United States government has attempted to contain the sovereignty of Native American people through the creation of reservations. But then that same government ignores the  boundaries of that land.

What about it makes me wanna listen?

I’ve heard that history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes. I wanna learn the rhymes and make sure what we do collides with them.

Is it banter and filler or does it get right into the kaupapa?

This podcast is telling a story. This isn’t an interview or a back and forth discussion. No banter, no filler. And you’ll find yourself binging these 40 minute episodes.

Who’d be embarrassed to tweet a quote from this show?

Joshua. See below.

Which Bible character would have made this?

The Canaanites. They have some stories to tell about being the first occupants of the ‘Promised Land’.

Does it make you wanna ka whawhai tonu?

Greed, or even charity without love, can drive us to do some terrible things. I want love to motivate me.

Bangin’ quote from the podcast

‘At the time the schools weren’t talked about as a land grab or a tool of genocide. They were charity. To solicit donations, one Catholic mission wrote that Indian children were in grave danger and good Christians who came to the rescue would not only save those children but reap their own rewards with God.’

Where can I listen?

You can listen to the podcast here.

B.C.

The post Kurahautū Podcast Breakdown: This Land appeared first on Kurahautū.

-First Nations Version (FNVNT)

RUKA 2

Te Whānautanga o Īhu

1I aua rā ka whakatakotoria he tikanga e Hīhā Ākuhata kia tuhituhia te ao katoa. 2Ko te tuhituhinga tuatahi tēnei i meatia i te wā ko Kuirinia te kāwana o Hīria. 3Ā, ka haere ngā tāngata katoa kia tuhituhia, ia tangata, ia tangata, ki tōna ake pā.
4I haere atu anō a Hōhepa i Karirī, i te pā, i Nahareta, ki Hūria, ki te pā o Rāwiri, ko Pēterehema te ingoa; nō te mea nō te whare ia, nō te kāwei o Rāwiri. 5Kia tuhituhia ai rāua ko tāna wahine taumau, ko Meri, e hapū ana ia. 6Ā, i a rāua i reira, ka rite ngā rā e whānau ai ia. 7Nā, ka whānau tāna mātāmua, ā, takaia ana e ia ki ngā kākahu, ka whakatakotoria ki te takotoranga kai mā ngā kararehe; nō te mea kāhore he wāhi mō rātou i te whare.
Ngā Hēpara me ngā Anahera
8I taua wāhi hoki ētahi hēpara e noho koraha ana, e tiaki ana i tā rātou kāhui i te pō. 9Nā, tū ana tētahi anahera a te Ariki i ō rātou taha, ā, whiti ana te korōria o te Ariki ki a rātou, ā, tawhio noa; ā, nui whakaharahara tō rātou wehi. 10Nā, ka mea te anahera ki a rātou, “Kaua e mataku, tā te mea he kaikauwhau tēnei ahau ki a koutou mō te hari nui, meāke puta mai ki te iwi katoa. 11Nō nāianei hoki i whānau ai he Kaiwhakaora mō koutou i te pā o Rāwiri, arā a te Karaiti, te Ariki. 12Ko te tohu tēnei ki a koutou; e kite koutou i te tamaiti ka oti te tākai ki te kākahu, e takoto ana i te takotoranga kai mā ngā kararehe.”
13Nā, ohorere tonu ko tētahi ope nui o te rangi e tū tahi ana me taua anahera, e whakamoemiti ana ki te Atua, e mea ana:
14“Kia whai korōria te Atua i runga rawa,
kia mau te rongo ki runga ki te whenua,
me te whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata!”
15Ā, ka mawehe atu ngā anahera i a rātou ki te rangi, ka mea ngā hēpara tētahi ki tētahi, “Tātou ka haere ki Pēterehema, kia kite i tēnei mea kua puta nei, kua whakapuakina mai nei e te Ariki ki a tātou.”
16Nā, kaikā tonu tā rātou haere, ā, ka kite i a Meri, i a Hōhepa i te tamaiti hoki e takoto ana i te takotoranga kai mā ngā kararehe. 17Ā, nō ka kite, ka whakapuakina te mea i kōrerotia ki a rātou mō tēnei tamaiti. 18Ā, mīharo ana ngā kaiwhakarongo katoa ki ēnei mea, i kōrerotia nei ki a rātou e ngā hēpara. 19Ko Meri ia i āta rongoā i ēnei mea katoa, me te whakaaroaro i roto i tōna ngākau. 20Nā, ka hoki ngā hēpara, me te whakakorōria, me te whakamoemiti ki te Atua mō ngā mea katoa i rongo nei, i kite nei rātou, i rite nei ki ngā mea i kōrerotia ki a rātou.

-Paipera Tapu

*Image: Kreg Yingst an AMERICAN NATIVity

The post Nativity appeared first on Kurahautū.

20 December 2023

There were two gatherings in 1992 that had a significant impact on the way in which the environment would be discussed on a global scale.

The first was a meeting of the UN Security Council where a statement was issued by the council’s president, declaring that beyond the traditionally accepted threats to peace, others had emerged. Among these was an environmental threat: “The absence of war and military conflicts amongst States does not in itself ensure international peace and security. Non-military sources of instability in economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields can also constitute threats to international peace and security.” (United Nations Security Council, Doc. S/23500 of 31 January 1992). This signaled that the Council was enlarging the definition of what would constitute a threat to international peace and security, climate change being one of those threats.

The second gathering in 1992 was the very first COP (COP stands for Conference of the Parties, meaning, in this case, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

Perhaps this is why leaders of Western countries, who through historic industrialisation and fossil fuel use have been the world’s largest contributors to climate change (though China was the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses in 2022, the average American is responsible for nearly twice as much climate pollution as the average person living in China), have described the climate crisis as an existential threat to humanity’s very existence.

The founder of the ‘Planetary Security Initiative’, Alexande Verbeek describes climate change as “a new enemy. It has no flag, no leader … But it is a killer … operating worldwide to destabilize societies, and it is gaining strength.” According to John Kerry (Joe Biden’s Climate Envoy), “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is.” This was made evident with the US Secretary of Defense issuing the following statement,  “Today, no nation can find lasting security without addressing the climate crisis. We face all kinds of threats in our line of work, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does…climate change is making the world more unsafe and we need to act.”

Australia has formed the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. One group member, former Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Astin III lamented that, “…Australia is ill prepared for climate impacts, with climate security risks not being fully assessed or understood in Australia…We are being left behind, with some of our closest allies already taking action. In the US, the Biden Administration has elevated climate change to a high-level national security issue, with significant stature within national security decision-making.”

On 16 August 2023, military leaders attended the US-Indo Pacific Chiefs of Defence Conference in Nadi, Fiji, where they discussed the “threat” of climate change, among other security concerns. The theme of the summit was “Preserving the Rules-Based Order to Enable Sovereignty in an Era of Strategic Competition”

We have become comfortable with portraying climate change, our environment, rising waters and temperatures, and perhaps even earth itself as an existential threat that must be addressed in military fashion.

So, each year since 1992, leaders from around the world gather to discuss the climate crisis, to put words to this existential threat to international peace and security and to debate how it will be addressed. COP28, held in December 2023, was the biggest climate meeting ever. An estimated 97,000 people arrived in-person at some point during the two-week talks, with another 3000 attending remotely. To say that climate change is an existential threat is one thing, to agree on how it should be fought and how we define the enemy is another.

COP gatherings are notorious for their heated debates on the wording of resolutions. Some countries refuse to agree to a resolution that is too strongly worded and others hold their ground (there were all-night discussions at COP2 ) until an agreement can be reached. The winners of the debates, however, are not in favour of stronger tactics to match their military language; the winners of these debates want to ensure that any resolution is non-binding, voluntary and without consequence. Little has changed since the very first COP when then US president George Bush spoke these seemingly contradictory statements:

“The idea of sustaining the planet so that it may sustain us is as old as life itself. We must leave this earth in better condition than we found it.”

“The American way of life is not up for negotiation. Period.”

In 1995, global carbon-dioxide emissions amounted to twenty-three billion metric tons. This year, the total is expected to be about thirty-seven billion tons, an increase of around sixty per cent. Meanwhile, cumulative emissions—which, from a climate perspective, are what count—have doubled.

What happens when a nation that declares war on an existential threat is itself identified as that threat? Nothing happens. Nations want an enemy outside their own borders – that’s why the idea of climate as an existential threat appeals to leaders in the first place. We want to eliminate the threat but we don’t want to fight our greed, our selfishness, or our colonial privilege.

The President of the Republic of Nauru spoke these words during a UN Security Counsel open debate in 2011, “In my frustration, I often wonder where we would be if the roles were reversed. What if the pollution coming from our island nations was threatening the very existence of the major emitters? What would the nature of today’s debate be under those circumstances?”

We need to find new words to talk about our earth, to talk about how we will help those most impacted by environmental disasters and climate change. And we need leaders who will turn those words into actions.

At the end of September 2023, a group of Anglican academic theologians, ministers, bishops, archbishops, and leaders of Anglican colleges and schools, gathered for the inaugural hui of the Anglican Indigenous Leadership Initiative (AILI). Leaders gathered from around Aotearoa, Australia, Tonga, Fiji, Sāmoa, Melanesia, Hawai’i, the United States, Canada, and Brazil. The AILI hui resulted in the generation of concrete goals and aspirations for indigenous Anglicans. These reflected the participants’ strong desire for transformative change and for new structures and relationships through which that change might be achieved and developed over time.

During the AILI hui key matters that were addressed included the inadequate and unjust systems and structures that currently work toward mitigating the impacts of climate change, both within and outside of the Church. A clear conclusion emerged that there is a need for a response that is grounded in Te Oranga Ake, that recognizes our spiritual, ancestral and physical connection to the world we live in and our responsibility to care for it. In its first step toward creating a new approach to climate leadership, AILI will be holding an indigenous led and mātauranga grounded  environmental justice hui in 2024. The world needs a new approach to combating climate change. Indigenous mātauranga leadership is the response the world has been waiting for.

The post Out of the Overflow of the Heart appeared first on Kurahautū.

What’s it called?

Lead Us Not

Where’s the name from?

Christian leaders are called to lead with love. What happens when a leader abuses and exploits the vulnerable?

What about it makes me wanna listen?

As the Church comes to grips with and responds to the reality that many of our spaces that should have been safe were not and that some of our leaders who appeared to be good shepherds were anything but, we have to figure out how abusive leaders have shaped our faith, how that might distort our understanding of God and how to move forward.

Is it Banter and filler or does it get right into the kaupapa?

The podcast has a lot of heavy content with each episode building on the one before to tell a long-form story. However, each episode is a reasonable length of around forty minutes.

Who’s one person that should listen to this?

Every priest or pastor who can’t grasp the depth of their own hypocrisy.

So, of course, no one on that list is going to listen. You’re going to have to listen for them and then make sure to blow the whistle.

Which Bible character would have made this?

Mary. Have you read the Magnificat?

Does it make you wanna ka whawhai tonu?

Part of me feels a little tired and hopeless listening to another story of another Christian leader who was not what everyone thought them to be; another leader who used their position to manipulate and abuse vulnerable people. But there is another part of me that knows the church can be a place of healing instead of  a place of wounding and it is this that makes me not want to give up.

Bangin’ quote from the podcast

“…The New York Times called him ‘A Savior of people on the margins’; America Magazine called him, ‘A living Saint,’ and personally, I’d gotten into the habit of calling him ‘a prophet of tenderness.’ Then, in February of 2020, news broke of his abusive behaviour. ”

“All too often charismatic leadership goes unchecked. Churches and organisations can easily become dependent on a charismatic leader both financially and ideologically: ‘If he goes down, we all go down with him, and then we can’t go on carrying out this important work in the world.’”

 Check it out

You can listen to the podcast here

B.C.

The post Kurahautū Podcast Breakdown: Lead us Not appeared first on Kurahautū.

Cop28 will gather in a few days (28 November, 2023) to discuss how the world ought to respond to the threat of climate change. Their solutions will no doubt be influenced by the fact that many of the leaders gathering there are on the wealthy extreme of the economic divide. As a Church, our response to the climate crisis (and to all crises, large and small), must be influenced by Oranga Ake — the flourishing of all people, and of all creation. In all our gatherings, how can we ensure that this, and not fear, is what motivates how we act toward our neighbours?

The post Carbon Inequality and Climate Injustice (The Guardian) appeared first on Kurahautū.

“We take back our stories, we take the centre, we reverse the gaze, and we transgress boundaries, setting our narrative beyond the spaces we have been allocated.”

–Amminatta Forna

Human beings are storytellers; we have used narratives–both oral and written to help us make sense of our world and our place in it. Stories allow us to enter into a world beyond the confines of our own experiences and therefore have the potential to create within us an empathy for people, cultures, traditions, religions, and places that are different from our own. This is especially true for literary fiction; stories that allow us to travel through space and time, to imagine what it feels like to be an elderly person, or return to the experience of primary school. We can know what it was like to survive Auschwitz from Elie Wiesel, to live under apartheid from Frank Anthony and Can Themba, or to feel the terror and hope of those fleeing slavery from Colson Whitehead.

There is a well-established link between the stories we absorb and the empathy we develop for people who are unlike ourselves (see the work of Dolf Zillmann). But what about the opposite end of the spectrum, what about the damage a story can cause and the pain it can inflict through the characters it brings alive? If the characters are misrepresented, if the perspective is unbalanced and inaccurate, the narrative can be difficult to overcome both for those who find themselves described in the story and for those who believe the stories to be accurate representations. Amminatta Forna writes that “To see oneself only ever reflected through the eyes of another is to view the self through a distorting lens.” Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian Nobel laureate, explains it in this way “All Africans meeting a European who has never met an African before must first break through the preconceptions, reinforced by news reports and articles, of Africa as a place of unending misery.”

In August of 2023 Jennifer Smart wrote an article for the Spinoff that analysed the reading lists of the English departments of secondary schools in Aotearoa. These are the top titles: The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985); The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925); To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960); Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945); Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954); Macbeth by Shakespeare; 1984 by George Orwell (1949); The things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (1990); Othello by Shakespeare; and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003). No Witi Ihimaera, no Patricia Grace, no Keri Hulme or Alan Duff; no Paula Morris, Alice Tawhai, Kelly Ana Morey, Tina Makereti, James George or…Smart says of these text choices, “Every time we put a book in front of students to study, we’re saying ‘this literature is worthy of your close attention’; ‘these words and ideas are important.’ But what does it say about our self-image if we’re not setting New Zealand novels for close study?” What indeed?

In an October 2023 article for The Spinoff, Nicole Titihuia Hawkins, English teacher and wahine Māori, asks that very question, examining the motivations and the roadblocks that are keeping us from using more of the stories of this land to help our young people make sense of our world and their place in it.  Hawkins narrows the problem down to four main obstacles: lack of time, the normalisation of colonial hierarchies, a deficit of understanding of mātauranga Māori, and resistance toward change. Hawkins concludes her article with a challenge for us to “…do the mahi now and ensure that we are giving our students the opportunities to read indigenous stories, to know that they are valid, of a high quality and to be empowered by novels that they might be able to see themselves in.”

He Taonga Tuku Iho is the curriculum project of Kurahautū, beginning in 2024 we will be developing history curriculum resources that will enable us to share our Anglican taonga — stories of the Anglican Church from a mātauranga Mihinare perspective — with young people. Honest stories of redemption, justice, perseverance and hope.  These stories will empower and equip teachers to teach the history of their rohe alongside iwi, hapū, and local historians. Perhaps most importantly, it is our hope that these stories will not create a distorting lens but will instead provide a tool that will help young people to see the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia as an integral and beautiful, if not complicated, part of their whakapapa.

The post Stories and the Power of our Narratives appeared first on Kurahautū.

There have been churches that have made the news recently (you can read examples here and here) for exploiting volunteers while leaders live in luxury. Though the reasons behind these scandals are many and varied, what has been clear is that ensuring that every volunteer, intern, student, pastor and parishioner thrives has not been their motivation. The advancement of the powerful has come at the expense of the marginalised. We may be tempted to distance ourselves from these churches, noting that our canons and governance would likely prevent such excess. However, priorities based in capitalism with a Western understanding of progress, efficiency and relationship have made their way, often unexamined and unquestioned, into these very church canons and governance practices.

Kurahautu Director Dr Hirini Kaa writes, ‘Structures have often been used to exclude and marginalise indigenous peoples. It has been one of the key tools of colonisation. Indigenous ways of knowing and living in the world have been sidelined. Structures have been imposed based on Western thinking. While often unintentional, there has been an assumption that such thinking is Universal or supracultural – rather than completely grounded in Western histories and ideas.’

What can be too astonishing for many within the Anglican Church to accept is the idea that our Canonical structures of governance can be exclusionary.

There is a different path. Indigenous ways include incorporating the land and environment into decision making. Gathering to wānanga – ensuring everyone is heard is often central. These ideas are based on a sense of the sacredness of all creation at a fundamental level. Such decision-making allows for consensus, where authority is grounded in that connection to creation, rather than in an inherited or externally-imposed authority.

Oranga Ake – flourishing communities and peoples – especially in the context of leadership, is the mātauranga potential that Archbishop Don Tamihere envisages for the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia which he briefly articulates in the video below.

The post Flourishing Communities and Peoples appeared first on Kurahautū.

In a world that is ravaged by floods, wildfires, drought, natural disasters, pollution, the impact of unregulated mining, logging and oil drilling, a hopeful future for our young people can seem like an unlikely dream. However, as Astrid Arellano writes, ‘Indigenous youth have shown that another future is possible. In their territories, commonly threatened by extractive companies and megaprojects that put nature and the rights of their peoples at risk, young people have led efforts that give hope by offering alternatives that contribute to sustainability and well-being not only of their communities, but of the planet.’  Read her hopeful article from August 2023 about three young indigenous leaders from Ecuador, Peru and Mexico who are defending the jungle from the oil industry, while they seek access to communication and renewable energy for their communities and rescue ancestral knowledge about indigenous food systems.

Image: Helena Gualinga, Kichwa defender of the Amazon rainforest. Photographer: Anka Maldonado.

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