Indigenous Sacredness, Christendom and the Doctrine of Discovery.

One of the most contentious aspects of delivering Doctrine of Discovery workshops is the challenge to people’s faith systems. In a good number of the sessions, someone will raise the issue at the end, declaring themselves a person of faith, and asking for guidance in how to reconcile the role of the faith, which guides them through this world, with the central role of Christianity in the enduring violence of colonisation.

Now I, personally, am not a Christian. I’m not a scholar of the scriptures, I cannot point to any particular biblical passage to salve them – nor do I believe that’s my responsibility or purpose. I deliver workshops on historical and enduring systems of colonial racism, I point to solutions that have been effective in addressing the impacts of colonialism, but I cannot help people reconcile the facts with their choices of faith, today. While I can’t take that journey for them, I encourage them to seek solutions from within their faith community, and share with them that I have met a number of faith leaders overseas who dedicate significant time, energy, and resource to reckoning with, and responding to, the role of the church in colonisation. The rest is their journey to take, I cannot take it as a non-Christian.

That is not to say I am anti-Christian, or call for the removal of Christianity. When I consider what justice might look like for Aotearoa in the face of colonisation, whether it be an imagining of what we would be like were we not colonised by Britain, or what a Tiriti-centered nation would look like – both of those scenarios allow for the presence of all faith systems, and the freedom of Māori to engage with the faith system of their choice. So the right of Māori to access and adopt Christianity as a faith system is supported in both an anti-colonial and a Tiriti-centered perspective.

The conversation I am much more interested in, and that I feel is important to have – is an open, and frank conversation about the role Christianity has played, and still plays in colonisation, the impacts of that history, how it continues to draw privilege from colonialism, how it reckons with these facts, and what its place should be in an anticolonial future.

That the church has played a role in colonisation should be unquestionable. It’s not called “The Doctrine of Christian Discovery” for nothing. From the very outset, the ravenous entitlement of the European gaze upon other lands and the people of those lands was couched in ideas of divine religious supremacy. While this has extended to notions of cultural and intellectual supremacy, the idea that Christianity is a superior faith to all others has endured throughout time and influenced economies, politics and society at large .

Religious supremacy has played a significant role in the colonial process not only as a justification for colonialism, but as a tool of subjugation within the process of colonisation. The denial of Indigenous sacredness is a central and consistent feature of the Doctrine of Discovery, everywhere it has been applied. It plays a crucial role in diminishing the status of Indigenous peoples as a precursor to their dispossession and enslavement. Importantly, if Indigenous peoples can themselves be convinced that their own pre-colonial faith systems are inferior, then they can be more easily absorbed into the colonial hierarchy of God, the Church, the Monarchy and the power systems they have collectively created (including colonial governments). Colonial domination is ultimately a power project, and for our tīpuna, political and spiritual power were intertwined, managed through rangatira and tohunga. The introduction of a superior European God, together with the outlawing of tohunga and the subjugation of rangatira functioned to undermine the power structure for Māori, paving the way for colonial domination.

Everywhere the colonial project landed, the very first proclamations were of religious supremacy, directing natives to “submit to the yoke” of the Cross and the Crown. From that point on, religious supremacy was reiterated by missionaries, priests, Christians, and their converts, everywhere they went. The dominance of Christian faith was communicated through ceremonies, education, media, currency, and in every day language. Indigenous faith systems that revered ancestors, or nature, or ancestors AS nature, were generally reviled and ridiculed as pagan and primitive within the colonial project. Christian ministers, politicians and theorists distorted Indigenous deities, at times to suggest that they were demonic, at other times suggesting that Indigenous deities were actually the Christian God, in disguise. Being patriarchal, colonial anthropologists also often deliberately erased female and child deities. Recognising that women and children often held sacred roles within Indigenous communities, the deliberate targeting of them is a longstanding warfare tactic, aimed to demoralise the enemy. Labelling Ātua Māori as “lesser Gods”, false idols, or even demonic and dangerous, creates another layer of European supremacy, interacting with other suggestions of European supremacy that saturate colonial society – culminating in a pervasive message of Indigenous inferiority and dependence upon colonial systems in order to access “true”, “ultimate” sacredness.

For Māori, our Ātua are our ancestors, as well as being nature, and are at the very beginning of our whakapapa – our broad genealogy that connects us to all ancestors, to nature, and to the universe. An attack upon Ātua Māori is therefore an attack upon our whakapapa. For many of our ancestors, being told that our understanding of the universe, and our place within it is not so, that our sacred ceremonies are actually harmful, held profound psychological consequences. This psychological harm is layered upon colonial injustices such as matakite being committed to “lunatic asylums” and the criminalisation of tohunga through the 1910 Tohunga Suppression Act – even as Pentecostal and other Christian churches continued to carry out “faith healings”. Consistently throughout history, Māori spiritual practices have been treated as arcane, dangerous and esoteric, where Euro-Christian spiritual practices are normalised, to the point where they feature in the opening of parliament.

(Previous Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard reading out the parliamentary prayer at the opening of parliament)

Political protection of Christianity within colonies is rooted in the Catholic legal concept of Jus Patronus, which initially related to the patronage of the Church, but within the context of the Doctrine of Discovery, came to refer to the relationship between the Church and the Crown, where the Church would devolve it’s “divine authority” to dominate down to the Crown, and in return the Crown would protect the Church in carrying out it’s core business: converting natives.

While numerous Churches often reflect upon the benign and protective role of missionaries preceding, during and after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, it’s also the case that Churches have been responsible for significant land dispossession. It perhaps comes as no surprise that the introduction of the Doctrine of Discovery into New Zealand case law occurs through Wi Parata vs Bishop of Wellington, a case where a church refused to return land that was gifted for the express purpose of building a school for Ngati Toa children, however the school never eventuated, and the Church never gave the land back – in declaring Te Tiriti a ”mere nullity”, Justice James Prendergast cited Johnson v M’Intosh as a precedent – a United States courtcase that negated all native land rights upon the arrival of Europeans, asserting the rights and entitlements of the Doctrine of Discovery. From this point on Wi Parata vs Bishop of Wellington was used in NZ case law as a precedent to alienate significant tracts of land, and was only conclusively overturned in 2004. The Ngati Toa case is not exceptional, across Aotearoa, Christian churches received and held stolen Māori land, and many still retain that land to this day. In fact, Christian churches remain some of the country’s largest landholders: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington listed $13.5m in investment properties in 2015, and the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch listed $11.6m in buildings, $593,000 in buildings in progress and $34.6m in land in 2016. In 2017, it was reported that the Anglican diocese in Canterbury had $320m in cash and properties. The Presbytarian Church owns $1.5bn in land assets and 400 properties. Brethren-owned Trinity Lands are big players in dairy, forestry and kiwifruit. Christian churches hold more land than Fonterra, and are active political lobbyists. Christian leaders also enjoy an exclusive audience with the Prime Minister every year. While New Zealand’s political-religious ties may not be as obvious as other nations such as the United States, they are very present, and very effective in protecting Christian privilege, acquired through the Church’s role in the colonial project. Doctrine of Discovery scholar Steve Newcombe describes the economic-political power complex of Christianity as Christendom, differentiating it from the faith itself.

(Christian leaders meet with Ex-Prime Minister Ardern. Annual meetings with the PM have been held since 1998)

An aspect of researching colonialism at a trans-national level, is that you get to see the patterns of colonialism around the world. One particular consistent feature, is that in every single instance, Christianity has forwarded a position that the Indigenous group was warlike, primitive, and doomed to self-elimination, and that Christianity came along to save us from ourselves. In many cases, what is conveniently omitted is that missionaries usually arrive on Indigenous shores a little while after muskets, and that the inception of colonialism has always initiated a period of increased conflict, made worse by the introduction of firearms. Missionaries then subsequently feature as a “voice of reason” to the warring savages, and this becomes an entrenched colonial fiction. Rarely is it ever acknowledged that, like all others, Indigenous communities had periods of conflict, had their own means for resolving said conflict (eg marriages, ceremony, law or trade), and also had longstanding periods of peace. The ability of Indigenous peoples to rationally navigate our way through conflict is erased within the colonial narrative, so that Euro-christianity can fulfil that role. Throughout the global colonial project, Euro-Christianity has claimed responsibility for stopping Africans from enslaving each other, stopping First Nations Americans from warring with each other, stopping Aboriginal people from killing their children and stopping Māori from cannibalism. In every single Indigenous instance, it is suggested that were it not for Christianity, the relative Indigenous nation would have wiped themselves and each other out, and the inference is that Indigenous people therefore owe Christianity their allegiance and faith – and if we do not, then we will somehow regress back to this warring, primitive state. Of course, Christian nations have carried out the world’s most enduring, widescale wars – many of which are still carrying on today, but for whatever reason, although the “warring nature” of Indigenous nations provides the grounds for conversion to Christianity, the enduring warring nature of Christianity provides the ground for Māori to go to war “for God, King, and Country”.

It would be one thing if this was a historical relic, but as a narrative, its still very present within Te Ao Māori. We are still told, today, that violence was due to our Ātua, and that peace was due to Christianity. We are still told, today, that Christianity is more sacred than Ātua Māori. While some Christian leaders have been open to the conversation of how we reckon with these histories, and what should be done about them today, more often than not, what I’ve seen from the church, is a brushing off of this history, using responses that are recognisably similar to denials of colonialism in general:

• “Let’s put the imperialism part of Christianity to the side” (psst – Christianity is not aioli)
• “Māori weren’t saints, you know” (apparently you have to be a saint to avoid being colonised)
• “We held on to both” (no, we didn’t, not to the same degree, evidenced by the fact that its so much easier to access and learn inoi Karaitiana than karakia taketake)
• “That’s so negative and boring, let’s focus on the positives of Christianity and why Māori embraced it” (as if that’s a novel discussion, I guess someone missed the previous centuries of discussions centred on why everyone converts, and should keep converting, to Christianity?)
• “Oh, that Doctrine of Discovery, well it’s governments that applied that, you should talk to them about it” (and the government of course says “that’s a religious thing, you should talk to Churches about it”)

In short, the talking points surrounding the refusal of this discussion are based upon stock, standard evasive logic. I could replace Christianity with colonisation in any of those sentences and we will instantly recognise them as coloniser-speak.

There are, however, a few faith leaders I have met along my way who are interested, and enthusiastic, to have this discussion from within the framework of their faith, and that IS an interesting and heartening conversation. To me, these people seem to be the most settled in their relationship to their Christianity – they are tau enough in their relationship to their God that the discussion does not perturb them, and in fact a few see it as an opportunity to be even better Christians. The Mennonite Church commits significant funds into producing resources about the Doctrine of Discovery, here in Aotearoa the Presbytarian Church are looking to offer iwi Māori first right of refusal for all land sales (not quite landback and certainly would be improved by just GIVING it back, especially where it was gifted or confiscated to them in the first place, but it’s a step). Recently I attended a conference in Syracuse University, New York State, titled “The Religious Origins of White Supremacy” and was heartened by some of the Christians I met there – there was a Bishops panel, and they were rightfully challenged on when they will progress beyond nice words and sit down with Indigenous leaders to talk about material solutions and restitution. To be honest, I was surprised that they even showed up – I’m not sure as many would do so in Aotearoa. Other faith organisations there were even more forthright in the work they do to counter the systems of harm that Christianity established.

As we mature our discussions about the Doctrine of Discovery and its impact upon Aotearoa, we are going to have to be increasingly courageous in our discussions. I’ve often said to Tangata Tiriti that they should benchmark their discomfort with the discomfort of being colonised – in the same way, when we feel discomfort in discussing the role of the Church in colonisation, we must benchmark that with the discomfort, in fact, massive upheaval, of our tipuna who had their entire universe re-shaped by the introduction, and political re-inforcement, of Christianity. I look forward to the day when we can have these discussions openly, allow the mamae to surface and heal, work together on the solutions, and then walk together towards our anti-colonial future.