For the remainder of this month, and then again from early-ish September to mid November, I am on study leave, attempting to dig deeper into the topic of "a hermeneutic of mercy", picking up some work long ago begun, much on pause through my time as Bishop of Christchurch.
That is, I am interested in the question of how we interpret the Bible (i.e. "hermeneutic") in a manner which is merciful, with reference, obviously, to some of the challenging questions of our times, questions in which churches have offered various interpretations, often deemed "conservative" or "liberal/progressive", with resulting disputes within those churches and even division and schism breaking up such churches.
In recent years, for instance - and it has been a very public instance - Pope Francis has offered various thoughts ex cathedra [later correction: ok, so not, "ex cathedra" meaning formal statements of infallible dogma, but definitely meaning, "the Pope, the one who sits on the cathedra of the Bishop of Rome, has spoken, so a much bigger deal than your local bishop or parish priest or favoured Catholic philosopher such as Edward Feser speaking") albeit perhaps standing in a plane, chatting to journalists travelling with him, or otherwise "off the cuff" (or, seemingly so ... he was very skillful re how he communicated!) which opened up a "liberal/progressive" yet Catholic view on matters of the day, with consequential reaction from quarters of the global Catholic church described, at least by journalists, as "conservative". Hence a sigh of relief - for many Catholics - that Pope Leo seems to be walking a more delicate line: no off the cuff remarks; no pushing the boundaries of what might be just within the edges of Catholic doctrine (or might not); and yet, a sense of anxiety - for some Catholics - is a more open-minded Franciscan church to be closed in?
Time will tell, and I do not expect Pope Leo to be influenced by whatever I may end up being able to publish!
In mentioning the much played out in world media of Catholic hermeneutical drama in recent years, I am well aware that other churches can be mentioned: in no particular order of (de)merit, and with no attempt to be comprehensive:
- Russian Orthodox church: "pro Putin" v pro peace
- Southern Baptists: women (not) in leadership in the church
- various churches: Christian nationalism v issues such as approaches to immigration ... funding international aid ... collaboration among nations towards peace between nations
- Anglican Communion: continuing dissonance over same-sex relationships (major) and ordination of women (minor) ... noting that both matters are having a role - it would appear - in who might be the next ABC
- back to the Roman Catholic church: recently a priest in the UK refused to give communion to a (Catholic) MP who voted for the recently passed (n the House of Commons) euthanasia law raising multiple questions re "mercy" in respect of life itself, and at the communion rail (when sin is unrepented of).
Naturally I have no particular confidence in my ability to solve all hermeneutical issues currently bubbling away in the meeting places of Christians, let alon the ones which literally are close to actions in which people are being killed.
Neverthless, what greater topic for Christian study than, What is truth? A hermeneutic of mercy is about checking in that we understand the Christian Scriptures correctly, in this time and in these places of controversy.
42 comments:
Fabulous, Peter! This is so needed; so fraught and complex too. And over the course of the study leave your work will shape up into what?...a paper to be published? The possibility of a future book?
Also may I ask, will you pause the weekly blog postings this month--or will they continue?
I wish you all the best as you work on your study and research.
Let's have some accuracy, Peter. Francis NEVER spoke 'ex cathedra', and neither have any popes but two: Pius IX in 1870 (declaring papal infallibility ex cathedra) and Pius XII in 1950 (declaring the dogma of the Immaculate Conception). No Catholic believes that every pronouncement by the Pope is infallible, only those that meet the strict and formal conditions of the 1870 declaration. Catholics always treat papal pronouncements with great respect but not as statements of dogma, which is what "ex cathedra" means. Popes are also clear that they are bound by the Church's sacred Tradition and have no liberty to change it. That is why Pope St John Paul declared it is impossible for the Church to ordain women to the priesthood: because sacred Tradition forbids this. And Francis understood this as well. Popes do make mistakes, as Francis did on the death penalty. The Council of Constantinople in 681 condemned Pope Honorius I for his erroneous views on monotheletism.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi Liz
Study leave will determine whether there is a book or an article or some blogposts (or all three kinds).
I plan to keep blogging, even if it is sharing my thoughts from one week to another.
Hi William
I have added an explanation re "ex cathedra".
When Francis spoke he was always speaking as the occupant of the cathedra in Rome.
Sounds very interesting, Peter. And urgent to say the least. Best wishes in your endeavor.
It does put me in mind of Francis, who seemed to return pastoral theology from the "on the ground application" of "theology proper", to a place of much greater centrality in the life of God, Jesus, the Church - and theology.
I think of Francis both speaking of the way Jesus "encountered" the other - with a great deal of spontaneity, presence, and at times, innovation, while always suggesting it? As what all teachers of Israel should know and understand already - and what others said of Francis himself; that he wanted to encounter you, really listen, meet you fully, meet your heart...before speaking. This radical listening didn't dull what he said - he could still speak very impactfully and forthrightly. Like when he said "Catholics don't need to breed like rabbits", "who am I to judge" (if a gay man is ordained a bishop), or even when he compared abortion to hiring a hitman (speaking to children!).
"The Church has no right to change tradition" (William) is only half the truth, of course. Jesus himself knew that those he spoke with could barely hear or understand what he was saying, and, in John, says this very clearly - the Spirit will continue to teach, to unfold the truth, and say things which people can't bear to hear right now.
Is this Spirit who keeps teaching a merciful Spirit?
I knew a woman who was certainly a believer, who gave up reading the Bible because every time she tried, she felt judged. It could be personality or it could be teaching that was without the ‘hermeneutics of mercy’, which is something I have experienced too. That speaks at the personal level rather than the big questions of the church that are current but may have a bearing on how the big questions develop.
And you still got it wrong, Peter: a pope speaking 'ex cathedra' does NOT mean '[issuing] formal Papal bulls', of which there have been hundreds in history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_papal_bulls), or even encyclicals, it means a solemn declaration of doctrinal infallibility, which has only happened twice (1870 and 1950). All Catholics pay great attention to the Pope's words, but in practice popes *never speak 'ex cathedra'. All popes know they are bound by Sacred Tradition and cannot change Doctrine, unlike Protestants, for whom doctrine (e.g. on marriage, sanctity of life, orders etc) can be changed by a parliamentary vote, like any human law. This is why Catholics find Anglicanism increasingly hard to understand. I once went to the Anglican shrine in Walsingham in England and it seemed to me that numinous Anglican world of the 1930s is now gone for ever.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Ok, William, have updated. I look forward to a certain Papal Bull being rescinded … but don’t imagine it will be anytime soon!
Do you mean 'Apostolicae Curae' (1896)? Well, that was penned by Leo XIII and the present pope is a fan of his ... OTOH, the Papal Bull of 1054 excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople was rescinded (albeit in 1965), so don't lose hope!
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Your inaccuracies, William, highlight the problem with your idea of infallibility.
Let's have some accuracy, William. It was not the Pope in 1870 who infallibly declared himself infallible (talk about circular!), it was Vatican I (don't mention the loss of the Papal States & the Unification of Italy!!!) Many would count the 1854 Pius IX's declaration of the Immaculate Conception (which you don't count) as infallible! And - no - that didn't happen in 1950, as you declare. There was a papal ex cathedra pronouncement in 1950 (the first after the 1870 definition - the 1854 one is often counted retroactively) of the bodily Assumption (pun not intended!) into heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary!
Some would count Paul VI's Humanae vitae; some would count John Paul II's Ordinatio sacerdotalis; many/most RCs would regard EVERY papal canonisation as being ex cathedral and infallible... So, yes, Pope Francis did speak ex cathedra, many/most RCs would agree. Often!!! You are in a minority amongst RCs, I posit, in holding that canonisations are not infallibly ex cathedra.
The problem is clear: you, acknowledging yourself as fallible I am sure, thereby fail to give an infallible list of infallible statements. No one, in fact, has an infallible list of infallible statements - we await an infallible papal declaration of such a list ex cathedra!
Blessings
Bosco
Never thought that Papal Bulls were top of Jesus' reading list, really.
It's a bloody march through the "warrior" stage of consciousness - God obliterating hundreds of thousands of "enemies" in the Old Testament, Crusades against Muslims and Jews, millions of Christians hacked apart by other Christians in the Long Reformation, thousands of libraries of warring words, condemning each other.
As my children's book says: "We can't go round it, we can't go over it, we have to go through it...", with Jesus always calling us "through it" more quickly that any of us truly can: "You have heard it said love your neighbours and hate your enemies....". We haven't just heard it, God, we often can barely act in any other way, even our churches building altar rails to keep other Christians out. My retired clergy friend says altar rails were originally built to stop dogs from urinating on the altar. They didn't work.
"a hermeneutic of mercy" -- needed ASAP Peter!
Mark and I have both said above how urgent/needed this is.
Now look at what's happening in the US.....
Have you seen the latest video from the US Department of Homeland Security? You know they've got a windfall of $ from the BBB, right?
I got this video link from a post from Kristin Du Mez.
It goes to the DHS "X" a/c - where the video was shared.
https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1942362217795510273
Kristin's post -- Taking the Lord's name in vain:
https://kristindumez.substack.com/p/taking-the-lords-name-in-vain
I don't think I can overstate how chilling this is.
PS to my earlier comment -- National Catholic Reporter has done an excellent article IMHO about specific elements of the Homeland Security video, and also absolutely shredding it from a theology POV.
https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/homeland-security-weaponizes-bible-verse-justify-trumps-immigration-tactics
It is always good to have non-Catholics like Dr Peters explain what Catholic doctrine is. I myself have sometimes tried to explain what Anglican doctrine is, but I have quickly come unstuck, and not on esoteric questions but some fairly basic ones:
Is God a Trinity (Dr Packer) or is unitarianism true (Bishop Spong etc)?
Is the Virgin Birth a fact of history (Dr Stott) or myth (Prof. Maurice Wiles)?
Did Jesus rise bodily (Dr Michael Green) or not (Archbishop Carnley, Bishop David Jenkins)?
Is abortion a grave sin (Archbishop Williams) or female empowerment (TEC)?
Is marriage between man and woman (Dr Ian Paul) or anyone (Archbishop Stephen Cottrell)? etc etc
You see my problem? Anglican doctrine seems to differ from country to country and within countries, depending on who you ask.
Like Justin Welby, I am 'a bit thick' in understanding how two mutually contradictory propositions can both be true at the same time, but I believe there is a glossary in the appendix of Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' which explains how this is possible.
My own pronouncements here are never 'ex cathedra' - they are usually 'ex lecto' (on my tablet or phone), always 'motu proprio' and occasionally subject to 'lapsus memoriae sive calami' - I can tell you infallibly that I am not infallible.
But I do have fair idea of the Catholic meaning of 'ex cathedra', which was formally determined by Pius IX at Vatican I in 1870:
“We [i.e. 'we, the pope'] teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable.”
This is a *very narrow definition of 'ex cathedra' and is not to be confused with remarks to a journalist on a plane or to some children at a youth rally in Singapore.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
My reaction to the DHS video was that it must be someone’s spoof put out in the DHS name!
I can’t believe it is genuine and to be taken seriously… (I would like to factcheck it but don’t quite know how to.)
PS I googled ‘latest videos from the DHS USA’ and, while there are unpleasant videos about illegal immigrants and deportation, that one doesn’t appear at all. My question remains: is it genuine?
It's real, Moya. The "X" link I gave is the Homeland Security account. You can double-check that - by going to the DHS website - they have a social media page at https://www.dhs.gov/social-media-directory
Go down to "DHS on X (Formerly Twitter)". Clicking on that opens up their "X" account - it's exactly the same account as the "X" link I provided. Scroll down to 08-July and there's the video.
I always feel intensely bemused by Catholic prelates, sitting in Roman law courts several centuries after the death of Christ, saying Jesus intended us to have all this wealth and power. Sorry, which planet?
Hi Liz,
Unfortunately the use of the Bible in that video is perfectly traditional. Most of the Psalms are not about mercy, but smiting one's enemies.
This has been called "warrior consciousness" in human history and in the development of the Judaeo Christian tradition - Israel gets sick of being pushed around, develops a monarchy and military strength, puts the God of the tent inside a temple palace, though some prophets speak against it.
It's a rich larder for people like Netanyahu and - just about anyone who wants to raid it. Trump, but Biden too.
Isn't it horrific.
Thanks Liz - I didn’t find it but take your word for it as it is certainly the DHS site.
I am appalled…
Horrific it is, Mark. And wasn't Isaiah calling on his own people to repent from idolatry and return to truth and righteousness, to stop being corrupt and oppressive? (The irony is startling).
Re the song used in the video, the NCR article says, "Famously the song is about how no matter how self-righteous one is, sinners cannot hide from the divine justice of God."
NCR, after quoting more of Isaiah, add: "...The blasphemous post is the latest in a series of heretical use of Scripture to christen an agenda that is an affront not just to the Christian faith, but to God himself."
I'm astonished a video expressing such violent sentiment is issued from a Gov Dept in the context of *internal* Gov force, and I'm not sure what its purpose is. Propaganda/fearmongering? signalling loyalty to DT? dog-whistle to far-right? Some call it a recruitment video. Maybe it's a mix of all those. IDK.
About heresy. Kristin Du Mez addresses her readers at the end of the article with, "I’m pretty sure that, in their world, “heretic” comes down to anyone who interferes with their quest for power." ... "That’s me, and that’s most of you."
A high proportion of those taken by ICE are Christian but I don't have the statistic to hand. "Only 7 percent are convicted of violent offenses" according to Christianity Today.
"The Department of Homeland security has said in court filings that it will prioritize deporting even immigrants who have had charges dismissed, and it has ended protections for some Christians facing persecution in their homelands, such as Afghans."
(Those being arrested include Christians from conservative churches where many folk would've voted Rep - I guess - not realising how costly that decision would be for them personally in the near future)
Moya is rightly appalled and I thank you Moya for not looking away. It's hugely important right now that we don't look away.
I appeal to you all.. to read this interview with a Catholic Bishop in Florida:
Title: Florida bishop: Alligator Alcatraz ‘not a solution; it’s an evil’
Source: The Pillar (Catholic publication) Date: 08-Jul-25
Intro: "According to a Florida bishop, two Catholic dioceses in the state are struggling to establish pastoral ministry for inmates at the country’s newest immigration detention center — Alligator Alcatraz."
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/florida-bishop-alligator-alcatraz
Sobering insight into some of what's going on - and what's going wrong.
Dickens gave us the satirical character Mrs Jellyby in 'Bleak House' as one to avoid, not emulate: while the good Victorian philanthropist expended all her energy for a faroff African tribe, she somehow managed to neglect looking after her own children. How is it that New Zealand has one of the worst records in the 'developed' world for domestic violence against children? Why is one under 5 being murdered every five weeks in New Zealand? Why is one child a month admitted to Starship Hospital with a serious head injury? What is actually going on in places like Kaikohe? Who will lift a lid on these things? Churches? /cicadas
Or is the reality of domestic and child abuse (usually by the current boyfriend) too politically charged to name and confront?
It is useful, anyway, to remember the words of a certain carpenter on specks and beams in the eye.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Yeah nah, William.
Mrs Jellyby (I'm depending solely on your description) was herself under no threat from a far-off African tribe. So the situation doesn't compare.
The *world* is affected by the actions of the US Administration and their "biblical worldview" which has driven so-called "culture war", polarisation, and demonisation of the other as enemies. This abhorrent political theology appears to facilitate abominations like that appalling "God's gonna cut you down" video.
I'm not a sociologist, won't respond to your Qs, William. I'd simply remind you that prior to my birth I lost two sisters to violence within the family - I'm guessing this wasn't in your mind when you were writing. But it happened in a God-fearing scripture-quoting family with a conservative "biblical worldview" and strict ideas on hierarchy and social order.
When a more powerful entity keeps on relentlessly hammering people and ratcheting up the pressure, something's going to give, and one way or another it'll lead to despair, suffering and death (and in a sense also destroys the oppressor).
One of the many ironies in this situation is, due to there being a quota of arresting 3000 people/day, agents are apparently arresting the easy targets and ignoring actual criminals (much more time/effort is required to get them so to make the quota, actual criminals get ignored). This is how oppression is rolled out.
In the video clip, the background song-verse is a warning that the powerful themselves should heed:
Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light
I copied those words from an article that discusses the video and has a number of church leaders' responses:
https://churchleaders.com/news/514419-dhs-border-protection-isaiah-blasphemy.html
(Note the article is spread over three pages so click on the numbers at the bottom of the article to see the whole thing)
Mrs Jellyby was under no threat. But her neglected children were. You don't have to be a sociologist to answer my questions, you only have to be a New Zealand citizen living in New Zealand asking NZ authorities what is happening in NZ families to NZ children. The chances of achieving something may be a little higher than the displacement activity of worrying about what is going on in Ukraine, Gaza, Xinjiang, Nigeria, Yemen, Florida etc etc etc.
But the problem of trying to find out what is happening in your own neighbourhood is that it is actually costly because it involves asking your Parliamentary representatives about the failures of Oranga Tamariki and its terrible decisions about children in danger, and the political hot potato of asking what is going on in places like Kaikohe - and that means wading into politics, race, conspiracies of silence and the questionable "narratives" that communities tell about themselves. And that won't make you popular. Easier just to slag off the foreigners.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi William
Life is difficult!
On the one hand (if it were my place to reveal private correspondence here), I could point you to those Kiwis concerned about Gaza/West Bank, who slate the church for "not doing enough" to rouse the PM to (say) lead an NZ boycott of Israeli goods, in order to press Israel's govt to arrive at peace much more quickly than they are doing. I don't think a response to such reasonable requests is to displace the requests by saying we shouldn't do anything until our own house is in order.
OTOH there is the situation in NZ you rightly raise (and, I note, surveying some of our media, others raise), the death rate among children, which simply should not be. However it is not quite clear to me what anyone - church, Oranga Tamariki, etc - can do about the wilful actions of individuals within individual family contexts - short of live in guardians for all families identified as potentially liable to murderous behaviour - which is likely to strike no one as a viable course of action. What we can and should applaud are the efforts - not much reported on in the media - of many people (Oranga Tamariki staff; social workers associated with community/church-based trusts; churches and other organisations doing what they can to support families (e.g. through breakfast clubs, school lunch runs, etc); other organisations, not necessarily overtly Christian but often run on Christian principles of seeking out the last, least and the lost; etc).
You identify a problem - I am not sure you have charted a solution.
"You identify a problem - I am not sure you have charted a solution."
Oh, I suspect if these child homicides and assaults were happening in Fendalton or Remuera we would have a solution PDQ. It's because they're happening overwhelmingly in the underclass, and especially the Maori underclass, that nobody cares - or at least dares to put their head above the parapet. When you allow child protection and adoption policies to become politicised and racialised, when special interest groups are given powers they should never have, as they increasingly have in recent years, when ketamine and alcohol abuse goes unchallenged, and offenders are not evicted, a veil of silence is drawn over abuses - but the abuse goes on. And it doesn't stop with the under-fives. Look at the terrible youth suicide rates in NZ. Solutions exist, but there isn't the courage or will to implement them.
Confucius said in his 'Analects' that the first duty of a ruler of a just society was 'the rectification of names' - calling things by their proper name and not obfuscating. Christians should agree that's a good start.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi William
Your reply is very close to not being published.
You are demeaning people in our society (“underclass”) and you are offering an “I know exactly what is going on” godlike view of things while claiming “solutions exist” without spelling them out in detail so we could assess whether you actually have solutions or not.
Hi Peter. I find this helpful, an older article shared via a Dunedin Methodist site. Here's their introductory text for the link:
"An article written by Dr Rawiri Taonui, Head of the School of Maori and Indigenous Studies at Canterbury University. At a time when many commentators and talk-back hosts are laying all the blame on Maori for New Zealand's terrible record of child abuse, Rawiri Taonui offered a more objective and much less emotional assessment in the Sunday Star Times of August 5. We felt his contribution was a necessary correction to the populist view, and reprint it with the author's permission."
https://www.dunedinmethodist.org.nz/archive/mind/zmind.htm
Well, you know me (from my words, at least), Peter, I don't beat around the Urewera. I use 'underclass' in the sense in which it was coined by the Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal. Growing up as a deserted family in great poverty, we were aware of a world we could have fallen into, were it not for our mother's faith and character, our good education and native intelligence, and maybe also the St Vincent de Paul Society. I suspect there were more angels watching over my childhood than I will ever know. 'Underclass' is not a pleasant word but it's an accurate one to describe chronic poverty and joblessness, exacerbated by alcohol and substance abuse and criminality, and we knew more than a few such cases in our world.
You ask for solutions? I often ponder these words of Ronald Reagan, which are applicable in many senses today: "There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right."
Abusers know how to game the system to cover their crimes, and grifters game the system to make money. Meanwhile, it is the small children who are abused and killed by the live-in boyfriend, it is the depressed teenager who takes his own life. I understand why C.S. Lewis wrote, 'Courage is .... the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality' ('The Screwtape Letters'). If you are afraid of what people might call you, then all the goodwill in the world will achieve nothing.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
William, it's correct that most child victims of homicide are small (two thirds are aged 2 or under). You've twice on this page singled out the live-in boyfriend for critical attention. This situation merits no greater scrutiny than for parents themselves. "Of the cases where the killer's relationship to the victim was known, 27% were mothers, 24% were fathers, and 17% were de facto partners. "The Homicide Report" Released 13 May 2019. Source: https://www.childmatters.org.nz/insights/nz-statistics/
True enough, Liz, I was giving an illustration, not a comprehensive explanation. Most of us (myself included) still find it hard to accept that a mother would actively harm her own child and find it easier to understand that the male outsider with no biological link would be cruel. (This is also reflected in that trope from European folklore that we all grew up with, the wicked stepmother who hates her husband's children. This was no doubt a social reality in the Middle Ages, when many mothers died in childbirth and men took a second wife.) But even your figures show what we know from all cultures, that males are more violent than females and they don't have a natural bond with the young child but have to develop this. The biological father with poor education and a history of substance abuse who is not married to the mother of his child or committed to supporting her is not likely to be a caring father, to put it mildly. Furthermore, if childbearing and rearing are separated from marriage and the nuclear family, how can we seriously expect positive outcomes? It's possible - but against the odds.
On systemic failures, some high profile cases of child abuse and murder from the UK in the past generation, as well as some notorious cases in New Zealand, do suggest that race and culture based social work has inhibited effective intervention and allowed abuse to go unchecked. It wasn't always so. What I am saying is: get rid of the amateur anthropology and the race and politics based social policy and ask real questions. Sometimes you have to slaughter a sacred cow.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Thanks William. To ask real questions (I agree there are such) it needs to be done fairly, not just putting the microscope on Maori. Because when you dig down into the real issues there's a power imbalance that works to the detriment of Maori.
Pakeha need the humility to pay attention to what Maori say about their own experience and be willing to critique our white culture and how destructive it can be (and has been historically); e.g. everyday racism directed at Maori children and adults. There needs to be genuine engagement and commitment to working together in order to make things better (and not tied to a political term where a change of government upends what's been agreed).
If things are done to make things fairer for Maori - only to be followed by excoriation in the run-up to the next election for "racism" against Pakeha - it results in acrimony and crushing hurt and disappointment. This type of politics is a curse and needs to cease. It would be so refreshing to simply engage in good faith discussion instead - folk committed to shared learning and decision-making - with that becoming the long-term path forward so that it's not entangled with politics.
P.S. I accidentally gave an indirect link to Dr Rawiri Taonui's article. Here's the correct link: https://www.dunedinmethodist.org.nz/archive/mind/notaraceissue.html
But the problem is that the issue is already entangled with politics, of the most unhelpful racialised kind that prevents people discovering the truth.
The first task, I suggest, is to stop speaking about people as if they represented immobile and undifferentiated blocks. Maori are not all the same, far from it, since all self-described Maori are actually 'mixed race' and there is a broad range of attachment to and involvement in traditional Maori culture. Neither is culture a static and fixed thing - the 'ideal type' of anthropologists - but is always changing, for good or ill. Nobody, Maori or European, lives as they did 200 years ago, and no culture is preserved in aspic. We are constantly absorbing influences from outside, and Maoris are no different. How else can you live in the modern world? Like it or not, if you go to school, use the internet and speak English, old traditional ways will be disrupted or at least challenged. Everybody in the world is challenged by modernity, whether Malays or Xhosa or Maori.
Second, Maoris are no different from Europeans or Asians in what they seek from life: a home, a family and a paying job, and a wider community to which they belong. If it is proving harder than ever for many to achieve these basic social goods, then we need to face up to:
1. the structural problems in the NZ economy. Why are house prices so high and the house supply do poor? Are green policies hurting the working poor by restricting supply?
2. changing patterns of social (and sexual) behaviour which have led to historically high levels of births out of wedlock, female led households, school failure, substance and alcohol use and abuse, and the phenomenon of gangs among young males. We need to ask, quite honestly, are these factors disproportionately high among Maori and if so, why. This is where the rubber meets the road, not in endless obfuscation or blaming others. From my reading and observation, I know there are, for example, enormous differences between Indians and Caribbean heritage populations in the UK: the former are the wealthiest, best educated people in Britain, and the latter the most struggling by any index. Why the difference between these two racial minorities in Britain? It is their profoundly different cultures which shape family life and ambitions.
3.As I indicated above, NZ's terrible problem of child abuse and youth suicide is, to use that uncomfortable word, predominantly a feature of the underclass, which is not about race but sub-culture. You don't need to be a profound sociologist to know that there are a few red lines that every parent of a newborn needs to observe, viz., 1. No booze or fentanyl or tobacco or weed in your home. 2. No shaking babies, ever. 3. No transient boyfriends in the home. 4. Seek medical or social work help quickly. 5. Don't cover up and don't make excuses.
To quote Reagan again, solutions are rarely easy but they are often simple. Or to quote from the conclusion of the finest English poem of the 20th century, 'Little Gidding', it is 'a condition of complete simplicity / (Costing not less than everything)'. Christians understand this point because the first reponse of the mature Christian is to take responsibility for one's own life and decisions and thereby affect the needed changes.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
"enormous differences between Indians and Caribbean heritage populations in the UK"
Why *wouldn't* you expect enormous differences? The Caribbean had a back-history of slave plantations, right? In 1948 people in the Caribbean were invited to the UK to help rebuild post-war Britain, many became manual workers, drivers, cleaners, and nurses in the newly established NHS. A 1971 Immigration Act gave Commonwealth citizens living in the UK indefinite leave to remain - the permanent right to live and work in the UK. "However, in April 2018, it emerged that the UK Home Office had kept no records of those granted permission to stay, and had not issued the paperwork they needed to confirm their status." It had also destroyed landing cards belonging to Windrush migrants, in 2010 [Windrush refers to the ship many arrived on in 1948]. Those affected were unable to prove they were in the country legally and were prevented from accessing healthcare, work and housing. Many were also threatened with deportation. "A review of historical cases also found that at least 83 people who had arrived before 1973 had been wrongly deported."
In 2023 (75th anniversary of the Windrush arrival), "King Charles, who held a reception at Buckingham Palace to mark the anniversary, hailed the Windrush generation's "profound and permanent contribution to British life". And yet - look how they were treated!
After the scandal emerged the Home Office was later criticised for "a culture of disbelief and carelessness". A compensation scheme was set up and various commitments made but under a new Home Secretary some of those were walked back. It was clearly chaotic, and traumatic, and now *seven years* after the scandal there's finally a Windrush Commissioner [1] to do something about the "tortuous" scheme.
This, BTW, is all new to me, only learned today. And what it confirms to me is that before you start comparing a particular group of people with another (different) group, you absolutely must learn their particular story! What has their lived experience been? What difficulties have they faced?
[1] The government announced on 18 June that Reverend Clive Foster, a senior pastor at the Pilgrim Church in Nottingham, had taken up the newly-created role on a three-year term. Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2k78edvvdo
Main Ref: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3w4q1ee1p4o
Well, I could talk for hours about West Indians in Britain - and the Ugandan Asians robbed and expelled in 1971. It would only make the point that culture (meaning the sum of values and practices of a particular people) is the decisive factor in success, and manifestly not all cultures are the same or equally good in achieving social peace and relatively equality and prosperity. But we knew that already from the Jews, who have been hated and persecuted throughout history but have still flourished.
However, the topic here is child abuse in New Zealand, and the cultural and social factors that make it worse than it should be for a developed country. My long-term conviction is that most of our social problems arise from the failure to form stable marriages and the failure of to many men to become good fathers. Has this problem accelerated in the past generation? I think it most definitively has. That is why I find it stale and pointless to live in the past and remember old hurts - like that Maori leader maundering about a dispute her ancestors had with French sailors of the 'St Jean Baptiste' in 1769! Seriously, who is still living in the past? In 2025!
What have I said that is factually untrue about the dynamics of family life, how it prospers and how it may fail?
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
You upheld Indians (UK) as "wealthiest, best educated people in Britain", contrasting their success against Caribbeans "the most struggling by any index". It's interesting you highlighted Indians' high level of education when this is precisely what was denied Caribbean children:
"The contribution of the Windrush pioneers was made in a context of widespread racism, the clearest and ugliest illustration of which was found on signs on the doors of boarding houses—stating “No Irish, no blacks, no dogs”—and which in many situations ran much deeper, often resulting in daily discrimination and humiliation. An egregious example is the appalling and still unaddressed scandal of black children being deemed emotionally subnormal in the 1960s and ’70s and being placed in special schools, where they were denied an education and made to feel inferior."
Helen Hayes, Hansard 16 June 2025
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2025-06-16/debates/4B1BBC76-1E1A-4B6F-A02C-C02807BDB66F/WindrushDay2025
I've read the whole transcript. The British government advertised for them to come to rebuild Britain. They came and worked hard, paid taxes.
"We in this House often speak of the values of tolerance, diversity, resilience and community—what we call British values. The Windrush generation embodied those values through their courage, determination and unwavering belief in a better future, but they were not always treated with those same values in mind. Their influence runs through the fabric of our nation, and we must ensure that their contributions are not just remembered, but celebrated, honoured and upheld for generations to come.." (same Hansard transcript, different speaker).
Judging from what I've read, the Caribbean migrants' "sum of values and practices" sounds pretty good William and according to you this is "the decisive factor in success" so if success hasn't happened for them then that could suggest that "real questions" need to be asked of the dominant culture!
Ditto Canadian/American Indians, Aboriginals in Australia, and Maori in New Zealand - leaders in all these groups work hard to achieve better outcomes and the dominant culture needs to support their efforts and partner with them (instead of fighting them like they're a threat). IMHO politicians playing the race card prior to elections is appalling behaviour and it should be an offence with a serious penalty. It's just too destructive.
Well, Liz, I taught in inner London schools in the 1980s, so I have a bit more inside knowledge than some others. No West Indian children were denied 'a high level of education' - the Inner London Education Authority was the largest and most leftwing educational authority in Europe and it bent over backwards and spent more per capita than anyone to promote black and other minority education. And like California and New York today, its outcomes were among the poorest in the country. If you want a more contemporary take on English education and race, I suggest you google the story of Michaela School in North London, founded by New Zealand-born headteacher Katherine Birbalsingh. There is a lot more to "culture" than meets the politician's eye, because schooling is about personal family places where politicians fear to tread: success in schooling is primarily about having intact families and ambitious parents who insist on educational success for their children and create such a learning environment. In Britain this meant that relatively poor Indian immigrants typically took over dairies and worked 7 days a week so that their daughters would become pharmacists and their sons lawyers or doctors. Culturally they were and are completely different from West Indians and their children's educational outcomes and career paths are completely different. An honour-shame culture that insists on intact marriages, virginity for their daughters before marriage, thrift and hard schoolwork is obviously a lot more likely to climb the social ladder. Indians are the wealthiest ethnicity in Britain today, as they are In New York.
But enough of that. My question to you was: What are the factors in the social dynamics of New Zealand families that are holding back many from succeeding? Why is NZ's school truancy rate among the worst in the developed world? Why is there such a high dropout rate among Maori kids? Why is this so different from other minorities, including those from a non-English speaking background?
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Your latest comment made me think of the movie To Sir With Love, based on an autobiographical novel that I've never read. I must get hold of it! "Sir" was an extremely well educated West Indian who couldn't obtain work in his chosen field after the war - from a Guardian article:
"His was a relatively comfortable upbringing, being the son of two Oxford-educated parents, and as a young man he quickly absorbed the conservative, middle-class manners of the Caribbean intellectual. He attended Queens College, an elite colonial school in British Guiana, and went on to study at City College in New York, before enlisting as a Royal Air Force pilot in England. As Braithwaite states in To Sir With Love, like many other Caribbean men, he joined the British armed forces out of a sense of duty, and during the war years he was ready to die for his country.
"Upon being demobilised at the end of the war, Braithwaite fully expected to be absorbed into the upper levels of his chosen profession of engineering. Not only had he studied in New York, but he would soon earn a master's degree in physics from Cambridge University. However, at interview after interview he was refused an appointment because of his colour. Unfortunately, the camaraderie of the service did not transfer to civilian life, and the realisation of this fact struck him a hard blow.
This seems in aggreement with the racism described in the Hansard transcript.
I find the story of UK Caribbean migrants interesting so I will read more about them, particularly the education aspect.
Guardian link: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/23/featuresreviews.guardianreview20
Returning to our NZ situation, Dr Rawiri Taonui in his article included this: "It is not the original indigenous culture that causes the cyclic child bashing, but the absence or distortion of culture. The highest rate of cyclic poverty, alcohol, drug and child abuse in Western Europe is in the Glaswegian south-east of Scotland - the descendants of white Highlanders who lost their lands, language and culture."
Of course this should be read within the context of his article...
https://www.dunedinmethodist.org.nz/archive/mind/notaraceissue.html
That's an absurd piece of historical nonsense by Taonui. I am descended myself on my mother's side from Gaelic speaking Highlanders whose lives were disrupted by the Highland Clearances after the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Scotland itself was a kingdom from the tenth century, a Christian people from the seventh, and a land of immense learning, My ancestors did not become child-beating alcoholics for 250 years. Most lived on in Scottish villages, literate but poor Presbyterians. Others emigrated to Canada. But it is ttue that the Scottish love affair with alcohol persists to this day. Scotland has the worst health record in the UK, due to high levels of alcohol use, smoking, obesity and poor diet. The Scots can't blame the English for this, but of course many do, it's a national habit.
But I wonder if Taonui has any knowledge of what it was like to be a Maori in 1745 or even 1835. I suspect he does, and if he knows any history, he will know that for the majority of Maori, life was very difficult, subsistence agriculture and living off low protein birds, a warrior culture based on utu and inter-tribal warfare with terrible consequences (cannibalism or enslavement, loss of your own lands to the victorious tribe) for being on the losing side. The Musket Wars were horrific beyond words and pre-colonial life expectancy for most Maori then was in the early 30s.We all knew these things from our schooling in the 1960s and 70s. But nowadays people like to pretend that Maori history began in 1840.
No good is achieved by living in a mythical past and blaming others for my bad decisions, as if I possessed no agency over my choices. The Gospel is about being a new creation, after all.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Interesting, William. So on your mother's side how far back has the family been in NZ, and do you know the reason for coming here?
Well, Liz, I used to tell my Australian cousins that Dunedin was founded by Scotsmen looking for a cooler climate. But not by Glaswegians, their boat took them straight to Botany Bay.
Anyway, I don't want to belabour this point, but the cultural change forced upon the Maoris in 1800-1840 was probably the most rapid and extensive in history, after the Australian Aboriginal experience/nightmare. The equivalent of 6000 years of European cultural development (from the Proto-Indo-European beginnings to the 19th century) was being assimilated in one generation, so it is not surprising that there was considerable upheaval. What is remarkable is how generally peaceful it was (a tribute to the influence of the Churches in becoming the centre of Maori identity), and the role of Maori leaders from the 1880s onward in reviving the people when it had gone into severe demographic decline. For leaders like Apirana Ngata and Peter Buck, central to the Maori revival was breaking the power of the tohunga and enthusiastically embracing 'western' medicine and 'western' education. I will repeat here my conviction that it is the erosion of active church influence since the 1960s from most Maori lives that has left a painful vacuum for so many and has been devastating for children and youth.The contrast with Pasifika is very marked.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
William, Katharine Birbalsingh has an interesting approach and no doubt, over time, much can be learned from that experience in terms of what works and what doesn't. I like some of her ideas, repelled by others. I admire how she's trying something that's quite different.
In respect to UK education and West Indian children, there's a very specific history that's different to Indian children. Children often arrived in the UK years after their parents, having been cared for by relatives e.g. grandparents. They spoke Creole English and IQ tests didn't take that into account and in addition there was a pervasive perception that Blacks were less intelligent. Because Creole English was a derivative of English they didn't get special language help that non-English immigrants were given. A hugely disproportionate amount of Caribbean children were placed in "educationally subnormal" schools (ESN). They really called them that! If there's now a reluctance from parents to engage with the education system, it's hardly surprising. But many families did have high hopes and aspirations for their children and there's a history of the Caribbean community organising and taking action to improve the system. What crops up again and again is systemic racism and, too many teachers having unreasonably low expectations for these children. In some cases there were aspects that were similar to treatment of American Indians and Blacks - "bussing", and also boarding school.
I'm heartened to see good research is being done - and changes are being made.
BBC article (2021): https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57099654
Paper from Lambeth Education and Learning (2023) "Raising Achievement of Black Caribbean Pupils: Barriers and Good Practice in Schools" - Google for a pdf link
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