Thursday, April 06, 2023
settler colonial theologies conference abstract
Conference abstract submitted today – “Do this in memory of me.” The role of church buildings in constructing settler colonial theologies in Aotearoa New Zealand. (Dr Steve Taylor, Independent scholar, AngelWings Ltd).
Christianity recognises itself as a religion of memory. In Eucharist, amid betrayal and before violence, Jesus calls his disciples to remember rightly.
What it means for Christianity in Aotearoa to rightly remember is challenged by “Recessional” (2010), a public artwork on display at Te Papa. Artist Murray Hewitt presents visual imagery of 61 publicly accessible historical battle sites in Aotearoa. These sites require right remembering on both sides of the Tasman, given the earliest dated memorial plaque in Anzac Park, Canberra, marks a military campaign fought in 1860-1 by the Royal Australian Navy Campaign in Aotearoa New Zealand, in which some 4% of the Māori population died (O’Malley 2016). A feature of Hewitt’s “Recessional” is the number of church buildings located close to battle sites. How do these religious communities rightly remember nearby histories of violence?
Enns and Myers (2021:10) call for settler “response-ability.” Writing as white Americans, they urge settlers to undertake identity work to understand how settler colonialism structures the relationships they inhabit. Savides (2022) argues that decolonisation offers settlers theological resources to remember rightly. Writing as a white South African, he uses themes of the cross and vulnerability in Reformed theology to demonstrate how decoloniality provides frameworks to analyse Christian entanglement in systems of Empire.
In Aotearoa, Pākehā have a distinct identity as settler. Reflection on this identity requires recognising privilege, lamenting marginalisation and learning to be better partners. This paper uses as case studies the church buildings present in Hewitt’s “Recessional.” It draws on archival records and anniversary liturgies to consider how churches do and do not pay attention to the battle sites nearby. In so doing, this paper contextualises Christian practices of anamnesis. It examines how the churches that Pākehā built are theologically forming settler identities. Trajectories for a theological ethic of settler “response-ability” are suggested.
Enns, Elaine and Ched Myers. Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization. Cascade Books: Eugene, Oregon, 2021.
Murray Hewitt, Recessional (2010). Accessed 29 March 2023.
Savides, Steven. Unsettling the Settler Colonial Imagination: Decoloniality as a Theological Hermeneutic in South Africa. PhD thesis, University of Notre Dame, 2022.
O’Malley, Vincent, The Great War for New Zealand Waikato 1800-2000, Bridget Williams: Wellington, 2016.
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