This is what happens when ideology colonises faith. The course promises to “explore Christianity through te ao Māori and mātauranga Māori,” which sounds academic enough until you realise what it actually means: everything from creation to salvation must now be re-examined through the Treaty of Waitangi. The crucifixion? A lesson in power imbalance. The resurrection? A symbol of indigenous resilience. The Holy Spirit? Possibly a metaphor for cultural partnership. It’s theology, rewritten for the politically correct age where grace gives way to grievance, and scripture takes a back seat to “lived experience.”
And make no mistake this is not an isolated curiosity tucked away in some obscure corner of campus. It’s everywhere. Every institution, every discipline, every profession is being repainted in the same ideological colours. The law is no longer about equality before it, but about “incorporating tikanga.” Education is no longer about literacy and numeracy, but “decolonising the curriculum.” The military once about defending the nation now holds workshops on cultural humility. Medicine? Doctors are told to “treat the whole whakapapa,” as if understanding your great-grandfather’s tribal affiliations will lower your blood pressure.
Is there nothing off-limits that they won’t rewrite for a Māori worldview? Apparently not. From Parliament to the pulpit, the same script is playing out: take something that worked, call it colonial, dismantle it, rebrand it with Māori words, and declare it progress. Even Christianity, the faith that survived Rome, revolution, and reform, must now survive the onslaught of bicultural bureaucracy.
Once, universities encouraged debate. Now, they reward conformity. At Otago, you could write an essay explaining how Māori spirituality enriches Christian understanding and get an A+. But write one defending the authority of Scripture over cultural relativism, and you’ll likely be accused of “failing to engage with indigenous perspectives.” The modern academic doesn’t seek truth they curate feelings. Passing a theology paper now depends less on your understanding of God, and more on your ability to perform repentance for other people’s sins.
And where are the churches in all this? Silent. Meekly nodding along, terrified of being called “insensitive.” The Church that once stood against tyranny now bows before the altar of cultural fashion. Pastors preach about climate change, systemic bias, and Treaty partnership anything but sin, salvation, and the uncomfortable notion of absolute truth. When academia rewrites the Gospel to suit the times, it’s the Church’s duty to protest. Instead, they applaud.
Let’s be honest this is no longer about respect for Māori culture. It’s about control. Every corner of public life must now align with “te ao Māori.” Every decision, policy, and prayer must first pass the litmus test of bicultural approval. Even the Son of God, it seems, requires cultural validation before being discussed in a lecture theatre.
New Zealand has become the world’s laboratory for moral experimentation a place where common sense is sacrificed to symbolism, and logic must genuflect before ideology. Our leaders talk endlessly about “partnership,” but in practice it’s submission one worldview elevated above all others, protected from scrutiny, wrapped in sacred language no one dares question.
The irony is almost biblical. The same crowd that decries “colonial religion” now colonises Christianity itself, rewriting it to fit the Treaty narrative. And Otago, once a place of learning, now leads the charge baptising politics in holy water and calling it enlightenment.
There was a time when New Zealanders built things railways, industries, communities. Now we rebuild the past endlessly, repainting it in ideological colours and pretending it’s progress. The tragedy is that while the rest of the world moves forward, we’re stuck navel-gazing, rewriting even our faith to meet the approval of cultural bureaucrats.
The Gospel doesn’t need a Māori worldview, or any other worldview, to give it meaning. Its truth transcends culture, language, and politics. Yet in today’s New Zealand, truth itself has become the one thing you’re not allowed to believe in unless, of course, it comes with the right accent and a Treaty citation.
Steven is an entrepreneur and an ex RNZN diver who likes travelling, renovating houses, Swiss Watches, history, chocolate art and art deco.
17 comments:
Once upon a time, theology meant studying God, Scripture, and faith. At the University of Otago today, it means learning to see the Bible through a Māori lens—or, more accurately, a Māori-centered interpretive framework approved by a faculty committee.
The “Māori Theology and Religion” course is small, selective, and expensive. It’s immersive, yes—marae-based weeks with more than ten senior professors guiding a handful of students. But it’s not designed as broad education in Christianity. It’s a carefully curated experience: students are taught to view scripture and doctrine primarily through issues of identity, power, and colonization. Salvation? Possibly secondary. The resurrection? A cultural case study. Standard theological positions exist, but only as backdrop to what matters most here: perspective.
This is the classic pattern in contemporary humanities and theology programmes. Content isn’t merely delivered—it’s framed. The goal is not neutral understanding, but the cultivation of a particular worldview. Students leave not just knowing, but thinking in line with a predefined lens. The course doesn’t just explore; it socializes. Its aim is unmistakable: produce graduates who fit professional niches where Māori-centered interpretation is expected. Iwi organizations, community advocacy, Māori ministry, and academia that prizes indigenous frameworks over traditional doctrine—these are the target careers.
Cultural immersion at the marae reinforces this ideological architecture. The teaching is intimate, intensive, and tightly framed. Small cohorts mean each student’s exposure to the faculty’s interpretive priorities is direct and persistent. The university’s financial commitment is enormous—dozens of faculty contributing for a cohort likely numbering in the tens—but the payoff is influence. A tiny intake, high cost, maximum ideological impact.
The long-term effect is predictable. Graduates enter institutions and subtly shape discourse: which narratives count, whose voices are valid, and what knowledge is authoritative. Scripture and traditional doctrine become reference points filtered through identity and historical grievance. Standard theological positions are relegated, subordinated to social and cultural readings.
This is left-wing progressive not in the casual political sense, but in epistemology. It defines what counts as knowledge, whose experience is central, and what questions are worth asking. In these classrooms, moral and cultural framing trumps doctrinal objectivity. Students are taught to prioritize lived experience over text, identity over universality, culture over creed.
Call it postcolonial theology, progressive ethics, or simply indoctrination. The effect is the same. A small, costly programme produces a pipeline of graduates equipped less for universal theological debate than for advancing a particular worldview.
Otago’s course is a microcosm of a wider trend. Across universities globally, theological faculties increasingly act as ideological engines rather than purely academic departments. Courses are immersive, selective, and framed to teach not only content, but moral and social perspective. Students are not just educated—they are trained in thought, guided to adopt a lens that will shape their future professional and cultural influence.
In short, the university isn’t just teaching religion. It’s shaping worldview. And it’s doing so in a concentrated, expensive, and carefully supervised package. Which is why, when you hear “Māori Theology and Religion,” you should hear something more like: Progressive Theology 101—left-wing epistemology included, Scripture optional.
I blame the Europeans. They have forsaken their religion, theology, spirituality, or whatever you like to characterize it, the Maoris and their servile supporters have recognized the void and rushed in to fill it.
Good for them and shame on you for being such a pussy.
Resurrecting Christianity now will be difficult because it has not been maintained and is now out of date. Back in the day theology and science were one and the same, so theology was by its nature up with the latest science. Now it is lost and so are you.
The comment (Anon@9.16) above reads as if from someone who has either been through the course or works at the university, and as such is very valuable. However, I struggle to understand why a Neolithic view of the world, dating from around 10000 years ago (and changed little, if at all, since) has any relevance to today, except as a lens through which to see how far humans have come in 10 millennia. If we as a species have learned anything it is to recognise snake-oil salesmen and as an atheist, I think the dictum that religion is the opiate of the people still relevant here, and maori religion more so. In fact it is even worse, not having been through the 'fires of reason' and evolution of thought that some religions today have experienced. To sum up; the course is a crock of horse excrement and should be used to fertilize rhubarb not impressionable minds.
All this is SO SERIOUS. Relax. There are no fairies at the bottom of my garden. Do not waste time looking for things that do not exist. Abandon all this non-sense and get on with something worthwhile, like working to establish the truth about climate change, history and the Treaty of Waitangi.
>"Back in the day theology and science were one and the same"
That may be true for when 'science' merely referred to a systematic body of knowledge (as it still does in French), but from the late 17thC on, science and theology diverged with respect to their epistemologies (ways of determining whether something is true). Scientific epistemology came to be rooted in empiricism (what can be observed/measured) - very different from divine revelation (the epistemology of theology).
The 18thC Deists separated the two out by positing that a god had created the 'laws of nature' and had then stepped back and let the natural universe run according to those rules without further direct intervention. Religion/god ceased to be an explanation for natural phenomena, and this greatly reduced the perceived need for it.
Primitive peoples never had an Enlightenment and did not have 'science' in the sense of the word that it has today i.e. an investigative, empirical epistemology. Gods remained important forces in making the natural universe work. It must be obvious to the reader that appealing to gods of any derivation, Palestinian or Maori, is wholly incompatible with modern science.
To say that Westerners at large have totally abandoned all spiritualism is a bit harsh. Surveys have shown that agnosticism is very common among Western populations, this often misused term referring to the 'unknowability' of religious claims i.e. the limits of human [empirical] knowledge (Tom Huxley coined the term in 1866). Non-Abrahamic religious concepts such as pantheism and reincarnation have taken root among many Westerners over the past century. Most Westers do not practise a religion but that is not to say that they are totally non-spiritual.
Where $%#@ were Maori at the time of JC?
When I wrote the above, I was tempted to mention Jung as a possible link to our spiritual roots but did not do so because I know the twenty volumes of his Collected Works present something of a barrier.
So, I went over the road for a coffee and some music to put me in a better frame of mind. On the way out I grabbed his Modern Man in Search of a Soul. I flicked it open at Chapter VII "Archaic Man", the first paragraph of which reads as follows:
"While it is one of the most difficult and thankless of tasks to say anything of importance about civilized man of today, we are apparently in a more favourable position with regards to archaic man. In the first case we try to reach a commanding point of view, but actually are caught in the same presuppositions and blinded by the same prejudices as are those about whom we wish to speak. In the case of the archaic man, however, we are far removed from his world in time, and our mental capacities are more differentiated than his. It is therefore apparently possible for us to occupy a point of vantage from which we can overlook his world and the meaning it held for him."
My point is that unless you accept the responsibility of the Logos, which was bestowed on you in the New Testament, we are stuffed.
I agree. Losers have themselves to blame.
What label can we put on what is happening in New Zealand. Is it fascism? A race based ideological control is creeping over the country. Now even the church is being silently pushed into this worldview. The legal profession, the medical profession, teaching, science, the media and even real estate professionals are all coerced into this ideology.
Some of us function perfectly well without any spiritual assistance thanks.
Science and secularism is being lost. When they are gone, no ones god will save us.
Yes - but also called " having skin in the game" regarding where the most lucrative future may lie. (Even some churches receive public funds.)
You could get the impression science has replaced religion yet over 65% of of science Nobel prize winners last century believed in God and the number of theists may have been even higher as over 65% of the overall winners identified as Christians . The Jewish figure at 20% is particularly sticking as they represent about 0.02% of the worlds population compared with Muslims at 20% of the worlds population but gaining only 1% of the prizes. For chemistry Christians accounted for 74%of the prizes.
I do not think science and religion are opposed to one another and until very recently many of the world's eminent academics believed in God.
In this I am talking about real science not primitive technologies as the Maori had.
I add to Gaynor's comment that Francis Collins led the Human Genome Project and is a Christian. He doesn't believe something so complex could evolve itself without some kind of intelligent input. A common example is how does an eye ball evolve from nothing and then create a genetic code. Animals have ears and holes in the side of the head that evolved from nothing. Although evolution has happened there is clearly something else going on.
This is what Francis Collins actually says about 'design':
"Collins is a critic of intelligent design, and for this reason he was not asked to participate in the 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. ... In an interview he stated that "intelligent design is headed for collapse in the not too distant future" and that "science class ought to be about science, and opening the door to religious perspectives in that setting is a big mistake."
Anyone who uses the expression "evolved from nothing" has nothing to offer in the way of knowledge and understanding of biology. For the evolution of the eye, begin with a Planarian and work your way upwards. But the writer probably doesn't know what a Planarian is. S/he is too desperate to carve a niche for his/her spook in the sky to care either.
I was raised to believe if your belief can't be held without being offensive to your opponent then it is not worth holding.
Those who believe in ID ( intelligent design) also get omitted from documentaries and are often constantly ridiculed and denied research funds etc. The most influential atheist of last century and David Hume's disciple was Anthony Flew who at the end of his life said the scientific evidence led him to having to consider ID. He was grieved he could not rewrite all his previous books and articles which opposed ID because he was too old.
This is a current debate without a conclusion.There are highly intelligent people on both sides who are not at all ignorant nor are they necessarily Christian or atheist.
We might be a bit more respectful if the blatant lies and deliberate misrepresentations from you lot stopped.
AI states that Crick's views on Intelligent design are complex having one view that he later changed his mind about. Come on, Barend quoting what Crick said at earlier times in his life but then contradicted later is not lying, but misrepresenting him which you are also guilty of.
Here is what ought to have been said in a civil conversation. "True , Crick stated some things supporting ID , which he later contradicted by saying .........' "Cut out the verbal abuse .
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