A Much Needed Corrective, Part II

God Moving in Mysterious Ways

We plan to write a couple of supplementary pieces on  Keith Newman's Bible and Treaty: Missionaries Among the Maori--a New Perspective (New York: Penguin Books, 2010).  These will not strictly be in the category of reviews, but reflections upon just some of what is contained in this valuable book. 

The first is the persistence, patience, and courage of the earliest missionaries.  They were a mixed lot and for ten years laboured in New Zealand under extremely tenuous circumstances, ending up with little to show for their efforts.  Often times they were in danger of losing their lives. 

The missionaries were relatively safe under Hongi's protection, but it was a peace fraught with tension.  Marsden had traversed much of the upper North Island, built relationships with many chiefs and promised missionaries would soon come and live among them.  However, those sent to bring the "good news" remained landlocked at Rangihoua, often fearing for their lives.  After a decade in New Zealand, the missionaries had little to show.  (Op cit., p. 60). 

From a mere human perspective, one would wonder how it could be that any good would ever come of their efforts.  They were a  messy bunch, those early missionaries.
  The only one who made any progress in the Maori language and culture was Kendall, and he was compromised in so many ways, and eventually taken in gross immorality. 

The only one who had broken through or made any significant headway in understanding the people and their language was Kendall, but in his zeal he had strayed from the mission guidelines, and become a major supplier of fire power (muskets) that allowed Hongi Hika to unleash such devastation.  (Ibid.)

Newman recounts how the arrival of the Williams brothers made a manifest difference to the mission efforts.  Today few people would know of their names, let alone the significant contribution they made to God's Kingdom in this place.  Henry Williams's first efforts focused upon  straightening out the drifting CMS mission efforts.  The he made schooling a priority, firstly in English reading and writing, but also in the Maori language.  His brother, William Williams was trained in the classics and was a linguist of the first order. 

The energy of these men is breathtaking.  Their courage also.  Eventually they (and other missionaries) came to be seen by Maori as "honest traders"--men not out for personal gain, but faithful to God and to reconciliation amongst men.  Eventually they came to be asked by Maori chiefs to mediate inter-tribal quarrels and skirmishes. 

Yet, in the wider sense, their early labours appeared to have accomplished very little.  Twenty-five years after the arrival of the missionaries (a quarter of a century!) very little appeared to have been accomplished.  Newman recounts:

While there had now been considerable exploration of possible new mission fields, the CMS presence was still limited to the Far North and they did not have the resources or manpower to honour their promises to tribes further south.  Despite the occasional breakthrough or deathbed confession, they could still not with any honesty claim they had made rewarding progress, and there was little evidence their peacemaking was having a widespread impact.  To their critics, it still appeared the work in New Zealand had been a failure. (Ibid., p. 77)

Yet things were happening of which the CMS missionaries knew very little, if not nothing.   In  October 1833, William Williams and four others sailed south to Thames to scout out possible mission locations. 

. . . they found human bones scattered along the banks of the river.  During their first evening camp at Thames, the fires in front of tents and the torches held by those in the distance added to the eeriness of the scene.

When about 150 to 300 Maori gathered for prayers, the missionaries were astonished when they were accurately accompanied as they sang hymns, and the correct responses were made to prayers.  Williams and his companions had never witnessed anything like this before.  It soon became apparent that the [Thames] Maori had received Christian instruction from three young men who had lived with the mission families at Paihia.  An altar was erected, and when their preaching began the people listened carefully and asked for books and slates for ongoing instruction.  (Ibid., p. 94)

This phenomenon became more and more commonplace, incredible though it might seem to jaded sophisticates today.   Whilst the missionaries were ensconced in northern enclaves, the Gospel was spreading rapidly amongst Maori in the south, being brought there by Maori to Maori--by "graduates" from the few mission schools in the North. Again and again the missionaries were astonished, as they travelled to encounter not just the reality of Christian faith amongst those with whom they had had nothing to do, but also a genuine hunger and longing to know more.  They had no idea their early pupils were learning so much, taking so much in, believing it, and passing it on. 

That leads to a second observation: whilst by the 1840's the CMS was reporting that New Zealand was the most exciting and productive mission field in the world at that time, what was less well understood is that this mission work was largely being done by Maori to Maori.  Newman recounts it this way:

After two decades of wondering whether missionary efforts in New Zealand had missed the mark, dramatic changes became evident in Maori communities across the country as a series of fortuitous events saw the Christian message spread like wildfire in dry bush.

Children sent to the mission stations discussed their lessons with parents and tribal elders, and freed slaves who could read and write or memorise the gospel message shared their new knowledge wherever they went.  The desire to understand the Bible led to literacy and numeracy, which in turn brought increased mana and social and economic benefits to individuals, families and tribes.

Gradually, less acceptable customs and beliefs were set aside, including infanticide, polygamy, burning crops to starve out enemy survivors, requiring the wife of a chief to commit suicide on his death and his slaves to be killed, and hahunga rites--scraping the flesh off exhumed bodies before reburial.  (Ibid., p. 115)

As expected, critics and cynics paternalistically dismissed the genuineness of this phenomenon.  But early historian, William Pember Reeves (The Long White Cloud) cut to the chase:

These dark skinned teachers carried Christianity into a hundred nooks and corners.  Most of them were honest enthusiasts . . . . Colonists as a rule shrug their shoulders when questioned as to the depth of the Maori religious feeling.  It is enough to point out that a Christianity which induces masters to release their slaves without payment or condition must have had a reality in it. 

Quite.