REVIEW: A possible new path to Māori-Pākehā understanding

Abstract

Listening to the People of the Land: Christianity, Colonisation & the Path to Redemption, edited by Susan Healy. Auckland: Pax Christi, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2019, with support from the New Zealand Dominican Sisters. 332 pages. ISBN 978-0-473-45957-4.

Praying for Peace: A Selection of Prayers and Reflections, edited by Kevin McBride. Auckland: Pax Christi, Aotearoa New Zealand, in association with the Pacific Media Centre, 2018. 152 pages. ISBN 978-0-473-43798-5.

THE STRENGTH of this series of essays in Listening to the People of the Land is the varying perspectives given on the brutal losses forced on Māori by white and Christian colonisation. In fact, if New Zealand was a truly just society, the teachings here would be a significant part of our school curriculum. Editor Susan Healy draws the outline in the first 95 pages. Her chapter raises the occasional quibble and sometimes seems to downplay how inextricably interwoven were the settler culture and the Christian church in 1800s New Zealand.