But wait...is it a cult?

When I first moved to New Zealand to work with a Lutheran parish in Palmerston North, I came across some FAQs – frequently asked question – on the national church body’s website.

Along with the usual queries, I found one peculiar bullet point. It asked: are Lutherans a cult?

Granted, Lutherans can be strange people. With their penchant for sneaking carrots into Jell-O salads and an often-disconcerting fealty to European heritages, Lutherans are anything but normal.

But rarely, if ever, had I heard them called a “cult.”

Numerous communities and religious bodies have been labeled with the pejorative term over the years. From Jonestown to Aum Shinrikyo, the Manson Family to Raëlism, the Church of Scientology to Heaven’s Gate, the Branch Davidians to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and yes, Lutherans – all of these, at some point in time, have been labelled a “cult.”

Which is not a term you want used for your community.

Why? Because it immediately suggests things like brainwashing, mass suicide, and crazy-haired white dudes stockpiling women, weapons, and weed in the backwoods.

Therein lies the problem.

When we hear the term “cult” we already think we know everything there is to know about that group. They’re dangerous. They’re deviant. They don’t deserve to be called a “real” religion.

But if we take a moment to double-click on the term and expand on what it means from a social perspective, we might find that the word "cult" – or "religion" for that matter – doesn’t mean what we think it means.

Using pictorial art for interreligious dialogue

The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas is not necessarily what you think it is. Unless, of course, you thought it was a decidedly nondenominational, octagonal chapel adorned with fourteen black, but colour-hued, paintings by U.S. artist Mark Rothko.

Image cover for Christopher Longhurst’s book “Pictorial Art for Interreligious Dialogue.” Photo courtesy of KAICIID.

Welcoming some 100,000 visitors of many faiths — and no faith — from across the world each year, the aim of the chapel is, “to create opportunities for spiritual growth and dialogue that illuminate our shared humanity and lead to a world in which all are treated with dignity and respect.” Quite frequently, after stepping outside the chapel, visitors will often ask each other, “what did you see in there?”

It is those kinds of conversations that Roman Catholic theologian and 2020 KAICIID Fellow Dr. Christopher Longhurst hopes to prompt with his new book, Pictorial Art for Interreligious Dialogue.

Funded by the KAICIID Fellows Programme, the publication explores the unique usage of pictorial art to undertake interreligious dialogue, presenting a practical guide to help educators learn and teach an effective and enjoyable interreligious dialogue in both academic and informal settings.

Rugby player carries the weight of New Zealand's Muslims at Rugby World Cup in Japan

When the New Zealand national rugby team — the All Blacks — run onto the “pitch” for their matches at the Rugby World Cup in Japan, the weight of the nation will be on their shoulders. 

The Rugby World Cup, like its soccer counterpart, is held every four years and is the premier international rugby tournament in the world. It started 20 September and will last until 2 November.

More than sport, rugby is nigh on national religion in New Zealand. Perhaps because of this high devotion, one of the most successful sports teams in the world, the All Blacks’ every pass, tackle, and kick is scrutinized in detail by foe and friend alike. This is especially the case with one of the teams’ premier midfielders, Sonny Bill Williams. 

Sonny Bill Williams prays with fellow All Black and Muslim Ofa Tu'ungafasi (who converted in March 2019) before their first bout with South Africa at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. (PHOTO: @faiz_azizan)

One of the best-known rugby players in the world, Williams has stirred up his fair share of controversy over the years playing rugby union, rugby league, and trying his hand at boxing. Known for some pretty wild escapades in his early years, he has now become a seasoned rugby player and leader in both sport and society. Still, he faces scrutiny in the press for his play and his personality. 

This Rugby World Cup, Williams is also humbly aware of the responsibility he has representing the Muslim community of New Zealand. This is especially true in light of the 15th of March attacks that left 51 dead after a gunman opened fire in Masjid Al Noor and the Linwood Islamic Center.  

The attacks spurred Williams into action on behalf of his fellow Muslims. In the days following he not only visited families who lost loved ones, but also took time to spend time with the injured and pray at Masjid Al Noor with survivors. 

Dr. Anwar Ghani, spokesperson for the Federation of Islamic Associations in New Zealand (FIANZ) said that over the last four to five years, Williams had been speaking out about his religion and how this made him a better person.

“But after the 15th of March, he became more vocal, you could tell he was affected,” Ghani said. 

Indeed, in an emotional message on social media on the day of the attacks, Williams fought through tears to send duas — non-obligatory prayers of request — for the victims, their families, their friends, and all of New Zealand. 

Williams said, “I’m just deeply, deeply saddened that this would happen in New Zealand.” 

Williams’ words and actions were in keeping with the outpouring of support that the Muslim community received after the attacks, but his stood out. 

“He showed he is a man of faith and a man who embraces humanity,” Ghani said, “people were horrified with what happened at those two mosques, his coming out helped in the healing process as well. Especially as one of our sporting heroes.”

Williams’ actions not only inspired New Zealanders, but his own mother and best friend. Within two weeks after the attacks, both converted to Islam. 

Mr. Abdullah Drury, a professor of Islamic Studies at Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand, said, “because Williams is a convert, I think he is seen more as a New Zealander, as a Cook Island New Zealander, than a Muslim. His Islam is not ‘obvious.’” 

Drury said, “easily, he is the most prominent New Zealand Muslim.” 

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Nice spending time with some of the brothers & sisters here in Christchurch ❤️🤲🏽

A post shared by Sonny Bill Williams (@sonnybillwilliams) on Aug 19, 2019 at 11:01pm PDT

“When he turns up at mosques — and he does so fairly regularly — he is often mobbed by youth who take lots of selfies,” said Drury. He continued, “in a secular country where most religious folk keep their faith to themselves in public, he has raised a positive profile for Islam in New Zealand.” 

Islam has a long history in New Zealand, according to Eva Nisa and Faried F. Saenong, researchers at Victoria University in Wellington. Writing for The Conversation, they reported that while Muslims make up just 1% of the population, “historical accounts document that Islam first arrived in New Zealand in 1769, with two Indian Muslims.”

Largely still a “religion of immigrants and refugees” 26.9% of Muslims in New Zealand come from Asia, 23.3% from the Middle East and North Africa, and 21% from the Pacific Islands, including the Cook Islands where Williams claims his heritage. 

Certainly, the Muslim community in New Zealand was shaken by the attacks six months ago. “We are broken-hearted but we are not broken,” wrote Nisa and Saenong. 

Despite the difficulties of healing, Ghani feels that Islam in New Zealand has a bright future and an important role to play in continuing to build the country’s “peaceful” society. “While we have had a setback, we have seen lots of positives coming out of Christchurch,” he said, “we hope that we would remember the day — as heinous as it was — as something that brings us together to make positive changes not only in New Zealand but around the world.” 

Ghani said that inter-religious engagement has been on the rise and multiple stakeholders have realized — regardless of religious or political leaning — that the vision of a multicultural New Zealand remain fluid. Fissures continue to exist. 

As a Pacific Islander, a Muslim, and one of the most prominent Kiwis in the world, Williams is keenly aware of the tensions that run through the community and the part he plays as a role model in such a society. 

Converting to Islam turned Williams’ life around. He told the Daily Mail, “I did a lot of bad things and went off course but Allah was with me.” In Islam, Williams said, he found “contentment and happiness that I don’t know how to explain.” 

Along the way, Williams has wrestled with finding acceptance for Islam and Muslims among his countrymen. Williams told MSN Lifestyle that his message for non-Muslims is, "We love you. We just want to be accepted like you guys want to be accepted.”

For his fellow Muslims, Williams bears a message of love, support, and peace. Regularly on social media, he posts about visiting mosques around the island (LINK) and posting messages of support for his “brothers and sisters around the world.” 

Sonny Bill Williams posts Eid greetings in the spirit of solidarity with fellow Muslims across the world (PHOTO: @SonnyBWilliams)

But he also uses his following of more than 778 thousand on Instagram to bring attention to critical issues. On Eid al-Adha, he posted “special duas for the people of Christchurch, Kashmir, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and wherever people are suffering injustice and persecution.”

The rugby in Japan has so far proved grueling and the pressure placed on the All Blacks — and on Williams — is extremely high. Yet, in either his pursuit of rugby glory or in representing the global Muslim community as a world-famous athlete, Williams regularly comments on how he draws his strength from Allah. As he does so, he might look to a saying of the Prophet Muhammad for motivation along the way: "The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, while there is good in both.”

Letting the field lie fallow

Fresh from a breakfast of piping hot spaghetti on toast and loud laughs, the employees at Joyclas Farms headed back to work for the day on the New Zealand dairy farm. There was important work to be done.

The smell of sweet silage hung in the air and the strikingly iridescent grass of the paddocks shone in the early morning sun. We drove past a patch of turf that was unwieldy and overgrown. As yet jejune in my dairy farming apprenticeship, having grown up in the Los Angeles area, I wondered aloud why this pasture was different than all the rest.

“That field is lying fallow,” said Lawrence, one of the farm’s owners. “It will be rich for the heifers to enjoy next season.”

Leaving a field to lie fallow means leaving a paddock to be unseeded, uneaten, and unspoiled for a season or more. It is one of the best ways farmers can allow the land to replenish its nutrients and regain its fertility. It also helps prevent erosion — the roots of the plants left free to grow help to hold the soil in place against the ravages of wind and rain.

When fallow, the field is at rest so that it can serve its function to feed the heifers for years to come.

Just as fields need to lie fallow, so does all creation — including us. In a world that is rife with addiction to busyness, it is imperative that we rediscover the lost art of re-creative rest. 

TE AROHA O ATUA MO TE TANGATA - The Love of God for the People

This guest post is from Rev. Mark Whitfield, the Pīhopa o te Hāhi Rūtana o Aotearoa, the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of New Zealand. Not only is he a personal friend, but he is a mentor in ministry and a leader who I am fascinated with for his attempts at being a pioneering bricoleur among Lutheran-Christians in New Zealand.  

In his own words, Whitfield is, "keen for members of te Hā Rūtana o Aotearoa (the Lutheran Church of New Zealand) to acknowledge the beautiful language of our indigenous people" or "the Māori." More than language, Whitfield is also ambitious to integrate Māori language and culture into the rituals and practices of the Lutheran church. 

This post is an example of one of his efforts and is posted here as a case of cultural/religious bricolage, trans-creation, and hybridity between Māori custom and meanings & Lutheran pākehā (people of European descent) rituals and culture -- merging the rāpaki, or "Māori kilt," and the alb, stole, and liturgical vestments of a Lutheran bishop. 

His motivation stems not only from the ethnic make-up of the LCNZ, which includes Māori, Pākehā, and other immigrant groups including Chinese, Polynesian immigrants, and more, but also from New Zealand's history. For most of Aotearoa's history, the two primary cultures, Māori and Pākehā, have existed in tension. Conflict and confrontation often prove more common than collaboration. Whitfield is, in many ways, trying to navigate this tension and build bridges between multiple cultures as part of one church. 

The shoulder cloaks, or rāpaki, were the principal clothing of the Māori and were woven harakeke worn from waist to knee or sometimes placed upon the shoulders. They are made of a woven base (kaupapa) and hung with tags (hukahuka). I will let Rev. Whitfield tell the rest of this story of "the love of God for the people" in his own words: 

Kia tau ki a koutou te atawhai me te rangimarie o te Atua!

願 父 神 所 賜 的 恩 惠 和 平 安 與 你 們 同 在

Grace and peace to you from God!

Shortly after the Church asked me to be Bishop in June 2011, my dear friend Jude Nelson (Te Punga) from Palmerston North told me that she had been called by God to make a Māori cloak for me to wear, especially for formal occasions.

At various times during the past 4 years Jude has updated me on her progress, and each time we have spoken about this, I have felt quite moved at this gesture of love and appreciation for me.

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Rev. Mark Whitfield leading liturgy with the Rapaki at the LCA Convention & Synod (PHOTO: Tim Wiebusch)

On Sunday afternoon, 27th September, during a short and beautiful rite including song, scripture, prayer and blessing at John and Jude’s home at Bunnythorpe near Palmerston North, Jude gave me the Rapaki (cloak worn around the shoulder) she had made. It is called Te Aroha o Atua mo te Tangata (The Love of God for the People).

I was deeply moved as I received this gift from Jude, who has been an almost life-long friend and as Pastor Rodger Russ, John, Jude, their daughter Rachel and our youngest daughter Charlotte prayed with me. These are the words that Jude spoke to me as she presented me with the Rapaki: 

“This Rapaki (short cloak worn around the shoulders) has been made for you and it is given to acknowledge your contribution to and love for the Lutheran Church of New Zealand.

It is named “Te Aroha O Atua mo te Tangata” meaning “The love of God for the People.”

The free swinging portion of the cloak depicts a piano or organ keyboard and speaks to your love for music and acknowledges your God-given gift. The pokini (rolled hard lowest portion of the cloak) have been etched with thirteen stripes; these represent Christ and his disciples. There are seven almost hidden triple pokini which allude to the Creation and depicts the Triune nature of God. The pokini will clap together as you move creating more music in your life.

The Taniko (finger twined) is a very old pattern found in S.M. Mead’s book “Te Whatu Taniko.” The colours are chosen to show the darkness of our sin contrasting with the pure and holy whiteness of God. The red stitches are the sacrificed blood of the Lamb that flows from the cross.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:4-5

There are thirteen white stitches in each pattern. These are also the colours of my Kapa Haka group from my childhood “Mawaihakona” Māori Club in Upper Hutt.

Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:11-12”

— With aroha, Jude Te Punga Nelson, Te Atiawa, 26th September 2015

I wore this for the first time in public as Pīhopa o te Hāhi Rūtana o Aotearoa, the Bishop of the Lutheran Church of New Zealand, during the Opening Worship Service for the General Convention of Synod of the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) in Brisbane.

I will be honoured to wear this beautiful cloak as your servant-leader, and to be reminded each time I wear it, of my call to the ministry of God’s grace and love; the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tēnā koe, Jude; thank you.