Below, for those who are interested, is the report. It’s good to be able to be transparent. This is an overview report on the last two years, and builds on regular reports to Standing Committee.

The Three Tikanga Social Justice Commission Report to General Synod / Te Hinota Whanui 2010

Overview
Over the last two years since the last General Synod / te Hinota Whanui a lot has happened. Some of the main features include: we have produced a significant number of excellent resources that have been well received; the commission was part of a General Synod review relating to employment responsibility; the Commissioner undertook sabbatical and unpaid leave for six months to work on a manuscript for publication; we initiated the initiative led by the Commissioner for regional social justice enablers.

Resources
Justice Magnetic Poetry was produced and distributed around this church with the aim of encouraging people to engage creatively with justice in their every day lives. It was warmly received. Just Living evolved into the Just booklet series in 2008. There have been three booklets to date (on gardening, food and peace, with community development, anarchism and criminal justice scheduled for release in the second half of this year). In addition a significant amount of work was put into producing and then distributing the Hikoi of Hope: Walking On resource on DVD. All resources were very well received. The introduction to the DVD remains available on our website and has also been included in the Government web based resource Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

The website was kept up to date with news and articles of interest and debate, and our weekly e-news went out and was widely circulated, although distribution declined during the Commissioner’s study leave. The website is available for everyone to add content – and this ethos of being ‘in this together’ – of us all participating in resourcing each other (resource sharing) and participating in building capacity for justice, is something the Commission seek to work out in all we do. We have co-responsibility for mission.

Addition video based documentary work was commissioned from someone around the theme Living on $1 a day. Some segments were produced but sadly the videographer was unable to complete.

During 2009 the Commissioner took sabbatical and unpaid leave to undertake a writing project. This is due to be published later this year with a foreword by The Archbishop of Canterbury. This will also be an excellent resource for this church. During his absence he ensured the work of the Commission was able to continue , and upon his return employed the same person as the first enabler with a particular focus upon the flaxroots. We would like to acknowledge the good work of Jolyon White, who undertook this role here in this report. In 2010 we have two highly experienced Maori community development workers as enablers in the North Island across all three tikanga.

Emergent Strengths
Working as an authentic three tikanga body is one of our greatest strengths, allowing us to work out together how we act authentically and justly as three tikanga. That kind of authenticity has a price – things can take longer to achieve, but the weaving and the walking are worth it, for part of our ministry is to seek justice in the church and its structures – that itself is an important form of social transformation.

We are excited at opportunities to develop the justice mission of the church both internally and externally. We are, for example, one of a small group that commissioned and is organising the alternative welfare working group, whose report will help to change the public discourse and influence policy (the report being the start of a longer term vision). We are also a member of an emergent campaign to eradicate child poverty, continue to feed into actions to combat family violence, and are in discussion with others about a child abuse related project.

The continued development of the flax roots enabler role is allowing the work of the commission to be experienced directly by people in every day life, and has resulted in projects around alternative economics, community development and stopping violence, for example. It also resulted in our very successful, although for some controversial, support for the Waihopi Plouhshares action. These projects have all been very positively received by the community with and in whom our mission is done.

We recognise that our work can sometimes appear controversial. However, we also recognise that work around social justice is often that way. What is important is knowing a sense of support from those in authority in the church, and being rooted in the politics of the Gospel not the many other kinds that plague our lives. We are fortunate to have both, and especially to receive such active and positive support from our Arch-episcopacy.

Tikanga Pasifika have really led the way for us with their strategic plan for social justice, and their work inspired others on the commission to explore what their tikanga could do in this regard. The Commissioner has been invited to undertake some work with Tikanga Pasifika to help implement and resource this plan. In addition the Commissioner continues to seek ways of working collaboratively with Te Pihopatanga.

We understand our role to enable, encourage, undertake, promote, nurture and strengthen this church’s involvement in creating a just society. Access to funding for our work and that of people in the church continues to hamper this vision’s development. We hope our revised strategic plan, attached, helps in this regard, as well as a renewed commitment by the Commission to pursue funding opportunities and strategies.

There are many issues of injustice that plague our islands and our church. Some of the most important, around welfare, poverty, violence, climate change and land and its use remain constantly in our sights. While we seek to engage with as many issues as we are able, we are only one small group, and focus and priority varies according to people and context. Therefore, our concern is also always for encouraging and resourcing the real concrete engagement of the whole church to be just where it is. The model of flax roots enabling is designed to strengthen this commitment. We seek to weave the strands of justice together for the sake of strengthening God’s justice mission through and in the church.

As indicated in our meeting earlier this year, we believe the commission’s work would benefit from an external review to help us improve our self understanding and mahi together. We have asked Rev John Fairbrother and Ms Tui Speight to work with us in this regard.

We commend this report to General Synod.

Muru Walters (Chair)

Matariki: Under Southern Skies

This liturgy will celebrate Matariki. Matariki refers to the seven stars that make up the Pleiades constellation of stars seen in southern skies from late May until June. For Maori Matariki signals the beginning of a New Year in Aotearoa: a time of celebration. This star constellation has significance for planting and seasons in Maori agriculture and spirituality. It is also mentioned at least three times in Hebrew Scriptures as Pleiades.

The reflection will be given by Stephen Dawson, new Research and Advocacy Officer at Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand. He is of Ngā Puhi descent, and has spent most of his working life as a teacher and principal in Catholic schools in Auckland, Pawarenga, Waitaruke and the Waikato. He undertook training in Māori spirituality with Pā Henare Tate.

Please put the next Ecoliturgies in your diary for 2nd Sunday 12 Sept. and 14 Nov. 2010 at 7.30pm.
Anyone interested in helping to prepare the liturgies and provide music
please contact Margaret Connor ph 473-5195 or email.

In 2009 we became aware of the severity of the unfolding economic crises at international and local levels…

One way to move into this is for us to focus on the heart of affluence, not poverty, as we consider that it was affluence and greed that got us into this drastic situation in the first place.

Call it what you will, but people of all religious traditions can agree that God smiles on those who help people in need. Even better: Interfaith cooperation is budding in America today…
Across the country, in fact, the most exciting and productive interfaith efforts involve articulating differences and finding ways to join forces on social issues. Such work is not controversial in my clergy circles, but it inflames the Glenn Becks of the world who say that “social justice” and “economic justice” are code words for communism. Even in local congregations, parishioners accuse pastors of being “too political” when they take action on immigration, housing or health care.

Full article: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/04/columns-dont-say-social-justice.html?csp=DailyBriefing

Just because it’s common, doesn’t make it acceptable – especially in an organization that is intended to exist to proclaim and live out an alternative social reality. In my New Testament Jesus can’t be found asking for a speaking fee, nor piling up wealth and treasures for himself – in fact the opposite is true in his practice and his teaching, and that’s what he asks us to do when he says ‘follow me’.

So it seems that we now have a clearer understanding of the difference between a cult or a sect and a church, right? Destiny is many things, but it is not a church.

And while that may be right, it doesn’t mean we can take the moral high ground too quickly though. In the Anglican Church Bishops may not receive $1 million salaries (although the running of the episcopate is by no means substantial, more money is probably wasted in overseas jaunts and such like), but the injustice of resource distribution creates huge inequalities. Some of those inequalities are most obvious in Tikanga Maori – but pouring more money in isn’t necessarily the solution that will work.

Without a vision the people perish – and from what I understand the biggest single thing absent in this church is a vision to which leadership are universally committed, and the strength not to succumb to ensuring one’s own personal survival at the expense of others.

Our church’s witness is forever constrained by the petty politics of self-agrandizement and self-protection in so many of those in whom responsibility and trust have been placed. Just because others do it doesn’t make it right, and we should be ashamed of what we have become.

We might do well to remove the log from our own eye before the speck from our neighbour’s.

The Campaign for Shared Security works to engage religious leaders and believers around the world to unleash the power of multi-religious cooperation through shared action. It will also reach out to international organizations, governments, national assemblies and parliaments, municipalities, media, and all men and women of good will.

The Peace Foundation (Aotearoa-New Zealand) assisted with the launch of the campaign in Costa Rica in November 2009, when more than 120 young religious leaders of different faiths from forty-nine countries in six regions came together to outline their strategies for meeting the campaign’s three goals: abolishing nuclear weapons, stopping the proliferation and misuse of conventional weapons and redirecting at least 10 percent of military expenditure to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sánchez offered their support to this historic initiative.

Over the three days of the event, several panel discussions were held that exposed the youth to valuable insights from international experts on each of the campaign goals. At the same time, capacity building workshops equipped the participants with the practical tools to work on lobbying and advocacy, engaging the media, raising public awareness and working with mayors, parliamentarians and policy makers for the purposes of the campaign. Lastly, participants were divided into regional working groups to develop national, regional and global plans of action that would eventually contribute to the success of the campaign.

At the closing ceremony of the event, the International Youth Committee (IYC) of Religions for Peace presented the Statement and Plan of Action of the Global Level to Mr. Hernando París, the Minister of Justice and Peace of Costa Rica. Each region has also committed to collect signatures on the Arms Down! Disarmament petition, and the Global Youth Network has set a goal of 50 million signatures to be delivered to the United National Secretary General, the permanent members of the Security Council, as well as to Members of Parliaments, in one year’s time.

Campaign for Shared Security
Religions for Peace homepage

1. We admit we are powerless over consumerism—that our lives have become unmanageable.
2. We believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. (we do not assume we have already done this because we are in a church or faith community, but come to this conviction afresh, over this specific issue)
4. We will make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human beings the exact nature of our addictions.
6. We are entirely ready to have God remove the hold this power has over us.
7. We humbly accept God’s grace in overcoming our shortcomings.
8. We will make a list of all persons we have harmed – such as sweatshop workers, slaves, and those marginalised by our buy-in to a system that absolves us from social responsibility by shifting responsibility onto a welfare state – and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We will attempt to make direct amends to such people wherever possible.
10. We will continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it.
11. We will seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening, we will try to carry this message to our communities, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

As well as the obvious change from the original, all the ‘I” statements have been changed to ‘we’ statements recognising that the need for a community, group, or church to move together.

Adapted by Jolyon White – confessed recovering consumer, trying to stay on the wagon.

It seems to me that both are required. Big corporations would not do what they do if it were not profitable, and it is profitable because we buy the end product. Individual action may not change a system that creates a situation in which individual action is required. But the people who are concerned enough to act and change their own lives become conscientised and empowered. They are more likely to be those who engage at a political level to change what is unjust. There is also a question of credibility. To cry out for systems to more fair while living in a way that exploits your global neighbour doesn’t have a lot of integrity and is unlikely to attract followers. To try to draw a line between individual action and systemic change is unhelpful.

Perhaps a better way to reflect on what is required is that of community change. We are not called to act individually to make society better; or to individually act for political change. Becoming a christian is about inclusion into a community, about a new way of life. To be in Christ, to be one body, to be in and not of… however you want to word it being a christian isn’t about individually believing a set of statements about God, it is about being caught up into God and becoming a part of a community. It isn’t easy to know how to function and live and decide and act as a called and gathered community in the midst of a fractured and compartmentalised culture. And a lot of the time I’m not even sure I want to. But it seems a more helpful direction to struggle in than trying to decide between individual or political action. To live a different and peculiar life with a community of people is far easier and more sustainable than trying to do it alone, and there is little that is more political than a large community of people that insist on living out a radically different story than the one they are surrounded by.

It began in 2004 following a meeting between the WCC General Secretary Rev Dr Samuel Kobia and the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and is “an opportunity for church communities in all places to pray and act together to nurture lasting peace in the hearts of people, their families, communities and societies.”

Information about the International Day of Prayer for Peace – click here.

Resources for the Day – click here.