THE ALPHA FREQUENCY #724 - FULLY MĀORI, FULLY CHRISTIAN: RECLAIMING THE GOSPEL THROUGH WHAKAPAPA
A Common Lie
Kia ora, whānau. Let us talk about who we are and how we stand before God. For a very long time, people in Taitokerau have been told a destructive lie. They were made to feel that they had to choose between their beautiful Māori culture and their Christian faith. Many thought they had to leave their culture and their whakapapa at the church door just to be accepted.
But Ihu (Yeshua’s name in the Paipera Tapu) never asked us to drop our heritage. He is the one who created our unique family lines, our language, and our deep ties to this land. When we understand this, we realise that our identity is not a barrier to faith, it is the very soil where our faith is meant to grow.
Standing Strong Together
Being fully Māori and fully Christian is a beautiful reality. It means we completely reject the old missionary ideas that suggested our ancestors had to be changed into copies of Europeans before they could follow God. We do not need to adopt Western ways of thinking to be good Christians.
THE ALPHA FREQUENCY #721 - DECOLONISING THE GOOD NEWS: FROM IMPERIAL TOOL TO INDIGENOUS LIBERATION
Stripping Back The Layers
Kia ora, whānau. Today we are looking at how the message of Ihu (Yeshua's name in the Paipera Tapu) works in our lives here in Taitokerau. For a long time, the message of faith was used by big empires as a tool to control people and make everyone fit into a European mould. But when we look at the actual words spoken by Ihu, we see something completely different, a message of pure freedom and true health for our people.
The history of the North has its challenges. While colonial systems used religion to expand their power, our ancestors in Ngāpuhi and Te Rarawa quickly welcomed the core message. They did this because they saw that the true words connected directly to their own spiritual reality. The early managers of the colonies brought rules to change our culture, but the original message was never about copying another culture, it was simply about life.
Life To The Full
Ihu made a beautiful promise about why he came to earth. He stated that he came so that people could have real life, and have it to the very highest degree. This full life is what we call Te Oranga Ake, which means the complete, healthy flourishing of the whole family and the land they live on.