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Ordained Ministry in Maori Christianity, 1853–1900
Author(s) -
Lange Raeburn
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9809.00164
Subject(s) - protestantism , indigenous , christian ministry , context (archaeology) , colonialism , christianity , autonomy , history , religious studies , sociology , theology , gender studies , political science , law , archaeology , philosophy , ecology , biology
From 1853 an ordained clergy emerged in the Protestant (but not the Catholic) churches founded by missionary organisations in New Zealand in the first half of the nineteenth century. Ordained indigenous ministers succeeded and largely superseded an earlier large force of lay “teachers.” Although the Maori churches might in other circumstances have been seen as progressing towards self–reliance and autonomy, the colonial context of the second half of the nineteenth century confined them and their clergy to a restricted place in the ecclesiastical life of New Zealand. The transition from “teachers” to “ministers” in the Church Missionary Society (Anglican) and Wesleyan missions is examined, and a study is made of the place of indigenous ministers in the Maori Anglican and Wesleyan churches, the Mormon church, and the Maori religious movements such as Ringatu.