Liturgy takes its name from the Greek word leitourgia which itself is a compound of the words laos meaning “people” and ourgia meaning “work.” (1) With this meaning in mind, it makes sense to expect liturgy to not only reflect the context from which it emerges but to also be deeply rooted in that communal context. Indeed, a liturgical life reflective of, and emerging from a context foreign to the laos or people taking part in it, runs the risk of at best alienating the participants and at worst distorting their worship and therefore their very faith. St. Prosper of Aquitaine, a fifth century writer and disciple of Augustine of Hippo speaks poignantly to the connection between liturgy and faith when he says: 

Let us consider the sacraments of priestly prayers, which having been handed down by the apostles are celebrated uniformly throughout the whole world and in every Catholic Church so that the law of praying might establish the law of believing. (2) 

The spirit of Prosper’s writings would later become distilled into the popular maxim “Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi” or “As we worship, so we believe, so shall we live.” Indeed, it is this maxim that perhaps best identifies the importance of truly contextual and culturally responsive liturgies. The starting point then for the creation and composition of liturgies that truly reflect the indigenous reality generally, and in this instance the Maori reality specifically, should be fundamentally and indeed uniquely located at the very heart of the lived reality of the people. 

Even a brief survey of Maori culture will reveal that Maori are a liturgical people. Liturgy as leitourgia has always been a part of Maori culture. From traditional ceremonies of encounter, to hunting, to conception, childbirth and of course death, Maori have created rituals which seek to acknowledge the divine while at the same time create movement from one space to another. It would therefore be a mistake to presume that the arrival of the Missionaries to Aotearoa (New Zealand) in 1814 also marked the arrival of liturgy. Indeed, liturgy as leitourgia has existed in these islands for as long as there has been human occupation. This is perhaps best seen in the first act of Tamatea Arikinui, captain of the Takitimu Waka (large voyaging canoes used for mass migration) when he first made landfall in Aotearoa. He climbed Mauao (a mountain located in the Bay of Plenty) performed the appropriate incantations and haka (chants), and buried the mauri (physical object representing the life-force of his people) of his iwi (tribe) on the summit. (3) This liturgical way of living however also permeated the day to day lives of Maori. Of course, there was a priestly class set aside for certain rituals, but day to day ritual was commonplace, and usually led by those in the community. Cleve Barlow speaks to this when he says, “There are many types of karakia [prayers, incantations], and in ancient times all people used some sort of prayer in daily life and on special occasions.” (4) 

Given the long and enduring history of liturgy within the Maori culture, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that there is yet to be a realisation of a truly Maori liturgical expression in the Anglican Church. While there have indeed been liturgies in the Maori language, these appear in the history of Maori Anglican liturgy as simple translations of western liturgical and theological thought. Drawing on western themes and understandings of the divine. The publication of A New Zealand Prayer Book-He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa in the late 80s was an attempt at getting closer to a truly Maori expression of liturgical thought, and while it included references to pre-colonial deities, and used Maori imagery (5), it didn’t go far enough. It isn’t enough to locate Maori thought within a western liturgical framework and call it Maori liturgy, instead the very essence of the liturgy needs to be deeply formed by the culture from which it emerges, it needs to be indigenized. 

Nozipo Maraire speaks to the importance of indigenization with regard to biblical interpretation, but those insights can also be applied to liturgy. Maraire states that “Central to the task is recovery, reoccupation, and reinscription of one’s culture…impelled by a variety of cultural and political forces, it is an attempt to go ‘home’. It is a call to self-awareness, aimed at creating an awakening among people to their indigenous literary, cultural and religious heritage.” (6) If what Maraire is saying is true, then once again we come to the realisation that simple translations of western liturgies or even western liturgical frameworks do not, in fact constitute or indeed make a liturgy Maori. This realisation then demands not only the ongoing research and development of a truly Maori liturgical expression, but indeed a wholly Maori liturgical movement within the Anglican Church. A movement that perhaps needs to and indeed should depart form the existing status quo within current Anglican liturgical practice. Such a call to radical indigenization however doesn’t come without both its critics and its costs especially within a church that not only prizes, but actively protects the idea of common prayer. 

Louis Weil notes that “Anglicanism has claimed no faith of its own, but only that faith which the Church at all times and in all places has celebrated in its corporate worship.” (7) This insight from Weil shows just how important not only liturgy, but common liturgy is within the Anglican tradition and while this is a concern to note during the revision of something that was once held in common, it should not be the reason why Maori are denied the chance to express their worship in a culturally and contextually responsive way. Indeed, even Weil himself says that “Authentic liturgical worship draws all that is human into its frame of reference.” (8) It would also be unfair to condemn any Maori expression of liturgical sovereignty because of concerns around culture convoluting or even worse, distorting our liturgical understanding of God or worship. Donald Tamihere, although speaking with regard to biblical interpretation, offers a rebuttal to those who say that Christ and therefore the church is now, always has been, and should always be ‘culture-less’ He notes that “Contrary to the idealistic goal of interpreting the biblical text ‘objectively’, it is my contention that Biblical interpreters throughout history have adhered without exception to either a political, religious, or socio-cultural, or philosophical agenda.” (9) James Cone takes this further when he says that “To suggest that Christ has taken on a black skin is not theological emotionalism. If the Church is a continuation of the incarnation…thinking of Christ as nonblack in the twentieth century is as theologically impossible as thinking of him as non-Jewish in the first.” (10)  

If Anglicans take the calling of the incarnation seriously then this calling demands a radical rethink of what Anglicans are communicating through our liturgy. Liturgy has been, is, and always will be an incredibly important part of Anglicanism. It communicates the church’s belief, it binds the worldwide communion together, it is a holy act. But it also needs to authentically reflect its context. In much the same way the cosmos, the land, or humanity reflect the divine reality of God, liturgy must reflect the reality of the church. That reality in Aotearoa-New Zealand is built on te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi), it is a reality built on the Maori commitment to the evangelisation of Aotearoa in the 1800s, it is a reality that is as much Maori as it is Pakeha (non-Maori, European). Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the founding document of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Although there remains a difference in opinion on what the text was exactly saying, through te Tiriti modern New Zealand was born, founded on equal rights for Maori and Pakeha as one iwi or tribe. With this in mind, it seems the time is right for the Anglican Church to break free from its imperialistic colonial shackles and allow Maori Anglicans to not only indigenise the liturgy, but to establish a uniquely Maori liturgical practice that incorporates the fullness of the Maori identity and worldview. Apirana Ngata, the noted Maori politician and tribal leader spoke to the importance of this idea when campaigning for a Maori Bishop: 

“We asked for a Maori Bishop without any of this [the church’s] paraphernalia, without mana except the mana whakapapa [genealogy] which to the Maori church-man is the supreme test of a Bishop’s status. We wanted a Maori as the nucleus of a movement and of an eventual organisation that he will create gradually from below – the natural growth rooted in the Maori heart & mind & shaped to suit the characteristics of the people… They have been asking us to fashion things after a likeness seen through pakeha eyes…they were not the things we wanted, nor were they moulded by our unfettered hands, to any design near our hearts.” (11) 

Ngata’s thoughts ring as true for the church now as they did almost 100 years ago. Nothing speaks to Maori hearts in quite the same way as that which springs from the Maori heart. The task before the church then is to empower Maori to create the liturgies that best reflect the Maori reality and to agitate for their acceptance and approval, only then will the Anglican church truly and deeply reflect the liturgical reality of the people it arrived in Aotearoa to evangelise over 200 years ago. 

1. Jonathan Munn, Anglican Catholicism: Unchanging Faith in a Changing World (United Kingdom: The Anglican Catholic Church, 2019), 321.

2. Prosper of Aquitaine, ‘Episcoporum Auctoritates’, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologica Latina 51 (n.d.): 205–11.

3. Tauranga City Libraries, ‘Tauranga Moana (Te Awanui)’, Tauranga Kete, accessed 19 June 2019, http://tauranga.kete.net.nz/tauranga_local_history/topics/show/19-tauranga-moana-te-awanui.

4. Cleve Barlow, Tikanga Whakaaro: Key Concepts in Maori Culture (Victoria: Oxford University Press, 2009), 36. 

5. The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, A New Zealand Prayer Book-He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, 5th ed. (Christchurch: Genesis, 2005), 476. 

6. Nozipo Maraire, “Desperately Seeking the Indigene: Nativism and Vernacular Hermeneutics,” in The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial. Colonial, and Postcolonial Encounters, ed. R.S Sugirtharajah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 175–202. 

7. Louis Weil, “The Gospel in Anglicanism,” in The Study of Anglicanism, ed. Stephen Sykes, John Booty, and Jonathan Knight (London: Fortress Press, 2004), 67.

8. Weil, “The Gospel in Anglicanism,” 59. 

9. Donald Tamihere, “Kua Oti Te Tuhi: Towards a Maori Exegesis of the Bible” (The University of Auckland, 2002). 

10. James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: Orbis Books, 1997).

11. Apirana Ngata, “Ngata to Buck,” in Na To Hoa Aroha: From Your Dear Friend, ed. M. Sorrenson, vol. 1, 3 vols. (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988), 87–88.