This week marks the end of my time serving as the public theologian for Student Christian Movement Aotearoa (SCMA). I started the job in mid-2022, when I was just a year into PhD study and still finding my feet in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The role of public theologian was as new for SCMA as it was for me. What is the use of theology in the current day and age? More importantly, what safeguards are there for theology so that it does not merely become a tool to serve pre-existing ideological commitments?
These two questions have accompanied me throughout the past three years as I have sought to engage in theological reflection on current affairs, political manoeuvres, and wider contemporary worries. From the climate crisis to West Papua to Māori sovereignty to burnout society to Palestine to sex work to Christian nationalism, there is no shortage of current crises that require sustained reflection and collective action.
The answer to the second question is perhaps easier than the first. There are two commitments that I’ve held to in the process of theologising. The first is never to do theology alone. Speaking with other people—especially with others who disagree with me—is incredibly helpful in refining my positions, being challenged to rethink my assumptions, and to bring critical perspectives that push me out of echo chambers. The second is that theology starts just as much with action as it does with thinking and reflection. Theology is always already at work in our practices, and sometimes, the best kind of theology is formed not by studious reflection in isolation in advance of action, but emerges as one actively engages in the world. Theology is not just an exercise of interiority.
The first question—what is the use of public theology?—is much more difficult to answer satisfactorily. In a pluralist world, in a country that is a liberal democracy, to whom does the public theologian speak? Is theology purely an insider game of speaking to those who profess Christian belief? Does Christian theology have wisdom or perspectives to offer that go beyond parochial borders and boundaries? Or does Christian theology bear witness to a transcendent and immanent God to any and all who care to pay attention?
To paraphrase Wendell Berry, I think that the answers to these questions can only be answered over the course of living out the life we’ve each been given. Theology at its best challenges each of us to draw nearer to God, living a life that reaches for justice, love, and selflessness. In a world obsessed with KPIs, metrics, and results, public theology offers an alternative way of engaging in the world—a way that values scholarship, study, and deep reflection.
The theologian is the perpetual student, and I am exceedingly grateful to all the perpetual students I’ve encountered in this role: both those enrolled in study, senior friends, and those who just have a passion for engaging the mind in theological thinking with me.
As I leave Student Christian Movement Aotearoa, I offer gratitude to all those who came alongside me to share their wisdom and experiences, to those who legends who came before me, and to all those who will join the movement in the future. It’s been an absolute privilege and pleasure, and I pray that God continually move in new and exciting ways through each and every member of SCMA.
Material: Alginate, acrylic on wood, kaolin, paper, plaster
Size: 24 x 36 in.
In early June, I was at a conference outside of Chicago at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, on the campus of Northwestern. During one of our afternoon breaks, a few of us wandered up to see the top of the tower. On our way up, I encountered this haunting piece of work by the artist Honorio Morales, Latiné Engagement and Partnership Associate, who has provided the artist statement above. The artwork caught my eye initially by its striking three dimensions: a torn and tattered Bible bursts out of the landscape, with the dark red streak of blood running down the surface. I was especially taken by the sacramental theology expressed in the placement of the hand and the blood. The hand juts out above the horizon—from the heavens. And the blood drips down onto the earth, a confronting visual of the paradox at the heart of all atonement theology: the blood of Christ gives us life.
Standing there, taking in the textures and rawness of the artwork, I was reminded of a Christian Wiman quote about art and theology:
“The purpose of theology—the purpose of any thinking about God—is to make the silences clearer and starker to us, to make the unmeaning—by which I mean those aspects of the divine that will not be reduced to human meanings—more irreducible and more terrible, and thus ultimately more wonderful. This is why art is so often better at theology than theology is.”
As I moved to see the silhouette of the outcropped elements, I saw the title of the piece on the side of the canvas: MANU DEUS.
Living in Aotearoa New Zealand, the word Manu has a different first meaning from the Latin, hand. Here, it means bird. The ambiguity of the image connects deeply to the story of Christianity in Aotearoa. Christianity was inextricably wrapped up in the efforts to colonise the islands. And yet, it has also been an instrument for liberation and decolonisation. Over the past month or so, this image has haunted my theological musings, pushing through manifold interpretations within the ambiguities of translation. Within the act of translation is interpretation, building bridges into new hermeneutical landscapes of sense-making and meaning. Below are three short reflections that have emerged in my life in connection to this piece.
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MANU DEUS: The god bird.
Within Polynesian mythology, perhaps the greatest hero is the demigod Maui, the great trickster. Maui often takes the form of a bird in the stories—journeying to the underworld or seeking out family members. The trickster is not a figure that looms large in contemporary New Zealand Christianity. Values of honesty and integrity are placed in juxtaposition to the playful trickery of Maui. The trickery of Jacob or Rahab or Jael or the Unjust Steward is sanitised and theologised away. Perhaps there is a world where these values are not in contradiction but in alignment.
Miguel De La Torre speaks of a need for ‘trickster’ ethics. When the system is set against you, he argues, you must disrupt the system. This can be seen in acts of chaos, of trickery, of anarchy. De La Torre calls for an ethic “para joder” that f***s with the systems of oppression.
Here in Aotearoa, there is often much scrutiny cast upon the tactics of activists and protestors not only by neoliberal shills, but also by those who purport to support the activists’ causes. We have seen this especially for climate and environmental activists. The critiques flood in (no pun intended) on consequentialist and on deontological grounds. And yet these critiques entirely miss the point that the entire political system is not set up for liberation. The avenues for radical change—for apocalyptic intrusion of the divine into the human—requires the ethical planes of decency and order to give way to a divine call to screw with the systems of law and order that only serve to protect the interests of the wealthy.
Perhaps we need to reclaim a trickster ethic in Aotearoa—one that reclaims the conniving, mischievous, and playful spirit of Maui. If we are to let the Bible speak to us, perhaps we must let it burst through our ethical frames like the artwork by Morales. Perhaps we must let the “strange new world” of the Bible speak to us anew.
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MANU DEUS. Bird. God.
Jay Ruka’s Huia Come Home uses the story of the extinction of the Huia bird as an overarching metaphor for the colonisation of Aotearoa. Within this story, there is much debate about where God is—and is not.
The answer is not simple. It is, I think, much like asking where God is in this piece of art by Morales. Is God in the Bible? Is God in the blood? In the heavens? The earth?
The image of the Bible is much like a bird with wings outstretched, flapping its wings as it takes flight. In this view of the Bible as winged bird, bursting out of the painting, what is the role of the hand that follows? Is it a hand holds the bird back—or is it the instrument which has pushed the bird out of the frame, seeking to set it free to take off on its own path?
This ambiguity is inherent in Christians’ struggle to make sense of their identity and place in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand. The missionaries were human. They made mistakes and were instruments—whether intentional or not— of the colonial empire. Though we as humans love our binaries, as the 39 Articles say, the evil is ever mixed with the good. Separating wheat from chaff and hero from villain remains an unproductive endeavour.
Instead, I wonder where we might end up if we stayed with questions rather than answers—if we looked with curiosity and reflection upon the past as we do a piece of art. As we seek to understand, to look from different vantage points and angles, what might emerge? What might take flight?
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MANU DEUS.
Last Friday, I was walking with my 2-year-old niece. She had insisted on walking herself, resistant to riding in the stroller. She held onto two of my fingers as she trod along in her boots, which are still just a bit too big. As we walked through a pedestrian alleyway, she stopped, pointed up, and shouted, “MANU!”
Sure enough, on the powerlines and the rooftops above us were thirty or so pigeons. Her shout startled them, and they took flight, cooing as the sound of their wings flapping filled the air. My niece stopped in her tracks, watching with rapt delight as they circled overhead in an abbreviated murmuration.
They flew off to a new location, where I’m sure they would settle until the next disruption. Atop the roof of the house next to us, though, stood one pigeon who remained behind. It turned its head as a pair of sparrows landed on a shingle nearby. We lingered, watching it twist and turn its head to observe the world around it.
I felt her hand squeeze mine as she again shouted, “MANU!”
At our 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM), it came to our attention that no one knew where the SCMA seal had ended up. Texts, emails, and phone calls could not resolve the mystery, and so we embarked on a journey to re-design the official seal. Changes in legislation meant that the seal was no longer a legal requirement for an incorporated society such as SCMA (Incorporated Societies Act (2022 Act)). However, totems and symbols are important, and so upon deliberation, the National Co-ordinating Group (NCG) commissioned public theologian Michael Toy to replace the seal.
The design of the seal features three distinct elements. The first and most obvious is the acronym, SCMA, standing for Student Christian Movement Aotearoa. The second is the date SCM New Zealand was established—1921. Though the movement had been active in New Zealand since 1896 as a wider Australasian body.
The third feature of the seal is a sketch of the harakeke plant, also known as New Zealand Flax or Phormium tenax. This plant was chosen as it is emblematic of many threads of Aotearoa’s history that are essential to the core mission and values of SCMA. The harakeke plant is a symbol of resilience, whānau, and interconnectedness.
The plant was first used by Māori, who used not only the fibre for daily use but also had a use for every part of the plant. This echoes the Pauline idea that every member of the body is necessary for the life of the church. The fibre is incredibly durable, and the story of its manufacture intersects the story of trade unions, pacifism, and biculturalism.
On Christmas Day, Radio New Zealand (RNZ), posted a beautiful article citing faith leaders around the Motu and their calls for a more peaceful future here in Aotearoa and abroad. It ended with a quote from Anglican Bishop of Christchurch, Peter Carrell. “In a Christmas message, Peter Carrell says the world is not at peace. He says he was struck by the name that was given to Jesus was the ‘Prince of Peace’ and yet in 2024 the world seemed consumed by war. And he urged Christians to pray for peace in Ukraine, the Middle East, Susan and elsewhere.”
The unfortunate typo remains on the RNZ article as of today, January 23, 2025. At first I had a laugh, and sent a screenshot around to my friends and even posted on my social media story praying for peace for all the Susans in my life. But then, in the print version of the article, which came out on Boxing Day, an editor must have flagged the typo but ended up revising it as follows: “He urged Christians to pray for peace in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere.”
I don’t fault the editors — the copy editor deserves a Christmas holiday, to be sure. But the complete erasure of some conflicts over others is enough to give one pause.
My academic specialty is in digital media. And one of the unfortunate effects of my academic interests is a close attention to what is and what isn’t talked about online. Over the past few years, I’ve seen many friends posting impassioned pleas for our churches and our governments to intervene in the violence waged in Gaza, and before that, in Ukraine.
But what’s left out? I don’t say this as a gotcha or as a way to instil guilt or shame. In a way, it’s not entirely the individual’s fault if they don’t know between 60,000 to 100,000 indigenous West Papuans have been forcibly internally displaced. It’s not necessarily an individual shortcoming not to know that over 11.4 million people have been displaced by the current war in Sudan. To my knowledge, there has been no statement about the current war in Sudan by my church, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, even though there are over 1,000,000 Anglicans there.
None of this is to say that proximity (geographical or denominational) or magnitude should be the deciding factor in who one cares for. It is to say that our media environment — in large part shaped by what we ourselves share on social medai — affects where we direct our attention, empathy, and prayer. And that matters.
This year, as we pray for peace, I hope that we continue to pray unceasingly. And as we pray, we pray without stopping to seek out all the stories and voices of those around the globe who are hurting. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells Zacchaeus that he came to “seek and to save the perishing.” To be like Jesus, it is not enough to pray for salvation for those we already know are hurt, lost, or dying. It is to actively seek out those who have been lost to the world’s attention.
Tēnā koutou Social Services and Community Committee:
We are writing on behalf of the Student Christian Movement Aotearoa, a progressive Christian group active within tertiary institutions across the Motu, to express our deep misgivings about the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill.
We recommend that the committee reject this Bill and that the government pursue evidence-based alternatives that will not cause further harm.
As Christians, we believe strongly in restorative processes and in evidence-based policy. The proposals in this bill are neither.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Michael Toy
publictheologian@scm.org.nz Public Theologian Student Christian Movement Aotearoa
It was with great pleasure that we were able to co-host the event “Can Christianity Be Saved from Capitalism?” with Metanoia last month! We had a fantastic turnout — I heard 30 was the unofficial official number, and great discussions. A huge thanks to Jaimee and Andrew for journeying down from Tāmaki Makaurau to co-host!
A special thanks to Rayne Aldridge and Mika Hervel for a great presentation on the ills, history, and re-imaginations of capitalism and Christianity. Rayne and Mika took us on a journey through Max Weber to Dr Jonathan Cornford, who you can hear on a podcast by The Happy Revolution: https://open.spotify.com/show/54qS4VR14dJizxjvqaedkZ (Cornford, not Weber…for that you’d need a medium/Ouija board).
Stay in touch with us to keep in the loop for all the latest events and happenings here or on our Facebook page.
Tēnā koutou Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee:
We are writing on behalf of the Student Christian Movement Aotearoa, a progressive Christian group active within tertiary institutions across the Motu, to express our grave concerns about the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill and the detrimental effects we believe it will have on both the planet and its inhabitants.
As Christians, we are called to seek out and show compassion to all people. This call to care extends not only to our fellow humans but to the entire created world. Decisions that impact the environment, including the continued exploration and extraction of fossil fuels, are deeply concerning in light of the climate crisis we face. We particularly note that marginalised communities experience the worst of climate change effects, not only here in Aotearoa but across the Pacific and the wider globe.
Continuing to pursue new oil and gas drilling is not only inconsistent with scientific consensus but threatens the future of our environment. This approach directly contradicts the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the damaging effects of climate change. The potential harm to our oceans, through oil spills and seismic blasting, risks devastating our marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
As members of the Christian community, we believe in the need to protect and preserve the Earth for future generations in line with our shared responsibility as kaitiaki of creation. We strongly urge the government to reconsider its support for policies that further entrench our reliance on fossil fuels, and instead prioritize a just transition to clean energy solutions.
Submission to the Committee Secretariat Health Committee
September 2024
Student Christian Movement Aotearoa (SCMA)
Tēnā koutou katoa:
Student Christian Movement Aotearoa is a progressive Christian group in tertiary institutions across the Motu. We write to give our partial support of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2). As a Christian organisation, we value life, and visions of an abundant life (John 10:10) include physical health. We also write as rangatahi—whose welfare our tradition and sacred scriptures emphasise should be prized (Prov 22:6; Matt 18:6).
We thus support the spirit behind this new law that seeks to address the widespread harm that vaping can cause to human health, acknowledging that the health harms are felt inequitably throughout society, with Māori youth disproportionately affected adversely (DeMello & Hoek 2024), and especially Māori girls (Youdan 2023). We endorse the following recommendations from Public Health Communication Centre Aotearoa that the amendment bill include:
“A formal licensing scheme could control vape store numbers and locations, and provide an additional enforcement mechanism (i.e., allow for licence removal from non-compliant retailers).”
“Disallowing price discounting, loyalty schemes, giveaways and bundling promotions (such as buy-one-get-one-free)”
“that no vaping product retailer (including existing retailers) may operate within 300m of any school, kura or early childhood centre”
Finally, “the Government should introduce robust measures to reduce smoked tobacco products’ availability.”
We believe these changes would lessen the accessibility and thus harm of vaping products, especially among those impacted the most.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Michael Toy
publictheologian@scm.org.nz
Public Theologian
Student Christian Movement Aotearoa
Ben Youdan, “Youth regular vaping decreases for 2nd year in a row in ASH Year 10 survey, daily smoking remains very low,” Action for Smoke Free 2025, December 11, 2023.
Anna DeMello & Janet Hoek, “Underage vaping is on the rise: here’s how young New Zealanders are finding it so easy to access,” The Conversation, May 21, 2024. Janet Hoek, Jude Ball, & Richard Edwards, “New Vaping Bill: Some important progress but critical gaps remain,” PHCC, September 20, 2024.
Last Friday, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a master class with ethicist Miguel De La Torre to discuss his 2017 book Embracing Hopelessness. Many thanks to Associate Professor Mike Mawson for organising this discussion, and to all others who were there to contribute their thoughts and energies.
De La Torre’s book argues that there is a type of hope wielded by Christians that precludes any meaningful challenge to the status quo on behalf of others. Perhaps the best illustration is from his introduction:
I first began to develop a theology of hopelessness in 2006 when I took a group of predominately white students to the squatter villages of Cuernavaca, Mexico to learn from the poor. During our outing we spoke with many families living in horrific conditions. That evening, as we processed the day’s activities, one student struggling with what she had witnessed shared that in spite of the miserable conditions in which these people lived, she still saw “hope in the eyes of the little girls.” Hope, as a middle-class privilege, soothes the conscience of those complicit with oppressive structures, lulling them to do nothing except look forward to a salvific future where every wrong will be righted and every tear wiped away, while numbing themselves to the pain of those oppressed, lest that pain motivate them to take radical action. Hope is possible when privilege allows for a future. A child can hope when college is assured, when parents know how to game the system to advance themselves and their progeny economically, when safety and lack of fear create a livable environment. Even the hopeless can be distracted when stomachs are filled and rest can be found in warm comfortable beds. But for so many from minoritized communities where surviving into adulthood is itself a challenge, and where skin pigmentation ensures lack of opportunities to wealth and health, hope runs in short supply. My immediate response was to explain that this same little girl in whose eyes my student saw hope would more than likely be selling her body in a few years to put food on the table or would be trapped in an abusive marriage attempting to survive classism and sexism, so I wasn’t sure what kind of hope my student detected. Among the disenfranchised, the dispossessed, the least of the least, I discovered an ethos where hope is not apparent; rather, it is imposed by those who might be endangered if the marginalized were to instead act (page 5).
His argument builds through the book, as he considers various case studies of Korea, American Indians, Auschwitz, the shooting at Emmanuel AME church, and Latinx migrants. The book at its best is a polemic that affords an interruption in the usual machinations of theological and ethical thinking. The jarring language of embracing desperation instead of holding out hope for a better world does its job of unsettling the usual tracks of eschatological maneuvering. Acknowledging that change is not really possible, that God may or may not break into history (and likely will not), what horizons or possibilities emerge? In the end, he argues for an ethic para joder, or screwing with (really, f*cking with) the system. This kind of trickster ethics emerges as a playful, life-oriented mode of messing with the mechanics of the system. There is much more to say about his thesis, the methods of the book, and the generosity and humility of the author in person, but for now, I want to answer the question that occupied the second half of our discussion: what kind of radical praxis are we called to here in Aotearoa?
There are many examples of jodiendo in the history of Aotearoa. The ones that spring immediately to mind are Hōne Heke cutting down the union jack flagpole, Tītokowaru’s followers removing the surveyor’s pegs at Parihaka, the Peace Squadron blockade of nuclear warships, and scattering broken glass on the rugby pitch in protest of the Springbok Tour of 1981. In Wellington, we are fond of Adi Leason and co’s disruption at the five eyes base at Waihopai.
Whilst we might draw inspiration from the past, what creative disruptions might lay in our future?
Early on in our conversation, Professor De La Torre mused that whatever we do, neoliberalism is always five steps ahead of us. Petitions, campaigns, marches, occupations, pamphlets, street art— all of these are more than easily absorbed by the intertia of the status quo. Some have even argued that these activist tools amount to no more than spinning our tires, leading to exhaustion and burnout. The desublimation of protest provides a tidy release of anxiety and frustration whilst material changes do not manifest. Even with the strategies and theories of change, there is not much that can be done in the face of power.
So what is left? Whether it’s hopelessness, Hulsether’s critical pessimism, Berlant’s cruel optimism, or Tony’s contained opposition, the systems out there and down here seem insurmountable. De La Torre argues that only once we realize the futility of it all can we move to an ethic para joder.
If you’re keen to brainstorm, dream, or fuck with the system, give a shout!
There may be no hope. But whatever we do, at least we can do it together.
