Staff at Te Whatu Ora incorporating karakia into their daily routine should stop he says.

Seymour is reported as saying that Te Whatu Ora must concentrate on people's physical wellbeing and leave their spiritual wellbeing to self-management or others.

Karakia for patient benefit

Act health spokesperson Todd Stephenson says some Te Whatu Ora staff including karakia in their daily routine has a flow-on effect for patients.

In his opinion it is inappropriate and distracts from Te Whatu Ora's work.

While prayer in a person's own time is fine as far as Stephenson is concerned, he says "they shouldn't be paid or encouraged to do it by a government department".

Practical approach called for

"In terms of Te Whatu Ora, the size of the problems in health demands a practical approach" Seymour says.

"Secondly ... in a public office you leave your own religion and beliefs at the door and work together for the benefit of New Zealand.

"We do not believe in forcing any particular culture. We believe in a public sphere where all people can participate on equal terms."

Karakia optional, reflection encouraged

While saying a karakia is optional at Te Whatu Ora there is organisation support for the practice.

A leaked email to Te Whatu Ora staff reads:

"We encourage everyone to incorporate karakia daily. To help ... we have created some pre-recorded videos to learn karakia .. over time we will be adding more recordings for you to choose from."

Health NZ chief executive Margie Apa says many groups chose to begin their day and meetings with karakia. But it is not a required practice she says.

She says that nonetheless Health NZ encourages reflection when teams gather. This practice aims to ensure they collaborate and are aligned in how they can make a difference for patients.

"We do much of our work in teams ... How our people connect with each other is where value is created for patients" Apa says.

"We have a range of resources in the organisation that support teams to build ways of working that recognise this - and karakia is one of those resources."

Source

• NZ Herald

One of those at the meeting last Wednesday was Alex Gorrie (Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Waitaha), holding a large sign urging ORC to honour Te Tiriti.

He then went on to address councillors in the public forum.

He said he was concerned when he read about Cr Kevin Malcolm's walkout, thinking "this is not good".

The pair exchanged emails.

During the public forum, Malcolm told Gorrie he was on a different stage of the journey and would like to work with him.

‘'I've already got a full-time job,'' Gorrie said, as applause broke out in the public gallery.

Far from walking out during the karakia, as has been widely reported, Malcolm said he walked out afterwards. Council minutes show this, he attested.

"At no stage did I disrespect the karakia."

His views on the karakia are now different from those he made to Stuff news immediately after his walkout.

At that time he said "it was just a tick box exercise to try and get favour, it was just so wrong".

ORC chair Gretchen Robertson clearly doesn't share that view. She began Wednesday's council meeting with a karakia. She then turned to an agenda item regarding the opening and closing of council and committee meetings.

She noted a council report about Te Ao Maori (the Maori world view) of karakia says it delineates a time and space for a specific activity/event. It clears the pathway and brings people together for a common purpose.

Although commonly translated as a "prayer", it did not have to have religious intent.

Councillors largely spoke in support. Views varied.

One said karakia enriched meetings, and he looked forward their regular inclusion.

Another said the karakia provides a bi-cultural signal that "we were in this together" - regardless of whether or not Maori were present.

One (Michael Laws) spoke against the use of a karakia. He objects to using religion or the supernatural in council affairs.

He noted the separation of church and state came from the forebears who arrived to New Zealand in the 19th century.

Asked whose forebears he was speaking of, Laws replied his own. "Those that developed this country ... the reason we have an economy today."

He noted the council has no Maori elected members but wants to impose a karakia.

He called it "the worst kind of tokenism ... the very worst kind.

"It is not simply wrong ... it is risible."

He suggested those who did not want to be present for a karakia did not need to have it imposed upon them.

Malcolm has no issue with the use of karakia, but advocated for more training.

Councillors voted to note the report, with only Laws voting against.

Source

• Stuff

The Council met for the first time Wednesday under new Mayor Craig Jepson, elected at October's local body elections.

As is customary in councils, the opening of parliament and most hui nowadays, Maori Ward councillor Pera Paniora, of Te Moanaui o Kaipara, wanted to begin the meeting with a karakia. Read more

The human koiwi (bones) were found at Epsom Girls Grammar school.

The school admits that although the idea was well-intentioned, it was a breach of tikanga (custom) and should not have happened.

One girl's father says the breach left him concerned and angry about his daughter's involvement with koiwi and how her involvement came about. He's worried other schools might make similar mistakes by not consulting before making such decisions.

The school is on Maori land and Maori staff - tangata whenua - weren't consulted at all, he says.

"Someone's taken it upon themselves, under some directive to move this skeleton and then, somehow, they thought it a good idea to ask my daughter and her cousin to say a karakia over them. That's a breach [of tikanga] in many ways."

The two girls said the karakia before the koiwi, thought to have been used in the past for teaching purposes, was taken to the University of Auckland.

The father says he is worried about his daughter's safety.

For Maori, a koiwi is still a person, deserving of mana and dignity.

Koiwi are the physical representation of their whakapapa and identity. The essence of a person is in the bones, the most sacred part of a person.

According to tikanga, it is culturally offensive to interfere with, display or use koiwi.

"Just to simply be rolled out and transported down the road to somewhere else, as Maori people, we don't do that to people. There's a system and a process in place for us to respond to those sorts of things."

A kaumatua or tohunga from the local iwi should have been consulted over the tikanga, he says.

He says another aspect of the tikanga breach is the school overlooked its partnership with Te Tiriti (Treaty of Waitangi).

The result of not consulting with the Treaty partner is people break tikanga, he says.

"There's potentially a number of conversations where Maori should've been involved and they just weren't. Had they been involved this would not have happened and, as a result of that, that's what angers me, is that our children are put at risk because of that."

Other parents were also upset and concerned.

"These are remains of an ancestor," says one. She wants the school to repatriate the koiwi to the descendants.

This means storing them safely and culturally appropriately until they are eventually put to rest with their family.

Since the incident the school leadership has worked with the girls' whanau to rectify the situation, which the father appreciates.

He also wants the Ministry of Education to see if other schools have koiwi.

The Ministry says however, that schools don't have to report on the materials they use for educational purposes.

It says it encourages schools to be aware of appropriate cultural practices and to seek guidance and cultural support from kaiako Maori and local kaumatua.

Source

• NewsHub

The te reo Maori words, "Tuturu o whiti whakamaua kia tina" feature at the beginning of the track Simon Says by NCT 127.

Researcher Aroha Mead, an advocate for Maori intellectual property, said the words used in the song were frequently used in a karakia or prayer Read more

Among those who use some form of blessing, 13 pray, 26 say a karakia, 19 use a mix of both or another blessing and 18 don't use anything.

Massey University's Professor Peter Lineham, whose research specialises in New Zealand's religious history, said most councils which prayed had done so "for a very long time."

"Gradually, it has been eliminated from most of the larger councils. The moment anybody protests about it, effectively it comes to an end."

The new trend was using a karakia which was generally considered acceptable, whereas a European Christian prayer may not be, he said.

"Within officialdom, there is a real change of attitudes, where effectively Maori karakia have come to replace the traditional 'this is a Christian country but with no commitment to any specific denomination'."

Chief legal adviser at the Human Rights Commission, Janet Anderson-Bidois, said a karakia could be either secular or religious.

"While karakia, blessings or prayers should never be compulsory, some public institutions have introduced elements of tikanga Maori as part of their acknowledgement of biculturalism under the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, or say a prayer as a continuation of long-held traditions."

Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) president Dave Cull said councils were free to open meetings as they chose.

"Many councils use the LGNZ standing orders template, which states that local authorities may choose to recognise the civic importance of an occasion through some form of reflection."

This could be an expression of community values, a reminder of the contribution of the members who have gone before, or a formal welcome such as a mihi whakatau, Cull said.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: Stuff.co.nz

AUT history professor Dr Paul Moon's comments come after a High Court judge last month threw out a test case because the parent challenging the legality of the Bible in Schools programme failed to file documents in time.

Dr Moon said while that court action had failed, it would not be the last attempt to remove Bible teaching from the country's state schools.

"Banning religious practices in schools, may inevitably extend to removing karakia from schools as well," Dr Moon said. Continue reading

"To those who celebrate Christmas, we wish you a very happy Christmas. To those who do not, "season's greetings".

The Anglican Bishop of Auckland, Ross Bay, says "All very laudable in a way, though an interesting thing is that non-Christians are some of the biggest celebrators of Christmas and have already reinterpreted it to suit a secular society."

But the word Christmas is not the real problem says New Zealand Herald columnist Brian Rudman.

According to him the real problem is what he calls "karakia at dawn".

Rudman says that as one of the 41.9 per cent of New Zealanders who ticked the "no religion" box in the 2013 census, he has never felt excluded or ostracised by the use of Christian-based words like Christmas or Easter.

But he does take exception to what he calls the "weird Christian custom of "karakia at dawn"," which he says the Auckland Council and government departments have adopted.

"Instead of standing up for our secularism, government officials are busy thrusting religion down our throats," says Rudman.

"They wrap it in a Maori cloak, and if anyone complains, they mutter biculturalism and Treaty of Waitangi."

He says "'karakia at dawn' precede the opening or launch of just about anything. Books, art galleries, wharf extensions, nothing is safe."

"Yet in reality, they're just imposing one religion on the rest of us by stealth."

"We live in a secular society, proudly supporting the right for everyone to follow their own religion - or have none."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: radionz.co.nz

Dr Pita Sharples, Maori Party Co-Leader, supported Kelston's initiative saying that 'schools have to reflect and respect the culture of our kids to make them feel welcome and connected' and noting that karakia, 'is a vital part of our lifestyle.'

Pita was probably talking about Maori lifestyle but even so, our collective, multi-cultural Kiwi world is well on the way to being an eclectic blend of cultural and religious rituals.

I was thinking about all this during a Matariki service last week at the hospital where I work as a chaplain. My colleague, another Anglican priest who happens to be Maori, led the service.

God, the Christian version and a combination of older models, was addressed in the karakia nestled amidst chanting, singing, good humour, tree planting and a cuppa afterwards. It was heart warming.

However, if we'd tried to celebrate a Christian festival honouring the changing of the seasons and the sacredness of the Earth, few, if any would have felt obligated to turn up. Instead it would have been seen as religious, an attempt to force an unwanted and irrelevant belief system on others.

In one sense what Dr Sharples says is true. However, it's also true that communities focused on Christianity, Judaism or Islam would not be able to introduce their prayers into a state school as Kelston has done because we have enshrined religious prejudice in law.

This is why church schools in New Zealand are now the only places teaching an intellectually rigorous curriculum of religious studies, values, ethics and philosophy; remarkably useful subjects for growing citizens of a diverse world.

Religions grew out of human struggles with life, the quest for an understanding of the 'more than' of our existence. Continue reading

Sources

• Sande Ramage in Spirited Crone
• Image: Marist Messenger

Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.

I like the organ music, the art works and the parables. But the supernatural stuff moves me not a bit. What a miserable place it would be if all explanation ultimately reverted to supernatural belief. The truth and the search for truth are far more interesting than ghostly stories of how we came to be.

It's the human discovery of billions of galaxies, of black holes, dark matter, and the space-time continuum that fills me with awe and wonder.

Hocus-pocus creation stories can't compete with the beauty, the inspiration and the grandeur of the truth that life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years.

For some unfathomable reason religious people invariably want to push their beliefs on to others. The different religions have fought bloody and terrible wars and the religions have splintered, only to unleash holy horror among one another to prove one supernatural belief system superior to the other.

Sadly, the fighting and the terror continues and shows no sign of abating. We now have modern weapons wielded by medieval religious warriors immune to reason and untroubled by their own holy demise. Somehow they are convinced that blowing themselves up along with innocents advances their religious cause and assures eternal bliss. The greatest crimes have always been committed not by evil men doing wrong but by misguided good men believing they were doing right. Continue reading

Sources

• The New Zealand Herald
• Image: Kaitiakitanga

Rodney Hide is a former Member of Parliament and leader of the Act Party.

Prime Minister, John Key says teachers in schools should be able to opt-out of delivering a karakia in schools if they wanted to.

Maori Affairs Minster, Pita Sharples. says because there are a lot of Maori and Pasifika whanau whose children attend Kelston Intermediate. The school's culture should reflect the community, and the whanau who send their children to the school.

"It is absolutely fitting that karakia be used in the school, as it is a vital part of our lifestyle and it is also consistent with the New Zealand Curriculum."

Dr Sharples said if individual teachers had an issue with leading students through karakia, then it should be worked through between the school and families.

A ministry of education spokesperson says while state primary schools were required to be secular this didn't preclude teaching about religion. He added, however that a 2009 document produced by the Human Rights Commission advised teachers and principals to avoid leading pupils in prayer.

They were responding to concern expressed by some of the teachers at the school about karakia (prayers) being recited in the classroom.

The school recites a karakia at the start of its weekly assembly and in classrooms before lessons begin.

Staff lead the prayer, which asks for the day to be blessed, help with work and to have a good week.

The NZEI, the primary teachers' union, has been asked to address concerns that have been expressed.

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Rotorua Post