An invitation to attend the Compass Rose AGM in London this year has strengthened Te Pīhopatanga o Aoteraroa’s flourishing relationship with its international counterparts, says Archbishop Don Tamihere.
The Compass Rose Society is an organisation that exists to support the work of the Archbishop of Canterbury and office of the Anglican Communion. Its AGM, therefore, provides an opportunity for Anglican leaders to gather, share, learn and connect. And in this instance, it was Archibishop Don’s experience of establishing and leading the Anglican Indigenous Leaders Initiative, held in September, that appealed to those assembled.
“There is a lot of interest in the way that we do things here as Māori – as a people focused on relationship building and oranga ake – human flourishing. So much so that they’re sending a delegation our way in 2025.”
Archbishop Don says he’s expecting a group of visitors to spend time examining our Māori schools, including St John’s College, and he’s preparing to answer a lot of questions about this important kaupapa.
“There is strong interest in our proposal that our schools will form part of a network of Anglican schools, globally, focused on leadership development for young people. And in the particular challenge of decolonising our systems to make room for diversity.”
Cultural expression, continues Archbishop Don, is one of the “great strengths” of the Anglican communion. “It is truly a global family, and incredibly diverse,” he continues. “But a lot of the ways of meeting and organising this family have not been diverse. So this is a wonderful opportunity to bring the English and North American chapters of the Compass Rose Society over, nurture high-trust relationships and make a longer term commitment to each other.”
Travelling alongside Ven. Maui Tangihau and Grant Hope (St John’s College Trust Board), Archbishop Don and his contingent also used their time to consider developments in funding strategies, ethical investment and equity. “We had fantastic meetings with the Church of England Pensions Board, the Church Commisioners for England and the CCLA, which stands for Churches, Charities and Local Authorities – they’re world-leading in their ethical benchmarking and align their investments with the church ethos. It’s interesting to see how the Church is managing its wealth, while addressing that some of that wealth stemmed from chattel slavery and colonisation.”
“Certainly in New Zealand, if you look at the three cultural streams within the Anglican Church, one of them has amassed billions of dollars in wealth and the other two are impoverished. So we have to change that system, and address inequalities. And it can’t just be by using the hammer of guilt. Flourishing has to be together.”
It was a whirlwind few days for our Compass Rose delegates, with a schedule that included dinners at St Paul’s, Westminster and inside the House of Lords. Archbishop Don spent time in conversation with the Archibishop of Canterbury himself, later meeting with some of his senior advisers to further talks. “I got the strong sense that there really is huge interest in what Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa is doing down here. The visit in 2025 will include members of the Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, church commissioners and others.”
But it was stopping into a little church in London’s south that had perhaps the biggest impact of the trip. “It’s called Holy Trinity Clapham,” says Archbishop Don. “It’s very small, very humble. I was moved to go there because that’s where the CMS, or Church Missionary Society, was founded.”
It’s significance to New Zealand? “It was the CMS that sent the first missionaries to Aotearoa New Zealand – a meaningful part of our history, and the thread that eventually led us to establish the Māori church and Māori schools. It was also the home church of British MP William Wilberforce, who led a movement to abolish slavery – so I was glad to be there and connect with an important aspect of our lineage.”
For more information on the Compass Rose Society see https://www.compassrosesociety.org/
For more on ethical investment leaders CCLA see https://www.ccla.co.uk/