can continue to provide enriching insights into the Christian tradition, and in turn be challenged and enriched by Christian understandings. Through processes of mutually critical correlation, consideration can be given to ways in which Māori understandings, biblical texts, and various forms of Christian theology and spirituality mutually inform, enrich, and challenge one another.61 Leadership practices and church structures that embody just relationships among Māori, Pākehā, Pacific Islanders, and other, more recent immigrants from around the globe can be explored. Traditional spiritualities can be sources of as yet unrealized resources, when confronted with new cultural or global issues.62
Returning to Smith’s analogy, I am convinced that the story of, and the story behind, Whale Rider do not negate but rather demonstrate the need for dialogue between diverse sources and for mutually critical correlation. The dominant modern culture is not likely to disappear any time soon, although it could be transformed. The challenge for the tradition, whether Māori and/or Christian, is not merely to resist assimilation but to live in an integrated transformative manner within the context in which it currently exists. Smith speaks of the tradition being retrieved for a postmodern context.63 Māori may well respond that their tradition does not need retrieving. While oppressed or damaged in various ways, their tradition has not been lost. A mutually critical correlation process provides opportunity for dialogue between Māori, biblical, classical, and contemporary understandings of relationality, reciprocity, and resistance to oppression. Smith argues for the (non-identical) repetition of tradition within postmodern contexts.64 As far as Māori are concerned, such repetition is already taking place. The dialogue inherent within mutually critical correlation provides an approach to further facilitating this process.
My intention here is to affirm the value of mutually critical correlation for practical theological reflection on relationships within Aotearoa New Zealand, as elsewhere. No way of being or knowing is perfect and all can learn from others. It is not too late for bold and innovative experiments of authentic partnership and friendship on behalf of the generations to come.
However, given the power imbalances perpetuated by colonization, it is most appropriate that any critique of Māori understandings and practices come from Māori.65 Many Māori communities have been damaged by research that has taken, given little in return, and focused on negative aspects of being Māori.66 The historical power imbalance and resultant injustice in Aotearoa underpins the need to proceed cautiously to ensure just outcomes. Thus, when it comes to Indigenous sources and traditions within this project, my focus will be on learning from, rather than critiquing, Indigenous wisdom.
Mutually critical correlation concerning relationality within Aotearoa will require a collaborative effort. Although clearly beyond the scope of this project, such a project is certainly possible. As Aotearoa approaches the bicentenary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2040, there will be opportunities for tangata whenua (people of the land) and tangata Tiriti (people of the Treaty) to engage in transparent re-visioning of Aotearoa’s future, including imagining decolonization. Such revisioning will need to acknowledge multiple ways of being Māori, including differing practices and perspectives between iwi, hapū, and whānau (tribes, clans, and extended families), as well as differences between more traditional rural upbringings centered around a marae (meeting house), “pan-tribal urban” realities, and “international diaspora” perspectives developed through being Māori elsewhere.67 More specifically, as part of such a process, the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia may seek to contribute to a national vision and set of core values. In such a context, Tikanga Māori (the Māori Anglican Church) could both draw on a mātauranga Māori (Māōri knowledge) research paradigm and contribute to a mutually critical correlation approach, engaging in both affirmation and critique of their own ways of knowing and relational practices.
The correlation within this project is more nuanced than may be suggested by the conversation above. I identify and explore practices of authentic friendship with writers who have contributed to our understandings of this relationship, including Indigenous writers. An analogy for the correlation that takes place within this research is that of the reciprocity, give-and-take, and frankness of speech that characterizes communication among a community of friends and potential friends. Questions arising from various disciplines and sub-disciplines contribute to this conversation. Likewise, answers to questions raised emerge from various conversation partners.
Practical theology has tended to consider interdisciplinarity primarily in terms of conversation with non-theological disciplines. However, this methodology allows for both congruence and conflict between theological sub-disciplines as well as between theological and non-theological perspectives. In recent years, greater consideration has been given to the need for practical theologians to include dialogue between theological sub-disciplines, and to tackle the complexity of conversation between theological fields as they seek to make constructive normative proposals.68 Theologian Richard Osmer advocates an understanding of interdisciplinarity that includes practical theology’s dialogue with “biblical studies, philosophical ethics, Christian ethics, church history, and systematic theology.”69 Tracy encourages an “aesthetic-ethical correlation” that facilitates the further development of mystical-prophetic practical theologies.70 This broader understanding of interdisciplinarity is evident throughout the various stages of theological reflection in this research. Sometimes conversation takes place between theological and philosophical sources; at other times it takes place between theological sub-disciplines, between various Christian traditions, or between Indigenous and non-Indigenous theologians.
Looking Backward and Forward
This introduction has identified the importance of friendship, considered definitions of friendship, and explored the terminology of practical theology. I have highlighted the potential for a practical theology of friendship to inform the shared social and theological imaginations of Christian communities of faith and the practices of friendship encouraged and nurtured within and by these communities. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of critical dialogue between diverse sources to this endeavor. The structure of the remainder of the book is based on the practical theological approach to correlation advocated by Don Browning. In A Fundamental Practical Theology Browning identifies descriptive theology, historical theology, systematic theology, and strategic practical theology as the four sub-movements of theology.71 The interdisciplinary theoretical research presented in this book is based primarily on these sub-movements, as outlined below.
Part I: The Current Reality
Descriptive theology considers underlying norms and metaphors and seeks to capture and clarify practical questions. This phase is not simply the realm of the social sciences. Rather, questions emerging from the descriptive task are drawn from a variety of disciplines, including theology. While various disciplines help develop a thick description of an issue, each carries its own implicit and explicit norms and must be incorporated critically.72 Browning suggests that questions such as the following guide this movement of theological reflection: “What, within a particular area of practice, are we actually doing? What reasons,
