What Western Christians FORGET about Creation and God, with Brad Haami

In this conversation, Joey sat down with Brad Haami and Sam Carpenter to discussion the Māori prophetic movement of the 19/20th centuries and how God communicates in the world through his created order.

00:00 Introduction
02:29 Māori 19/20th century prophets
13:11 Key Māori prophets and Ratana
25:16 The Spirituality of the Land
35:01 Ratana's Whales
44:11 Brad's Ministry and Butterflies
54:06 Myths and Dominions
1:01:21 A Contemporary Māori prophetic tradition

Bradford Haami is the current chair of Te Rūnanga o te Wānanga Amorangi - The Māori Council for Laidlaw College - and sits on the governing board of the college. He is a lecturer in biculturalism at Laidlaw College and holds a Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Theology. 

Between 2012 and 2016 Brad led a reconciliation movement with UK intercessors to all the battlefields of New Zealand. This led Brad to a reconciliation lectureship at the YWAM University at Kona, Hawaii in 2015. He has preached and taught on biculturalism and reconciliation at churches and faith communities throughout New Zealand for many years.  He has led Māori intercession teams to Mongolia, the Pacific and Israel since 2015. He is a Māori representative on the All Pacific Arise Council and is a foundation member of a Māori Christian Leaders Forum,Te Oko Hou (The New Bowl). 

Brad is an accomplished Māori author, journalist and lecturer with added experience in film and television media. He has produced exploratory works on mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge), Māori history and more recently Māori biography. He self-published True Red; The Life of an ex-Mongrel Mob Gang Leader (2004), the story of Tūhoe Isaac and the radical shift in his life from a gang leader to a Christian. He also self-published Ka Mau Te Wehi: Taking Haka To The World, the biography of Māori performing arts doyens Bub and Nen Wehi, which won the 2013 Ngā Kupu Ora Best Māori Biography of the Year Award. In 2016 he published The River of the Waters of Life: A Biography of Ike Samuels, a Māori missionary to Papua New Guinea. His most recent works are: Urban Māori: The Second Great Migration (Oratia Media, 2018) and Bringing Culture Into Care (Huia Publishers, 2019). 

He has also written for critically acclaimed television productions and has acted as a consultant to numerous local and international drama, documentary and feature films. His services were crucial to the making of the acclaimed TV thriller series Mataku, the cinema film Tracker and the Māori film Mahana. He has also consulted as a Māori knowledge expert for churches, organisations and museums. He has been an advisor to The Māori Natural History and Moana Galleries at Auckland Museum and the acclaimed travelling Tohora: Whales Exhibition for Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. He was recently the Māori curator/expert on the acclaimed Te Taiao / Nature exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum. “My interest in storytelling is primarily based on the 'power of the narrative’. Whether in an oral, written, documentary or cinematic form, it has the capacity to convey a message that stimulates conversation and transforms hearts, minds and communities.”

Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.

Transcript

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So I've been in lots of places where the trees and animals start doing things that aren't normal to check you out whether you have the authority of God to even walk in this on this land. I would go and pray in landscapes or on farms or on certain coasts, and God would say, declare the scripture. And then you'd go, okay, God, is this really you? Is this just seems so weird? Because I always test God and go, hey, God, is that if that was you and we did what you said, can you show me it's true? I could say nine times out of ten, these little butterflies turn up, and we all and me and my friends as witnesses are going. Do you see that? Yeah. Take photos of it. I think that's what God is doing in the Western world, is widening the worldview back to the reality that Jesus saw. So today, I'm involved in a lot of ancestry things in the prophetic movement in New Zealand, and part of what we pray is that our mountains and our lands and our valleys would become the footstool where God's foot would uh dwell on our land, not some other principality around, yeah, have their foot in the door. Kira Koto, and welcome to Lunch on the Way. Today is a very special and important episode where we're going to look at indigenous Mori theology when it comes to land spirituality and the sacramentality of the world. It's easy for us to talk at a high level about what does it mean for the world to be sacramental. It's another thing to actually live in that world and to live into it as if the world is infused with spirituality. And it really pushes up against a secular understanding of the world, even a Christian secular understanding of the world. So today we have with us Sam Carpenter, who was here previously on Lunch on the Way with uh Treaty History of New Zealand and missionary movements in early New Zealand history. And then we also have uh Brad Hami, who is uh he is a prayer intercessor and uh also lecturer at Leid Law College who prays for the land and prays for healing and prays for deliverance. And his stories are very interesting and incredibly fascinating. So I hope you enjoy today's episode of Lunch on the Way. Um, there was a lunch conversation that we had. The dreaded lunch classip. Yeah. I don't know, like how many months ago was this now? At least three, four months ago. And since that conversation, I've been thinking, Brad, we need to get you in front of the microphone because we Graham and I, and John isn't a little bit, and Graham sends his apologies if he couldn't make it. He's just coming back from holiday now. Um, we have been exploring like what does it actually mean for the world to be sacramental? What we mean by that is what does it mean for the created order itself that God has established and that we live in to actually speak to us? Like God is is actually speaking to his people through his created order. And at one level, that's like a no-brainer. It's almost like, well, of course, God speaks to us in the only world that we live in. That's it, it makes complete sense. But on another level, there's a there's a flattening that has occurred because of secular liberalism over the past long time, but at least 150 years within Western society that has kind of seen the material world and God's creatures as very separate from God speaking to us. Like if God speaks to us, or if God is is if communicating something, it's like an inward sense or like a feeling or an intuition, which certainly it can be, but it's almost like, well, that's just the natural world, it's just over there. And what really sparked all this was when we were just having a conversation and and we were talking about Ratana's whale, and then Brad, out of nowhere, you said that whale came back. And I was just like, I was like, all right, you've been a we need to talk more about this. And we did over lunch and we've had other conversations here and there. But where I want to start is is the Molly prophetic tradition as as a way of at least beginning to have more of a contemporary conversation. So what's what's going on with that that prophetic tradition within Christianity, within Outhrower, this this Māori prophetic tradition in the 1800s, bridging into the early 1900s? Yeah, so uh maybe I'll just step back a bit. Yeah, so into traditional culture, the pre-missionary, pre-Christian Māori way of living, the realm of dreams and uh the spirit realm. And the prophetic realm was like here. It was like everyday life. It's not separate from the physical realm. And uh but in terms of having prophetic people or the prophets, you usually had experts of that realm who served, I suppose, the the warlords. So their whole uh realm of the prophetic was to speak to the warlords about winning battles or about and the the future of things to come and and you know their sovereignty over land. Those those sorts of things. But when Christianity came and you do see a marked difference in how the prophetic realm operated in uh the Mori world um because the um the prophetic realm shifted based on a scriptural worldview and uh that uh in a sense everyone had the gift of prophecy. Um but in the Mori world you had particular strategic leaders that arose in the colonial world because of the colonial forces that were coming. And they became a form of leadership, uh of charismatic, I suppose, prophetic leadership uh in the Mori world to can counteract um uh colonial forces or uh the things that were happening in our world in the mid-19th century up into the uh the mid-20th century actually. And so you you needed a new form of leadership because the old uh contractual type chiefly leadership had lost its power in some ways and was being undermined. So this I I believe God raised up a prophetic uh leadership to give vision to the people in hard times. So uh that that's and how people talk about uh the Mori prophets, yeah. You hear about it a lot. All of these uh these people uh like Tefiti and Tohu Takorti uh and uh a host of uh people who uh uh had charismatic visionary leadership. And uh some people agree with that, uh some people don't, some people don't understand it. I did hear you know the head of one Bible college years ago say that he would never ever teach on the Mori prophets in a Bible college. And I thought, well, that's a bit arrogant. Uh because it's part of the the context of New Zealand history, actually. Yeah. And if you went to all of the indigenous nations, you would probably find the same rise of the prophets in the same kind of context of uh colonialism. The prophets rise up. So um that's how I would see um the shift in prophetic uh activity from the old worldview into a more scriptural worldview at the time that this is the the Bible or the scriptures were being known by our ancestors and read. Um although I think that whole thing of seeing in the spirit of uh of dreams and visions um is actually part of human life, actually. It's just how do you contextualize that in your culture, in your land, but even from a biblical point of view in your normal everyday life. And I think New Zealand um has a whole generation of young people who are all seers, uh, who are all very prophetic, but the church itself does not know how to nurture that. And we need to understand that, otherwise we're gonna lose them. Yeah. So so within that context, then it'll be you can step back, because I think what you just said, you you that you just bridged the whole hour that I want to talk about right there. But let's step back with the historical context a little bit, Sam, because I Sam's like, Do I do I need to be in this conversation? Like, Sam, you need to be in this conversation. One, you're a resident uh tree historian and New Zealand Christian history historian, so that's you know important. But two, there's there's some key figures you mentioned um who kind of began this prophetic tradition that was birthed out of this uh colonial background of what if correct me if I'm wrong, then I can share what I know and just tell me what I'm getting wrong. That the the Treaty of Waitangi wasn't being honored, and that there was a tension within uh Christianity in New Zealand where there was colonial Christianity and Malay Christianity, and it's like, well, if you're being Christian over here as British people and not honoring the tree, then what's going on here? And so there was this rise of this prophetic movement that began to happen in response to that background. Is that correct? Yeah, that's quite a good way of summarising it. Um I mean, I guess to give a little bit more content, yeah. So the treaty is 1840, and then the major era of the New Zealand Wars is 1860s, so that's when just some some stats here, like 12,000 imperial troops in the colony. Um the minor population is only about 60,000. And it so the the height of the height of mobilisation on the British side is about 14,000 against max modern mobilisation of 5,000. So it's three to one. Yeah. Then then there the laws go down. And uh across the Waikato Taranaki both then and across those main regions, there's also confiscations that follow. So not only is there, I guess, losses of people, um, sort of several thousand deaths during the laws, there's also man confiscation that the government uh exacts as a form of punishment for rebellion, as it calls it, against the crown. Um, the problem is that there's a lot of Māori remain neutral. There's even quite a few Mahori that um actually fight with the crown for for their own reasons, which sort of complicates the picture. But the the major narrative is war and confiscation. Three million acres, uh, which is a decent amount of land, right? Um and so out of that, that's when there's there's this prophetic it's almost like a re I was just listening to Brad talk, it's almost like a revisioning of of the Māori like what he's saying, it's a revisioning of the mighty prophetic sort of element, um, but in a sort of through a Christian lens or inspired by scripture, yeah, in part at least. Um but I I just thought a good quote here to kind of illustrate why this emerges, it really emerges as in response to suffering or injustice. And so this is a great quote that summarizes it. Um one of the key missionaries near Wellington had fear of he writes that um some key Mali leaders came to him in 1860 and they said, quote, uh, this war would prove a sad trial for the faith of the Mali, that they carefully examined the New Testament from beginning to end. Nothing contained in it could be interpreted to sanction or justify such a war. And here's the punchline that either the English nation, as represented by its government, was not Christian in the gospel sense, or Christianity was not true. There was no alternative. So that's what these Mori Christian leaders are telling this prominent missionary that this wasn't a provious sad trial, and it did. And so that's when we get these prophetic leaders emerge. Um, and I agree with Brad. I think I think they were raised up in a sense um to to be a voice of hope for the people. That's how I understood it anyway, quite a while. Yeah. And so who are we talking about then? So who are some key players or some key people within this movement that kind of set this background? And I what I want to do is I want to end with Raften up because I think historically he's kind of the last key figure or one of the last key figures. Oh, yeah, he's uh he's one of the key figures, I suppose, in the 20th century. Yeah. Um, so you I mean, yeah, you have people uh like um uh Tefiti and Tohu in Talunaki. Uh while even you have King Tafio and his his uh father, uh King Portato, the first king, the second king. I would say King Tafyo uh in his time during the Maori Land Wars, he was a very prophetic uh character who uh you know relied on scripture a lot. Um and uh but they they have a word Tongi, which is the word for pr the the prophetic realm. And so you'll see he quotes scripture a lot. Um but like uh at the Battle of Rangiridi, if you go there, there's uh a uh a word there that's on the gateway at the battle site, which says uh um uh uh uh people uh perish without a prophetic visit. And even though King Tafel said that, but he got that out out of uh the scriptures, right? So without a vision, yeah, it all people perish. And also what's his what's his key? Um these three things hold on to faith, law, and love. Yeah, is it yes, yeah. So all of those come from the scripture, yeah. Uh and a lot of those they're still spoken about today within the uh the King Itana um you know realm of people, and uh they're always quoting this the the uh the prophetic words that come down from those people like uh Kim Tafel and his father, and people like the relationship between the other prophets of the time um and uh such as uh what's his name, a Taranaki Du. Um he he was another uh guy who had a vision, he had an encounter, an angelic encounter, and and got a bit of a download of how to operate in peace, uh and uh which became what they call the Pai Maride, which then became a big movement. Um I like there's another movement uh by this guy, uh Tamithi Ito. Tamititi Ito from Taranaki, and he he uh uh embodied this vision called Kainarava, which is very I find that very interesting. Yeah. That means the lizard, the lizard, yeah. The lizard eaters. And they were, you know, and a lizard art in our culture were you know, that's a a realm of fear, they were very spiritual entities. So to eat a lizard, uh you'll find some carvings around our tribes of ancestors who have got a lizard in their mouth basically means that that's a man who had no fear. And uh, if you don't go near him because uh you're yeah you'll get your beings. Uh and so does the lizard represent like something evil or even uh evil spirit or the operation of yeah, yeah, we're evil. Well yeah, no, the lizard represented evil, but the lizard also represented the spirit realm. Okay. Um so to eat it is one thing, right? So you had all of these guys, um, and there's a recent book uh uh that was um written about this, uh about that movement. But actually uh where they went around the landscape to eat all the lizards in the landscape, which represented we need to consume those things that are actually iniquitous in our land. Okay, the sinful thing, yes, that actually cause our land to be wounded or to be um defiled. And so that's what they were doing. And but if you look at that today, that that's that's an image of the modern day intercessors. The realm of intercessors of prayer warriors in this generation is to do that very thing. Is to repent and bring cleansing to the land and to the people, to a community, to a city, to a nation, so that the glory of God could come and captivate the hearts of men in that region. Yeah, you know, and to release actually to release uh creation and the land from its futility. Right. And so um there are a lot of things like that. Uh and there are a lot of prophets, then you come to Ratana or Takourti, actually, he was uh uh There are at least two prophecies about Ratana, aren't they? Yeah, Tekourti and other prophets. Speaking of Ratani, Ratana, who would cun. Yeah, he says, yeah, okay, someone was gonna okay. So what do you know some details about that before you get the rifle? Yeah, yeah. So Tacourti, um, well, it's what uh Tacourti was from the Gisbon area. Um you know, he's got a big story, but basically he was uh uh charged with accused of a particular um crime or set of crimes, maybe. Um was it didn't have a trial in a seed to the Chatham Islands, which was a pedal colony, a prison area. Left there, he had a vision from an angel turned up, um, and basically he escaped and uh got back to Gisbon. Um but in his journey of life, and the crown were chasing him for years and years, um, you know, he he absorbed the Bible and the scriptures, and by the end of his life, he be quite became quite a peacemaker, but a very prophetic person of dreams and visions. Spoke in tongues, had guys who were spit, they were uh scribes, so whatever, came to him and visionarised their writer account and things like that. So there was one point where he um ended up uh up in the Fonanui Fonnaehu River region um where he spoke this out and he he said oh um he told the people and we're talking about eighteen ninety-one period of time that he said from this river will come a great tree, and that tree will uh uh speak and it'll have a very soft voice, and the people will flock to it. And and he he would add to it that have twelve branches with leaves of healing that we need to that the people would flock to. And in many ways, that's exactly what happened when Ratana emerged years ago. Uh he became the voice of God, the soft voice of God that people flocked to. Yeah, but people were healed. Uh, and he did 10 years of healing in his ministry and 10 years of politics in his ministry. He was very prophetic and saw uh uh many things, prophesied many things even overseas, um, and did a lot of healing ministry on the land around the country. Um and so you have a lot of communities right around New Zealand who were apostolic Ratana villages that were birthed out of his ministry. And uh so but I could talk all day, maybe another prophecy about Ratana just to connect it to the the religion and the politics, as it were. Yeah. Because those things uh tend to separate them, right? Yeah, and and the Western mind, but very much not because it's a more holistic review. And so so there was an another prophet from up north, up at a Hamatani in the 18th century who said who prophesied on one occasion, there will come a man uh bearing in his hands two books, The Bible and the Treaty. Listen to him, something like that. Um and of course, Ratna comes to be known as the one who who does carry the Bible in one hand, you know, and proclaims the gospel, and but also brings uh I guess the message about justice as well, which is the treaty side of things. Um and so that so the from the Rat in the movement can become come the um the run in the political movement, and that and that leads to the the Rutan MPs who enter through the Labour Party and the 1930s uh dream. The during the depression. Um you know, when when when Marty Dam is stored at a very low ebb in terms of in terms of justice and and social conditions, and so uh and in fact when Ratna emerges, it's the influenza epidemic, isn't it? So there's also a lot of deaths and and sickness through that cause, and so he he ends up. Um I've never been there. Brad probably has to the Ratna Museum, but you can still go on and see all of these crutches and and uh wheelchairs and things that people just left behind because they didn't need them anymore after he administered to them. And and also in that museum, from what I read, is the bones of the first whale. I don't know. Yeah, there probably is. So the little museum, or they call it the ghost house. Yeah. Uh is uh I don't think it's open to the public now, but it used to be open in his time that were all of uh um the regalia or those things that uh proved, I suppose, the prophetic visions and the healings of people were were put on display, so everyone knew that these things were real. Yeah. And what the the narratives and the stories that that the people told were uh were accompanied by physical things that belonged to those people. So um there's there's so many stories you you could uh tell about Ratana's ministry. My grandfather um was Maori and he had an uncle that lived at Ratana village, and he was studying medicine at the time at Otaga University, and he did his his thesis on the medical practices and health of the people that lived in their village. And uh he um so as much as he studied from a medical perspective, but he also believed in the healing power of Ratana, and uh that uh and Ratana never said it was him, yeah, he always knew that it was the Holy Spirit of God that was working through him for the his thing was to unite the people and that the Maori people would become the footstool for God to actually dwell on the land. And if you study the footstool, the footstool is the the uh the stage that the Ark of the Covenant was sat on inside the tabernacle. But the and so the the footstool by scripture is the place of worship, but it's also the place of warfare. And so uh Ratana in 1918 said that the Mori people uh well God told him to go to the Mori people and unite them under the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and you'll make them uh the people will become the footstool for God in this land and will bring healing, you know, um healing into the land. And so that was actually part of his mandate, yeah, actually. And so today uh look I'm involved in a lot of ancestry things and the the prophetic movement in New Zealand, and part of what we pray is that our mountains and our lands and our valleys would become the footstool where God's foot would uh dwell on our land, not some other principality round, yeah, have their foot in the door. Yeah. So um, you know, these are things God's been telling us about uh you need to remove the foot of that god off that mountain. Uh and because a lot of our mountains in Maldingham are named after the foot of this God, the foot of the God of war, the foot of that god. And so, you know, and God's saying, well, no, that those mountains are reserved for me, yeah, not these things. Before we get to uh the whale story with Rasana, I want to I want to kind of take a pause for a moment and talk about the land really quickly, because the way it's implicit within how you're talking, Brett. Yeah, but the way you're understanding land is very different. It's not just a place of ownership, it's not just a plot. There's a deep spiritual dimension to the physicality of the world that we walk on. And so I don't want to be ignorant, but I also wanted to ask what's going on there within kind of your worldview with the land specifically, because you just said there's gods in other mountains, and we're interceding to ask Kod to remove the foot of that god to for God's feet to land here. Yeah. So what's going on with within that? Like how are why are you framing it like that? What's going on? I think uh um I'm kind of involved in a lot of people that pray for land because God's led us that way. Yeah. And so to be able to pray for your land and for a nation or an island, i it has the layers of history. You have what is God's intent for that land, but you also have a pre a pre a pre-European indigenous layer of thinking about land, the mythology of the land, uh, the actions of uh ancestral deeds on lands, and then you have the colonial realm and then the contemporary realm. So all of those historical uh facts, it is those land, layers of history, but layers of thought and worldview on the land. Uh if you want to pray for land, you've got to understand all that, otherwise you won't really get the full picture of how to pray. And so God is speaking to a lot of us how to pray for our land, how to uh pure bring it back from being defiled through the sins and iniquities of of our people, of humans that have lived in those lands. Um and so um, I mean, our people would have a view about land being the word fenua. Fenua is also the word for a placenta and also land. So the placenta which uh feeds a baby in the room um nurtures a baby and the fenua which is land nurtures the people on the land. So you have um so it's the same idea of nutrition that uh that the placenta and the land both nurture uh the people. And so um how our my worldview based on that is uh is kind of around that. If the land is not neutral us, then what's it doing? Um and how our ancestors' view of the of land tenure is very different to Westminster law. Um you didn't own land, uh you you stewarded it, uh, but there were lots of wars over who had the rights of sovereignty over land, so then you had people fighting over things. But the scriptural, if I read the scriptures correct, and I may be wrong, though, uh God allocates land for people to live in. Uh and um we if I look at well Adam was put in a garden, he's made from Eden land outside of the garden, then put in the garden. And what were we called to do? We were called to multiply it, be fruitful, uh, and to steward the land, to till it and keep it, and then there's two other words, it's there's take dominion over it and subdue it. And those words over you know years have become the cause of anti biblical, anti-Christian rhetoric, where people have said, Whoa, your God is dominating to the exploitation of land and forests and environment. And so a lot of our people these days they don't want a bar of Christianity because they see it as uh or hold on, the basis of your God is thinking is to destroy and exploit land. Whereas I think that's actually not the biblical uh worldview. And there's a lot of theology around that, except that God made us to till the land, to steward it properly, look after it, um, that it would be that it would also be fruitful. Right? So, how do we live that out in this landscape? But then after he puts Adam out of the garden, it the land continually gets defiled by what? By bloodshed, by the sin of man, by uh iniquity. That's the collective sum of sin by community. Yeah. And it stays like that. So, what is our role as priests of God and stewards of God? What do we do about that? And and God seems to talk to indigenous people to us about oh, you need to clean clean your land. And uh our people say we have to heal the wounded land, then the people will be healed. But actually, under scripture we have to come to a maturity of uh in Christ, which is actually repent, get healed, uh drink milk, and then eat meat uh and and and mature and then uh and uh creation is groaning to meet the sons of God. Where are you? You know, because it's in futility. Why is it in futility? Actually, I was all gone. Actually bound the land into futility um so that the opportunity comes to release it from that. And part of our role is to release creation from its futility and bondage. And so how my worldview is shaped by my Mori worldview, but the scripture worldview to actually release creation from its bondage as a mature believing uh follower of Christ. Yeah. Well, that like when I think of even within I guess my generational background, not just in Canada, but in England, talking about like pre-modern understandings of the world and ourselves, and even with even though it was in a cr within a Christian worldview, um, I do know that there's stories, and you've you've cited them as well, that there's stories where when when people who follow Jesus are in harmony with him and others and the land, that God's created order actually speaks back almost like in harmony with his people. And so it's not too foreign. It's almost like a Western understanding of the world that has forgotten that because we've we've dominated and controlled the world and seen it as an object as opposed to something to be in relationship with in a meaningful way. Um blame it on the Enlightenment. We can blame everything on the enlightenment. No, no, I'm telling you. I do like cars. I mean, I know even about science. We like science. It's not anti-suniance by any stretch of the imagination, but there's a there's a dynamic that was introduced, which is like humans are the lords of the material world in our fallen state that is, if you will, like bastardized. It's it's it's an abomination. Um so so just to just to kind of summarize a little bit, it seems like if the land is not just something you stand on. There's way more at play than what we can see. And that's not foreign, certainly, within all of human history, and certainly even a Western worldview. That's kind of what I want to emphasize. Can we go back now to Rotna? And uh just to chip in on there, just go for like a very couple of quick stories, you know, that you know the medieval saints in the Middle Ages. So you say Saint Cuthbert is known as someone who prays like a commitment, and nature kind of almost coalesces around them, right? Um you can get the geese and then he prays like standing in the cold North Sea and all the otters come around them while he's crying, things like that, and then Saint Hill turns up during a during a um famine or a drought, I should say, and she prays and water gushes out of the ground. So I mean, and there's memorials to these things, you know, and they can go and visit today. So all of those things, yeah, we've almost forgotten those stories in the West, because that's so they seem Well, they seem otherworldly. Yeah, they do. They have the unheard Lord of the Rings, but yeah. But it's it's they're not though. They're historical stories that have a place. Yeah. It might not just be a Christian re-redaction onto those stories. I'm a legend, it's myth in the sense of like they're foundational stories, but it doesn't mean they're not true. Yeah, right. They're true myths. I love see a crisis, a myth-made fact. It's just like you know. Um, so let's get to to Rakana. Um, because I want to get I want to get to the whale story, because then I think this conversation is I want to get to it. Like, this is I just I want to get back there, but we needed we needed some of this background and some of your context to really fully appreciate um what's going on there. So who wants to tell Ratana? I think it should tell the story of when the whales turn up. Because Tekourti, remember, remember he's he's the guy that said so 20 20 or so years before, 20 plus years before he says there will be a treat that comes out of the Fangai River, which is the river mouth comes out near Fanganui, isn't it? It's the next Ridow, just between Ratana village and the Fanganui. Yeah, yeah, Fanny. So it's uh quite an important river, and and so then that's where Ratana has his first real vision character. And fam their family had land there and uh all of that kind of thing. Um and uh so you have uh Takourti has this actually he has a rolling prophetic vision actually, where he'll say one thing and then it'll it it it'll roll into another vision. So he had another vision of the Fungaehu River Um being a garden. A garden would come that has these beautiful flowers that have this beautiful fragrance that would attract people. And then one of the chiefs from that region of the Fungaehu River, Tcourti said, under your armpit, uh this uh this person will come and and you will embrace them under your armper, uh, which is the the place of adoption, I suppose, or the place of protection as a paramount chief, you protect the people under your armpa, you know, things like that. So um so when uh Ratana emerges uh uh in the early 1900s, um there's this story where he and his family go down to the uh the beach and these uh two waves come and crash on the beach, and they uh each wave has a whale in it, the whale's beach, and um a strand, and New Zealand has uh more strandings in our country than anywhere else in the whole world. I've noticed that when I moved here, it's like every year. Well every everywhere. Uh it's just the nature of the waterscape and the depth and depth of the ocean and maybe the cold water. So we have more species than any other people, any other land in the world, and we have more strandings here. So um in our people's cosmology, their thought patterns as a people, the straining of whales and whales feature big time in our culture. So these two whales beach, and uh then Arthina goes up to one of them and he's speaking in the spirit actually. I think he's prophesying to this whale, and he says um to this whale that you're to go and uh uh and take my word. I think he's talking um uh via the Holy Spirit to take the word of uh God around the world as the time of Satan's end is near. And um and then the whale actually uh and when you come back, uh you'll come back uh when uh his time is ended. And so the whale actually I think it was dead actually, but it actually rises up, comes back to life, turns around and goes out again. And um But he does something to the whale, doesn't he? Oh yeah, it just is uh initials into the whale. Yeah. And uh and sends it off. Now I did hear that this whale had turned up, but I can't confirm that. No, yeah, you know, and uh and maybe the end of Satan is so close this whale's gonna turn up, right? And uh but um why a whale? You know, uh why does this um because whales uh they go around the whole world, he was there he told the whale to go to every corner of the world, and uh in our own culture the the whales actually speak a lot into our cultural world. Like we have the image of the whale rider, so ancestors who wrote whales, uh and whether that that's true or mythology or legend, or some cases it's real, in some cases it's metaphoric. But either way, it's a deep part of our cultural world view, and the whale, if you ask me who God is, I always say God is a whale. Uh if he's gonna call you to ride it, if you if you decide to ride it, then you have no control. You gotta take your hands off, and he's gonna take you into deep places of mystery and you have no control. Um and most well in New Zealand history, in Maori cultural history, the whales will beach themselves. And whoever claims the whale eats its meat and drinks of blood becomes the owner of the land. And so you well, who does that? The God of the Bible, the Jesus, what does he do? He he sacrifices himself for you that you would have a new destiny. So to me, the whole whale image in Maurydom has a lot to say, actually. Um but we we don't speak about it too much. We know about it, we made a film the article, whale rider. Yeah. But Ratan is uh going back to Rata, he they use the whale meat to feed the people and the oil from the whale to uh make uh lanterns to fill the lanterns so that they could have light to be able to speak the gospel to the people. Of one of the two whales. Yes, of one of the two whales. Yeah, one that was left. The one that was left, yes, yeah, yeah. And uh and ratana's name actually means lantern. Okay. So you know, there's um uh uh so much in in these things. Uh and light. So no, ratana means length is just a transliteration. I hate to say it's a transliteration eventually. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. Um so um yeah, and I I mean our people are big in nature today. Our ancestors' time, why? Because they had to they were motivated to watch the stars for the seasons to grow their gardens and go fishing. It was in my great grandparents' time, that was normal everyday life. Everyone knew that. But today we go to the supermarket and uh and uh eat um genetically modified foods. Our tomatoes aren't even really tomatoes anymore. Bananas aren't really bananas, yeah, I know, right? But our our generation and the our younger generation are very strongly minded towards creation and nature because they don't want to let go of their old ancestral ways. So they see Christianity as having no power, no power in that world of the environment and creation, and it doesn't speak to creation, and it has little knowledge of creation. So our people don't want anything to do with Christianity because they see it as well, it's got nothing to do with us, it's not gonna nurture our culture in any way. So we have to find different ways, or actually find God's mind on creation, um, and how does he want us to engage with nature, you know, and uh, you know, I look at Job, uh Job 12. Oh no, not Job 12, it's in Job where it says, um oh yeah, it is Job Job 12, he says, uh, go and speak to the animals and the fish and nature, and they will be your teachers, because they know where their breath of life comes from, and they know where the power of God comes from. And in the book of Jonah, if you read Jonah, all the animals are obedient to God except for the the person who knows God, which is talking to the church in some ways. I'm sure it is. Well, it makes sense in the in the Job story because like Job's like, why is all this bad stuff happening to Job? And God's answer isn't an answer directly to him, it's like I'm God. And so it makes complete sense. It's like, look at all the animals, look at all the complexity of the world. They're all they're all working towards something that I'm orchestrating and I'm I'm weaving together. And so who are you? Who are you to question what I do? And so, yeah, it's like the created order stuff displa displays a true sense of who God is, yeah, in a very Meaningful way. That was enough for Job to be satisfied. Job was like, you're right. You're absolutely right. I've enough for the sake. Yeah. Um if we just pivot from Benette from the whales for a second, that yeah, you you heard that some some people said that whales returned because they they mentioned they must have seen that inscription, like his signature on the whale, hence why the whale would return. And it's like, what does that mean? We don't know yet. It takes time to kind of figure this out. You got to verify the story, sure. But but within within your culture and and tradition, when a whale shows up, it's not insignificant. It it matters. Not all the time, but certain times it matters. What what um how do you kind of uh not play as a way, a bad way to put it. How do you interact with what God is calling you to when it comes to what he's created, animals? Um what how does how does that work for you? Because we I feel like we're still talking up here a little bit, and I want to kind of ground it a little bit into experience like actual stories. Yeah, true. Well, I um am part of a body of people, and God's called us to pray for land. And that means going to certain places that have a Mori history, a colonial history, a contemporary history, but it has a mythological history and it has a history, a creation uh history with the types of animals and trees that live there. And uh sometimes uh what we find when we're walking land is that we'll see spirit animals and go, okay, what is that? And I find that if you're going from the realm of God to the second heavenly realm, that the principality demonic realm appears in a nation in the form of the animals of that landscape. Okay. And so when they appear, they're gonna they're gonna challenge you. And they're either gonna take you out, or they'll see, they'll recognize God in you, and they will bow down to you, or they'll give you the vital way to hear what you need to do. So I've been in lots of places where the trees and animals start doing it things that aren't normal to check you out whether you have the authority of God to even walk in this on this land. And uh um and th they will suss you out. If you haven't often, if you haven't um got the authority, you know a lot of people like to do things but they don't have the authority to carry out those assignments, that realm will take you out, or it will attack you, or it will backlash you in some way. Um, and um so you know, I see a lot of that. Um I have always had a love of these little butterflies. We have this butterfly in New Zealand, it's called uh Kakahura, which means the red-cloaked uh butterfly, and it's the red admiral butterfly. It's only little and it's black, but it has these little red winds. And I don't know, I've always had uh uh um loved them for some reason, um, but I never met one. And until I started to pray, I would go and pray in landscapes or on farms or on certain coasts, and and God would say, uh declare this scripture, and then uh you go, okay, God, is this really you? Is this just seems so weird. Um, but I've learned to to actually speak to my mind and my body, my soul and my spirit, that the first thing that comes to me is to be obedient to what it says, because that is God. And then so when I start to do this, this butterflies start to turn up. Because I always test God to go, hey, God is that. If that was you, and we did when you said, Can you show me it's true? And I could say nine times out of ten, these little butterflies turn up. Yeah. That specific butterfly. That specific butterfly will turn up and you were to go, what because they're kind of rare, you're like you never see them. And then all of a sudden four of them will turn up, they'll sit on a tree right in front of me and just go, oh this show me their wings. Yeah. And we're all, and me and my friends as witnesses again. Do you see that? Yeah. Take photos of it. Okay, okay, God, I believe. I believe you, yeah. That your creation is is uh declaring your glory to you and showing us that what what we've prayed on the land is now we give to you and uh queen and thinking. And then I just leave it there. But for those butterflies to turn up is out the gate. Yeah. You know, and I've been in different parts of the country praying, and they'll just turn up. You know, two of them would just come and sit on my on my top here. Well, I'm praying, hard, you're good. And my wife's going, hey, and these two butterflies have come out out of nowhere and just landed on me. As soon as I say amen, they're gone. Yeah, so those little things we call it a to, a sign. Now we could s take it and understand it as a sign from the divination world, or we could take it as a sign from the realm of God spirit. You know, it just depends what you're then with and with whales, um, well, our customary uh realm of whales was uh if a great if a person died uh and um often they would take your body down in to the beach and sit your body on the sand dunes of this. And if you are a chief or you know, a high-ranking person and uh your mana or your your chiefliness in life is not confirmed until a whale whale strands in front of you and um uh there uh lots of chiefs who whales the next day turned up and stranded right in front of them, and so everyone knew yes, that's the is mana is real, because the animals have come to honour the life of that person and is able to feed the hundreds of people that will come to honour that chief, you know. So there are um lots of uh things like that, or they'll just turn up when you go to the ocean to recognize oh you're you're one of ours. Yeah. Now that could be because you've made a covenant with the spirits of the ocean or something like that. Or um God recognizes your authority that and creation recognises your authority in God when you enter those realms, yeah. Um, for me, I'm I'm a believer in Jesus has all authority, the father's given him all authority over uh, you know, powers, principality uh principalities, rulers, and dominions. So, what does that actually mean? You know, and I I think we're gonna get our worldview widened, and I think that's what God is doing in the Western world, is widening the worldview back to the reality that Jesus saw. So he walks on water, so he has authority uh over the oceans. There's big storms that the that the disciples were really uh tormented by, and he just speaks to it to be calm. Uh and uh and then they see Jesus uh walking on the water and having this power, and he's they're really they're actually quite scared of it. Again, who is this? But it's a theophany, right? He he's actually revealing his God power in him, and um I think that um so I'm a total believer in that, but you you have to realize that in our cultures and a lot of cultures and uh uh uh we've actually given our power and authority over to uh powers of principality and principalities and dominions and rulers that existed in the world, uh and um for us to get access to the land and resources, and often we've made covenantal covenants with those realms, uh and sometimes in ignorance or sometimes out of tradition, and sometimes uh we've done it because uh our priestly beaters over hundreds and hundreds of years have m have said we had to do that. But now God wants to free us from that, and um so we uh so we have to kind of recognise those things. So we have uh a lot of mythologies that have a lot of that information in it. No, you could say that mythologies are pure old uh unrealistic and untruths, but I like what uh uh was brought up that no myth is fact. You know, that uh CFLS in Tolkien Belit. Because in our worldview, myth is fact. The things that the ancestors constructed, they constructed on purpose to tell particular story, a message for the way we live our lives within the landscape. And uh so we we have uh one story and uh where this story is probably all around the whole world where ancestors there's tribes of people who lived in the underwater world. They would come up and uh uh live on the land, but only at night time, not when the sun comes up, they had to be back in the ocean. And there's we have quite a few stories here where where these kind of mermaid characters come and uh inhabit the rocky coastlines, and men would fall in love with them, and they would build a house, because they want to marry this uh uh this mermaid that turns up every night, but they would trick the mermaid by building a house and blacking out everything inside, so it's actually still no light. Yeah, and um this guy um ends up you could say marrying this mer merwoman, this mermaid, uh, and uh having uh one child, but then she actually went outside one day and it was in the middle of the day, and realized of being deceived, dived back in the ocean, but here in our culture, if you were out of your realm, you turn to rock. So this woman turned to rock, and there's uh a reef uh uh on the east coast that's actually totally in the form of a woman, uh and that that's this Pissancest the Corpania. And um but I'm a direct descendant of the child that was uh produced from the mermaid and the human. Okay, and you could go, well, hey, that's not a real story. Well, in many ways, to God they're real stories, you know, and they're trying to tell us something, and that's actually in our bloodline. I mean, if you go back far enough, you'll find all of these sorts of relationships, and there's a lot of them in our ancestors who came on a cloud, came down on a mountain, slept with a human woman, and had got pregnant, and uh uh and produced the whole tribe of people. And uh so we we have a lot of those stories. It sounds like the Greeks and the Romans, eh? It's very yeah, I mean kind of similar ideas of God, you know, human females and producing well the Pirajup talks about it. It's in the book of Genesis, you want to believe those things. What is it? The Nephilim? The benefit. You know, uh and uh you know, uh but there's like a genetic defilement that I think is part of the battle between the seed of Satan and the seed of the worn. Right, the seed of Satan in the garden. Uh he knows that that the the Redeemer of the world is coming, but he's gonna try and defile his lineage, his bloodline, so he doesn't emerge. So there is a lot of that kind of conversation and a lot of uh that realm that uh is alive and well. And are we meant to just uh throw all of that stuff away as superstition? And I think uh I'm not a believer in superstition, and if the church doesn't understand how to deal in your daily practice of of prayer and healing in those realms, um then our people go elsewhere. So um we do have to grasp these things, and it means having a a bit of a wider um mental map of a world that includes uh those realms as well as creation, as well as our uh our daily lives as humans, and um uh have a bit more of an understanding. Well, how does God see that? And you have to walk in relationship with God to even kind of get your head around all this and go, God, what do you reckon about this? You know, what what do you think about this? And then God'll usually tell me one little thing, yeah, and then he'll give me a scripture. You need to pray out of this scripture. Yeah. And we don't have to pray, you know, two hours of yelling and screaming kind of thins it. Some church people do. He just wants you to go in there with authority, take authority over this and um use this scripture to disempower those things, you know. Yeah. I remember when I was in your office and we were just talking a little bit about this. Um I I remember mentioning it sounds like your disposition towards what God is up to is one of patience and discernment. It's it you're not so I I because I know some people who who move in that charismatic prophetic expression, they do so almost like like quickly. They're in a hurry. They're in a hurry. And it sounds like even from the stories you're telling, you're saying you're you're you're patient, you're waiting, you're not you're not ready to to jump too quickly to conclusions or to what you think is the best outcome for whatever situation comes. And so do you think it's in that it's in that patience where it's not like you're testing God, but but God clearly will will show up in in some way to communicate what his will is for this context community scenario. Well, I I I think you he'll he'll spring it on you. Yeah. Yeah. But don't wait too long. Yeah. I've he he go he said to me, I need over years develop this particular journey that I was meant to do with a Bonnie appeal. And it was I I was like, man, is this too big? I don't I don't know what to do with this. And who am I anyway? I'm I'm a nobody at this, but God uses nobodies, right? Yeah. And um but then I'll get a nudge. Uh no, you need to get on to this now. You you can't wait too long. But I'm I like to do my research, get all of the research done uh so that you you you have a full picture of what it is you're doing. Yeah, not just one little bit. And you you may get the full picture, but you're only there to do one little bit. And then other people tell you other bits. But yeah, I mean there's patience in it, but there's also timing. Yeah. And uh God has set aside a certain time to do things. Um but if you wait too long, um he'll nudge you, and I get or I always get a nudge. Someone will ring me up, bro. Were you meant to do this? Someone totally random, and I'm going, Yes. Well, God just woke me up this morning and told me to ring you to tell you um that you need to get onto this. God do it now, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, things like that. So it's good. It's patience, but actually hurry up. Yeah. So to so is there a gap between this prophetic uh tradition with the early 20th century in modern Christianity and what's happening now? It did was there a gap of kind of no prophetic ministry quite like that? And if that's true or not, what's happening now that you kind of see? Because you said something's shifted, something's changed with this new generation. Yeah. Um well, I think since Ratana's time, I think uh he was a national leader. Like the you know, the whole nation of Maldedham, a big part of the population, like over 70%, I reckon, followed him. You know, and um And somebody had to defect from the traditional churches. Yes, because the the like the Anglicans ended up that they didn't want when when they adopted some sort of because at some point rough and uh a movement adopts a confession of some kind, confession of faith. And it's pretty it's really not the orthodox, pretty orthodox. But at that point the Anglicans say, well, you can't be member of our communion and roughen the so the people who have to main choice at that point. So that that sort of also in a unfortunate way drives a lot of Māori out of the churches to the extent they were already there, which is not necessarily picked. Yeah, so I mean, my people are automatically drawn to the prophetic realm. It's just part of their DNA or part of their cultural worldview. So the the people that went to visit Rats and Own were there all the time, they they came from everywhere, they came from all all denominators, they were pan-tribal, um, and uh because he was the man of the time that had the power of healing, um, but had the prophetic power, so how people recognize that. So after he died, there were lots of people, lots of different people, but they never had the um not not I wouldn't say the power, but they maybe did not have the media coverage or the the uh expanse of Ratama. And so it seems like there's nothing happened. But actually, if I go to all the small Māori communities and just talking to people, man, people start talking, oh well, our grandfather did all the healing on this, and he used the scripture. Oh, he's his he's his diaries. And so I I think the the prophetic realm just shifted more into smaller rural things rather than in the one the one big prophet person, yeah. And became more around the gift of prophecy or the gift of the prophetic realm, started to move in families, but over time people have uh um shifted away, I think, from the Christian worldview, stepping back to ancestors because you know Christianity is seen as colonial, and um, so there's a shift back into the old realm now. However, in saying that, uh the prophetic realm that exists in Māori demon churches is still very strong, like the Pentecostal realm or the AOG realm. Um I just spoke up conversations with all sorts of Māori from all sorts of church backgrounds. And you touch on that subject, man, they still they open up actually. Yeah. I just tell a ghost story, then everyone just goes, yeah, well, listen. And then you can have a God conversation over ghost stories, you know. And um uh and I think that um the intercessory realm, which is not well uh accepted in church, the wider church realm, because they're just seen as too weird, you know. And um I think that um they have a lot to share to the church space, um, but they're not necessarily well accepted because they but I I I have a kind of love for them and an understanding of them because I've worked in that space for a long time. But there are a lot of Mori in that space, the intercessories realm, which is a very prophetic realm, and the prayer realm. There are a lot of Mori people in that space. Most Mori Christians that I know, that's where they get drawn to that very easily. Um, and so we need to be able to um nurture that, you know. Um, so it's very different from the Ratana era where you have one prophet, uh, you know, the prophet office, uh, whereas today. It's I see it more as the gift of prophecy in all its categories. Yeah. Um, and but it needs to come into conversation with the fivefold ministry, right? And prophets, uh the apostolic, the prophets, the um evangelists, teachers, teachers, and the shepherds. Right. But I think they don't know how to talk to each other. Yeah. That's what it looks like. They don't know how to talk to each other. And we're meant to actually mature the body of Christ through all of that. Um, whereas I think the prophets, the prophetic realm, the intercessory realm, they we wander around in circles. This is how I see it. Yeah. They wander around in circles doing their own thing, trying to find their place in the body of Christ. Um, and um and we need to find a way to bring them back into the fold, you know. Because it's not good they're out on their own, you know. Um, because they need also the counterboli the accountability of the full uh body of Christ, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So we have some pretty amazing adventures out there, yeah. Yeah. We just didn't t don't tell a lot of people because I don't know who understands. No, I get it. I completely get it. Because even I don't know, I don't know who listens to these. I know some people who work here will listen to this because they are you two, right? And so, um, but I I do know and I I do discern that even within people I know personally and stories I hear online of just that that flatness of the world is kind of fading away a little bit. Yeah. And and I know if we're talking academically for a second, like secularism is being deconstructed, which then invites a whole host of things in. And so it's not too incongruous what you're talking about, of like you have you have evil forces, genuinely evil mores in the world, and you've you've God through Christ and the spirit in the world. And and if you open yourself up to anything, then that's a little bit scary too. So you got to go towards Christ in in that authority, and so I I am worried, like then that younger generation is you know, because I know people within my broader family who are experimenting with this and that, and I'm just like, it's great that you're you're spiritual in that sense. I can actually have a conversation with you for the first time in a long time, but I'm like, let's talk about that for a second, and you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I remember um we took a team into the Pacific Islands uh a couple of years ago at a Māori tank. And I remember we landed on this island, and like, man, the minute we got there, we spent two days in arguments in division, all of us. And I'm like, man, this is actually what is this? Because then you realise you're going into another nation that has territorial principalities in it, and you need to understand that. And you know, we prepared each other to go, um, but we we just we rep we realize actually we're in uh a spiritual territory uh and we're all already being infected by it. So we every morning get up to pray. We just began to repent to each other. Same thing when you did when you repented on the waters. We just repented for our divisive behavior towards each other, which was weird, you know. And then when we began to praise God and ask God about it, he showed us a giant black white octopus on top of this mountain on this island. And that it what it does is what the octopus do, they they squirt out ink. So they're squirting this ink every day into the atmosphere over this whole region um that deceives the people and brings them into division and into darkness. And we're like, wow. That makes sense with what happened to us. Yeah, yeah. And uh and then we realized we're okay, that's what we're dealing with. So we we had to make sure that we were clean amongst each other and that we would repent every morning and and ask God's revelation for things and declare his power and authority through the darkness, you know, and and this space. And after that, everything opened up for us and we we became uh a a strong group that was able to go into these areas and pray for people and see what God is saying. Um but but sometimes but we so we need to understand how to engage with God in that way to see the big picture. And uh and I I know it's not for everyone, um but and uh but it just seems God has kind of got us on uh uh on a bit of a journey to see where those thrones are, where the rulers are that sit on the thrones, who are the strong the strong man that rules the thrones, and how to dismantle them because they sit like a council, you know, over our communities without us even knowing they're in there operated. But you have to find why are they there, how they get there, God, and what do you want us to do about it? You know, he might say, I don't want you to do anything about it. I'm just telling you about it, okay. Then ten years later he'll go, now I need you to do this. Yeah. So it's a real world. It is a real world, it's a real world, right? That's it's important, it's a real world. And um, yeah. Any closing thoughts before we I'm just wondering, I've just been thinking about how like coming back to the hope of the gospel, yeah, like in our history, you know, what were the reasons that Mahdi responded to the to the word of life in the first place, and a lot of leaders did, you know, and and not and of course the the generation, the missions generation before the profet the prophets were a lot of you know um Sheikh people, but the likes of Warumihana and people like that, who were the sons of Words. But and it's interesting, their Christianity would look probably quite a bit different from the prophets, in part because they were operating in a different context, right? The prophets you hadn't yet got to that real time of suffering, um, where those sort of millenarian hopes uh arose. But what am I trying to say? Um I guess I mean there there's a there's a task to tell the historical narratives to show how Christianity did was embraced in various ways by by by Mali and and I guess to explore culturally why uh and then sort of drawing the drawing the dots through to now and show that you know the gospel is still hope, and but make it culturally relevant, and I think that's the important to the work that Brad's doing right now academically is exploring some of those things, but um yeah, and just that idea and when he was talking I got this phrase spiritual archaeology, they're talking about the layers of history, there's there's like and then that idea of cleansing the land, so there's there's a sort of a spiritual warfare aspect which is about cansing the land, and and Rafna was involved in that and that that guy Tamatiti, he was burning the old relics. I think they would have massive fires in Talanaki. So this it was a kind they kind of fested. Actually, in the islands, fascinating. A l a lot of a lot of um that was witnessed there too when when Pacific Peepers first turned to God, um that they would burn the old relics and the old sort of sacred thing. So there's yeah, to a to a post-colonial mindset that kind of looks suspect. But I guess we've got to sort of almost like go in inside the culture to explain again why that was seen as relevant by the Muddy leaders and the chiefs in the tournament all the time. So yeah, I think there's a big huss in narrating the history but narrating it with the cultural lenses on. So yeah, it's a lot of work to do in that space. Yeah, that's good. Thank you so much for listening to Lunch on the Way. And if you've enjoyed this episode or any past episodes that we've published, please hit the subscribe button and like button on YouTube and the follow button on whatever podcasting platform you are using. It goes a long way. Jonathan Graham and I back in 2022 started this podcast because we wanted to have open-ended conversations that were exploratory and a little bit risky and allowed us to venture into uncharted territory, not only theologically, biblically, philosophically, culturally, but also anthropologically as well, to help us follow Jesus better and to think better about the Christian faith and our discipleship to him. And so we are so glad that you've been joining us since 2022. And if you haven't, we have a whole back catalog of conversations and episodes that I still think are very relevant for today.