Samuel D Carpenter

Category: historyofChristianity

  • Conference paper: Henry Williams’ intellectual formation in English Dissent

    … and his views on the Waitara controversy, c. 1860. The slides and recording below represent a conference paper given at the New Zealand Historical Association Conference last week, at the University of Auckland. (The NZHA conference is the main conference of Aotearoa-NZ historians held biennially.) Abstract of paper: The Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary…

  • Marianne Williams and the Missionary Impulse

    In this postcolonial age, many things are said and written concerning missionaries to foreign/ indigenous lands. I have just been reading a source which reveals that in its purest, Christian form, the missionary impulse was, well, pure and Christian. It would also, doubtless, have seemed reckless and ridiculous to many contemporary observers, not to mention…

  • Talk at National Library on Henry Williams + Te Tiriti

    I was invited by the National Library, “E Oho! Waitangi!” series, to share my research and insights into Henry Williams’ translation of the Treaty of Waitangi. I append below my text from this talk for download. (Please cite to this page if using for research purposes.) The Event page at National Library is here: E…

  • Submission on Treaty Principles Bill – January 2025

    Below is the Laidlaw College submission on the Bill, prepared by myself, Bradford Haami and Roshan Allpress. (Can be downloaded below.)

  • Translating the Scriptures into te reo Māori in Aotearoa-New Zealand in the 1830s

    RECENTLY PUBLISHED: Samuel D. Carpenter, “A Historical–Contextual Analysis of the Use of “Tapu”, “Utu” and “Muru” in the Māori New Testament and Book of Common Prayer,” Religions 15, no. 9, art. 1109 (2024). Link to open access article here: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091109 ABSTRACT: Building on Wittgenstein’s theory of ordinary language use and Lamin Sanneh’s insights into the…

  • The Church Missionary Society settlement at Paihia, 1820s-40s

    Recently I’ve been seeking to understand the core mission ideas, practices and day-to-day realities of the Paihia mission – the leading mission station of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in the period from 1823-40. This research has also revealed the dynamic interactions and relationships between Māori and Pākehā that made this place tick. I gave…

  • Review of Jeffrey Sisson’s Forgotten Prophet

    Samuel Carpenter, Review of Jeffrey Sissons, The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati te Ito and His Kaingārara Movement (Bridget Williams Books, 2023), in Anglican Journal of Theology in Aotearoa and Oceania 3/1 (2024): 121-23. An excerpt from my recent review and the review itself for download below: “… this book is a significant contribution to the literature…

  • From the Archives, no. 7

    Microcosm of a missionary library – Church Missionary Society, New Zealand, 1824. Yesterday, I came across this fascinating little insight into the reading world of an early nineteenth century, evangelical missionary. Recorded in Missionary Committee minutes of meeting is the following little window on this world: Mr [Henry] Williams reports that Mr [Thomas] Kendall has…

  • From the Archives, no. 6

    Research at Alexander Turnbull Library (Wellington) last week delivered some remarkable documents and taonga, including this whakapapa showing descent from Hoturua (leader of the Tainui waka) and baptism registers revealing some significant rangatira names of Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa and other hapū. The whakapapa was literally inside the back cover of a Church Register, and…

  • Te Whānau Wiremu ki Aotearoa: How the Williams’ story has shaped Christianity, Culture, and Nation in Aotearoa, New Zealand

    Just published in Stimulus: The New Zealand Journal of Christian Thought and Practice, vol. 30, no. 1, 2023: Te Whānau Wiremu ki Aotearoa: How the Williams’ story… This article is a slightly abbreviated version of my talk at the Williams family 200-year reunion, which took place at Waitangi in April this year (2023). (The reunion…