Reflections of land and land rights issues from the Scriptures.

1. The Kingdom of God,
Land and Land Rights
International Perspectives
Kenya Jubilee
Sound the Trumpet
Nairobi, May 10, 2012
Viv Grigg,
1982, 93, 2004, 12

2. Following Christ the servant
among the oppressed
Living in the slums & favelas of
* Manila, Philippines
* Kolkata, India
* Heliópolis, São Paulo
Catalysing the Seminary in the
Slums - MATUL
Entrance Point: Our Personal Pilgrimage
Heliopolis, 1988
My ancestors were African
My wife is Brazilian of African
Descent
Therefore, I am made of African
dust married to African dust
I am back home

3. Half the world has become
dispossessed of land for their
own home
Bring greetings from your brothers
and sisters involved in the struggle
for land rights in the slums of
• Manila, Philippines
• Bangkok, Thailand
•Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Delhi, Nagpur, Mumbai, Kolkata,
India
•Lima, Peru
•Mexico City, Mexico
•New Zealand
and….
THE FUTURE OF NAIROBI IS THE
WARFARE OF RIO DE JANEIRO

4. Peacemaking begins in being one
of the people
HOME
⏎

5. Urban Hermeneutic
Approach
Transformational Conversations
Grigg, Viv, (2010). The Spirit of Christ and the
Postmodern City. Auckland: Urban Leadership
Foundation, ch 2.
Let me converse back and forth between the
scriptures and the battle for land rights in the
slums

6. Global Dispossession
 Slum-dwellers come and just need a piece of land, but
none was prepared for them
 This is not just a Kenyan problem
 It is a problem of global urban in-migration
 It is a problem of global capitalism which depends on
expropriation of land and a class of dependent
unemployed
 Since 1978 The UN has clearly defined ways that cities can
facilitate the upgrading of existing poor areas. Cities can
prepare land and services ahead of time.
 THERE IS A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT TO OWN LAND
FOR A HOUSE IN ONE’S OWN COUNTRY & CITY

7. A Story from Manila’s
Slums
Of violence and dispossession based on unjust laws
Conclusions
 ??? Is there a universal right for a people to have a piece of land
for their own home
 ???Before the conflict is there a public place for negotiation. IS
THERE A PUBLIC SPACE BETWEEN ETHICS AND LAW?
 ??? Beneath the law are there universal moral principles?
 Does law define reality or follow reality?
 IS IT RIGHT THAT THERE ARE UNJUST LAWS?
 THE GOOD NEWS: THERE ARE WAYS OF ORGANISING THE POWER
OF THE PEOPLE AGAINST THE POWER OF THE OPPRESSORS

8. Global Urban Conversation:
Context of Dispossession
Land - a crucial pastoral issue
25% of the world are urban poor
Half the world are dispossessed
Illegal Squatters
They don’t exist but their teeth hurt

9. City Conversation: Global Capitalism
Expropriation of land was and is
the foundation of capitalism
The emergence of a dispossessed
largely unemployed sector in the
city is essential for Capitalist
productivity
My people were dispossessed of land in the
enclosures of England. We migrated to New
Zealand to create a nation without an
aristocracy
This British process of expropiation was the
same way of stealing the land of Kenya

10. Story 2: Land - A Crucial
Issue for Revival
Land - a crucial issue for revival
New Zealand treaty, a covenant about
the land.
The violated covenant lead to the turning
of the Maori people movement away from
God
The battle for the soul of the Maori people
is based on reconciliation.
Reconciliation requires
restitution.
Economic Revival leads
to spiritual revival

11. Land & Spirituality
Our soul is connected to the land
From dust we came, to dust we return
The freedom of urbanization is the bondage of
dislocation
We are sojourners if we are on our way to a place
of our own as was Abraham. We are wanderers if
we don’t know where we are going.
When the people of Tatalon were given their
land, song burst out of the houses. Within five
years the environment was transformed and in
the midst of it a new spirituality could be birthed.

12. Spiritual Yearning
A yearning for the land is always a serious
historical enterprise concerned with historical
power and belonging.
To lose it is to yearn for it.
Our spirit years for some actual earthly turf where
meaning and well being are enjoyed without
pressure or coercion…well-being characterized
by social coherence and personal ease in
prosperity, security and freedom. (Bruegemann,
300).
Land is a symbol and a reality – we move
between these meanings

13. Spirituality and Belonging
Biblical faith is a pursuit of historical belonging
(Breuggemann, 312)
The failure of the city in its detachment and rootless ness
that enables endless choice and no commitment.
Landless Angelenos with neither place nor family.
Mobile, anonymous,
Rootlessness not meaninglessness is at the source of the
postmodern schizophrenia. (Breuggeman)
Place is not space. Place has historical meanings where
some things have happened that are now remembered
and that provide continuity of identity across
generations. Vows have been exchanged, established
identity, defined vocation and envisioned destiny.

14. Land and Alternative Culture
Pursuit of Space
 Flight from history
 Escape, detachment,
absence of commitment,
undefined freedom
Yearning for Place
 Decision to enter history
 Humanness in belonging
 To a historical community
 That provides orientation,
assurance and
empowerment

15. Theological Conversation: The
Nature of Land
Land =
Dirt + History +
Emotion
Four movements
in the scriptures
from
landlessness to
landedness

16. Biblical Conversation: Five
Movements in Scriptures
From Landlessness
1.The Garden
2.Abraham looked for a city (sojourners
= alien residents, without title). Or
pilgrims stopping on the way.
3.Slaves in Egypt, wandering in the
desert (wanderers are resourceless,
going nowhere, dying while awaiting a
delayed promise).
4.Exile (not oppressed, but displaced,
alienated from the place of security &
identity)
5.Jesus with no place to lay his head
To Landedness
1.The accursed farm
2.Gifted the promised
land
3.Returning to the Land
4.Return to the Land
5.The Promised City

17. More from Brueggeman
When faithlessness is linked to
landlessness, we are
destined to die the long
death of the desert, on the
way to nowhere.
Faith is precisely for exiles
who remember the land but
see no way to it.

18. LAND AS A GIFT
Hard Land Easy Land
UR PALESTINE
Egypt a hard land‐ MONARCHY
(milk & honey)
Babylon silent land‐ REPOSSESSION
Pilgrim Disiples no‐
possessions
CITY OF GOD

19. Movement 1
The King, the Land and …
(Genesis 1-3)
The King owns the land
Creators own their creation by
right
 We manage it on his behalf
 tenderly tend it
Fruitfulness is related to man’s obedience
Our soul is connected to the land
From dust we came, to dust we
return
A spiritual dimension to the land –
we all need a turangawaewae

20. Movement 1
… and the Curse
(Genesis 1-3)
The Land Becomes Cursed
Disordered, but still good
Work is hard – but still good
At a national level:
WORK + RIGHTEOUSNESS = BLESSING +
WEALTH
WORK – RIGHTEOUSNESS = CURSE +
POVERTY
Leviticus 26

21. Movement 3
from Egypt & Pharaoh
to the Promised Land & Kingdom
From a demanding land …
…to a land of rest
Possessed by degrees
Gifted (39 times)
The initiative is with God
Yet Joshua was to make specific plans for taking
the land

22. Ownership & Management
Jubilee (Leviticus 25)
God owns the land
Private ownership affirmed
Clan/Communal ownership
Honour Legal Boundaries
Not unlimited ownership
Not absolute
Social responsibility
Stewardship not exploitation
A restful land
Priests were to own their own
home

23. Ownership &
Management
Periodic Land Reform
Continuous Economic Growth without planned
periodic redistribution is not part of God’s program for
society
Urban Land
Meaning of the land changes from the basis of
agricultural production to land as a commodity
Legality =/= Morality
The level of injustice in a city is related to the % who
are renters
The city of God is not stratified

24. Movement 3
Broken Land Covenants to Exile
From guaranteed milk andFrom guaranteed milk and
honeyhoney
To a forgotten covenantTo a forgotten covenant
From freedomFrom freedom To oppression and slaveryTo oppression and slavery
From victory over enemiesFrom victory over enemies To subjection to foreignersTo subjection to foreigners
•Harlotry and the shedding of blood defile the land
•Breaking the covenant of rest brings judgement
•Solomon in one generation, confiscated Israel’s
freedom, enslaving them for state goals
A BROKEN COVENANT LEADS TO A LOST, CURSED LAND

25. Movement 4
Exile to
Restoration
Yet it was not the promise fulfilled.
My tree

26. Movement 5
Jesus & the Promised Land
He declared the Jubilee
come eternally (Luke 4:18)
So we are to preach
eternally (Acts 2,4).
We may fail here, but he
goes to prepare a mansion
for us there.
Thus we have an eternal
hope of land and rest for our
souls
Grasp with courage
Wait in confidence for the gift

27. Story 3: Repentance: Reconnecting to the
Environment
 From dust we came, to dust we
return
 The soul cannot respond to God
independent of its environment
 e.g. death of Maori elders
 AFC Wallace – four responses to
cultural dislocation
 Anomie, gangs, redefinition of the
mazeways, assimilation
 All covenants in Scriptures
(except one) are given in terms of
the land.
 When people are reconnected to
the land, there is an immediate
spiritual responsiveness
 e.g. land rights in Manila
Turangawaewae

28. Cultural Repentance
The foundation of the nation in the treaty of
Waitangi - about land and sovereignty
Violation of the treaty meant loss of economic base
and cultural integration for Maori – and hence
Christianity
Reconciliation releases the work of the Spirit
There is no reconciliation without repentance.
Repentance includes identification of the sins of the
oppressor culture against the damaged culture.
There is no repentance without restitution

29. Basis of Land Rights
Paptipu – right of discovery
Take tuku - a gift - God is the giver of the land.
Rapatu – right of conquest
Ahi-ka roa – long occupation
Take tupuna – kinship ties
Not bound by unjust laws – that is not anarchy,
that is a reading of historical process.

30. Alternatives to Eviction
Infrastructure and Services, upgrading,
maintianing the community relationships
 E.g. Tatalon now six stories high
Survey, land apportioned, squatters buy the land
over 25 years

31. Story 4: Repentance and Reconciliation
as the Basis of Revival
 e.g. The battle of Tuapekapeka
Rectifying the sins
against the first peoples
creates a basis for
multiracial unity
e.g. ethnic leaders hui
e.g Maori University
•In the centre of the Holy City a
river runs. The trees that grow
beside it bring healing to the
nations. The river in the
scriptures speaks of the Holy
Spirit
•Let the river run through
your life, unblock the dams.
•Then you may be part of the
great revival across the face of
the earth.

32.  Some say jobs are the issue,
upgrading the slums,
education….
 No, Land is the issue!
 If a prophet does not speak to
the issue of the times he is not
a prophet
 While an economic base is the
equivalent of the land in rural
areas
 Yet, with ownership of the land
there is capital formation. This
is the basis of survival.

33. Further Study
Brueggemann, Walter. (1977). The Land. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
 Hengel, Martin. (1974) Property and Riches in the Early church.
Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
 Orange, Claudia. (1987). The Treaty of Waitangi. Allen and Unwin,
Port Nicholson Press.
 Karuti Kanyinga, (2000). Re-distribution from Above: the Politics of
Land Rights and Squatting in Coastal Kenya. Nordic African
Institute
 J.N. Mugambi. (2003). Christian Theology and Social
Reconstruction. Nairobi
 Grigg, Viv. (2012). The Kingdom, Land and Land Rights. Auckland:
Urban Leadership Foundation
 Grigg, Viv. (2010). The Spirit of Christ and the Postmodern City. Auckland:
Urban Leadership Foundation