The Christian settler imaginary: Repentant remembrances of Christianity’s entanglement with settler colonialism in Aotearoa New Zealand

The British colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand and the development of nineteenth century settler society occurred within the confines of the settler imaginary. This article argues that a further specification of the Christian settler imaginary captures Christianity’s influence upon the entrenchment of whiteness in Aotearoa. Within the spheres of education, land, and war, British settlers employed distorted theo-logics to provide divine justification for their colonising strategies and legitimise their destructive forces. By examining the historic fusion of Christianity and colonisation in these arenas we seek to lay bare the truth of the Christian settler imagination as a repentant remembrance in service of a different future.