KES February Chapel Service
Last week, our KES Ohana went to chapel. Kahu Kordell made some comments that confused many of our students. Paraphrasing what he said, he told us if anyone tells you that the missionaries were not good, don’t believe them. He also talked about our loving God and that the Hawaiian gods were not loving.
What did you personally feel about the comments?
March 4th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I think that Kahu Kordell is just telling us what people told him when he was young and he didn’t realize that God wasn’t always loving, like when God had the big flood and only Noah survived and also how Lot’s wife turned into a piller of salt because she looked back at the city that she once lived in that was burning down. Also Kahu Kordell didn’t relize that the Hawiians did have caring gods like Lono, and if we did not have loving gods then what is Makahiki about?
Also, I do agree that the missionaries were not totally bad, but I don’t think that they did everything good for the Hawaiians. But, not many people said that the missionarieries were totally awful. I also think that Kahu Kordel has not heard the Hawaiian’s opinion of the story.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I believe half of what Kahu Kordell is saying. Most of the missonaries were good people but they believed they were better than the Hawaiians and the Hawaiians were a savage people needed saving. I disagree with the statement all Hawaiian gods were not loving because they did give the Hawaiians good things just like our God gives us blessings. The Hawaiian gods also punished the Hawaiians with famine and stuff. Our God punishes us too. I think Kahu Kordell stereotyped and chose one side. Take for example, the Palestinians and the Israeli conflict. One person might think the Palestinians are all bad but some people in Palestine don’t like that they are sending rockets into Israel. Same for the Israelis, some Israelis may not like that they are attacking the Palistinians. I also think that Kahu Kordell only sees one paradigm which is the western paradigm and doesn’t see how bad the missonaries were for the Kingdom of Hawaii. They basically took away the Hawaiian culture. Kahu Kordell could have said his opinions in a better way.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
I think that Kahu Cordell could of worded what he meant better when he said the missionaries were all good people and if somebody tells you that they are bad, don’t believe them.
Also, I think that Kahu Cordel wasn’t thinking when he said that the Hawaiian gods were not loving. Lono was loving, and Ku was loving when there was a famine. He went on his head and turned into the first ‘ulu plant.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Personally, I felt kind of odd when he said Hawaiian gods were not loving because we are a Hawaiian school that celebrates things for the gods like makahiki. The missionaries did do some good things like teach us other languages and mixed races that could have saved the Hawaiian people. I think that both Hawaiian gods and the missionaries did some bad things. The Hawaiian gods had punishments like droughts. The missionaries took away the Hawaiian language and special things like hula and the Hawaiian chants. I understand that he is very firm with his beliefs and was probably never exposed to other paradigms.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Personally, I think that Kahu is so pro-missonary he was like blinded during chapel time and he wasn’t thinking. I think he could of worded what he said better like “missionaries are good people in the sense that they bring God” or something like that. I also think he generalized both sides too much because God isn’t always loving. He does some mean stuff and the old Hawaiian gods were also good and loving.
It sounded like Kahu Kordell was saying the Hawaiians were a lesser kind of people, and that the missionaries did us a favor by civilizing the Hawaiians. The told us not to do a lot of stuff because it was not civilized,.
But I think missionaries weren’t all bad because they did bring a new God. I am a Hawaiian Catholic and I believe in God and the Catholic beliefs.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
I think Kahu Kordell misworded the message he was trying to get out. I think he was trying to say that the missionaries were good people, but some people have a different perspective from his.
Kahu Kordell was not open to another culture when he was talking. For example, he only looked one way and closed off looking any other way. You should be open to new cultures because you can see different perspectives. You can’t just look straight ahead and nowhere else.
Missonaries were bad and good because they were giving us another perspective of how to think and stuff. The bad thing about the missionaries to me was that they said you have to look only one way and you can’t be looking anywhere else. You can have only one belief and that is Christianity. That’s like taking tons of knowledge away from your own culture and our culture will never be the same again.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Personally, I think that Kahu was right and wrong. I think that the missionaries had good intentions, but not all of their actions were good. Another good thing that the missionaries did was bring Christianity. They taught the Hawaiians about God, but they took away things from the Hawaiians like hula. Actually, it was the kids of the missionaries that were the evil ones because they were the ones who took over the Hawaiian kingdom.
But when Kahu said that the Hawaiian gods were not loving, I think that that’s not true. I think this isn’t true because the Akua helped the Hawaiians survive when they needed food. They did some evil things too, but God has also done some harsh things before.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I think Kahu Kordell was taught that the missionaries were great people so he wanted to share that knowledge with everyone. I think the way he said it wasn’t the way he intended for it to turn out. Some people just have a different paradigm.
I agree with Kahu Kordell that the missionaries were good people and they introduced us to many things. They just had a different way of looking at things and they thought that we needed civilization.
The Hawaiian gods love us just like how God loves everyone. Even though he believes in one religion, he didn’t have to insult another one. We are all equal in this world and that goes for our religions too.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
When I first heard him say what he said, my first thought was, I wonder what was his paradigm of the world is. He must have a very different paradigm from us because he said that the Hawaiian gods were not loving, but I think he’s wrong because we had Lono and he’s loving. I think that the two main reasons that everyone was confused was:
1: He was being to general. Some of our gods may require offerings and even Ku, the god of war might not be the nicest gods. But, because of a few unloving things about our religion, he generalized it to all our gods not being loving.
2: He probably had a totally different paradigm than ours and we just weren’t used to hearing other people having different paradigms than us.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
I think that Kahu Kordell should have worded it better because he said, “No matter what anyone tells you, you should correct them because missionaries are good.” The missionaries did bring us God but took away other things like our culture, clothes, and our hula.
Personally, I think that the missionaries did mean well, but trying to make everyone like them is wrong. The missionaries did bring God so that’s one good thing. But, when Kahu said they brought God because our gods were not loving, I was really stunned. Our gods were loving if we respected them. Yes, our gods did sometimes punish us but what about the flood from their God. The 40 Days and 40 Nights Flood, that was a punishment more severe than any of the Hawaiian Akua punishments.
I say you can love God and Akua together.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I think Kahu Cordell should not have worded his statement like he did. This is because kids don’t have a choice to think on their own when you say “don’t believe any one that tells you different.” I think this is something bad to say especially when you are talking about religion because your religion is something you should be able to decide on your own.
Kahu Cordell’s statement was very unopen to other beliefs. I personally think that the religion that missionaries brought have good morals. But some of the things that missionaries did to our culture were not good, like taking away our language, our dance [hula] and lots of other things.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I think that Kahu Kordell was taught the one-minded way where he only thought there was one truth. He thought that the missionaries were great people, not that they weren’t but if you look at it from both sides, they was the good and bad. Some people think they did good for the Hawaiians. For example, bringing Christianity to Hawaii. But other people think they did bad to the Hawaiians because they took away the culture, and ordered the Hawaii people to only do things their way. After the missionaries stayed for a while, the Hawaiians started to wear the same clothes as Westermers. Even though Kahu Kordell believed that all the Hawaiian gods were bad, he kind of sent a bad message. There might have been some people who thought the Hawaiian gods were good, but now they don’t believe they were good because of what he said. Other children that thought that the Hawaiian gods were good would have been pretty upset because not all of us have the same paradigm as him. Even though he thought that only God was loving, didn’t God do things to punish the people just like the Hawaiian gods did?
He is also brainwashing us to think that the missionaries were so peaceful and they did so many things to help the Hawaiians. He is also trying to make us think one way and not to be open to anything else. Well, some of the people in the world do not like to be wrong, they think what they think is always right. Or maybe he just worded what he said wrong, but maybe not.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I personally think that Kahu Kordell’s paradigm is different from the people in our classroom. I think that the way he was taught was that the missionaries were good people and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Kahu Kordell just thinks differently. Also I am not saying he’s right or wrong about his beliefs because it is his own belief and it may be other people’s beliefs too.
Another thing Kahu Kordell talked about was that the Hawaiian gods were not loving, but the Christians God is. Again, I am not saying he’s comment was right or wrong, but one thing I would have done was worded what he said to make it sound better. Also I’m not saying I only believe that the Hawaiian gods were loving because I personally believe that both religions are loving. None of them is more loving then the other.
Sure, the missionaries were good people. They brought Christinianity to our people. But they had a different perspective of our culture. They thought that hula was bad, so they took that away from our culture but I forgive them for doing that because we still have hula today. Basically what I’m trying to get across is that not everything the missionaries did was exactly good for us, neither was it totally terrible either.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I think that Kahu Kordell was not being open-minded to other point of views when he said that missionaries were good know matter what any one tells you. I think that you should be able to believe whatever you want so I think that it’s wrong to say something is no matter what because not every one believes that paradigm.
I also think that it’s wrong to make that big of a generalization about the missionaries because in some cases, the missionaries were good but not all the time. For example, the missionaries transferred the Hawaiian language into writing, but took away some of the Hawaiian culture. So, it’s different to say that some missionaries were good and some were bad, then to say missionaries were good know matter what.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
In my opinion, I do think otherwise. Firstly, the Hawaiian gods were loving, and secondly, with no offense at all Kahu Kordell, he sounded so Americanized.
The missionaries did do some good, but one thing they ate away at our culture unnoticeably until we completely changed. And some of their children ended up being some of the people that made lies that led to the overthrow of Hawaii kingdom. How can they say our gods are not loving, we have a god of love. If the Missionaries never came, our Hawaii history would be completely different from how we ended up today.
One thing you have to wonder is what kind of Hawai’i would it be if the missionaries never came to Hawai’i. Now that is an essential question you have to really think about.
So now I leave you with this question. ALOHA ! ! !
March 5th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I think Kahu Kordell worded his speech wrong. I also think that the missionaries are kind of bad because they tried to changed the Hawaiian people and took there language, hula,and the Hawaiian culture. When he said that the Hawaiian god are not loving let remind him about Ku and how he love family that he turned into a Ulu so they won’t starve.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:29 am
I do not agree with him and I think that he worded it wrong. We should be able to do what we want and research on our own. We should be able to believe in what we want to.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:43 am
I feel that the comment from Kahu Kordell was partially right and partially wrong is because he said “Don’t let any one tell you that the missionaries were bad.” This is where I disagree with him. In my opinion, missionaries were bad to Hawaiians because he took away many cultural things from the Hawaiians. I don’t think that when you see something different than from what you do, you don’t just go and change it. I think that you can just keep your comments to yourself. The part where I also don’t agree with him is when he said that are Hawaiian gods weren’t loving. If Hawaiian gods weren’t loving then they wouldn’t have provide water, rain, kalo, uala and lava to the Hawaiians.
I don’t think that Kahu Kordell can see both perspectives of the missionaries and the Hawaiians, so I don’t know if he thinks that Hawaii might have been a better place if the missionaries didn’t come. I hope everyone can see that he may be brainwashing you. Isn’t that amazing how brainwashing might coming from a Kahu. Think about it.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Personally, I am insulted because all gods have to be loving. Ku jumped off the cliff and disappeared into the ground and formed the ‘Ulu plant. And guess what! Ku is the war god and he sacrificed himself for his people. That is the mo’olelo that made me think otherwise of Kahu Kordell.
In my opinion, missionaries are a little bit good and a little bit bad. An example of the good they did is they brought another religion. A few examples of the bad they brought are diseases, and their children overran the Hawaiian government. If the missionaries did not come Hawaii, there would still be a Hawaiian Kingdom.
March 5th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I think that Kahu Kordell’s paradigm is different from my paradigm because he may not have been taught what I am being taught now. I though what he said was a little stereotypical when he said that Hawaiian gods were bad. I don’t thing that was exactly true because just like how God punishes bad people, Hawaiian gods punished bad people in a way they deserved. For example, the story about the Pipi of Pu’uloa was about a goddess punishing the guy that told the woman to give him her extra coin when she didn’t do anything wrong.
March 5th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
What my personal feeling is about those comments about the Hawaiian gods is that what Kahu Cordell said was wrong. Why I think this way is because you can’t generalize. Kahu Cordell only thinks the way he wants to think. There are other people here that think differently, too. Not every American thinks like Kahu Cordell.
There are also things that God did to the humans. One example is flooding the earth. God loves everyone and everything. If he loved everything, why did he destroy them just to purify the earth for a small group of people? (I am not trying to insult God.) Well, anyways, the missionaries did wrong, too, so I wouldn’t believe everything Kahu Cordell said. But, I am not trying to say all the missionaries were bad.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I think that Kahu Kordell was 50% right and 50% wrong. The missionaries were good in a way because they brought another type of living (using money). But they also took advantage of Hawaiians with the Reciprocity Treaty, and slowly took over Hawai‘i. So I would say that the missionaries were not fully good, but they are not fully bad either. I also think that Kahu Kordell did not realize what he said, and even if he did mean what he said, then his paradigm can not be changed. He will always think inside of the box.
When Kahu said that the Hawaiian gods were not loving and our God is, I think that he was wrong about that even if I do not believe that the Hawaiian gods are real. I think that they were regular humans but people changed the story around that made them think of them as gods. As little as we know, the “gods” could have been ali’i. They were loving and so is our God.
I think that Kahu Kordell is so brain-washed with propaganda that he can not change his paradigm and will not believe anything else. He thinks only one way and that is why he said “No matter what anyone says, the missionaries are good.” He just brain-washed a lot of kids in just one sentence and it probably will affect the way they think.