After reading some NtN discourse, which is all about Jod, like I get it but someone start discourse about the Angel or something so we have variety.
But anyway, there’s a context I feel is missing for the Jod discourse, and it’s,
1.There is a centuries long history of Māori healers who suddenly found themselves gifted with miraculous powers to heal.
2.New Zealand has a history of sending police and government forces to kill Māori healers.Americans when they think of police raiding ‘cult’ compound are probably imagining Jonestown or those US full of guns fortified cults from TV and that is how Jod’s healing and the raids that lead to the meatwall and dead cops are being framed but from the Prophets of the 19th century, the invasion of Parihaka or the hunt for Te Kooti all the way to the Tūhoe Raids of 2007, NZ police when they surround and raid are there for colonial purpose.
And the way the healing part of John’s story is explained, word spreading and travellers amassing, it could have come out of a textbook of Rātana or Te Māiharoa.
In NZ, police being massed to raid a ‘cult’ lead by a Māori miracle healer, has different bagage from the US police surrounding a fundie cult in gun country.