God's changing place in New Zealand society

Saturday, 30 December 2017

Mike Crudge is a pastor at a Baptist church in Auckland, photographed here at All Saints Anglican Church in Howick.

Carly Thomas delves into the moral quandary of God in New Zealand. Is God still relevant in modern day New Zealand or has he out stayed his welcome?

Just over 150 years ago, to be a Kiwi it also meant to be a Christian.

Alexandra Saunders and Sara Rimmer were denied an Anglican church wedding in their home town of Paekakariki and ended up getting married at St. Paul's Cathedral in Wellington.

In New Zealand's first ever census in 1853, a whopping 93 per cent of New Zealanders classified themselves as Christian.

In the last census in 2013, Kiwis affiliating themselves with Christianity had dropped to 48 per cent - a number slowly declining since the 1960s. Then in November, Jesus was removed from Parliament's karakia by Trevor Mallard.

Ed Sheeran will play six soldout stadium shows in Auckland and Dunedin next year, with Easter trading laws being relaxed especially for the crowd.

* Having faith: 4 New Zealanders share their religious and philosophical beliefs

* New challenge to bible teaching and 'religious bias' in state schools

* 'It pains us to say no': Church refuses to marry Kāpiti couple

Are we still living in Godzone? The church is not dying, says theologian and communications expert Dr Mike Crudge, a director at the Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning.

Mike Crudge, a Baptist pastor, is photographed at the All Saints Anglican Church in Howick.

Crudge looks at the declining figures regularly touted from Census data, and dismisses them. Don't buy into the hype, he pleads, that the numbers to pay attention to are the ones which show regular church attendance. In 1853, that was about 30 per cent, and in 2013 it was 10 per cent - which it has stayed at since.

Church goers have never been the majority.

Peter Lineham, Professor of History from Massey University, predicts unstable times ahead for religion in New Zealand.

If the church can maintain regular attendees at 10 per cent of the population, as the population increases the church is actually growing in people attending, Crudge optimistically writes.

But, the church is still facing a crisis in New Zealand - how it is viewed by wider society. He reckons the way the church communicates its message needs to change.

Dr Hirini Kaa, is a lecturer in history at Auckland University.

A small but vocal group of people in the church are concerned that modern laws are driving society on a slippery slope downwards. Legalising homosexuality, not being allowed to smack children and same sex marriage, have all had a finger wag by this small group of people, Crudge says.

'The perceptions of the church by those not part of it have become negative. Things like it's oppressive, it's against women, and gays. People think there is a lack of integrity, and for the church to change that perception, I think Christian people, like myself, need to be involved in transformation in their own neighbourhood. That's what the story of Jesus is, it's a story of transforming people's lives.'

Hazim Arafeh, president of Federation of Islamic Associations of NZ.

There are some other things Christians can do to shake the negative image, he says. Being kind, and sharing wealth could shift perception, Crudge says. Though be warned, the shift could take decades, and 'flashy new church buildings and services that look like that hold rock concerts' are not the answer.

'For us to have a public voice and expect that the whole country would set their moral code on this small minority, I just think that is the wrong way to win friends and influence people.

'Maybe a hundred years ago when the framework of society was more Christian, but not now.'

Crudge says religion, alongside politics, is one of those things we are told shouldn't be talked about. Mention Winston Peters or God at a dinner party and there's always someone who will fire up. Put them in the same sentence and you may as well be throwing salt on a slug.

But there needs to be conversations, accompanied by actions, if Christians are to change the way they, and God, are viewed in New Zealand, Crudge says.

Plug the word God into Google image search and up pops pictures of a white man with a hipster beard, alongside some images of Jay-Z and Donald Trump. A sold out stadium tour by the cherubic popstar Ed Sheeran convinced Dunedin to relax their Easter trading laws to accommodate the tens of thousands of fans who will be in town.

Those who consider themselves non-religious, don't necessarily consider themselves as not having beliefs. Belief has become personalised, social anthropologist Dr Susan Wardell says.

'People like to say, I'm spiritual, not religious. I don't think that it is necessarily a huge shift in people's experience of being religious, it's more the meaning and the weight of the word and what people are comfortable with.'

A modern disconnect with church and life is translating into other forms of worship, whether that be on the yoga mat, in a self-help book or finding God within.

Wardell says that while many New Zealanders are finding other things to do on a Sunday than publicly share in their faith, the idea of having beliefs is not reducing.

Kiwis just don't all want to do it in an institutionalised way like they used to.

Others have to grapple with the religion and church they grew up in and around as they make choices that don't fit in with the teachings.

Alexandra Saunders is one of those people.

She has stepped away - not from her beliefs as an Anglican - but from a church who would not let her marry her same-sex partner, Sara Rimmer, within its walls.

Saunders and Rimmer were both brought up in religious families, and Saunders says it felt right to be married 'under God'. She was saddened but not surprised by the church's stance, and says it is time for change.

'People don't want to be just tolerated, they want to be welcomed and loved. I have sat through services before where I have heard, 'we must practice tolerance'. I find that really hard and wrong.

'Religion needs to wake up and recognise that their place in society is still valued, but it has to change. The church used to be the hub of the town and now it's not and if it wants to be again it has to be what the town wants it to be. Religion has always changed, I mean, there is a whole new testament. It needs to be updated and re-jigged all the time.'

Saunders and Rimmer eventually got their church wedding at St. Paul's in Wellington. It's not officially a church any more. It is run by Heritage New Zealand, but it was never deconsecrated. Saunders says her wedding day was everything she could have hoped for.

It is actions like challenging Saunders and Rimmer's desire to marry in a church, that means Christianity in New Zealand is on shaky grounds according to historian Peter Lineham.

The Massey University professor, who knows first hand the challenges of being gay and Christian, has kept his finger on the waning pulse of religion in New Zealand. He's intrigued with the way things are going and predicts unstable times ahead.

'The public support for religion has just vanished, the church's profile in the media is very low, things like the prayer in Parliament being debated just shows that religion is dispensable.'

It's a time of extremes, if you flip the coin on Christian decline, you will find Islam growing. Lineham says this is in part, to do with a shift towards sectarianism and people seeking out religions that are more distinctive, like Islam.

'And then other forms will become very personal in focus, so there is every evidence that Christianity, or the role of the local church, will decline but that probably we will see Christianity adapting to a much more personal type of religion.'

The increasing numbers of immigrants from across the globe are bringing with them other beliefs.

Ian Gordon, a director at grassroots Buddhist organisation SGI, says the number of people coming to SGI is increasing. That doesn't necessarily mean necessarily mean Buddhism is on the rise.

'It is not by what a person says on a form which indicates if a person is a Buddhist. It is through their language, behaviour and thoughts. We can't see all of that,' Gordon says.

He points to Christians attending church on a Sunday.

'The question is what they do when they leave church. People need to ask themselves everyday what their values are, and what they are doing.'

It was a similar reaction by Hazim Arafeh, the president of the Federation of Islamic Association in New Zealand, when discussing God's place in modern day New Zealand and how much support there was for all religion.

'It's not an easy answer. We can't see what people are doing day in, day out,' Arafeh says.

Like Gordon, Arafeh says actions speak louder than words. 'As Muslims we believe in God and we turn our face to him everyday.'

But whether or not people who say they are Muslim were obeying the words of God on a daily basis, he did not know.

Dr Hirini Kaa, a historian and Anglican Minister, says the shoving away of the four walls approach to religion has helped give rise to a 'Maori renaissance'.

It's a move back to the time before missionaries came to New Zealand, 'a pre-contact expression of spirituality'.

'I think there is potential for growth that cares less about the need for a denomination and will become more centred on the community. The Maori ministers were there for their community but the Pakehas that ran the denominations had other things in mind. It's been a struggle and I think it will be less so in the future.'

To be Maori, says Kaa, is to acknowledge there is more than the material. So for Maoridom, organised religion may be falling away, but that there is still a strong belief and a deep connection to the land.

We are questioning our belief systems like never before. Institutionalised religion is no longer our go-to, more and more New Zealanders are finding that sitting in the middle of a fence just isn't that comfortable anymore.

* Comments have now been closed on this article