Rev Stuart Lange, NZCN Interim National Director, presented our oral submission to the Justice Select Committee on the End of Life Choice Bill on 21 May, 2018. Maxim Institute was also among the list of nine submitters in the afternoon session and shared the link to the video of the session.
I recommend watching the video simply to gain an appreciation of how citizens and organisations can participate in the shape of the laws that govern our nation. The afternoon session was 2h 45 min long but you can use the guide below to find specific submissions.
Simply click on the video to play it, then drag the slider to the desired start time. Time and name of group or person making their submission
6:50 Motor Neurone Disease Association of New Zealand
21:50 End of Life Choice NZ
51:30 Cordon Copeland
1:03:00 Centre for Science and Citizenship Trust 1:22:00 NZ Christian Network 1:38:30 Maxim Institute
1:56:00 Remote New Zealand Mission Project (teleconference)
2:09:20 Conservative Party NZ
2:20:20 New Zealand Human Rights Commission (Paula Tesoriero – NZ Disability Rights Commissioner)
Since 2006, Pastors from across the city have been meeting together to pray and seek the peace and prosperity of the city. Under the godly leadership of Bruce Elder, Mark Smith and more recently Peter Cheyne, God has been calling us together in unity.
During that time, we have been holding a combined Easter celebration in the Dunedin town hall which has been a great encouragement.
In 2017 after 5 years of planning and praying, we were blessed to host Ravi Zacharias and his team to the city.
Ravi preached in the Forsyth Barr stadium to a crowd of over 3500. The week-long mission included lunchtime
meetings in the university and meetings with council and business leaders.
In recent years an Acts of Kindness trust has been set up to bless the city through a Light Party, Christmas in the stadium and a Christmas lunch in the town hall.
The founding vision of Dunedin, articulated by Thomas Burns still fires our common witness to the Lord:
By the grace of God and with His blessing upon us; may we continue in this region, the planting
and cultivating of a well ordered, God-fearing community.
In the power of His risen Son, may we stand as a sample of the Kingdom of Christ which, like a light burning in a dark place, we shall bear no indistinct testimony to the Truth.
Getting back to the core of what pastoral care really is
Regardless of who you lead, how big your congregation is, or how you got to be where you are as a leader, your intrinsic model will influence your practice and therefore your decisions and people outcomes. John Peachey looks at the power models and how some can hurt you, not help you, as a leader.
We all have a mental picture of how we want to lead. Potentially we project what our leadership might look like when placed against a significant voice that has influenced our model of thinking. The people we look up to, role models and experiences, both bad and good, have a huge impact on the formation of what we believe leading sounds, and feels, like.
Whichever way you look at it, the comparative narrative is an unkind voice.
In fact, the model drives everything. In a recent workshop, I asked a group of senior educational leaders to tell me both a bad and a good story of leadership from a personal experience. None of the stories were hard to elicit, and when I asked when they occurred, the emotion while recounting them belied the fact these events were experienced several decades ago. Such is the power of the model. The good stories framed their desire to incorporate their positive experiences into their practice. The bad experiences simply highlighted a leader, in each case, who embodied the full and damaging blast of someone lost in their own insecurity. Insecurity kills leaders and churches (people). But that is another story.
Success and self-critique
Thanks to snacking on social media, perhaps never before have we been so influenced by external models that are introduced to us by a world that celebrates success by measuring how fast, how far, how big, how much and how shiny.
The values context for successful pastoral leadership is fraught with similar subjective metrics that bear little or no resemblance to actual success when applied into a faith/ people setting. I would venture to suggest they bear no influence on the path Jesus set you off on, yet we allow them to grind at our calling and our self-evaluation.
Reinhard Bonnke’s call was to speak to the millions, and bless him for doing what God has told him to do. Personally, I feel the pleasure of God when I do it to ’the least of these’. Oh, but then maybe I should be doing it to more of the least of these? So more, not least, and least by whose measure? Now my head hurts!
In 2010, a UK adventure company Into The Blue commissioned a survey of 1,032 sixteen-year-olds. The Independent newspaper published the results on their website.1 The survey was attempting to discover why an increased number of teenagers were purchasing their ‘Superstar’ singing experiences and dance lessons. The survey simply asked the teenagers: “What would you like to do for your career?”
More than half of the teens did not want a career; they just wanted to be famous. The survey then asked those who sought fame to name their role models. Supermodel Kate Moss was top, followed in order by footballer Wayne Rooney, pop star Lady Gaga, and Celebrity Big Brother star Nicola T. Tycoon. Sir Richard Branson was fifth, chosen by forty-three per cent of the teenagers. If you stand back and look at how we have adorned some churches and church leaders with fame, fortune, and celebrity, you might be forgiven for believing that similar thinking has influenced faith culture.
One of my favourite voices is Walter Brueggemann, an American theologian and professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is widely considered one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of the last several decades, and is often quoted as saying that the church has adopted military consumerism.2 That is to say, we have bought into the lie of a successful model that we are going from strength to strength and wealth to wealth. Apparently, if you’re not growing on the chart you are just not succeeding.
I find the rise of the comparative competition narrative in our churches, and in society in general, is the new ugly epidemic. Whichever way you look at it, the comparative narrative is an unkind voice. It drives people to try and be what they are not, and to accumulate what will not make them content.
I recently ran a series of workshops on leadership well-being for faith-based leaders where we looked at the specifics of how delightfully individual God made each of us. Uniquely gifted. Beautifully fitted for purpose. I concluded that we constantly need reminding of who we are in his pleasure, under his sovereign watchful plan and eye. This is why it is vital for pastoral leadership health to get back to the core of what pastoral care really is. The comparative narrative has got nothing to do with leading well. This group had simply forgotten it.
Hearing God’s approval
When Jesus went to John to be baptised in the Jordan, John first tries to dissuade him, but then gives in (Matthew 3). As we know, Jesus follows the prescribed protocols and the Holy Spirit descends on him. Then the author relates that the voice of God proclaims: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). I find this passage intriguing. Jesus knew who he was, and John knew who Jesus was, so why the public affirmation? The passage immediately before John’s account relays: “But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism…” (Matthew 3:7). So perhaps it was for the religious authorities. I think God was setting a model in place that we need to be reminded of in our comparative world.
When was the last time you heard: “This is my daughter/ my son in whom I am well pleased”? Roughly translated that means: “You rock. I love what you do. Thank you for caring for my sheep, for feeding them so diligently, for fighting off the bears and lions, for leaving the ninety-nine and going after that one who needs my grace right now.”
The Apostle Paul twice says simply imitate me as I follow Christ.3 A true comparative narrative! Or maybe we need to learn to speak far more deeply and regularly into the model in who were we made. Created in his image— pure Trinitarian theology where the relational model is paramount.
I think we live in a world that desperately needs encouraging, comforting and edifying, to balance the dislocation that comparative narrative causes. We can become pulled down by theological theory and bombarded by public opinion of what our churches and pastoral leadership need to look like. For me, I trust the sovereignty of God. This is his game, his rules, and his gifts. If you find yourself struggling to know what this pastoral leadership model is all about, stop comparing yourself to other leaders and just ask yourself this simple question: “How do I love to be led?” Now go try that.
Take outs…
Who has been the “significant voice” that has most influenced your model of leadership?
John says, “…we constantly need reminding of who we are in [God’s] pleasure, under his sovereign watchful plan and eye.” Do you know a leader who needs some gentle affirmation that God is well pleased with them? How can you encourage them today?
How do you love to be led? Does that influence the way you lead others?
1. “Fame the career choice for half of 16-year-olds”, Alison Kershaw: Independent. ind.pn/2xtXpEC. 2. “Walter Brueggemann’s Coercive Collectivism”, Mark Tooley: Juicy Ecumenism. bit.ly/2vAyC02. 3. 1 Corinthians 1:11; 4:16.
This post runs through 5 ideas that help us situate the place of the church in society – which I think then helps us to critique and potentially adjust our engagement with society. Over the last few weeks I’ve been part of a conference with Christian Savings, Laidlaw College, and the Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning, where I talked around the idea that “something is different now” in terms of the relationship between church and society. In a previous post I looked at what the church will be like in 100 years – that was the first part of my talk, this post is the second part.
I’ve called the conference talk “something is different now” because our context is different to any other time in the history of the church in New Zealand. And while some of these changes might be unpleasing to us as the church – I think viewing the church through the lenses of these ideas can help with our engagement.
1. Secular
We sometimes talk about being in a “secular society”. And this is often said as if secular is bad or evil.
If you looked up a definition of ‘secular’, it simply means not concerned with religious or spiritual matters, so a secular society is a society not concerned with religious or spiritual matters.
Secularisation can refer to the historical process in which religion loses social and cultural significance. Sometimes this loss of significance can be accompanied with active disregard, but mostly in New Zealand I think the response is fairly passive.
The idea of ‘secular’ actually emerged from within Christian thought and culture. The most widespread contemporary understandings of the terms ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ were fashioned in the modern era, and encourage us to think in terms of separate, stable domains: the religious and the secular.[1]
We know life isn’t usually as clear-cut as binary or black-and-white grand frameworks, but we create them to aid our understanding.
What people mean by ‘secular’ is tied to their particular conceptualisation of ‘religion’… and vise-versa.
So religion and secularity are intertwined. I don’t think we need to lament about the secularisation of society – I think there’s a lot of good in it for the church.
Questions to ponder
If society in not concerned with religious or spiritual matters, have we, the church, fostered this?
Have we encouraged secularisation?
History and tradition
The church tradition I’m part of should flourish in a secular context: early Baptists were known as dissenters. I like to imagine them giving ‘the finger’ to the then current societal framework: no king or pope was going to tell them how to worship God!
This got them in trouble – because society was concerned with religious and spiritual matters – but in a way that some Christians thought needed reforming…
How does your own church tradition and expression fit within the idea of secularisation? Are there any stand out moments that still have an impact today?
Secularisation brought with it some angst toward religion – or at least an underlying negativity.
The next idea follows on:
2. Post-secular
I’m hearing this term more and more – it refers to a range of theories – (which you can look up online yourself if you’re interested…)
Not everyone is on board with this idea, some would say it’s just part of secularisation. I think it’s worth mentioning briefly here, because I think it brings (or will bring) a lot of freedom for the church:
The idea refers to a resurgence of religious beliefs or practices, and a new peaceful dialogue and coexistence with multiple expressions of faith and reason. (That’s quite an ask!)
The ideal is that religious people and secularist people shouldn’t exclude each other, but rather learn from each other and coexist tolerantly.
So in a post-secular society, religious and secular perspectives are on even ground, sharing equal importance. Fully secular societies may end up changing their value systems to accommodate this co-existence.
I’ve heard a scholar in the UK suggest New Zealand and Australia are showing the most signs of post-secularism of anywhere in the world…
Freedom
I do think we’re increasingly free to do whatever we want – as Christians and the church – so long as we’re not trying to control society with our religious ideology.
We are free to be the church,
to be radical disciples,
to be bringing forth transformation through our following of Jesus…
The ideas around secular and post-secular and my own personal experience, give me a sense of ease and neutrality: I am free to be Christian, and others are free to be Christian too if they see value in it.
Being Christian in this current context is a great thing – so long as we have an appreciation of others: that Christian spirituality is one option among many: our doctrine might not affirm that, but our engagement with reality must.
And we must not cloister ourselves away, but be gently contributing to many things – including in the public square.
3. Christendom
Academically the idea of Christendom gets a hard time – it’s either too simplistic, or can mean too many things (my colleagues at Carey don’t like me using the term, but I think on one level it’s very helpful).
I think it’s useful as a way of trying to illustrate there was once a period of time where certain things had influence, and now we’re in another time, where different things have influence.
So for me, you can’t have Christendom, without also considering post-Christendom (which is point 4).
Christendom can be described as a society where there are close ties between church leaders and secular leaders, where laws appear to be based on Christian principles, where Christianity provides a common language, and where most people are assumed to be Christian. Hugh McLeod[2]
I think New Zealand used to be a bit like that.
Here’s a really basic diagram – the last 2000 years:
Christendom can be defined as the period of time from about the 4th century (AD) until some time in the 20th century, so about 1600 years – which is why historians don’t like the term: so much happened over that time.
Constantine and his Christian conversion are said to have been the launch into this new paradigm called Christendom.
Christians were now free to gather in public spaces
The church began to be more formally organised
It is said that sitting in organized rows of seats in big rooms are also a product of Christendom
In Christendom-dominated-cultures the church had significant power in shaping the way of life. Some of this was good:for example, a lot of our systems of law and order are based on Christian principles. But some of it was bad: the church became a well-oiled religious institution. It lost some of its organic-ness and creativity.
Over time, due to things such as the abuse of power and control, and influences such as science and modernity, the church gradually crumbled in terms of its position and influence in society.
Christendom changed the church.
In some expressions of the faith, Christendom brought a church-building, institutional and power focus to the Christian-faith-community (church).
That’s not to say plenty of good things haven’t happened because of the church through this time – this is just a critique of some of the evolution of the church into what we have today.
The net effect…
A favourite quote on Christendom from a neighbouring pastor and academic, Mike Frost:
The net effect over the entire Christendom epoch was that Christianity moved from being a dynamic, revolutionary, social, and spiritual movement, to being a static religious institution with its attendant structures, priesthood, and sacraments.
And this leads us into idea number 4:
4. Post-Christendom
People who subscribe to the idea that our current period of time is very different to the paradigm of Christendom, have a desire and hope that in this new period, the church will again become a dynamic, revolutionary, social, and spiritual movement.
Baptists then and now
For Baptists – back in our history, Baptists have been known as ‘radical disciples’- there are some great stories from our origins.
As a movement of churches in New Zealand at the moment, words like ‘dynamic’ and ‘revolutionary’ aren’t used to describe us. In fact, we’ve been described as ‘stale, pale, and male’ and that we’ve run out of imagination!
That’s perhaps a bit harsh. If you’re not a New Zealand Baptist, how is your own church tradition/community being described at present?
What’s different about us now to when Christendom was in full swing?
Loss of coherence
Post-Christendom is the culture that emerges as the Christian faith loses coherence within a society that has been definitively shaped by the Christian story and as the institutions that have been developed to express Christian conviction decline in influence. Stewart Murray. [3]
Something is different now.
But I think we often operate as if Christendom still exists: As if the church still has influence like it once did. With an expectation that society will follow our moral code and listen to our… clanging cymbals?
Embrace, relax, fear not
However we define the changes that have formed the current context, I think we need to embrace the context as it is, relax within it, don’t fear it, and find new ways – which might actually be very old ways, to be the church and engage with society.
The final idea on my list is
5. Post-Christian
Here Christianity is described as a sub-culture. At the end of last century an English academic described Britain as post-Christian. He didn’t mean there is no Christian existence or expression, but rather that Christianity has become marginal.
In this post-Christian Britain, there are obviously still people like us that find Christianity a profound and vital influence in our lives, but we are situated outside the mainstream of social life, culture and influence. He described these Christians in post-Christian Britain as:
Like the early Christians in a pre-Christian, classical world, they became a ‘peculiar people’, anomalous in their primary beliefs, assumptions, values and norms, distinctive in important aspects of outlook and behaviour. They become a sub-culture. Gilbert, A. D.[4]
I think this sounds great! This is starting to sound a bit New Testament – a bit radical even!
A purpose of the church
If one of the purposes of the church is to realise the kingdom of God – or God’s transformative plan for the world – people will see the transformation in this sub-culture: in our lives, and families, and neighbourhoods – and they’ll want to know why – not because a church billboard said they should, but because my life, and your life has been transformed – and that is attractive.
These 5 ideas, or lenses
However we frame the changes in society – let’s try to be at peace with them, and find ways to be transformative within them. Let’s not expect the church to have any control over society, but imagine how we might express the love of God in ways that connect and engage with society.
Hope
Something is different now. But as far as I can tell, there is still no substitute for the present and future hope of salvation that the church has and does offer with its ideals of justice and selfless love.
I can imagine an amazing church existing in New Zealand in the year 2117. I expect it will look a lot different to many of our 2017 expressions.
[1] Troughton, G. (2016). Introduction in Sacred Histories in Secular New Zealand. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press. Page 12.
[2] McLeod, H. (2007). The religious crisis of the 1960s. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
[3] Murray, S. (2004). Post-Christendom: church and mission in a new world. Milton Keynes, England: Paternoster. Page 19.
[4] Gilbert, A. D. (1980). The making of post-Christian Britain: a history of the secularization of modern society. Harlow, England: Longman Group. Page ix.
Mike Crudge’s blog focusses on issues that in some way connect with communication, church, and society. These topics overlap with others such as theology and missiology, so if you’re interested in things like the mission of the church, being missional, or evangelism, you might find something of interest on it.
Mike currently lives in Auckland and is the Director of the Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning, which is part of Carey Baptist College, New Zealand’s Baptist theological college that has an ecumenical mix of students focusing on applied theology, pastoral leadership and mission training. Before that, he was a pastor at Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, Christchurch.
This graph shows the last 150 years of New Zealand census religion data and church attendance, plus my prediction for the next 100 years. Over the last few weeks I’ve been part of a conference with Christian Savings, Laidlaw College, and the Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning, where I talked around the idea that “something is different now” in terms of the relationship between church and society. This blog post is part of that talk. I debunk some of the hype around some census figures, and give two possible future scenarios for the church in New Zealand.
Looking at the census data in the graph below, the top line on the graph: Christian Affiliation – this is the line we hear sensational headlines about in the media when census results are released: about the church dying as this line on the graph plummets toward zero…
The vertical axis is percentage of adults, and horizontal axis is time from 1867 to 2013.
I don’t think we should believe the stories of doom! There is some bad news for the church, but I don’t think this is it.
I don’t think this downward line matters at all: what we’re seeing as this line falls is a correction in the data that will eventually match what the reality is.
As a comparison
This pie-graph shows current religion in Thailand. The yellow shows 93% are Buddhist.
I first went to Thailand in 2001, the Kiwi friends I went to visit were working with Buddhist monks – teaching them English. Looking at this pie chart, you’d think nearly everyone in Thailand was Buddhist. They might be culturally Buddhist, but not practicing Buddhism – there’s a massive difference between a cultural identity, and the following of a religious faith. My friends told me they had discovered that for Thai people: “to be Thai, is to be Buddhist” – which doesn’t mean they are Buddhist.
150 years ago in New Zealand
Think about where the Pākehā colonizers came from 150 years ago: Christian Brittan. A culture that had centuries of Christian influence shaping it.
In the first New Zealand census in 1851, I think “to be a coloniser, was to be Christian.” 93.35% ticked the Christian box (interestingly, the same amount that are currently Buddhist in Thailand – it’ll be interesting to see the figures in Thailand in 150 years from now).
I think most followers of this blog would agree: that to claim affiliation to a cultural identity shaped by an historical religious framework – does not make you a follower of that religion.
A correction
What we have with the downward line on the census graph, are people deciding they no longer need to have a cultural Christian Affiliation, and they’re now happy and able to say “No Religion” – which is the increasing green line (I don’t think “No Religion” was even an option for a long time in the census.)
Eventually, the downward blue line will level out at roughly the amount of what I would describe as active-participating-followers-of-Jesus: the church. I don’t like to use the descriptor, but maybe the blue line will eventually represent actual Christians (I know – who am I to judge? – but I hope you see what I mean: the difference between participation compared to identity-only).
This plummeting line on the graph, what I’m calling a “correction” to reflect reality, Pew Research refer to as “Religious Switching”.
These are global figures projecting the change between 2010-2050
They are suggesting: Christians globally will drop by 66 million. Unaffiliated will grow by 61 million.
This doesn’t mean 66 million people will lose their faith, it just means they will be able to articulate a different cultural association – one that matches their reality: of no religion.
This data matches my predication with the blue line on our census graph: that it will eventually reflect actual Christians not cultural Christians.
Pew also have this chart:
This chart is showing that New Zealand won’t have a Christian Majority in 2050 – they’re using Christian Affiliation figures – to suggest in 2010 57% of New Zealanders were Christian – that’s a cultural reference not a reality reference – the church was no where near that big in 2010.
If you hear media hype around this – that the church is dying – don’t believe it – it’s scare-mongering.
We don’t have a Christian majority now – what we have is a cultural identity with an historical Christian framework that is declining rapidly.
The actual church?
The data that is more significant, that might be a better indication of the church in New Zealand is this:
This is a rough graph of church attendance in New Zealand – across the same time period (percentage of adults on the vertical axis, time on the horizontal from 1867 to 2013)). The data is rough and incomplete – I talk more about this graph here in a post about when church attendance peaked in New Zealand… This line is an attempt to show regular church attendance of adults – as a percentage – by counting bums on seats at Sunday church services.
Assessing the state of the church by bums on seats is a pretty rough way to measure.
While you can be a follower of Jesus and not turn up regularly to church services – I do think regular participation in a local church community is a good indicator of “actual” Christians, rather than “cultural” Christians.
A new way to measure the church
As an aside: I’d be interested in coming up with a new way to measure how the church is going. What about this list forming some new measurement Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the church:
good news to the poor,
released captives,
sight recovery,
freedom from oppression,
proclaiming the Lord’s favour.
This list comes from Luke 4:18-19, the bit from the prophet Isaiah’s scroll that Jesus read out as a manifesto at the beginning of his Gospel ministry. That’s what Jesus set out to do. Could that be a way of defining what the church is to set out and do?
The reality is, it’s much easier to count bums on seats.
The 1890s peak
Looking at the graph above – from the data we have, church attendance peaked in the 1890s – at 30% of adults attending. I think that’s a much better indicator of the church than the census affiliation numbers at the same time. New Zealand church attendance then is lower than in Great Britain at the time, which may have been 40% or more.
The right thing at the right time
The photo below was the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church building in Christchurch, New Zealand. I was an assistant minister there for 6 years from 2009. This building was destroyed in the 2011 earthquakes and no longer exists.
A close up of the top text:
This church building was built in 1881. They built that impressive building a decade before church attendance peaked in New Zealand. It was literally a case of “build it and they will come” – they couldn’t lose! There are stories of it being full to overflowing several times each Sunday for many decades.
I like to think they had their finger on the pulse as they sought to discern what was needed at that time and into the future. There will be similar stories throughout New Zealand. Those must have been exciting times for the church.
A strong minority
Current regular church attendance probably sits around the 10-15% mark. I think this is an indicator that 10-15% of New Zealanders are probably active, participating, followers of Jesus. Together we’re a strong minority.
In the graph below I’ve added the church attendance line to the census data:
What will the church look like in 100 years?
Now I want to predict 100 years into the future.
In the graph above I have added a church attendance line 100 years into the future that stays constant at 10% of the adult population. Imagine if the church stayed the same – we continued to be 10% of the population for the next 100 years.
This would actually mean the church grows significantly over the next 100 years, obviously as population increases, the size of the 10% increases too – so this is a pretty optimistic scenario: we stay the same percentage AND grow bigger.
As shown in the next graph, the Christian Affiliation line will correct itself and be in line with however we end up measuring the church. This is the so called Religious Switching of Pew Research:
In this scenario I’m guessing Other Religions will continue to increase – mostly with immigration – as shown in the next picture. I’ve drawn this as linear, reaching 25% in 100 years – but it might end up being exponential and much higher depending on our immigration policy…
Object to Answer will dwindle – people will be happy to tick No Religion, and No Religion will peak and then diminish as Other Religions increase:
Do you think this is possible? Is this a realistic projection?
Could the church match the historical peak?
I’ve got one more scenario:
What if, over the next 100 years, the church grew back to its 30% peak – so in 100 years, 30% of New Zealanders were active followers of Jesus:
The other lines could end up looking like this:
Can you imagine that happening?
Imagine if in 100 years nearly a third of New Zealanders were active followers of Jesus.
Coming back to 2017 – I’m interested in the things the church needs to consider now as we plan the next 100 years:
What are your thoughts on all of this?
Imagining the church in 100 years is a way to introduce ideas that help us consider what to do now as we plan for the future. In a following blog post called 5 ideas that shape church and society engagement, I run through five ideas that I think help us situate the place of the church in society – five ideas that help us critique and potentially adjust our engagement – helping us get our finger on the pulse at this time as we plan for the future.
Mike Crudge’s blog focusses on issues that in some way connect with communication, church, and society. These topics overlap with others such as theology and missiology, so if you’re interested in things like the mission of the church, being missional, or evangelism, you might find something of interest on it.
Mike currently lives in Auckland and is the Director of the Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning, which is part of Carey Baptist College, New Zealand’s Baptist theological college that has an ecumenical mix of students focusing on applied theology, pastoral leadership and mission training. Before that, he was a pastor at Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, Christchurch.
The following message comes from Rasik Ranchord, Convener Prayer @ Parliament
THE PROPOSED CHANGE TO PARLIAMENTARY PRAYER
The new Speaker of the House Rt. Hon Trevor Mallard has asked Members of Parliament for their Feedback on the new version of the Prayer that is prayed by the Speaker at the opening of Proceedings each Sitting Day.
THE TWO PRAYER VERSIONS
The Former Version
“Almighty God, Humbly acknowledging our need for Thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private and personal interests, we beseech Thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this House and of our country to the glory of Thy Holy Name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace and tranquillity of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The New Version (in English and also in Te Reo)
“Almighty God, We give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on New Zealand. Laying aside all personal interests, we pray for guidance in our deliberations, that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom and humility, for the public welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen.”
There are at least two significant omissions
The Queen
Jesus Christ our Lord
ACTION REQUIRED
Please write to the Speaker of the House and send copies to the following:
This matter is very urgent. The Speaker is already using the new version! He has asked MPs for their feedback within a very short time. It is therefore imperative that we respond immediately.
GUIDELINES
Keep it brief
Write in your own words (mass-produced letters have little impact)
Be respectful
Here are some reasons for retaining the Former Version
HISTORICAL
History shapes every Nation: India is shaped by Hinduism; Thailand by Buddhism; Pakistan by Islam; Israel by Judaism. Each country uses its predominant faith in public prayers. NZ has been shaped by Christianity. We celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the coming of the gospel in 2014!
Some of our Statutory (i.e. mandated by Law not just custom) Holidays are Obviously Christian namely Easter and Christmas. Religious Days of no other Religion has been mandated by law in NZ.
Christianity is still the largest faith in NZ. According to the last Census (2013) Almost 45% of the population (almost 2 million) described themselves as Christians.
The former version has been used since 1962, over 50 years ago and some form of Christian prayer has been used since 1854!
Proposed revised prayers have been rejected 3 times in recent Parliamentary History under Speakers Jonathan Hunt, Margaret Wilson and David Carter in 2014.
OTHER REASONS
You can add other reasons
DISTRIBUTION
In a democracy numbers count, please circulate this information to:
Your Congregation
Ministers in your own denomination
Ministers’ associations in your area and appeal to them to act immediately.
PRAYER
Please saturate this issue with much prayer. Jesus said Christians are salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt 5:13-14). New Zealand has a Christian Heritage which has not only blessed us spiritually but also politically, economically and socially (see Duet 28).
LET US ACT NOW TO STOP FURTHER EROSION OF OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE!
What will the church look like in 100 years?
