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Is there a better way?

 

It doesn't require a lot of insight to recognise that the church in New Zealand is shrinking.  Following a pattern begun in the 1960s, recent generations are giving church a wide berth.  The faithful who remain seem to behave like a deck of cards; shuffled and dealt out to a dwindling number of players depending on which church has the best youth and children's programme or Sunday morning music – or both.  In response, some church leaderships have sought to tinker or tweak the programme, desperately seeking to “keep up with the Jones” of the next parish.  Others amalgamate or close the door altogether in the hope of refocusing the limited resources.

 

In the 1990s, this shrinking took a momentary reprieve due, in part, to some Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches developing a corporate model of church.  Consumer research, branding and “economies of scale” featured in this model as churches bought warehouses, pubs or gymnasiums and converted them into multi-venue, multi-sensory, multimedia complexes.  With the hardware in place, corporate churches then appointed a chief executive pastor, specialist ministry staff and administrators to rollout a strategic plan of growth that offered what punters were seeking; small group community vis-à-vis large group multi-sensory spiritual experience.  However, in the cool light of the naughties (2000s), the  church in  New Zealand along with its European counterparts has continued to shrink.  The disaffected continue to leave in higher number than “new-converts”, and those that come have come from somewhere else! If you are still in doubt, grab a   copy  of  the   baptism figures  for  Baptists  and Presbyterians and attendance figures for Anglican, Catholic, Pentecostal and Independent churches over the last 10 years and compare them to national research using data from the 1996 and 2001 census and Massey Universities' longitudinal study of New Zealand Life and Values.

 

Facing up to a shrinking national congregation offers an opportunity to explore some deep-stuff around what it means to be and do church in New Zealand.  We live in a complex sociological system of relationships and communities.  The reasons for any change in demographic profile are therefore complex.  Studies by Massey University, the Church Life Study, New Zealand research on church leavers and our own Census seem to suggest that on the whole New Zealanders appreciate some form of spiritual dimension in their day to day life.  Massey's research is quite specific about the high percentage of New Zealanders who regularly muse about God, the afterlife and ethical behaviour! What is consistent across all four avenues of research is that while people are curious about God they are very ambivalent about organised religious systems and their earthly dwellings; the Church (Dompost July 29, 2006).

 

Qualitative research into church leavers in New Zealand suggests that one of the reasons Evangelical, Pentecostal or Charismatic churches are not an attractive place to nurture spirituality is that as a sociological system the church is not able to provide a safe place for individuals to explore the mysterious dimensions of faith.  Why might this be so? Perhaps the church as a social system is in conflict with base-line New Zealand cultural identity.

 

In New Zealand, social commentators suggest that our cultural identity finds its source and ultimate myths in values of freedom, fairness and an egalitarian love affair with luck (Riddell, Bell, Belich, & Darrah).  Take for examples the recent advertising campaigns for Speight's and Tui Beer, Mainland Cheese, and Lotto…..  each of these well-grafted snapshots of our cultural identity accentuate bass-line values of freedom, fairness and luck; freedom from state intervention in the private affairs of its citizens (Mainland's time-wasting codgers), freedom from domestication of the Kiwi bloke (Speight's Southern Man), fairness of an honest days pay for an honest days work (Tui's toilet sitting Tui deprived geek!) and a star-gazing romantic hope in luck (1000th Lotto draw special advertising compaign)!

 

Cultural values of freedom and fairness have provided New Zealand with some world firsts in terms of liberal sociopolitical activity:

  • As an emerging nation, New Zealand has the first English colonial powers accorded an annexed people in the right to vote (1853).
  • The first sovereign nation in the world to accord women the vote (1893).
  • The first to introduce old-age pensions (1898).
  • First in the world to establish an all-encompassing social welfare system which included as a world-first, state funded housing (1930s).
  • First industrial nation to legislate for an 8-hour working days for employees (1899).
  • The first country to support China's accession to the WTO, which brought China fully into the world trading system (2001).
  • First country to introduce a system of 24-hour, comprehensive, compulsory, no-fault insurance cover for people with accident-related injury or illness (1972).
  • First nation in the world to introduce a quota system for the fair and sustainable management of fish catches (1984).
  • The first country in the world to introduce a regime of fair and equitable tradeable radio frequency spectrum rights (1989).
  • The first country to let people claim several ethnicities in a Census (2001).
  • And perhaps not surprisingly…….. New Zealand was the first place to develop a continuous beer brewing process! (1950)

 

In addition, the cultural values of freedom and fairness have shaped New Zealand education curricular as a holistic life-long learning philosophy of tolerance and accepting others different perspectives as a point of learning, rather than as a point of departure or difference.

 

How can it be expected that in such an environment people would willingly enter the sociological environment of a church where each of these fundamental values is at times blatantly undermined.  How can a reasonable person comfortably transition from an office environment on Friday where their immediate manager is a competent, business suave, and caring woman and attend a church on Sunday where that same competent, caring woman is not able to exercise such obvious leadership skill because the Bible says woman cannot lead men! Serious inconsistency! How can a reasonable and thinking Pakeha New Zealander feel the church is a place of spiritual nurture when their whole cultural identity is being assaulted by people who tell them that the Bible makes it plain that they are chosen, right, saved, pure, and have a Christian duty to try and convince others of their error, because those not sharing this “enlightenment” need to be corrected, preached to, and saved, as they are in danger of going to hell! Serious inconsistency!

 

Perhaps the church in New Zealand is shrinking fast because it holds tightly to values of absolute and unquestionable truth and its twin sister paternalistic evangelism, both of which operate in stark contrast to values of freedom, fairness and tolerance.  How does a New Zealander freely process doubts and fundamental questions about life and death in an environment of triumphant and victorious faith?  How can a New Zealander, known all over the world for our tolerant acceptance of diversity, sit in church to be told that they need to “reach-out” to a Muslim work colleague with a brand of Christianity that views his religious conviction as wrong and leading him to suffer a horrible afterlife.

 

The church seems to be able to maintain this disparity on the assumption that the Bible operates as an authority and referee for thought and behaviour in all circumstances, and in all ages.  Perhaps the church needs to examine its relationship with the  Bible if  it is  ever  to become attractive to the thousands of New Zealanders who indicate year upon year in surveys a yearning to connect with the spiritual.  Can you imagine for a moment what it might be like if the Bible were to lose its authoritative role in Evangelical Christian faith.  What might faith look like if scripture were a team-mate alongside tradition and experience rather than a referee? It might mean that Evangelical Christian faith would seek a place in the public marketplace of ideas on the merits of its richness and intrinsic value to human community, rather than its traditional perception of having the monopoly or guardianship on truth.  Is there a better way, a real alternative in relationship with the Bible? – A way to bridge the growing divide between what a New Zealander experiences in the church and out in their community.  I suspect that there is.

 

You get an invite to a special meeting where the chief executive of your organisation discusses how things have been picking up over 18 months and the workload of your current supervisor has increased markedly.  He invites you to consider a new position as a supervisor of a new team.  The position will sit alongside your current supervisor and will report as they do, to the chief executive.  You are very excited about the promotion, but wonder how you will relate to your former boss in an environment of equal employment status.  There are feelings of uncertainty as you move from an employee-employer relationship to a new collegial relationship of equals.  Now things that were once off-limits because of confidentiality, are openly discussed.  Your old boss seems now to be approachable, friendly, and open where once you had found them guarded, aloof, and always seeking to check and double check.

 

This reorientation with someone that once held positional power over you is essentially the same feeling when negotiating a shift of power of those things which hold ultimate-meaning in our life.  For many Evangelical, Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians the Bible operates authoritatively; as a boss, referee and arbitrator.  I wonder what would it be like if the Bible were to lose its authoritative role? The Bible might become for Evangelicals what some suggest it has always been…….. a narrative, an epic story of faith…… and faithfulness into which we find ourselves drawn, rather than a box of principles to obey.  What might our relationship to the Bible be like if it were to more theologically from above to beside us? What do you think?

 

Craig Braun.

 

Bibliography:

Belich, James. 2001. Paradise Reforged. Auckland: Penguin Press.

Bell, Claudia. 1996. Inventing New Zealand: Everyday Myths of Pakeha Identity. Auckland: Penguin Books.

Darragh, Neil. 1993. “Response” in H. Regan & A.J. Torrance (eds), Christ and Context: The Confrontation between Gospel and Culture. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, pp224-236.

Davidsob, Allan. 1997. Christianity in Aoteraoa: A History of Church and Society in New Zealand. 2nd ed. Wellington: New Zealand Education for Ministry.

Dominion Post July 29th 2006.

James, Tevor. 1976. “New Wine for New Wineskins: The New Zealand Poet as Theologian” in The Religious Dimension, ed John Hinchcliff. Auckland: Rep Prep Ltd, pp28-31.

King, Michael. 1991. “Being Pakeha” in Pakeha: The Quest for Identity in New Zealand,  Ed. Michael King. Auckland: Penguin pp15-17.

Pearson, Clive. 1996. “Book review of Claudia Bell, Inventing New Zealand: Everyday Myths of Pakeha Identity” in Theo Lit Vol. 6, No. 3-4 (June-September 1995), pp52-54.

Riddell, Michael. 2003. “Hard Doers and Misery Guts”, http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~mriddell/

Sinclair, Keith. 1986. A Destiny Apart: New Zealand's Search for National Identity. Wellington: Unwin and Port Nicolas Press, pp184-187.

Spoonely,Paul. 1991. “Being here and Being Pakeha” in Pakeha: The Quest for Identify in New Zealand, Ed. Michael King, Auckland: Penguin, pp 146-156.

Waitangi Consultancy Group. 1992. Cultural Identity: A Resource for Educators (Whakmoana Tangata) 3rd Ed. Wellington: Quest Rapuara, pp7-9.

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