Ecclesiastical Aotearoa

Pictured: St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Auckland, New Zealand.

A Fitting Tribute is a short story that discusses the creation of a national folklore and belief system.  In the story,  by C.K. Stead, it is implied that a religious sect called the Harpists arose in New Zealand around the figure Julian Harp.  Likewise, the film Heavenly Creatures explores the creation of beliefs.  In this film, which was directed by Peter Jackson, two young girls imagine their own world as a non-Christian alternative to heaven that they create a belief system around which they follow with religious fervor.  These works, in conjunction with my own background, have caused me to think critically about religion in New Zealand.  Indeed, today while walking the streets of Auckland, I came across a man professing his faith, attempting to earn converts.  This is certainly a site I am used to seeing in cities in the United States, it shocked me as the first example of religiosity I had seen in New Zealand.  In fact, New Zealand prides itself as being a “modern, secular, democratic society” (Immigration New Zealand).   However, this does not mean that individuals do not have religious beliefs, and I was interested in uncovering some of these beliefs.  I spoke with a couple of individuals and looked out additional sources to find this information.  First, I spoke with a young woman in a café.  I also spoke to an older man while on a ferry.

New Zealand is a diverse nation, and by extension has diverse religious beliefs that come from the varied nations that New Zealanders come from, as well as additional faiths specific to New Zealand itself (Morris).  As a British colony, Anglicanism is the most common faith in NZ, followed closely by Catholicism and Presbyterianism.  As a member of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, I was intrigued to see how the Presbyterian Church in NZ compared.  The older man I interviewed also happened to be a Presbyterian, although a member of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.  Both PCUSA and PCANZ are mainline reformed faiths that have undergone numerous recent changes to make their theologies more liberal.  The man I interviewed spoke mostly to similarities between our two faiths.  However, he drew attention to the fact that following Christian faiths, Hinduism is the most common faith in New Zealand.  Perhaps it was coincidence or perhaps I was more attuned to it, but the show of religiosity by a man on the street that I discussed earlier happened to be a man with Bhagavad Gita. Due primarily to the increase in immigrants from Asia in recent history, the composition of faiths in New Zealand has changed dramatically since the 1990s (Morris).  The man I interviewed certainly seemed to echo this fact.  He reiterated that he had never seen a Hindu temple in New Zealand until the early 2000s but now he knows of at least 3 that are near his home.

On another note, the young woman I talked to in the café identified as an atheist.  She talked with me about how most of her peers were atheists or at least, not particularly religious.  She did mention how she and her peers tended to think that their generation was in the process of leaving the church now and that this is still an ongoing process.  This raised for me the question of parliamentary prayer.  In 2007, the MPs voted on whether the Christian parliamentary prayer should be continued to be read at each and every session of parliament.  The vast majority of MPs voted that the prayer should stay.  Many of them did believe that in the long run, the prayer should be rewritten to be more generally spiritual rather than specifically Christian.  I asked the young woman whether she thought a vote on the parliamentary prayer today would go the same way.  She believed that it would be either overturned or rewriting the prayer would be mandated if the issue were voted again today.

Works Cited:

Heavenly Creatures. Dir. Peter Jackson. Alliance Films Inc., 1994. Film.

Morris, Paul. "Diverse Religions- Religious Diversity in New Zealand." Te Ara- The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. 13 July 2012. Web.

Stead, C.K. "A Fitting Tribute." Some Other Country. Fourth ed. Wellington: Victoria UP, 2008. 174-198. Print.

"What Religions Are Most Prevalent in New Zealand? - Immigration NZ Knowledgebase." What Religions Are Most Prevalent in New Zealand? - Immigration NZ Knowledgebase. Web. 14 Jan. 2016.