Flickering and Fading: St John's Presbyterian Church, Herbert, North Otago. Fifty years ago its pews were full. Today it stands as a mute and largely empty memorial to the Christian nation New Zealand used to be. Photo by Don Donovan.
NEW ZEALAND is no longer a Christian nation. The results of
the 2013 Census confirm the steep decline in the Christian religion since 1996.
Seventeen years ago 63.8 percent of New Zealanders belonged to the Christian
faith. The latest census results put that figure at 44.5 percent.
Christians may snatch a scrap of solace from the fact that
those unequivocally declaring themselves to have “No Religion” represent an
even smaller minority (37 percent) of the New Zealand population. But nothing
can hide the fact that the Christian religious tradition which has underpinned
our nation’s culture since colonisation, is rapidly diminishing. Indeed, if the
rate of decline of the past 17 years is repeated over the next 17, then by 2030
barely a quarter of Kiwis will still call themselves Christians.
Does it matter? Should we be worried, or relieved, that we
Kiwis are an altogether more secular and sceptical bunch than the Americans – two-thirds
of whom reject Darwin’s theory of evolution in favour of ancestors fashioned by
the Almighty out of dust and clay?
Is it not more reassuring to know that nearly 40 percent of
us remain unmoved by religious belief, than to contemplate a religious
establishment so strong that within the living memory of most New Zealanders it
wielded a power sufficient to sway governments and outlaw “sin”?
I am certainly glad that a dour and embittered Protestantism
no longer holds sway over much of suburban New Zealand. And I rejoice that
generations of young working-class girls and boys are no longer expected to
make sense of their urban neighbourhoods through an incense-laden fog of
saintly superstition and clerical bigotry.
I am proud to be part of that vast generation, the Baby
Boomers, who dared to call the religious establishment to account for its sins.
Not religious sins, you understand, but for the moral crimes born of
unchallenged authority and heartless hierarchy. For the lies that were told;
the cruelties inflicted; the young souls twisted by sectarian hatred; the old
souls unredeemed by Christian love.
Right by human right we pillaged the Christian
establishment: the right to contraception; the right to abortion; the right to
love a member of the same sex (and, eventually, to marry them) the right to
express oneself sexually without religious condemnation or secular punishment;
and, finally, that most important of all human rights: the right to seek for
the meaning and purpose of human existence on our own terms, and using the
whole of the natural universe as our bible.
And yet, in perusing the Census data, I have also
experienced an uneasy feeling of loss: of slowly drifting away from familiar
shores.
In my mind’s eye, running like a family video, are memories
of the past, of my childhood, flickering and fading. Of a little limestone
church in Herbert, North Otago. Of the farming families and their children, all
wearing their Sunday best. Of the low murmur of the organ; voices raised in
song; and simple New Testament sermons about love and forgiveness.
I recall my years at Sunday School and learning the Bible’s
many stories: Moses and the burning bush; David vanquishing Goliath; Daniel in
the lions’ den; Jacob wrestling with the angel; Joseph and his coat of many
colours. And, every December, I remember, the familiar stories and carols of
Christmas. Mary and Joseph and their long journey to Bethlehem. The Magi and
their search for the one foretold, Emmanuel, meaning “God is with us”. The
shepherds keeping watch in the fields by night. The Heavenly Host singing
“Glory to God in the Highest!”
I remember them all, and that little community, glowing
through the lengthening summer shadows with peace and goodwill.
And I ask myself, as we sail away from all those little
churches, those devout congregations, those simple sermons of love and
redemption: “Quo vadis?”
I ask it of myself; of my family and friends; of my entire
and beloved country, New Zealand:
“Quo vadis? Whither goest thou?”
This essay was
originally published in The Dominion Post, The Otago Daily Times, The
Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily
News, The Timaru Herald and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 20 December 2013.
