Global Perspectives: New Zealand

Darrell Bock: 

Welcome to The Table. We discuss issues of God and culture and our topic today is part of our global perspective series, and the nation that we're focusing on is New Zealand. And I have two guests who I visit with regularly every other, and now I don't know what to say, summer or winter, because it's summer here in the US but it's winter down there when I go. And we've reversed it now because they're entering into summer as we record and we're entering into winter. But Russell Thorp, who's with the community churches in New Zealand, and Richard Fountain, who also works in the same area, and is a DTS grad are my guest. Russell, welcome to the table. 

Russell Thorp: 

Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be here and good to be a part of a conversation about the church in New Zealand. 

Darrell Bock: 

Exactly. And Richard, thank you for being a part as well. 

Richard Fountain: 

My pleasure, Darrell. 

Darrell Bock: 

All right, so let's just dive right in. Let's talk about New Zealand a little bit. Most people have heard, if they know anything about New Zealand, they probably connect it with Lord of the Rings and the topography and just the beauty of the country, which is world renowned. But tell us a little bit about the country. It's actually not a very large country in population, is that right? 

Russell Thorp: 

Yeah, that's right. About 5 million people. And where we are in Auckland, both Richard and I, is about 1.8 to 2 million. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. So there are two islands, the north island and the south island, and Auckland is the dominant city in the country. That's almost what, 40% of the population in the Auckland area? 

Russell Thorp: 

Correct. 

Darrell Bock: 

And much of the country is rural in terms of its topography and that kind of thing. And I know you're famous, not just for your people, but Richard, what else is New Zealand known for other than the 5 million people who inhabit the two islands? 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, well, farming is really the backbone of the economy as well as manufacturing and tourism. But yeah, the joke is we have more sheep in New Zealand than people. It's about 26 million sheep, was 70 million sheep. So farming has been a big thing in New Zealand and 5 million people, that's pretty small by comparison. 

Darrell Bock: 

You may be the first country that keeps a census on sheep beyond a census on people. But anyway. 

Richard Fountain: 

Well, the tourists see it when they come and they're amazed at the beauty of the countryside and the diversity of the countryside. And you're right, it is, it's like Lord of the Rings at the right season and it's beautiful with rainforests and farmland and mountains and lakes. So everything's on display. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, it is. It is a beautiful country. I remember visiting, I guess a cow farm where milk production was big. You all actually supply a lot of the milk for the entire Oceania region and extending into Asia, is that correct? 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, that's correct. I mean, there are countries like India that produce more dairy products than New Zealand and America, but we export all our good stuff overseas, so yeah, we're an export nation. So we're very much well focused in that regard. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. Very good. Well, so let's talk a little bit about the history of the country and its background. It's a very distinct history, Russell, in terms of its origins and also in terms of the ... what was formally Europe, people of European descent in the country, distinct from Australia. Is that right in terms of its roots? 

Russell Thorp: 

Well, certainly the people that inhabited these islands were probably from Hawaii, Hawaiiki. And they came to New Zealand in canoes, the Mori Ori, and then the Maori and the Maori are the dominant race of those two, and they continue today as being quite dominant. They have a language called Maori, Maori language, and it was probably around the early 1840s when Europeans and before that of course Europeans had come, but where there was a treaty because Maori were fighting amongst themselves and they were fighting with the British colonialists that were here at the time. 

And so there was a group of Christians related to the Wilberforce group in the UK who actually managed to help put together the treaty of Waitangi. And Waitangi is a place up north that was the middle of Maori chieftain folk who had influence in the country. And that treaty of Waitangi is very important even today and it's meant that there's been quite a good relationship between Maori and what we call Pakeha, which are the white-skinned people, the Europeans obviously. So that's a little bit of background for New Zealand. And Christianity grew very quickly amongst Maori for a long time. It's now in a bit of a recession, but we believe that God is at work amongst our Maori folk again, and they will help the church in New Zealand I think in the future. 

Darrell Bock: 

It's interesting when you get off the plane and you fly in from the states into New Zealand and Auckland Airport, you are immediately greeted with two languages. And then of course, and we're going to touch on all the New Zealand, how can I say, the particulars of New Zealand, the haka, which of course is associated with rugby now and the All Blacks, really has Maori roots, doesn't it? Richard? 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, absolutely it does. And the Maori chiefs and the Maori people had a very rich culture and still do. Sadly it has been suppressed, but Te Reo, the language is now being encouraged and is flourishing again. But yeah, haka was one of those cultural oddities for Europeans. 

But I'll just add, it was really interesting, the British intervention in New Zealand, which it really was, I mean, when you are coming as a colonial group, it was to establish government and to bring law to the British subjects who were coming into New Zealand. And in decades later it was going to be a tsunami of settlers and it was always intended to establish law and order and also equality amongst the British subjects and also the native people, the indigenous people. But it was never intended to suppress their culture or treat them as subservient. 

And just by way of comparison, the British Empire had a lot of treaties with indigenous people, you can think of Canada, you can think of West Africa and you can think of Australia. But in New Zealand it really was quite a unique new system of dealing with indigenous people and part of that arrangement was to preserve the local governorship of the tribal leaders. And so it was working towards peace and it was working towards a harmony rather than an upper state and a lower state and a hierarchy of humanity and so it really was quite significant at the time in that regard. 

Darrell Bock: 

And it's somewhat so, and the point you're making is this is somewhat exceptional and has marked New Zealand culture ever since. 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, absolutely. And even our cousins, we love the Aussies, they're great rivals and great friends, but even in amongst the Aborigine people there, the British did not encourage, they certainly didn't impose assimilation, but they certainly didn't encourage the people to flourish. And so it was very much a separateness from the Aborigine people, whereas the language of the treaty is very, very unique and it's a language of covenant. And the Maori people today fully recognize that language, that model, that concept of bringing two different communities, two different groups of people together. 

And you can imagine the difference. I mean we were joking about sheep, but when the early settlers came, they brought sheep and cattle with them eventually. Maori people had never seen sheep, so when Samuel Marsden preached the first sermon on Christmas morning in 1814, he preached from Luke Chapter Two and he was talking about the good news of great joy that the angels gave the shepherds, you can imagine the people thinking shepherds? We don't even know what sheep are. So there was that cultural disconnect in terms of understanding a lot of concepts, including what does it mean to have sovereignty for the British Empire when they're working amongst themselves as different separate tribes. So Christianity was actually pivotal in helping both preserve the local culture and also develop it for the new people that were coming and were going to be mixing together. 

Darrell Bock: 

So I can imagine an early sermon on Jesus as the good shepherd would be translated Jesus the good what? 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, 

Darrell Bock: 

I mean that just shows at some degree the cultural distance. And yet as Richard's already alluded to the role of Christianity as kind of a cultural glue that allowed the country to grow and function and flourish is important in the development of the history of New Zealand. 

Russell Thorp: 

That's very true. I think it's important for us to understand that concept of covenant, which was at the back of the thinking of those who were putting that treaty together. And I think the early Maori chiefs, they were intelligent people and they understood all of this as well. And this is one of the things that as we reflect in the second half really on the state of the church in New Zealand, identity politics, as in the US, is an issue here. And it's important that unfortunately it's become this thing about Christianity versus secularism or whatever it is. But if we talk about covenant and agreements to work together, that's very much a part of humanity and the importance going forward of Christianity, also within the culture going forward in New Zealand. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, this is one of the fascinating things about why I enjoy visiting New Zealand is the way in which they handle some of these issues and tensions that it can exist between people and yet watching the situation in New Zealand and the way in which there is cooperation and recognition, obviously still being worked on but still present and really being focused on in some ways that allows for progress as opposed to strict opposition. 

It's interesting to watch as an outsider from a distance and to have discovered in the conversations that I have as I move from various countries. I visit Australia, New Zealand, I'm in India, I'm in South Africa. They all have very distinct histories including at a societal and racial level with very different backgrounds. And the contrasts really do jump out to someone as you move from place to place. So let me ask you some other questions. What else would you say is distinctive about New Zealand? You've mentioned that you're an export country, that there is this pursuit of racial recognition, mutual racial recognition in the country. What else would you say is distinctive about New Zealand, Russell? 

Russell Thorp: 

I think New Zealanders have always been seen to be very good at improvising. They left the UK, they left other places in the world to come and settle here. And we have this wire called number eight wire. It's just a certain thick wire and farmers learned how to do a lot of things with that number eight wire. It's just an expression really of us as Kiwis being creative and able to bring solutions to issues, engineering issues, all sorts of issues because of our smallness and in terms of population. 

But the other side of that is that actually New Zealanders punch above their weight in terms of new inventions and all sorts of things that they have brought to the table for the world. Rutherford helped, he helped split the atom, didn't he? So he's a kiwi. And so there's a whole range of things, including just recently the ability to beam power from a solar setup from space into the world is the people that are in front of that science development are Kiwis. And they've just been over in Europe working with people around that. So it's an interesting country from that perspective. A lot of creativity. 

Darrell Bock: 

Again, I'm going to smile and bring in sports, the creativity that you had in winning the America's Cup, taking it from the States at one point and the innovation that went into the design of the boat could be a metaphor for the creativity that New Zealanders have and the contributions that they've made in a variety of areas in the world. 

Russell Thorp: 

Yeah, that's right. 

Darrell Bock: 

So primarily, so is New Zealand primarily an agricultural country? I mean it sounds like it's a mix of technology and agriculture. Is that a fair summary or is there anything else I'm missing in terms of the general social climate in the country, in terms of its economics? 

Russell Thorp: 

Richard, you've answered that one. 

Richard Fountain: 

There's general manufacturing, there's innovation, a lot of innovation is being talked about in terms of technology and that sort of thing, electronics and that sort of thing. A lot of the industry is based around service industries for power generation or running the country in a unique way and that sort of thing. So tourism is the biggest thing. 

The other thing about being a small island, roughly land mass size of Great Britain is that, like you said, we're forward facing, outward facing, and really the ocean or Oceania, Oceania is just as important as the land mass. So I mean Australia is the smallest continent, but it's not an island, it's massive, but we are just a little island. But the people and the diversity of residents now come from all through the Pacific. And there is definitely that boating flavor, that motif of sailing and travel. So we have Tongans and Samoans where we we're kind of like the capital of the Pacifica islands for some of the Samoan and Tongan countries and that sort of thing. So yeah, very, very multicultural, very ocean focused, lot of boats and that sort of thing as well. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, I talk to many Americans and New Zealand is often on their travel bucket list of hoping to get to at some point in their lives because of one, the reputation of the islands. It's interesting that you compared the size of New Zealand to the UK. Most people don't realize that Australia is actually as big, if not slightly bigger, than the United States in land mass. So these are two substantial countries in terms of size located in a completely different part of the world from the US and yet most people probably know more about Australia than they do New Zealand, but both countries have managed to etch their way into the consciousness of many North Americans. 

Okay. So let me shift gears a little bit. You've talked about the multiculturalism and the fact that people are coming from other islands. So how many different languages are you dealing with in the country in terms of its current population? How multicultural, I guess is what I'm asking, is how multicultural is New Zealand beyond the indigenous tribes and the European presence that's come? You've mentioned the influence of the Pacific Islands because you're surrounded by lots of little islands. Talk a little bit about the makeup of the country demographically beyond the 5 million. 

Russell Thorp: 

Probably the most- 

Darrell Bock: 

Go ahead, Russell. 

Russell Thorp: 

The largest group is probably the Indian population. I think Indians are spread all around the world. It's no different here. Auckland is an interesting place. Only one in four Aucklanders were born in New Zealand, so including myself, I was born in Papua New Guinea. My parents are missionaries of course, but that that's reflective of the country. But the languages, really we are a bi cultural nation in terms of language. There's English and Maori, and of course then we have a large population of Indians who speak their languages and then Chinese. And we have a lot of immigrant groups that have come here from places like Bangladesh, places like Myanmar and Ethiopia, all those things. I think every country is reflecting that input from other nations. Now New Zealand's no different, even though we are so far away from everyone else. 

Darrell Bock: 

And Auckland's been growing in part because it's been drawing people from this variety of locations, or is there a lot of rural to urban movement as well, or a combination of the two? 

Russell Thorp: 

Yeah, it'd be a combination of both those things, yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

So it's a real mix. So let's talk about Christianity in New Zealand. Shift gears a little bit and can you give us a quick overview of the history of Christianity and then we'll talk about what the current status of Christianity is, but obviously came with the Europeans. That's about all I know. Let's pick up from there. Who got us, go ahead Russell. 

Russell Thorp: 

I guess my reflections are that Christianity was a very important part of New Zealand in its early days. And I think the ratio of the church, of Christians, of people who went to church was a lot higher of course than it is today. The Catholic Church was and still is the largest grouping of Christians and then the Anglican church would've been the next largest to Presbyterian Methodists and so on. And then the evangelical side was a smaller portion back in the early days, but it's grown these days to be a much larger portion. It still doesn't beat the Catholics. And of course then growing from there has been the growth of Pentecostalism in New Zealand as it has grown elsewhere and independent Pentecostal churches have become large. That's waned a little now, but it's still very important part of the makeup of Christianity here. 

Darrell Bock: 

So in distinction from a Australia, which originally was founded, I think as a penal colony, if I have my Australian history right, where did the impulse for Europeans to come to New Zealand come from? Richard? 

Richard Fountain: 

Well, it came from the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian church, and those that were part of the Christian missions around the world that were going into India and that were going into a lot of the Pacific Islands as well. So the missionaries that came, I mentioned Samuel Marsden, there was another character who was involved in the Napoleonic Wars back in the early 18 hundreds converted or he became a priest and that sort of thing, an Anglican priest. And so he joined the efforts to come down and bring Christianity to the islands. 

So yeah, it was very much instrumental. Some of the key people we alluded to which were against slavery and those that actually wrote the laws in England to abolish slavery, the actual abolition of slavery act, were relatives of some of the influences in the forming of the treaty. So you could say that the DNA of what is true Christianity, what does Christian community look like was right there at the beginning in terms of working with the people. So it wasn't just a preaching message, it is very much how do we live as human beings as well and so that was a strong element from the church at that time. And again- 

Darrell Bock: 

Go ahead. Go ahead. 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, and again, the contrast was are we going for slavery or is there something better on the shelf for us here? 

Darrell Bock: 

Interesting. So really my guess would be there would be two motivations for people coming from Europe to New Zealand. One would be economic and the other would be in terms of mission and I'm assuming that that explains the Catholic presence in the country as well, that it was part of this missionary outreach of churches in general to reach parts of the world where the gospel had not gone before. 

Russell Thorp: 

Yeah, that's correct. 

Richard Fountain: 

And there's just an important point about the Catholic Church. I mean if you go back to some of the papal bills, there's a thing called doctrine of discovery and that was often associated with North America and how some of the Christianity there influenced the colonial approach. The Anglican church really had a completely different approach, and I know it is debated, but records show that the Anglican church had a completely different approach and there was no doctrine of discovery, which was like we will subjugate you to be Christians. 

It was very much a voluntary thing and very much preaching the gospel, preaching the good news and show and tell rather than we are taking over your country. And so right from the get go of the early days, the language of Christianity was, this is good news, this is how it works, this is who Jesus is and this is what a relationship with God looks like. And by the way, this is what relationships with one another ought to look like as well. 

And so that language of reconciliation, that language that Christ is our peace who brings two together as one, which is a major theme of Ephesians, was part of early mission emphasis including things like education and acknowledging the rights of indigenous people to flourish and to gain education and to gain skills, not as a competing culture but as one of invitation and of tasting and seeing what European culture looked like and also learning the other way. 

Darrell Bock: 

So I'm taking it by that overview that one of the points that you're making is in this early treaty that brought the cultures together, that the influence there was primarily Protestant or did the Protestant influence dominate the way Christians approached New Zealand, whether they were Catholic or Protestant? 

Richard Fountain: 

No, it was predominantly Protestant. Although the interesting thing, the Catholic Church were the first to bring in the printing press and print bibles in Maori and Te Reo. So they were the ones who handled the literature in a sense and published the Bible for the native people. But yeah, the predominant church I think would've been Anglican in terms of the governance and those ideas for developing a country. 

Darrell Bock: 

So now let's shift to modern New Zealand. I don't know what the statistic is in New Zealand, I have some idea what the statistic is in Australia. I think the estimates are that about 6% of the population are evangelical church attending Bible believing people in Australia. What kind of number are we dealing with in New Zealand? Is it about that, lower, higher? Where are we? 

Russell Thorp: 

There's a report that was written in Australia but also in New Zealand called the McCrindle Report and there's some interesting statistics that come out of that. So just to go through that very quickly, 35%. This was done what, 2018, I think. So it's a little bit old, but we've had COVID in between, no religion or spiritual belief that's 35%, Christianity people put down that was their faith it was 33%, 20% were spiritual but not religious and then 12% were other religions. And out of that list of 33% of Christianity, 16% said they'd go to church once a month and we think the figure's probably a little lower than that actually. So I think around 7% of those people would be evangelical Christians who go to church regularly. So that gives you a bit of an idea of it's not too dissimilar to Australia in many ways. 

Darrell Bock: 

And of course, again, one of the fascinating things for me visiting of course is that when you're in Dallas, Texas that the number of people who are attending religious services on a weekend is supposed to be close to half. So that's obviously a huge difference between the two cultures. What do you think you learn as a Christian being in the environment where you clearly are a cultural minority? 

Russell Thorp: 

You learn how to live in exile. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. 

Russell Thorp: 

You have to have a theology of exile and not see that as a bad thing, but see that as a good thing, because there's no way we'll become the majority voice. We have to learn how to operate as a minority voice and punch above our weight in terms of our influence as Christians, and we're struggling with that to some extent, but there are some Christians who are making a wonderfully good impact in some churches. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. So the challenge is, and particularly since the large percentage that you talked about, who don't have any faith at all. There really is, if I can say it this way, a genuine secular religious divide in New Zealand that is present, even though again, if you just take the people who have no religious orientation at all, they're also minority, but it's evenly split. That's interesting. So Richard, how do churches try and face this reality that you deal with? Not just the difference between not having large cultural numbers but just coping with the role that you have with so many neighbors who are different than yourself? 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, it's a interesting challenge and most churches are focusing, it's not just preaching and teaching, although there are various degrees of that, but the works that go on during the week and the connection with Christian trusts or Christian community outreach and that sort of thing. So it's very much credibility is seen if not through the message of Christianity, through the actions of Christians. So you've got the likes of not just world vision or anything like that, but you've got food banks and you've got social concern and social care. 

And so everybody is wrestling with how to help families. Everybody is wrestling with issues in the economy and that sort of thing. But I think a lot of Christians are recognized as doing something positive for those at least on the bottom row and that sort of thing. So that's one way of doing it. The other way is to emphasize, as we said, it's not just about preaching and proclamation, but watching your tone and how you engage with people who might be opposed to what would be considered ultra conservative views or views of the past, this is the way society used to live in terms of family and ideas about gender and that sort of thing. So how do you engage with that and not coming across in a condemning way, but seeking to engage in a positive way, that's another way around it. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. You use the phrase Christian Trust, is the equivalent of that for us Christian nonprofits or are those special kinds of organizations? 

Richard Fountain: 

They're attempts by Christian local churches to take the church into the community. So they're charitable trusts that the government allows to be established and they go beyond the local governance of the body and the pastoral care of the body. They're aimed, they have objects such as helping in education or helping the poor, those kind of things. And they exist in a bunch of different areas that address trauma, social needs, poverty and that sort of thing so they're very practical ministries that are allowed to exist. 

Darrell Bock: 

And Russell, you work with the denomination community churches, which most people here would know as open brethren churches. What's the denominational breakdown in the country? I mean, not necessarily specific, but in general, in terms of obviously Anglicans are a large group and who else will you find in the Protestant part of the community and is there a general breakdown between Catholics and Protestants in terms of percentage? 

Russell Thorp: 

Well, there is. I can't give you the specific figures right now, but I think that the Baptists are a large group. I mean the open brethren were large and we've reduced in numbers. We used to be larger in the early seventies, 1970s, than the Baptists. The Baptists have taken over well and truly from us. We have Elam churches, we have groups like the Lutheran Church are quite small in New Zealand, and the Presbyterians are a bigger group, but not that much bigger really than us. They've been struggling. The Anglican churches are struggling, they've got plenty of churches, but the numbers going are reducing quite remarkably, and they're struggling to find ministers and vicars for their churches. And so there's becoming a lot more of a cross-pollination actually between evangelical churches and even mainline churches who have a desire to preach the word and share the gospel. 

So I think that's become a common thing. In New Zealand we're so small in number that we are not easily put into silos if you like. I think we are talking together a lot more than we used to. I don't know if you want to ... I think one of the things to reflect on for us in terms of our approach, back in the 1980s, we were strong on apologetics and those sort of things because we had a base of people who might have been brought up in Sunday school who were no longer in church, and there was a common faith understanding of the Christian faith. It was also a common angst against Christians and that whole thing has changed quite remarkably with the growth of the non-religious or not Christian group. And now it's not so much apologetics that will reach people arguing for the faith, it's more about what Richard was talking about. It's getting into the community and building bridges so the gospel can go over those bridges because there is very little understanding of the Christian faith. 

Darrell Bock: 

Interesting. So there really is, in one sense there's a lot more work to do and there's not as much shared background culture so you almost have to go from scratch, if I can say it that way, in terms of getting people to see why Christianity is helpful in how you approach life and the way in which you engage both individually and as a community. 

Russell Thorp: 

Yeah. Richard may have some reflections from that from a pastoral perspective, but- 

Darrell Bock: 

No, go ahead, share those. 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah, I mean the number of people who say I'm spiritual but not religious, they're basically saying I've tasted Christianity and I've moved on, it's no longer working for me. And part of the problem is that we live in such a prosperous area in the sense of it's a good life, there's a lot of freedoms. We're not worried about being invaded by any country. Russia is a long way away. And so we're immune from a lot of things and people come here often, like you said, from other countries as refugees and settle here and so there's peace in that sense. 

But without knowing Christ and without knowing the hope of the gospel, they're just living the good life, so to speak. And so why would you go to church? Why would you, even in the post COVID world, why would you bother to, why would even some Christians bother to go to church when you can go online and hear a preacher? So the whole sense of Christianity being under tension either from those who have been a church attender and no longer interested or those that are currently in church and they're thinking, are there different ways of doing this? The church really needs to have to get back to its core values and get back to who we are, because there are massive changes afoot and people are voting with their feet. 

Darrell Bock: 

Interesting. So you're really experiencing a post COVID experience maybe in a more intense way than perhaps here. I mean we have some of this post COVID here where people who used to go to church aren't showing up on Sunday, and there's a substantial portion that still stay connected online. But it sounds like that you're dealing with a larger challenge. And I wonder how much of that is the ability to produce community in a context where people's lives are so, how can I say this, dispersed in terms of what they're engaged in, that producing community really is an uphill battle. Russell, what do you think? 

Russell Thorp: 

Yeah, I think I've traveled around a lot of churches post COVID, I've preached in Anglican and Baptist and Presbyterian churches and our open brethren churches, and a lot of them are reflecting on the fact that about a third of the congregation is not back in church and that they're not sure they'll ever come back. Some of those people have gone to other churches because they experienced online with other churches as well and got to know other communities. And then other people have realized that, hey, I don't just have to turn up to a physical building, I can have fellowship in a different way. And there's some creativity coming out of the post COVID era, which is positive. But on the negative side, there are people who are drifting and I think there was an opportunity during COVID to be pastorally active and some churches were better at that than others. Those that weren't active pastorally, I think, have lost people. So there's opportunities there, but there's also been some struggles. So yeah, we are just still grappling with all of that turmoil. 

Darrell Bock: 

So Richard, what are some of the other challenges churches are facing in New Zealand and whether they're distinctive to New Zealand or not? 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah. So any teaching on homosexuality is fraught with landmines. I actually think my kids' generation and the generation coming up really has a different view on the whole gay LGBT approach and that sort of thing and acceptance. So that's a massive issue to the point that I would say that some people are basically maybe offended by how the church community has handled this. And if you think about it from a relational perspective, if you're offended by a parent or if you're offended by a family or a group, you're not going to have fun and you're not going to want to show up. And so some of these issues, they're both beneath the surface, they're beneath the carpet so to speak, but they really need to be explored and addressed because that whole area of sexuality, which is becoming like this is my identity instead of part of who we are as human beings, is being so dominated by the popular culture that people are unable to see their way through it from a biblical theological perspective. 

Darrell Bock: 

And I take it that the community involvement where churches really pour themselves into serving the community is the best counter to that. Am I reading that right? 

Richard Fountain: 

Yeah. How do you serve the community? How do you accept people? It's like a new humanity in a sense. How do you show that you're accepting of people but you're not watering down Christian truth and yet maybe the way to bring in that truth or to have those conversations is just that, as a conversation. But you are there, you're present, you are available. 

I'll tell a fun story, when I was a teenager, I made my mother cry because there was a protest going down the street once in our town and a couple of us grabbed some eggs and we're getting out there and we kind of thought, oh, it'd be cool, we'll just throw the eggs at that group of people that were protesting. And back in those days, there was no civil unions and marriage was between a man and a woman so things were completely different. That whole approach of the tide being turned and instead of being an antagonist, but being someone that is able to walk alongside people, that's a whole new challenge. And there are no simple answers there and there's no simple way forward either. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. Russell, go ahead. 

Russell Thorp: 

The same report I alluded to before, the McCrindle report talked about blockers to the Christian faith in New Zealand. And as Richard says, this one, teaching on homosexuality or even on any gender issues is really the biggest blockage to people coming to church and that includes Christians who have sympathy for this group of people who feel the church is not handling it well. And that's a 36%, it's the highest blocker for people being in church. 

Hell and condemnation would've been another one, and that would've been high in the 1960s and seventies, suffering being 24%, the role of women 23 and supernatural aspects 22%. So those are interesting stats. So how we handle this? I think in terms of myself, I'm aware that we need to have our doctrine right and we need to have our teaching correct, and we've got to sort that out and we send people to places like Dallas to get that sorted out. 

But the thing that we want to be able to do, actually increasingly more I've been understanding the teachings of Paul, yes, he's got doctrine and he's got way forward there, but when you read him talking about character and attitude, he's talking about posture, which is a great word to use. What is our posture with that teaching? And Paul's posture, the way he leaned into things that help people, and it was so amazing. And I think it's really important that we have in our good works, in our outworking in the community, that our posture is leaning into Jesus, but also not antagonistic to those who don't understand things the way we understand them. And so we love them. And this is of course the teaching of Jesus, which is to love your neighbor as yourself, to love your enemies and those sorts of things. 

And that becomes a real issue when we talk about gender issues. So how do we do that? And it's a tricky balance. Yeah, that's probably enough said at this point about that but that that's the road we are on at the moment and journeying down. 

Darrell Bock: 

The term posture's an interesting one. I picked it up the last time I was with you all, and our word is probably the tone. And the whole point is there's a tension in Christianity between the challenge of Christianity. After all, Christ died on the cross to deal with sin and the invitation about God's love and God's forgiveness and getting those in right balance so that I like to say, if you're all about condemnation and challenge and not about the invitation and the commitment to God's love and showing God's love, you lose the fact that the gospel actually means good news. And so you want the good news to show forth in the way you care for people and reach out to them even when their backs are turned to God. I remind people we should never forget where we came from, God approached us when our backs were turned to him. 

And so if we remember where we come from, that gives us a better place to think through how we should minister with posture or tone, however you want to describe it. And I do think this is becoming the larger challenge for the church today in dealing with a culture that certainly is moving and in some ways moving away from, at least in many parts of the world the Judeo-Christian roots that it had, and yet at the same time, how do you reclaim people who either think, well, I tasted that and didn't like it, or people who have no clue what Christianity's all about and all they think about is it's prejudiced or doesn't care for people, or that kind of thing? 

Unless you show a counter to that stereotype, you've got to climb uphill. I think that's the real challenge of the churches that exist today and what we're facing. So our time, believe it or not, is gone. So I want to thank you all for taking the time to give us a glimpse of the church in New Zealand. It's been good to see you all again, even though it's within the confines of a box. I tell people every now and again, I get to get out of the box and see people face to face. And so it's good to reconnect again. I wish you all the best. I thank you for the time you've taken with us to help people understand a little bit about what's going on with Christianity in New Zealand. So Russell, Richard, thank you all very much. 

Richard Fountain: 

Thanks Darrell. 

Russell Thorp: 

Thanks Darrell. 

Darrell Bock: 

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