Speech
St John's Theological College
I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the morning (Sign)
I then specifically greet you: Reverend Canon Jim White, Dean of the College of the Southern Cross; Dr Jenny Te Paa, Te Ahorangi of Te Whare Wananga o Te Rau Kahikatea; Reverend Taimalalagi Tuatagaloa-Leota, Acting Principal of the College of the Diocese of Polynesia; Reverend Dr David Bell, Principal of Trinity Methodist Theological College; Venerable Dr Hone Kaa, Lecturer and respected friend of many years; Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you for inviting my wife Susan and I to visit the campus of the College of St John the Evangelist and Trinity Methodist College this morning. I have been given a brief to speak about my personal journey and the role that I see for the Church and faith communities in our country’s future.
I was born in Auckland and grew up in a Catholic household. My parents were born in Fiji and had migrated to New Zealand. Between them, they had been educated in Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian surroundings. I attended a state primary school, Richmond Rd School in Ponsonby and secondary school at the Marist Brothers’ Sacred Heart College in Glen Innes. I have maintained a subsequent connection with both schools.
In looking at religion, some people treat it as if it was a discrete segment of their lives. I myself, however, have never seen it in that way but rather as a part of the tapestry of life, interwoven with many other threads. I am a Christian and a Catholic, but am also a New Zealander of Pacific and Asian heritage. Likewise, I am also a lawyer, a former Judge, Ombudsman and now Governor-General. And further, I am also a husband, father and grandfather. None of these parts, of who and what I am, are separate from each other, but instead they form part of the person standing before you.
Due to matters that do not necessarily need probing, I am not always an attender at Mass every Sunday but I do not think I could be described as a "Christmas Catholic" either! Likewise in our family, not everyone shares my faith. Our household has always welcomed people from many different faith communities. In that, we are similar to many other New Zealanders.
The religious profile I have outlined provides me with a kind of compass that I imagine has helped guide me in my life and work. But the profile is not the sole guide. I can see merit in teachings from other Christian and non-Christian faiths and from philosophers and thinkers who may profess no faith at all. As Governor-General, this is reflected in the patronage I undertake of the Bible Society of New Zealand, along with that for the Centre for Interfaith Dialogue and Education and the New Zealand Council of Christians and Jews.
Having thus established a personal perspective, and hopefully a place to stand before you, I would now like to examine New Zealanders and their approaches to religion and the challenges of religion in today's world.
New Zealanders often consider that they hold a reasonably tolerant attitude to issues related to religion. I suspect that can be seen in the reaction to my appointment as Governor-General. Much was made of the fact that I was New Zealand's first Governor-General of Asian and Pacific ancestry. But there was almost no comment at all on my being New Zealand's first Governor-General who was also a Catholic.
Yet that was not always the case. The French writer Andre Siegfried, who visited New Zealand in 1899, shrewdly described this nation in his book, Democracy in New Zealand. He noted that no tradition had remained so strong in New Zealand as the religious one. He commented wryly on what he saw as an almost compulsive need of New Zealanders to belong to a Christian sect in the following words: “The man without a religion is regarded with little sympathy by public opinion, and ‘society’ openly dislikes him. So when anyone abandons one chapel, he generally enters another immediately, unless he decides (there have been cases) to start on his own account a religion of which he is the apostle.”
Siegfried, coming from France where church attendance was much lower, had also noted the strict observance of the Sabbath in New Zealand: “Today the respect for Sabbath peace is more powerful than ever; all classes of society insist on it …. A strange narrowness which seems anchored to the very depths of the New Zealand soul, which perhaps regards it as a social and national tradition even more than as a religious one!”
As we all known, more than a century after the visit of Andre Siegfried, much has changed. Large amounts of commercial trading now occurs on Sundays whilst the 2006 Census found only 55 percent of New Zealanders saying they were Christians. While the four major groupings—Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic and Methodist—remained dominant, there were significant increases in adherents of Orthodox, Evangelical and Pentecostal faiths.
Against these changes, and reflecting immigration from Asia, there were also major increases in those holding non-Christian religions. While starting from much smaller bases, the numbers of Sikhs, Hindus or Muslims had all increased substantially from the 2001 Census. And finally, and equally importantly, about 34 percent said they professed no faith at all.
The reasons for these changes are complex and defy simple answers. However, one needs to be careful not to read to too much into these statistics. The point was well made by New Zealand theologian Sir Lloyd Geering who argued in a 1983 book that Census data should only be seen a guide. He argued that because some people do not associate with the practices of an organised religion, it does not follow that they maybe irreligious. He emphasised the point as follows:
“Because [census data] happens to be more readily available than anything else, we can easily be misled by it. If we let ourselves be tied to that kind of indicator we are a bit like the man who was looking one night under a street lamp for a lost wedding ring. When someone who came up to help him asked after 10 minutes of vain looking if he was sure he had lost it there, he said: ‘No, but the light was better there’.”
I suspect that many people who say they have no religion hold strong spiritual beliefs whilst some who say that they are adherents of a particular religion may give it little more than lip service.
One need only look at recent issues that have provoked controversy to see the importance that many New Zealanders continue to place on religious matters. Those issues have included the Virgin in a Condom controversy at Te Papa, the wearing of the burqa in a South Auckland court, the desecration of Jewish headstones in Wellington and publication of the Mohammed cartoons in a metropolitan newspaper. The debate around these issues and the response to them showed both the challenges and opportunities inherent in New Zealand's increasing ethnic, cultural and religious diversity.
Likewise, the structure of families and of personal relationships in new Zealand has become equally diverse, with increased levels of divorce, single-parent families and blended families. Not all couples choose to marry. Some remain in de facto relationships and others, including same-sex couples, have chosen to enter civil unions. In many relationships with children, both partners are usually working.
So what does this mean for the Churches? A fundamental question, and one that has long been the cause of much debate, is whether the churches should even become involved in the social issues that face society? The life of Christ is a mixture of both the transcendent and mystical, as evidenced by his death and resurrection, but also the downright practical, such as driving the money lenders out of the Temple in Jerusalem, feeding the multitude loaves and fishes and healing the sick.
While the Church, as a human institution, has often struggled with complex social issues, that does not mean it should shy away from addressing them. On many occasions churches have offered different voices, on different topics and that diversity of opinion has added to the debate.
Few social issues are subject to clear-cut answers, and differences of opinion, especially when they informed by a philosophy that transcends self-interest, should be seen not as a weakness but as a strength. There have been occasions when the New Zealand churches have taken strong stands, for example, in opposing apartheid in South Africa, where their position was eventually vindicated.
Moreover, New Zealanders, in world terms, are relatively well-educated and known as people who are very conscious of their civil and human rights. I suspect, few would unquestioningly accept, either a church that stood aloof from major social issues or one that told them what they should believe, if it did not fit with their own moral compass.
However, if there is one key issue for the Christian Church, I believe it is that of religious diversity. In particular, the Church has a valuable role to play in promoting understanding between people from different faith communities.
Promoting understanding is a higher calling than simply promoting tolerance. By its nature, tolerance is inherently passive. Because there is no active engagement or communication, the opportunity for real understanding never occurs and preconceptions and stereotypes can often go unchallenged.
Understanding does not mean that one has to surrender one's religion but it does mean recognising that other faiths have inherent value. This kind of point was well made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at the 2006 Building Bridges Seminar, an annual gathering of Muslim and Christian scholars. He said the ongoing dialogue had been illuminating: “[W]e have … recognised that we have a common agenda; we can't always say that we have identical convictions and certainly aren't aiming to iron out the differences and the difficulties of our convictions, but this is a world in which no one religious community, no one nation, no one interest group can solve problems alone.”
After outlining many problems from climate change to HIV-Aids that are no respecter of religious differences, Archbishop Williams emphasised the pivotal importance of understanding in addressing these issues. He added as follows: “We have to work together; we work together, of course, effectively and properly when we understand each other and trust each other; so we come back to where we began. This is an exercise in learning trust and if we replicate that in different modes and at different levels across the world then we should have done I believe, I firmly believe, what God is asking us to do in our own age as we confront various crises that stand before us.”
Understanding between Methodists and Catholics, between Anglicans and Pentecostals and between Christians and Muslims and Hindus, is about more than signing on to high level statements on religious diversity. They are a good start, but only a start.
What seems to be required is for people of different faiths to meet in social gatherings and attend each other’s services, and also to work together on joint initiatives to help those in need. It is by working together that one really gets to know someone of a different faith. It is by working together that we see the things that we have in common and can address those that divide us. The efforts of the National Interfaith Forum, for example, shows how diverse faith communities can work constructively together.
It is also a challenge for this College, its teachers and its students. Established just three years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, St John’s has a distinguished history of educating some of New Zealand’s leading theologians and ministers. The people here have the ability to be the catalysts for change in the way our faith communities work together.
To close and to underscore the importance of collaboration between faith communities, both for its own sake, and for addressing the many issues our world faces, I will quote from the Koran. The Prophet Mohammed once said: "Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve."
And on that note I will close in New Zealand’s first language, offering everyone greetings and wishing you all good health and fortitude in your endeavours. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.