Among Traditions

Or, quite possibly, both.

A couple of weeks ago, Newsroom ran a review of their book of the week, Jim Veitch’s new history of (in the words of the cover) “New Zealand’s great heresy trial”, of Lloyd Geering, then the Principal of Knox College, in Dunedin, where Presbyterian ministers were (are) trained. The review provides a useful summary, even if it ran under the heading “Progressive Dunedin vs narrow-minded Auckland” which probably says as much about the sympathies of reviewer as anything else. The book itself, for which the author could not find a New Zealand publisher (ended up published by a Christian publishing company in Australia), wasn’t easy to track down, but here is the link I used to buy a copy.

What is the gist of the story? Geering published an article in the Presbyterian magazine, Outlook, in 1966 in which he expressed his disbelief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, citing sympathetically a line from a then-recent overseas book that “we may freely say that the bones of Jesus lie somewhere in Palestine” and in subsequent comments and speeches sought to articulate a view of Christianity very different from its historic roots or the formularies to which the Presbyterian church subscribed (ministers being obliged to subscribe to the 17th century Westminister Confession). Geering saw himself as attempting to reframe or re-present a Christianity for a modern scientific age, and drew on a substantial body of liberal theological thought and biblical (re)interpretation. In this alternative approach, anything of the miraculous or supernatural is dismissed or assumed away as impossible by construction, and not something that could appeal to modern man or women. People should, it seemed, be inspired simply to follow the teachings of Jesus, and if the word “resurrection” had any meaning for Geering it was quite different than the conventional one: after his death, his teaching had become somehow newly alive for his disciples.

As Geering would note, he was a professor of Old Testament. His speaking and writing on other topics, those in dispute, were – as he saw it, and there is no reason to doubt his sincerity – aimed at the person in the pews (more than ministerial trainees), attempting to articulate faith in a way that might be relevant or appealing in the modern age.

But his arguments, made in public fora by one holding such a prominent and influential position in the denomination appointed by the Assembly, sparked a considerable backlash. The denomination had – and, it seems, still has – both liberal and evangelical wings. At the time, it seems, at least among clergy, the majority was theologically middle of road, veering to liberal, although there also seems to have a gap between how those clergy might themselves have understood theology and faith and how they might have articulated things in sermons and (for example) funeral services. Despite the long list of statements of faith (the current list is here) one gets the impression that there was a practical congregationalism about 1960s Presbyterianism, in which congregations and ministers with different emphases (and beliefs) rubbed along so long as nothing made the differences too stark or confronting. By virtue of his position, Geering’s words seem to have escalated the issues. He was neither an obscure university academic nor minister of an individual congregation, but Principal of the denomination’s only ministry training college. That prominence presumably also accounted for the extent of public and media interest throughout the controversy.

As Veitch records, there were two main leaders of the move to challenge and censure Geering (and they were both living in Auckland at the time): a lay leader and businessman Robert Wardlaw, and the (Scottish) minister of the Mangere Presbyterian church, Robert Blaikie. Blaikie had much the stronger theological background, but Wardlaw seems to have had organising energy etc, and inspired the founding of the Layman’s Association, which had branches around the country and backers who included prominent Presbyterian laymen including Sir William Goodfellow and Sir James Fletcher. Blaikie and Wardlaw had somewhat different emphases and the book suggests that no one ever found a really effective way of harnessing their energies and abilities in a joint effort.

The actual “heresy trial” – at the annual Assembly held in Christchurch in November 1967 – seems to have come to not very much. The energy there had been among the discontented for months never achieved sustained follow-through or support on the floor of the Assembly, and Geering was cleared of any suggestion of doctrinal error or wrongdoing. His position seemed secure.

But it wasn’t to be (and this was the bit I was less familiar with). In May 1970 Geering did a substantial broadcast TV interview in Australia with one of the ABC’s top interviewers (the full transcript is published as an appendix to the book). In it, he didn’t hedge or offer caveats but clearly restated his beliefs on a number of points (no life after death, no Virgin Birth, no heaven or hell, and so on) that was clearly at odds with the historic teachings of the church and (more importantly) as many would see it at odds with Scripture.

The transcript got back to New Zealand fairly quickly and discontent was renewed – Geering was, after, all, still Principal of the theological college. The Assembly that year voted to “dissociate” themselves from Geering views on the resurrection and life after death and it seems (Veitch doesn’t treat that Assembly in any depth) that by then the fight had gone out of Geering’s supporters. As it happens, by the time the Assembly met. Geering had already accepted (but not announced) his appointment as inaugural Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University, where he spent the rest of his career (before a super-prolonged retirement, in which Geering at 107 is now New Zealand’s oldest living man). Veitch devotes space to speculating that Geering’s opponents may have helped the Australian interviewer (why not?), and laments that Geering wasn’t invited to speak at the Assembly, but doesn’t spend much time at all on why things went so differently in 1970 than they had in 1967. That’s a gap.

It is a curious book in a number of respects. Veitch (himself apparently now well into his 80s) says it is based on his ThD thesis 25 years ago, and he has had access to individuals (60 interviews of participants done back in the early 80s), and he was entrusted with the papers of both Wardlaw and Blaikie. But almost nothing is footnoted.

But my bigger frustration with the book is two things. First, while it is a very useful chronicle of events through 1966 and 1967, it isn’t much more than that. There is very little effort to analyse or understand quite what was going on or why things unfolded as they did, including with the benefit of hindsight. Why, notably, did the challenge to Geering in 1967 fail but that in 1970 succeed? Was it, initially, an aversion to conflict, had Geering later become more extreme, or what? I’m left still puzzled (and when I checked the 1990 history of the Presbyterian church unfortunately it shed no additional light, having been written by the very same Jim Veitch). And there is no sign of any insight on how, for example, the Layman’s Association had worked, or the differences among its wings (what, for example, had Rollo Arnold – alive until 1998 – made of the entire affair, having been both a leading figure, and (yet another) VUW academic.

Perhaps the other frustration is unavoidable. While it is impressive that Veitch was entrusted with the Wardlaw and Blaikie papers, Veitch was not exactly a neutral party in all of this. He’d been a student at Knox under Geering, was then a colleague in the Religious Studies Department at Victoria (where he was known for his very liberal approach to Christianity – I vaguely recall writing a long letter to the student newspaper one year pushing back against his Geering-esque take on the Easter events), and has remained both a friend of Geering’s and a writer in the same vein of alternative theology (Jesus Seminar and all that). His own biases are pretty evident through the book (and its appendices) and yet there is nothing of his own memories or experiences, or even of reflective interviews with Geering probing what had gone on in that period in the late 1960s. The chronicle is, without doubt, valuable, but a book on these events could have been so much more. Then again, would it have found any sort of publisher anywhere? Would anyone who wasn’t a motivated participant have made the effort?

Welcome as the Presbyterians’ belated willingness to push back on the Geering alternative faith (for that is, essentially, what he was prophet of, and became more fully after leaving Knox – even while remaining to this day a Presbyterian minister) was, it isn’t clear quite where the denomination stands today (and my perspective is very Wellington where the hyper-liberal St Andrews on the Terrace strand was very prominent). Numbers, of course, are in steep decline, and although Veitch and Geering would probably argue still that failure to adopt their type of faith is a (or the) prime reason, there is nothing at all throughout the West to suggest that ultra-liberal churches have proved better able to win or hold disciples of Christ.

I’m struck (as I’m sure I’ve written about previously for other denominations) by the precipitous decline in the number of Presbyterian churches around here: these days on this side of town St Andrews, St Johns, Island Bay and a Miramar Uniting Church (which says of itself “not a lot of us) remain. In my decades here, St Giles in Kilbirnie closed (demolished a few months ago) as did St James in Newtown (where Geering had once been minister), Seatoun Presbyterian is gone, as is the united church in Brooklyn. The book records that in the 60s there was a Presbyterian church in Kent Terrace. More than halved in not quite 60 years. It is tragic reflection of the loss of faith, and of the failure of the church to proclaim the gospel – of a living Saviour who calls us to repentance and reconciliation, and offers an eternal hope unknown to Veitch and Geering – in a language that, by God’s grace, draws a response from people of our age. Veitch and Geering are, of course, right that every generation needs to find the language to convey the gospel in its age (as, across cultures, when the gospels has come to new and very different language groups). But eviscerating the gospel of its life and power, or of the urgency of the call to repentance, isn’t and never has been, the way.

The Geering trial and associated events commanded huge media attention in its day. Much of that is accessible now in the excellent Papers Past archive (notably The Press).

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that one of the characters in the story was Rev Luke Jenkins. He became a Presbyterian minister after having spent much of his career as a Baptist. He was Principal of the New Zealand Baptist Theological College but left that role after falling out with the board over what were perceived by some as his own tendencies towards theological liberalism. The author of the post-war Baptist history argues that Jenkins was “not in any serious sense a liberal”, although a few paragraphs later this observation that “he accepted the great affirmations of faith even if he still sought to know what they meant” is perhaps suggestive.

The three local Protestant churches have an established practice of holding combined services on three summer Sundays. At one of them recently we heard the back story behind a mission agency sending out a new missionary family to do theological teaching in Rwanda.

A few years ago the long-serving president of Rwanda, the repressive authoritarian Paul Kagame, had announced a ban on any church congregation being led by anyone who did not have a degree in theology (& various other restrictions, including large minimum number for new religious organisations and restrictions on the ability of congregations to meet other than in approved church buildings). Reports indicate that, after a recent intensification of enforcement, thousands of congregations are now closed (here’s a link to one recent story on what has gone on). Perhaps unsurprisingly, efforts are now afoot to get more pastors qualified to a standard that meets Kagame’s law.

It seems to be an aggressively anti-Christian approach (although possibly just anti any entity that might command influence that isn’t under the control of his ruling party). Rwanda is a substantially Christian country (in excess of 90 per cent of the population identifies as Christian).

Here is a link to the Open Doors 2025 report on persecution of the church in Rwanda.

One of the weird aspects of Rwanda, and western pandering to Kagame (initially because of his role in ending the 1994 genocide), is that the country was admitted to the Commonwealth in 2009, despite never having been part of the British Empire. It would have been weird anyway, but it is all the odder now when the government persecution of the church in an avowedly Christian country has become so intense. Some relatively impressive economic outcomes seem to trump protection of fundamental freedoms. Perhaps it doesn’t help that some establishment church leaders appear to have gone along with Kagame’s approach (sadly, isn’t it always the case when state sponsored persecution occurs that some leaders compromise with power?).

It is no part of a government’s legitimate responsibility/authority, ever or anywhere, to be attempting to determine who may or may not, with what qualifications or not, serve as leaders of congregations and Christian communities (or where such groups may meet). Many states, of course, have done so, but here I’m talking of legitimacy.

My own bias is towards a well-educated clergy, with a deep grounding in Scripture, theology, church history etc. As I understand it, it used to be (may still be?) a requirement to be accepted for training as a Presbyterian minister in New Zealand that an applicant already had another university degree. That’s a legitimate choice for an individual denomination to make. My own roots are Baptist, and that denomination in New Zealand has never taken such an approach. In fact, both my father and father-in-law were Baptist ministers and neither had a university degree (both had some theological training, although in my father’s case that started only after he’d been a pastor for almost four years). A great uncle and a great great uncle were also Baptist ministers, and I’m pretty sure neither of them had degrees either. All were effective ministers of the gospel.

I’ve been reading this week a new biography of Augustine (Augustine the African, by Catherine Conybeare). Universities as such didn’t exist in the late 4th century but within four years of his conversion, and in effect largely self-taught as far as Scripture and Christian theology was concerned, the brilliant Augustine had been prevailed on to accept ordination as a priest, and within another four years he was bishop. Conybeare records that at the time the growth of the church was so rapid, and the availability of priests quite limited, that it wasn’t unknown for communities and congregations to almost coerce individuals with some education into accepting office as priest.

Is there likely to be the odd fraud or charlatan in an unregulated environment? For sure, but if the alternative is having a state, pursuing its own rarely-noble end, seek to regulate such matters I’ll take freedom of worship, freedom to choose your own leaders, any day. I’ll enthusiastically back efforts to improve theological education too – for clergy and for those in the pews – but it simply isn’t a matter for governments, and we cannot look past either the great done (past and present) by pastors with limited education at best, or the terribly destructive work of too many well-educated liberal clergy, now mostly presiding over hollow shells of denominations.

Another book I’ve been reading recently had an in-depth chapter on Bismarck’s 1870s Kulturkampf (cultural struggle) against the Catholic church in newly-united Germany. Part of those extremely laws also sought to control who could be ordained – forbidding priests to have been trained abroad, requiring a degree from a state-run university before someone could enter a seminary, state approval of all church appointments, and so on. Many many parishes were left without priests, and recalcitrant priests and bishops were imprisoned. And this is a semi-democracy otherwise somewhat less repressive than today’s Rwanda.

The church must stand for the right to appoint its own, to set its own standards, no matter the cost. Is it always easy or comfortable? No doubt not (and the alternative goes the way of the Vatican’s deal with the PRC, under which the atheistic, aggressively anti-Christian state gets nomination power on episcopal appointments). But it is a sad reflection on today’s church that we are often so little aware of persecutions like those of the Rwandan government, and that our leaders seem so reluctant to call out those who persecute our brothers and sisters in Christ.

One of the incidental benefits of holidaying at Ohope over the Christmas and New Year period is the annual Opotiki charity book sale – a pleasant coastal drive to get there and, of course, the books themselves. We came back from our drive with, if I recall correctly, 36 books for $36.

Quite a few of those books have been read already, including John Pollock’s short book Crusade ’66: Britain Hears Billy Graham. Published in 1966 it was a quick account, by a sympathetic British biographer of Graham, of the planning and preparation for American evangelist Billy Graham’s UK crusade earlier that same year, and of the experience and immediate results of this large-scale evangelistic effort.

Graham had done earlier evangelistic work in the UK, notably the 1954 London Crusade, when he had encountered a fair measure of resistance and scepticism (whether for being American, for overtly and opening the preaching the gospel, or whatever) but also attracted large audiences, with many making initial decisions for Christ. Among the establishment, both the Archbishop of Canterbury and Winston Churchill (then Prime Minister) met with Graham and each attended at least one campaign rally. These were big events – the final night in London attracted 200000 people to Wembley Stadium and the overflow venue nearby. Looking back, the 1950s was something of the high tide of the apparent post-war recovery in church attendance etc.

Pollock records that the prompt for what became the 1966 crusade was actually a TV interview in Paris, in which Graham was interviewed by British journalist and interviewer David Frost, who’d attended a Graham rally in Paris to write an article for the Daily Mail. Frost, so it is reported, urged Graham to come back to London. The initiative then came not from the clerical establishment but from a council of laymen. The Evangelical Alliance became the sponsors again and those who’d run the 1954 crusade (and were still alive and available) were reconvened as an executive committee, who oversaw both the extensive practical arrangements for necessary for any event of this scale, and the work with individual clergy to gain their involvement and support, and that of their congregations. The crusade was to be in-person in London (held indoors at the Earl’s Court exhibition centre) and by closed circuit television link to venues in a bunch of other cities around the UK. 1800 ministers involved their congregations, and while they were primarily from evangelical congregations, by no means all were. 30000 people from those churches attended weekly classes, from among whom 6000 were selected as counsellors for the crusade rallies themselves. In support of the crusade, the Graham organisation sought prayers from around the world, but in London itself 6000 women’s prayer groups were formed.

The crusade got considerable media coverage. Here is link to Time magazine’s 10 June article after the opening night rally – 19000 attendees and 450 decisions for Christ – and another a month later at the conclusion of the crusade. The latter piece noted the huge number of attendees, and decisions, but also reported the sniffy disapproval of certain liberal clerics

A New York Times piece from early July captures much of the positive flavour, and hopefulness of those who’d been involved, who’d drawn attention to the high proportion of young people in the crowds who’d flocked to the rallies. 42000 initial decisions for Christ had been made throughout the United Kingdom, all referred by the organisers and counsellors to a local church near to where the individual concerned lived, to enable individual follow-up and, hopefully, drawing the new believer into a church congregation. There was never a sense that simply coming forward on the night was the end of the matter. (And, of course, many existing Christians had been re-energised through Graham’s preaching and the involvement in the work of the crusade.)

A couple of weeks later, on his return to the US, the New York Times interviewed the man himself. I found this snippet interesting

Pollock’s book ended on a rather high note, and perhaps understandably. The crowds had been large (this US Baptist Press article suggests it had been “the largest month-long crusade in history”), the engagement of individual congregations extensive, many had been brought to hear the gospel by friends, workmates or family, and tens of thousands had responded with a new desire to own Christ as Lord and Saviour. The cover of the book notes that “no full assessment can be made for several years” but Pollock was optimistic that the church in the UK would be changed as a result for the rest of the century. Graham himself was quoted as suggesting that “it will be ten years before the results of the crusade…are fully known”.

And yet, and yet…….

There can be no doubt that some lives were irrevocably changed God’s way by that London crusade and the evangelistic and follow-up discipleship work. As, no doubt, was the case after the big 1959 Graham crusade in New Zealand and Australia.

And yet the saddest thing about reading the book – and perhaps the reason I did, for some insight on what is now a bygone age – is the picture of the state of the Christian church in the UK (or NZ/Aus, or so many other Western countries) now, just 60 years on. Back in the 60s people were on record worrying about secularism, about sexual laxity, and so on. And no doubt they were right to do so. And yet, look around now and see how much further gone – and further from an openness to God – things are now. How much more moribund even what remains of the church is (although apparently London is where the church is least weak in the UK, as a result of immigrant populations). We can only minister in the places where we are set, in the times that we live, but it is hard now not to marvel at the optimism and sense of enthusiasm that gripped the churches that got involved in the Graham crusades in the 50s and 60s. And to yearn from some fresh movement of the Holy Spirit, to inspire and equip us to witness (much) more effectively today. How much revival is needed in the apparently barren soil of latter-day New Zealand, but how much do we – and our churches – long for it, pray for it, prepare for it? Are we fixed with a burning sense of the eternal destiny of those we work with, our families, friends, and acquaintances, who blithely dismiss any sense of the reality of God’s call, God’s judgement, and are seemingly oblivious to any sense of a need for God’s grace? Am I?

I’m in Papua New Guinea this week and reading the local newspaper over breakfast this morning I noticed this article.

Papua New Guinea is generally regarded as the country with the most linguistic diversity on earth – over 800 distinct indigenous languages in a country of probably not much more than 10 million people. It is also a country which, for all its very many problems, is now suffused with Christianity, and if one was willing to talk in terms of “success stories” might count it as one of those of the global missionary movement, the church’s mandate for which dates all the way back to Matthew 28. The gospel hadn’t come to PNG very much at all until the late 19th century, and in significant parts of the country (notably the populous Highlands) well into the 20th century. And yet on every trip here, every six weeks or so, I’m struck by the open visibility of Christian faith and practice, of a sort probably once common in places like New Zealand, but now long gone.

Schooling in PNG is in English, and the lingua franca of the general population is the creole Tok Pisin. The Scriptures have long been available in those languages, but access in the native languages is a challenge – there are 800 plus of them. Manus province is a group of islands in the north of the country with a population estimated at only around 70000. And yet this article notes that there are 30 languages in that province alone, and even this latest effort – itself something to celebrate – brings only the New Testament to only four of those of language groups.

The Papua New Guinea Bible Translation Association is associated with the global translation mission organisation, Wycliffe Bible Translators, but is itself locally founded and run, a response presumably to the desire of PNG Christians to see the Scriptures made readily available to as many of their fellow citizens as possible. We can only give thanks to God for the commitment of groups like this down through the centuries, as the sound of the gospel, the good news of God, has gone out even to the very ends of the earth. It is a huge and resource-intensive commitment and vision. We can pray, and perhaps give, for the continued work of Bible translation, enabling disciples themselves to search the Scriptures – as the Berean Christians did – in their idioms and native languages.

That’s a slight paraphrase of this extract from C S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Aslan, of course, is a Christ (or God) figure.

The quote came to mind this morning when we had to sit through a diocesan video on “safety” in Anglican churches and “ministry units”. It was apparently mandatory for vicars to play it to congregations by today, and amid the no-doubt quite sensible practical stuff – trying to reduce risks of repeat abuse in congregations etc – there was endless repetition of lines about how they want everyone to be “safe” in church and church activities.

And, of course, I realise that the backdrop to this has been the all-too-numerous episodes of abuse – physical, emotional, sexual etc – in New Zealand institutions (including church ones) and families over many decades. (Over the last week, I’ve been reminded of an abuser I’d known (overseas) and whether the congregation I’d been a leader in had done all we could to handle risks we were becoming aware of.) Quite whether the remedies are appropriate, or likely to be effective, is an open question, and one I don’t have a particular view on, but there seems little doubt as to the good intentions of the hierarchy.

So it was the “we want church to be a safe place” rhetoric that got to me. I pretty sure I don’t (or in my better moments I don’t) and that we shouldn’t. The gospel is about up-ending people and systems (“he has put down the mighty from their seat” as Mary sings in the Magnificat), about confronting sin, and calling people to, at times, radically different pathways. We can go plenty of places for safety. But it isn’t primarily what the church should be about (which is, of course, not to deny pastoral ministry of, eg, comforting the sick, the bereaved, the bereft, or offering alms to those in need). But it simply isn’t the prime purpose. John – still our focus this third Sunday of Advent – came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Bridging the divide between mankind and God – created by our sin – is what Jesus too came for. He calls us to repentance – a reversal of direction – and we pray for time for amendment of life. It is a call to holiness, to radical transformation, in a world that mostly scoffs at the very notion. As James puts it “anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God”. Not safe at all….

A few years ago I wrote here a post about a book on preaching by the great American Methodist preacher Will Willimon. This is from that post

To the rich young ruler, Jesus says “sell all you have and follow me”. To the woman taken in adultery, Jesus says “go, and sin no more”. To the angel of the church of Laodicia we read in Revelation

None of it is, or should be, “safe”. This stuff counts, choices made really matter.

And then of course there is the passage in Acts that I can’t recall ever hearing a sermon on

Coming to church that Sunday (so to speak) was anything but safe for Ananias and Sapphira, and you see how the passage ends – it probably didn’t feel that safe for anyone else there that day. (One idly wonders what today’s press or police would make of such an act of God today.)

To repeat, I appreciate what the Anglican authorities (and their peers in so many institutions, faith and non) are probably trying to do.

But the goal simply shouldn’t be, in a wider – or normal – use of that word, church as a “safe space”. Anything but….

(Incidentally, serious and shameful as the sorts of abuses these videos were focused on are, I sometimes wonder if church authorities have anything like the same interest in “safety” when it comes to doctrinal faithfulness in teaching or living out (for example) orthodox sexual morality. When those responsible for the shepherds of the flock neglect these core foundational responsibilities – but ones often unpopular in the wider world – they assume a fearsome risk.

Today is the first Sunday of the church’s year, the first Sunday in the season of Advent. And this is the traditional Collect (or prayer) from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer for this Sunday.

Almighty God,
Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness,
and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life,
in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility;
that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee
and the Holy Spirit, now and ever

Advent is a season of waiting, and eager longing, as we look towards the promised second coming of our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus, and the consummation of all things. Traditionally the themes were of those last things: Heaven, Hell, death, and judgment, and thus a semi-penitential season. Of course, the season of Christmas – the celebration of the incarnation and Christ’s first coming – follows Advent, but for the church it is not yet the Christmas season (no matter what the retailers and radio stations might think).

It is about a fresh reminder of our need for a Saviour – of the sin that puts a barrier between us and God, able to be bridged only by God’s grace – and of preparation and readiness for the Christ who will return. And, for our own individual lives are short, for our own deaths, when the time for amendment of life will have passed once and for all.

The gospel reading this morning is along these lines.

Readiness and preparation are often themes in our daily life.  I’m on a board of a substantial entity where crisis preparedness –  for events of which we know neither the day nor the hour – is a core part of what we need to have in place; be it preparedness for a financial crisis, or the more general things like cybersecurity.  How much more, Jesus reminds us, in preparation for the final judgement we will all face.

And so with Thomas Cranmer let us pray fervently for the grace –  and the active enabling of the Holy Spirit to put off “the works of darkness”, our own sinful actions and inactions, now in this mortal life.  Today, for none of us knows when Christ will return.  None of us knows the hour of own death.

But I wonder how many priests and ministers will drive home that sort of imperative this Advent season?  And if those charged as shepherds of God’s flock don’t do so much at all, can we be surprised that all too often the church seems more like social club or community ministry than sinners before a gracious but just God, who has no truck with sin, and calls us to put on holiness.  Not that we will attain to the standard in this life, and perhaps in our growth in grace we may only become more painfully aware of the depth of our own sinfulness, but pushing on towards the prize, and the promised crown of glory.

One of the great Advent hymns is Charles Wesley’s “Lo, he comes with clouds descending”.   The final verse reads this way

Yea, amen! Let all adore Thee,
High on Thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory,
Claim the kingdom for Thine own;
O come quickly! O come quickly!
Hallelujah! Come, Lord, come!
Come, Lord, Come! 

Yes indeed. But, Lord, may I be grace be found ready.

There was an interesting column a few days ago in the pages of the New Zealand Herald written by Jonathan Ayling, former director of the New Zealand Free Speech Union. The hard copy version I have in front of me ran under the headline “We need a moral compass not mandated morality” while the online version had the heading “Two swords and the soul of liberal democracy”.

Two swords? The reference seems to have its origin in the Bible itself

But Ayling grounds his reference in a specific letter from Pope Gelasius written to the (Byzantine) Emperor Anastasius I in 494 (a full English translation is available here). A key snippet from the letter is this

Ayling summarises the line this way

and goes from there to champion a model in which the state should simply be neutral arbiter and law, it seems, should never preference the views or beliefs of any one religious (or irreligious?) strand of thought and practice. To be sure, he argues that “liberal democracy requires a moral depth deeper than cynicism”, and argues – as perhaps Tom Holland does – that much about our society today still reflects the legacy of the Christian centuries. I’m not sure what, if any, religion Ayling practices but it seems safe to presume his background was Christian.

He mounts his argument in opposition to recently expressed views of Brian Tamaki, the vocal leader of a fairly small Christian denomination

He was referencing a line from King that the church’s role is “the conscience of the state…the guide and critic of the state, and never its tool.”

I don’t think Ayling’s argument from the two authorities (Gelasius and King) really stacks up today. It might be easy to claim that Gelasius’s line evolved as Ayling suggests but a) at the time, relatively early days of Christendom, state and church clearly were different entities, b) through the subsequent centuries things went in the opposite direction for a long time (Popes both as direct territorial rulers and claiming specific authority over (Christian) kings). Perhaps as importantly, it isn’t clear to me that Gelasius was really saying anything very relevant to today’s situation in a country like New Zealand. Both the Pope and the Emperor were Christians, and the empire (eastern Roman empire) was by then explicitly Christian. Read on in the letter from Gelasius and he talks about his expectation that the emperor will use his powers to support the church and the orthodox Christian faith (the letter was written against the backdrop of serious doctrinal disputes and splits).

“Do you not reckon it to concern your conscience that the people subject to you should be driven back from the pure and sincere devotion of Divinity?”

“Surely then it is not true, Excellent Prince, who desires not only the present benefits of Christ but also the future ones, that you would suffer anyone under your aegis to bring loss to religion, to truth, to the sincerity of the Catholic Communion, and to the Faith?”

There are problems too with the Martin Luther King line – in fact somewhat the same problem translated forward 1500 years. 60 years ago when King was writing/speaking the prevailing establishment in western societies – the US in particular – was either Christian, formed in a Christian background, or felt a need to pay deference to Christian perspectives, if only from sheer weight of numbers in the wider community. The 1950s had, after all, seen a resurgence in churchgoing. It was a model for its time. That time included the last years before fairly large-scale immigration into western countries of people from countries with backgrounds in other religions altogether started to become a thing.

But it is not our time. Perhaps especially in New Zealand, often regarded as one of the most secular countries on earth.

Churchgoing has plummeted (as has census identification as any sort of Christian), overt unbelief claims many of the commanding heights, and (while they are still modest minorities) we’ve had significant immigration of people of Hindu and Muslim faiths. Any idea of the church as critic an conscience of the state is (sadly) laughably out of date – and clergy now get coverage mostly for a) scandals, and b) when they happen to attempt adopt political causes favoured by parts of the new elite.

It isn’t that there are no Christians in public life – Bill English was a practicing Catholic throughout his political career – but it has become something of an awkward oddity (a prominent political commentator’s label for a group of Christian MPs in the National Party was “the Taliban”). Christian sexual morality is abhorrent to much of the new elite, and not regarded much more favourably in large parts of the wider public: homosexual practice is normalised, so-called homosexual “marriage” is now part of the law, state-assisted suicide is lawful, pre-marital sexual licence is celebrated (commentators now lament there is not enough of it), divorce and abortion are rampant, pornography everywhere, modesty an embarrassing thing from generations past, and the trans mania (itself probably stemming from the normalisation of homosexuality) has been in full flight (albeit there is currently some pushback on that one). Resist the ideology and its rituals and you will, in many contexts, pay a price. Elements of Christian practice – a serious call to turn from sexual sin to continence, chastity, and sexual expression only in the context of a lifelong commitment to a marriage between one man and one woman – were outlawed not long ago.

And foundational as sexual morality is, it is far from the only dimension in which there has been far-reaching change, the substitution of a new worldview or secular religion. Unsurprisingly, as the balance of numbers has shifted, the traditional restrictions (law and practice) around Sundays have largely gone. Life is correspondingly harder for faithful Christians and those seeking to raise their children in the faith. Through the Covid period it was quite clear that our rulers had little sense of the centrality of faith and gathered worship and aid and comfort one Christian to another. Which wasn’t surprising given their own faith, or lack of it.

And while this is partly in the nature of lament, we Christians (those who haven’t bent the knee in conformity with the new prevalent mindset) can’t really complain. We simply no longer have the numbers. And numbers matter, for any polity will be ruled (inadequately no doubt) by the precepts and practices of some faith or other (and these days in countries like ours a ruler can’t simply decree that faith). I’d argue that for any sort of cohesion any society needs a shared faith – true or false.

Ayling’s model, at least as represented in his column, seems to be one in which the state is simply some of procedural ringmaster, perhaps undergirded by whatever legacy of Christianity hasn’t quite fallen away yet. The worldview is one where the state does not act as guardian or enforcer of a dominant faith or worldview, unless of course that “worldview” is simply procedural liberalism.

Perhaps in the near-term it is just the least-bad that orthodox Christians can hope for at present, as embattled minority in a society increasing of another “faith” or none, increasingly detached from those Christian moorings, if not outrightly repudiating them. But it can surely not be anyone’s preferred or first best model if they believe in truth (right and wrong) at all. Christians believe that there is absolute truth, the God has been revealed uniquely in Jesus Christ, and that the choice to reject Christ and his ways/laws has consequences, in this life and beyond. Muslims will have similarly exclusive beliefs. But exclusive truth claims aren’t restricted to theistic religions.

Anyone who believes in truth (not just a preference for, say, Indian takeaways over pizza or vice versa) should if they are at all consistent, want society organised their way, with the state acting to buttress and enforce. Reasonable people might differ on quite what should be prohibited and what simply shunned or frowned on but the direction would be clear. It is one set of rules etc or another. Why do we have, say, extremely liberal abortion laws for example? Because a majority see nothing wrong in babies being murdered by the state (and of course would often reject that framing).

So, unpopular as he might be, count me closer to Brian Tamaki on this than Jonathan Ayling. Not that there is any hope at present of bringing about any of the change Tamaki is reported as seeking, but I do not think it is a good or necessary thing that Muslims are worshipping in New Zealand. I’d argue that adultery and homosexual practice should be outlawed, as great evils, as should almost all abortion. Marriage is between one man and one woman, and should as far as possible be for life. I’d prefer leaders who didn’t schedule their major rallies and policy announcements on Sunday mornings. State assisted suicide should be illegal once again. I don’t support slavery, even between consenting adults. And I’d oppose Christmas and Easter no longer being public holidays, replaced perhaps by days in honour of some new faith’s cause. But, in the old line, politics is downstream of culture (a phrase in this case that really means religion – the guiding fundamental precepts and beliefs, expressed or not). The challenge now before the churches is, primarily, one of proclamation and evangelism, making disciples, being formed little by little into Christ’s ways (“teaching them to obey all I have commanded”). Only then is it plausible to expect laws to change favourably.

As a final observation, Ayling’s model is, in effect, an extremely individualistic one. It isn’t the way any society has been organised or succcessfully run, ever. And its effect, among other things, is to leave the weak by the wayside. Laws teach and discipline. For many – self-controlled and well-educated, today’s cognitive elite – perhaps the do-as-you-please mentality works somewhat okay (we see it today where faithful marriage has broken down but especially among the lower classes, least able to cope). Church and state need to be aligned – and they will be whether that “church” is of God or of some other faith or ideology. That doesn’t mean that they will never differ, perhaps even sharply, but the vision of a good society should be one of a shared faith, backed by effective and supportive laws,

In the Sunday newspaper this week, I noticed a story (paywalled but link here) in which it was reported that the Police had been asked to investigate the [opposition] Labour Party’s “church campaigning” amid concerns of ‘spiritual influence’. It caught my eye both as a political junkie and as a Christian – on the latter score, “spiritual influence” seemed like the sort of thing one should look to churches for.

The Labour Party has long had fairly deep ties to the Pacific community, especially in Auckland, and in particular the (often socially conservative) Pacific churches. In some respects it is a curious link – given how far out on the socially liberal side of things modern Labour is – but I guess it has its roots in the days when Labour was primarily a party of the working classes, often inspired by people with roots in non-conforming churches, reminding people of the days of their first Prime Minister Michael Savage (well before there was any significant Pacific population in New Zealand) who described Labour’s welfare reforms as “applied Christianity”.

Anyway, the story arose from reports that during the recent local body elections various “Labour councillors and local board candidates addressed congregations from the pulpit [during Sunday services], displayed “Vote Labour” banners”, and in one case addressed the congregation while holding voting papers. The matter has been referred to the Police by the principal electoral officer.

It all sounds rather problematic on a number of counts. Services of worship are precisely that, and not a place for party political campaigning. That is from the church side of things. It doesn’t sound particularly wise or appropriate.

But then there are the legal provisions.

There is the charities law requirement under which (as the newspaper story tells it) churches – as registered charities – “are restricted in the political activities they can engage in, and must not support political parties or candidates. That includes making a donation, endorsing a party or candidate, or allowing them to use a charity’s resources for campaigning purposes”. Easy to overlook some of those provisions I guess (I recall one local minister a few years ago with a Green Party billboard on the front fence of the church-owned manse). And there is a distinction: a charity can apparently support (or presumably oppose) a party’s policy that is important to their charitable purpose – in this case, the advancement of religion – but cannot, it seems, support (or oppose) a party itself.

I’ll come back to that, but first I want to deal with the other legal provision cited in the article, that bit about “spiritual influence”. This is the relevant section of the Electoral Act.

It appears to go a long way further back. This is from the 1956 Electoral Act, and you can see references to earlier New Zealand and UK legislation.

You can easily see where much of that section of the electoral law might have come from. I don’t have any particular problem with most of it.

But I’m quite uneasy about that “spiritual injury” bit of that section, which seems to interpose the state between the church and its congregants (or, in fact, those its seek to proclaim the gospel to). The gospel has never been unconcerned with earthly matters and these days elections are a material part of how such matters are influenced.

To be honest, I struggle to see that what Labour and/or the churches involved in this story are reported/alleged to have done crosses any sort of boundary in respect of section 218 of the Electoral Act. Perhaps those activities might have been designed to “induce” (ie “encourage/persuade”) people to vote for Labour but nothing in the story suggests either threats or actual infliction of consequences on any congregant not doing so.

But turn the story round. What if a pastor had vigorously suggested from the pulpit that voting for a particular party in a particular set of circumstances (to take an extreme example, the Nazi Party in the 1933 election) would be to put in jeopardy not only one’s eternal salvation (yes, judgement belongs to God, but preachers are called to proclaim God’s word and way) but one’s participation in, or offices held in, that congregation. That communion would not be offered to anyone known to have voted for that particular party. Excommunication, after all, has a long (and valid) history in the Christian church.

Such a proclamation would appear, on the face of it, to be a breach of section 218. Not only is there a threat of God’s final judgement – presumably (one would hope) absent repentance and amendment of life – but actual temporal consequences (regarding the person’s involvement in the congregation and community). One can easily see how such an approach might be open to abuse – clergy pursuing their own agendas on matters where there is little or any accepted core Christian belief (eg to tax capital gains, or not, to take’s just today’s news on a matter some feel strongly about, one way or other) – but the Christian church is not a “just anything goes” sort of body. Never has been. Ananias and Sapphira found that out early (if too late for them), on matters would not be thought of as party political.

The two pieces of legislation – charities and Electoral Act – both seem like overreach, but also as fundamentally misunderstanding (or, worse, objecting to) the conception of the claims of the gospel, which has implications for all of life. Political parties and processes are not the supreme good: God is.

In practical terms, the charities legislation (and associated guidance from the Charities Service) is probably more constraining. But it is also voluntary. No church needs to register itself under the state’s charities framework. Not doing so might come at some financial cost, including to members directly (tax-deductible offerings), but this is a faith in which we follow Jesus who urged his disciples to take up their cross and follow him. It is a choice, and one that perhaps more churches should reconsider from time to time, in an age in which the state is often hostile to the gospel and at very least prefers to keep the church in its (view of its) subsidiary place. Good for cups of tea, some sociability in this age of isolation, and, perhaps, things like City Mission welfare work, but……don’t rock the boat.

Should one usually think of a particular congregation or denomination as championing one particular political party? Probably not – doing so would usually not be either prudent or well-warranted in Scripture. But it is easier to see on the negative side: how a congregation, its pastor and elders, or a episcopally-led denomination, might conclude – and be willing to state openly – that to vote for a particular party (values in multiple domains alien to the gospel) might represent a severe transgression. And even if you struggle to think of such cases in New Zealand right now, we need to train and discipline ourselves to prepare for possible tougher times, preparation that includes training ourselves to know that we will not forebear from discerning and speaking God’s word because, for example, members might lose some tax advantages. Being conformed to the world, keeping quiet in the face of evil, is (sadly, history suggests) all too easy.

And if churches can opt out of the charities regime, they have no such choice in respect of the Electoral Act. The state (again) attempts to compel the church – under threat of severe (temporal penalties) – not to suggest to (let alone tell boldly) their people, or the population more generally, that choices (political choices) have consequences, sometimes terrible ones, and that the Christian (in particular) is not free to support just any one politician, party, or political programme without regard to the possible consequences for that person. We could take an extreme hypothetical: had Hitler held a referendum (or an election) in 1942 on exterminating European Jews, what responsibility would the German churches have had? To stay quiet because of some Electoral Act provisions, or to speak God’s truth, deplore the proposed evil, and pronounce the judgement of God and his church on those championing such policies?

Perhaps there are few (very few) quite such extreme examples. But there was apartheid South Africa, where free (but limited) elections were held. There is today’s Russia – where elections, not overly free or fair, are held. Nearer to home, there are parties that champion abortion, euthanasia and so on. Or perhaps a candidate lives an openly scandalous life, advocating and living values simply abhorent to the gospel. Parties that champion laws designed to restrict the ability of churches and Christians to proclaim a biblical orthodoxy on sexual matters. I wouldn’t want it held against a pastor or leadership group who made it clear from the pulpit that voting for, or championing, such parties or their policies would invite the exercise of church discipline, as a call to repentance and amendment of life. Or an individual candidate who was particularly egregious. Might that be uncomfortable at times? Why, yes….and that is the point. When churches aren’t willing to speak or act they seem to say these things don’t matter much, or that tough conversations are better avoided. It is important to avoid becoming (as was said of Anglicans many years ago) “The Tory Party at prayer”, or – as might be said of some congregations now – “the Green Party at prayer”, and yet it also true that at times some parties, some policies, will be much further from the kingdom of God than others. We need to be free to discern those times, prayerfully and Scripturally, and to be willing to speak or act.

In a ceremony/service at the Vatican on Sunday, the Pope – fulfilling the intention/decision of his predecessor – recogised/declared (I’m not sure of the Catholic terminology) seven new saints, among whom was Peter To Rot, the first Papua New Guinean Catholic saint.

My interest in Papua New Guinea dates back a long way, perhaps as far as the death (when I was five or six) of a missionary pilot from our congregation in Christchurch, who’d been flying for Missionary Aviation Fellowship in (as it was still then) the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Later, I lived and worked there for a couple of years, and more recently for the last couple of years I’ve been on the board of the (central) Bank of Papua New Guinea, which takes me back there every six weeks or so. For all its many troubles and failures as a country, the gospel, which came late, took hold strongly in PNG – with, in some or )(too) many cases, admixtures of older traditions and beliefs. Leaders make much of the Christian orientation of the nation – and in some respects it is very evident – and the current Prime Minister has articulated an aspiration for PNG to be the “richest black Christian nation”.

I’m not a Catholic so the formal bureaucratic process for making saints leaves me fairly cold – verified miracle requirements and all. In centuries past, as I understand things, those now recognised as saints emerged more by a process of discernment and even popular acclaim, as those who were examples for the faithful. As a non-Catholic, I’m also not given to (or believing in) the practice of seeking the intercession of the saints. And yet, and yet…..don’t we all benefit from examples in the faith to inspire and encourage, perhaps even to challenge? And there is of course, that passage of Hebrews about running with perseverance the race before us surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, and the writer of Hebrews himself lists many heroes of the faith (some puzzling to us now). Sure, we are – first and foremost – to fix our eyes on Jesus, but that list in Hebrews is there for a purpose.

In my faltering walk, I find inspiration in the lives of many who’ve gone before us – from many centuries ago, Mary of Egypt and Perpetua are two whose lives speak strongly to me, both found in the official lists of “saints”. But from more recent times, there are people like Jim Elliot, Henry Martyn, the martyrs of Uganda, or (on the path towards canonisation) Franz Jagerstatter. Closer to home, and a less dramatic story, Mother Mary Aubert – also on a path to canonisation – whose New Zealand work and witness culminated in the Home of Compassion that I can see as I type this. Often too we may be fortunate either to find inspiration in the life and faith of one close to us (a family member or congregant). People from our day, and our own cultures, matter. They remind us that the call to take up our cross and follow Christ wherever it may lead is as real in our day as in the first century. And that men and women of our own day – ordinary Christians – have been willing to do so. (One of my own fears is that, faced with great challenge and threat I’d fail at the last, compromising and going along – and so to read and meditate on those who the church collectively has recognised as examples is to help, little by little, strengthen my own preparedness for what – in the specifics of my life – may come.)

From all I’ve read of Peter To Rot he seems like an almost ideal candidate to join the list (official or unofficial) of those to inspire, encourage, and challenge – perhaps especially in East New Britain and Papua New Guinea itself, but also for the wider church. Costly service is not just for ancient figures from the martyrologies, not just for people from places far to the west, not just for cross-cultural missionaries, but for men and women – disciples – in PNG (& Melanesia) too.

Here’s a link to a biography of To Rot, from the (secular) Australian Dictionary of Biography. And here is a Catholic take, and a Papua New Guinean one. To Rot, on the face, did not seem to be an extraordinary person (saints often aren’t). Raised in a Christian family (themselves first generation converts), trained as a lay catechist, he settled down, married and became father to children. He was aged 30 when the Japanese occupied New Britain in 1942. As the Australian account tells it

The Japanese occupation of New Britain in January 1942 marked a turning-point in To Rot’s life. When the European missionaries were interned, he found himself responsible for the mission. He gathered the people for prayer, baptized and catechized adults and children, officiated at marriages, visited the sick, taught school children and catechists, and carried food to the interned missionaries and prisoners of war. Towards the end of 1943 Japanese tolerance of the Christian faith changed to confrontation. Peter was summoned to a meeting, questioned about his activities and ordered to restrict them on the grounds of ‘wartime security’. About March 1944 he was forbidden to engage in any form of religious observance. Although he exercised more prudence, he refused to cease doing what he regarded as his duty. He built an underground shelter on his property at Taogo and continued to bring people there for prayer and the Sacraments [bringing bread consecrated by internedd missionary priests]. The Japanese had already imprisoned and executed those who broke their regulations, and he was aware of the risks involved.

To Rot faced a moral dilemma when the Japanese legalized polygamy with the declared intention of winning the collaboration of the village chiefs and local population. Because he spoke strongly against the practice, he was declared ‘a malign and uncooperative’ antagonist, not only of the Japanese, but also of local collaborators. To Metapa—a native policeman serving the Japanese—who wanted to take a Catholic woman as his second wife, reported him for officiating at the marriage of two Catholic couples. To Rot was arrested in April or May 1945 and sentenced to two months detention. In June or July that year, as the time for his release approached, he was murdered by two officers of the Japanese military police, Yoshinori Machida and Gunto, assisted by an army doctor who administered a lethal injection. The people of Rakunai buried him in the mission cemetery. His wife, and their son and daughter survived him; a second son, born after To Rot’s execution, died in infancy.

Other accounts tell of him confronting his brother when he (the brother) sought to take a second wife, and of the brother herself reporting To Rot to the Japanese.

He could have chosen the easier path, but doing so would have been to abandon the Catholic faithful – leaving without a shepherd – and the Christian teaching as regards marriage. Instead, without seeking martyrdom, he – a lay minister, in a denomination in which priests count for so much – willingly ran risks for the gospel and Saviour to whom he had committed his life. Had he survived the war – not been murdered by that lethal injection – his courage would have been no less, although perhaps now his story would be less well known (and thus perhaps God works all things together for good for those who love him).

I cannot find now the link, but I read in one of the articles about To Rot that the Vatican authorities had, in To Rot’s case, waived the requirement to demonstrate two miracles through intercessions to him. The justification appeared to be that medical records etc are scant in PNG and so formal confirmation would have been a challenge. Whatever their justification, I cannot but see To Rot as an example for Papua New Guinean Christians, and for those of us further afield, whether or not any miracles attended his way.

It is easy to admire – and wonder about how we’d have responded – faithful witness in another time and place. But as I reflect on To Rot, it leaves me wondering about parallels to our own day or time. No one in modern New Zealand threatens execution – although in modern prosperous China faithful Christian pastors face the threat of lengthy terms of imprisonment, separation from family etc. And yet, what of the period of Covid restrictions when governments told churches they could not gather for worship, forbade priests or lay people to offer comfort to the dying or bereaved, encouraged churches to bar members who’d not been vaccinated, forbade family members from attending funerals. Were there rationales for such restrictions? To be sure, but these were authorities indifferent to the gospel and the higher loyalties Christians owed. Their tradeoffs weren’t necessarily those of the Kingdom. And yet how many – clergy or lay – stood for the higher loyalty, and how many just went along.

Perhaps more confrontingly – Covid restrictions having passed into history – is To Rot defence of Christian marriage – in word and discipline and practice. In our day, the state purports to authorise something they call “marriage” for couples of the same sex, and insists fairly strongly that we treat as “clean” and normal, what God has called unclean. And yet how many of us – clergy or lay – speak up or take a stand? I don’t. But To Rot did, knowing the price for doing so could be the loss of his life, leaving a wife and young children in a society without a state welfare system. Was it perhaps easier because the enemy – the Japanese – was so “other”? And yet To Rot spoke up when his own brother proposed to take a polygamous path.

So perhaps the canonisation of To Rot is apt for multiple reason – “official” recognition of the faithful (even unto death) witness within the PNG culture, but also as a lay person (as most of us are), and in an age where age-old conceptions of marriage and sexual purity – intrinsic to the church’s teaching – are so much threatened and compromised. I thank God for the life and example of Peter To Rot. May his example inspire and encourage PNG Christians, and for us Christians more generally inspire and perhaps discomfit. Christ’s call still comes – in Bonhoeffer’s words – to “come and die” – perhaps physically but mostly not, but to our desires, and preferences, and the comfort we perhaps enjoy in a society that has nonetheless turned its back on the gospel.