I frequently arrive late to church on a Sunday morning. This could be because I’ve become a bit sidetracked on the way (there’s plenty of potential for this, see, since it’s a thirty five minute walk – people you know, things you see, thoughts you have that really have to be written down so you have some proof of your profundity later on), but more often than not it’s actually a calculated lateness on my part, an attempt to skip Worship, or at least the bulk of it. I love a church that doesn’t frown on late arrivals.

 Worship’s boring. That is, Worship as it is in Church, with a capital W, which is singing songs (sometimes hymns) in rows all looking at a large screen (sometimes being watched by a small person looking the other way over a shoulder and not singing, lucky them). If you’re fortunate there’s only a maximum of three songs and they don’t get repeated. I become very much like a badly behaved four year old when Worship lasts more than half an hour. I fidget. I grimace. I become annoyed by the font the lyrics are in (fonts are a very big deal for me). I like singing, and I like the idea of a corporate experience of giving glory to God, but I don’t like Worship.

Once upon a time, if you wanted music in your life you had to produce it yourself. You sang to yourself while you went about your daily life, unless you were rich enough to have musicians at your beck and call. Now you listen, and you sing along, if you feel like it, and usually not from go to whoa, usually only in the good bits. Your average person never sings all the way through a song, I think. Worship in a church service is really a deeply strange experience. You have people up front playing instruments and singing songs, okay this is like a concert, so I’m like an audience member; but the audience members are all standing, okay this is like a good concert, the audience is showing its enthusiastic response to the music; and the audience members are all singing, okay so they’re like devotees, they know all the words; except the words are all projected on a large screen above the musicians and singers, so what’s the occasion? We’re Worshipping God. Yes, but how, if my focal points are either a large screen (with words written in a bad font, with odd line breaks and inconsistencies in layout between verses and spelling mistakes, and bad punctuation, and, and), or musicians and singers, and what I’m hearing is (mostly) augmented voices and instruments from the front and possibly the person standing behind me, and I can’t hear myself (but the person in front of me can, sorry about that), and I don’t even like this song, and I really don’t like the words in this line, and that last word’s only being used to resolve a difficult rhyme (because we really don’t do rhyming any more than we do singing now (apologies to rap artists)). I’m a Worship failure: it isn’t any better when the music is stuff that I love (and the stuff that I love is diverse), because then really all I’m doing is singing for my personal enjoyment. For me, music can be a barrier to worship: I’m too conscious of it and I have tried not to be, but I’m stuck. Give me poetry or art or landscape or music (no words) to listen to and I’m a bit more successful (thank you to my church as you sometimes does this).

I wonder sometimes, when I’m distracted, what a non-churchgoing person (let’s call him Handsome Sam) would be making of the Worship that I am at that very point experiencing. This embarrasses me (I embarrass easily), but I think that this (corporate singing) is exactly what Handsome Sam would expect to be happening in church, because that’s the way it’s always been. So, read Rosemary Dewerse’s interview with Donna Dinsmore, which we have titled “How then should we worship?”

This issue of Stimulus ranges widely. Included are articles that reflect upon matters artistic; others dip into baptism, while yet others reflect upon science, technology, God’s provision, human need, and the hope for justice.

Worship entails our heart response to God’s being and doing – these being bound, in Christ, to God’s self-emptying into, and for, creation. That response inextricably entails our faithful participation in creation and Christ – the response includes our missional participation in God’s activity in the world. Baptism is the formative shape of our personal participation in that mission, the divine undertaking in which our worship – both personal and overtly corporate – is rooted. So too our faith-reflection – upon, the arts, the sciences, technology, upon the needs of human community, etc – is an outworking of, and something sustained by, our conscious declaration of God’s worth-ship.

So indeed, Handsome Sam, how then should we worship?

Bridget Jennings
for the editorial committee

Douglas Maclachlan
Publisher

Today was the day that citizens of New Zealand had the opportunity to influence the make-up of the government. Hence, today, the discussion among the editorial committee over lunch focused around who voted for what, whom, and why, or why the person did not vote. So, how should citizens of the kingdom of heaven operate as citizens of New Zealand? How should they vote? There are, of course, as many opinions in the Church on this question as there are parties on the voting form!

The Christian church started in Palestine and Syria as largely marginal communities known for their inclusion of those whom others would not include. They saw themselves as citizens of another kingdom and their standards of behaviour excluded them from participation in many parts of wider society. Involvement in commerce without sacrificing at guild altars was difficult; participation in public office was almost impossible, and the almost universal pacifist position within the church effectively prevented followers of Jesus from being a soldier.

The Constantinian settlement in the 300s changed these attitudes as the problem of “required” idolatry ceased, thus no longer preventing wider involvement in civic society; the Church now had a stake in earthly affairs that blunted its heavenly focus. We have this position echoed in New Zealand. Our churches are largely middle class affairs with the interests of their members firmly planted in those of wider New Zealand. Conservative values such as law and order, preservation of property, and protection of traditional family structures are often held – not for any “religious” reasons, but purely because we want to hang on to what we have. When we vote, selfinterest reigns; there is little left over “…for the interests of others”, let alone for any kind of self-emptying that Paul has in mind as he describes Jesus in Philippians 2.

The key narratives that the early Christians understood themselves through were, of course, the Gospels and Acts and the irony of these stories was not lost on them. The divine message for the expansion of this community is presented to the leadership (Acts 1:8), but the actual growth occurs through nameless women and men led by the Spirit, while the leadership endlessly plays catch up. When Paul triumphantly reaches Rome, there is already a church there, much as there were already Maori Christians on the east coast of the North Island when the missionaries moved south in the 1830s and 40s.

However, as the Constantinian settlement slowly blunted the kingdom focus of the early Church, so in New Zealand the earthly interests of the settler Church in the 1860s largely undid the work of the nameless Maori Christians. Land was more important than kingdom. Citizenship in New Zealand trumped citizenship in heaven.

The lesson from both Acts and early New Zealand history is that nameless individuals “… who lose their life for my sake …” (Mt 10:39) can make a difference. If we are behaving in a kingdom-centric manner we should be living (whether voting or not voting) so that the kingdom spreads, and this will probably be at odds with our own earthly interests! We trust that this edition of Stimulus will help you lose life where you need to lose it and find life where you need to find it so that you can be numbered among the nameless heroes of the story of stories.

David Cashmore
for the editorial committee

Douglas Maclachlan
Publisher 

Pardon me if I don’t clap my hands and shout for joy. If this is the end of history, then it is a “pretty” bleak place. If this is the terminus of the world-spirit’s evolution, the conclusion must be that the demonic is ubiquitously incarnate. Francis Fukuyama wants us to settle for what he believes to be the completed, final, global, ideological victory of capitalism. But, if the world has arrived, then ever-increasing masses of poor people have found their destination to be an empty table.

Our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and travellers with herds; but Cain killed Abel. Among civilisation’s many blessings were Pharaoh, Solomon, and Caesar. In face of such resplendence at the apex, who could hope for more from the world than might trickle down from such successfulness? Against that obvious brilliance, Yahweh’s little toot on the jubilee trumpet – with its radical rejection of socio-political pyramids and trickle-down economics – sounds like something in a Hicksville hoedown, a socio-economic square dance condemned, by its sheer naivety, to be the joke of the wise, those who know how the world really is. Civilisation’s sophisticates know that the laws of the market are given with the law of gravity; the laws of the market are built into the world-fabric. The civilised are certain that growth and consumption must increase and that the “differentials” between “wages” and capital, “investments” and “returns”, costs and profit, are inseparable from the matrix of wealth. That all do not enjoy wealth, to the same degree as those who create wealth do, is just the way things are.

But those with a mind to live out of the biblical story – the story of the faithful, just, and wise creator of heaven and earth whose covenant with creation and human beings brings liberation – know that Yahweh, not the market, is creator and sustainer of wealth. Ultimately, the creator of all, not the consumer of much, defines wealth and value.

Jesus understood himself to be the end, the telos, the culmination of God’s story in humanity. Jesus understood himself to be the bringer of jubilee liberation and he taught his followers to pray to the Father “… remit us our debts as we have also remitted the debt of our debtors”. Those who seek to follow Jesus have no other option. Those who understand him to be the judge of the world must accept his judgement.

Within this issue of Stimulus, as the general election approaches, Mel Downer gleans, in jubilee, criteria for questioning those who vie for control of the land. In the same vein, Anthony Dancer calls us to consider the reign of God in the realm of human politics. Brian Harris provides an overarching view of spirituality as located, related, timed, and expressed in our context. John George and Hugh Morrison each contribute articles that differently highlight aspects of being the church here, but for the world; the followers of Jesus are a pilgrim people with a different vision of the world, from the world’s view of things. St Imulus writes of global mission and, at Lambeth Conference time, Richard Jennings ponders ecclesiastical power games – Are they really cricket?

Certainly, if cynical power plays, pragmatic, self-interested political games, and iniquitous inequity characterises the end of history, all is hopeless. But we have another vision wherein, in the end, the liberator leads out the world in joy, and all the trees of the field clap their hands for, at last, the creator reigns! Until then, we must live in that hope, demonstrate that faith, question the powers, and act to inaugurate that vision.

Gavin Drew

for the editorial committee

Douglas Maclachlan

Publisher

Our editorial gatherings can get a bit random towards the end of proceedings; such is the evolution of many “carefully-crafted” issues of this publication! So, as we write, David Cashmore practises his Fender chops, while Howlin’ Wolf, distinctively intones the Blues out of Cashmore’s other sound system.

“You wonder why any of those white boys bothered to imitate,” David muses. Our response: Because the likes of the Stones and the Yardbirds were British, and because, in North America, the Blues wasn’t for white boys. It is the same reason, the same need to respond, that has moved David to plug in his own guitar, adjusted his effects, and improvise along.

 A purpose of an editorial is to entice the reader to engage with the offerings, something like the uncovering of a need. An editorial is somewhat like the opening joke of a long lecture. (It is also an opportunity for the editors to put in their fifty cents. Fifty cents doesn’t buy much cheese these days, so it is better invested here.)

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Richard Dawkins.

Dawk … who?

Dick Dawkins.

I don’t get it.

 And neither, really, do we. In this issue Dennis Gordon examines Dawkins’ narrow, outmoded, positivistic take on science, God, and the universe. Mike Fouhy weighs in with an analysis contrasting the “Dawkinsians” and “Einsteinians”. He contends that only the logic of the latter’s approach really interfaces fruitfully with the way things are and, therefore, constrained to be – the empirical former approach is misled by the supposition of fundamental randomness.

 Gareth Jones reviews and comments upon discussion, within Reformed theological circles, concerning the ethics of embryonic stem cell research. Jones questions glib analyses that downplay, for what he see as misguided ethical considerations, the potential such research has for life-saving, life enhancing therapies.

 David Kettle enjoins us to sustain our interaction with Lesslie Newbign’s contribution to the development of theologically reflective mission within our post- Christendom contexts. Kettle encourages readers to review Newbigin’s writings without letting the voices of Newbigin’s critics ring so loudly in their ears that they can no longer hear what he has been saying.

 Stimulus, being “the New Zealand journal of Christian thought and practice”, welcomes Maurice Andrew’s efforts in using the formative work of John Inge to assist in recognising the function of located association within the concrete realisation of God’s forgiveness in this land. Chris Carey-Smith and Edmund Little each interpret biblical texts. Carey-Smith digs over the parable of the four soils in light of the hermeneutics of Bernard Lonergan, while Little serves up a fulsome appraisal of the significance of the wine Jesus made available to the wedding at Cana.

 This issue also reprints an article by John Bloom; the editorial team found it to be hilarious. Although written for the North American context, we think that it touches upon trends with which we, in Aotearoa New Zealand, are also all too familiar. Indeed, New Zealand is over-exposed to the influence of North America. “Organic” farmer and teacher, Adi Leeson, will agree, as will the others of the Ploughshares crew whom he recently accompanied (Stanley knives and sickle in hand) onto the Waihopai spy base!

The purpose of an editorial is to entice; therefore, note the subtextual threads we discern weaving through the contributions (science, biblical, theological, cultural, etc) of this issue – together they imply our overexposure to unfruitful foreign gods.

 The universal shape of the gospel is never an excuse for the kind of accommodation that ends in capitulation to the supposed givens of surrounding culture. It is the very incarnational particularity – in Jesus Christ – of God’s story in the world that generates, confirms, and ultimately consummates the all encompassing relatedness of the gospel. Such particularity requires that people everywhere grapple with what it is to be Christian in their place and work out the praxis of that story, with integrity and persuasive power, in their own contexts. This grappling demands that we both recognise what our location gives to us and the possibility of God’s transformation of what is given in the light God’s ultimate gift. The reason we “need to” is both an imperative and a compelling desire – it is the same need to respond viscerally, incarnationally, that moves David to plug in his guitar.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Revelation

Revelation who?

Revelation 3:20.

Gavin Drew and Bridget Jennings

for the editorial committee

It is 2008, and the world is well into a century which looks like being dominated by climate change, by China, and by the challenges of religious pluralism in a religious age. New Zealand is slowly turning its attention to all three. It is ill equipped to understand the third, because it has been ill-equipped to understand religion.

Overall, our small country has shallow intellectual soil – we rely heavily on a few voices canonised by the media to interpret the wider world for us. This is especially true for the wider world of ideas. Generally, we have been shaped by an unreflective pragmatism which has its strengths, but also makes us vulnerable; we can too easily accept the assumptions and confident assertions of others about the state of intellectual play in the rest of the world. Nowhere have we proved more vulnerable to this than in the field of religion.

In the last three decades of the 20th Century, Professor Lloyd Geering came to dominate what religious discourse there was among our chattering classes, and his was also the voice most often chosen by the media to pronounce authoritatively on religious matters to mainstream New Zealand. He did this clearly, articulately, concisely, and honestly. The state recognised his significant role by conferring upon him membership of this country’s “Top Twenty” – the Order of New Zealand. And many of Geering’s perceptions and judgements about religion have fused to become the lens through which the largest growing religious group (those who ticked the “no religion” box in the census box) have tended to view such things. At the height of his public exposure he often became the only academic authority to which it was convenient to appeal, especially by those who wished to believe or disbelieve as he did, but who chose not to do the hard yards of critical reading and thinking. The problem is: that lens was, and remains, defective.

Today, Lloyd Geering is less visible, and less known to a younger generation. Yet, there are many New Zealanders who continue to echo his perceptions and judgments, whether aware of their provenance or not. Such people often continue to have considerable influence in the media, in academia, and in government circles (including education). That influence is inevitably secularist, working from within Geering’s overarching modernist paradigm, rooted in the European Enlightenment. Yet, that paradigm is trebly inadequate.

First, the western intellectual world (at least) has become postmodern and suspicious of overarching narratives.

Second, religion of one tradition or another has become ever more important globally.

And third, the modernist paradigm is only “overarching” where Christian (and other) intellectual critiques of it are ignored, as indeed they have been largely ignored by Geering.

Where the modernist paradigm still rules – as it does in much of this country – it must be challenged. Geering, of course, is not an original thinker, as he himself emphasises. Rather, he is a brilliant populariser who has done a number of us a great service in making accessible the work of a not a few classic scholars in the field of religion. Any critique of Lloyd Geering’s work is thus a critique of many of the Enlightenment challenges to Christianity over the last several centuries upon which he has drawn. This latter critique can be done, and is being done, from within western academia. There, there is a growing conviction that the Enlightenment’s conceptions have failed the tests of intellectual analysis and societal experience, though there is no agreement about what should take their place. It can, however, be salutary (and “enlightening”!) when a non-European, fully conversant with the intellectual conversations within the western world comments, at some cultural distance, on what is going on.

When Raymond Pelly and I were putting together a set of essays critiquing the work of Lloyd Geering1 we asked Professor Kwan Kai Man of Hong Kong Baptist University to contribute a paper on Geering’s thesis that God is no more than a human construct and a projection of human desires. This Kwan did, but he came up with more than that. Kwan wrote a wide-ranging and penetrating critique of Geering’s central intellectual story. Sadly, we could not include Kwan’s work in its entirety in our book we had to be content with several sections of it. Yet, we thought it very important that Kwan’s whole paper should see the light of day. Hence, this issue of Stimulus.

One striking thing about Kwan’s work on Geering is how it reveals the extent to which Geering has failed to acknowledge, let alone engage with, the full range of academic discussion about religion in general (and Christianity in particular) which has been going on for decades, both outside New Zealand and within the growing academy of very well qualified and able New Zealand theologians, biblical scholars, sociologist of religion, etc, who have been, on the whole, much less inclined to court media attention. Kwan’s quotations, footnotes, and bibliography provide a different lens, a very different lens, on that wider world of scholarship. He is conversant with that world in a way which Geering is not, and sometimes expresses his bemusement that Geering has not referred to it or engaged with it.

In addition to this intimate knowledge of western philosophy of religion, Kwan as a Chinese Christian brings a salutary cultural distance into play. Unlike many of us in this country, he knows that the Church lives in many cultures and is thriving in some, and that today its centre of gravity is no longer in the West. He is in bondage neither to our false perceptions of a declining Church, nor to our failing, Enlightenment-soaked culture. There is a cool Chinese head at work here, and we New Zealanders would do well to listen when he speaks.

Kwan’s main targets are Geering’s neo-Feuerbachianism and theological constructivism, as well as Geering’s theological anti-realism of the sort popularised by Don Cupitt (whom Geering greatly admires). Kwan instead takes a “critical realist” approach. Kwan furnishes us with a comprehensive diversity of inputs which stretch from Alvin Plantinga, through Janet Soskice, to N.T. Wright. With respect to the sociology of religion, Kwan draws upon a range of recent and contemporary scholars, particularly Peter Berger and the later Harvey Cox.

This issue of Stimulus may well be of interest to those who have adopted the positions espoused by Geering but are still open to the possibility that these positions are not unchallengeable. However, although the issue presents a specific engagement with the thought of Lloyd Geering, the value of the issue is significantly wider than that – inasmuch as Geering’s views are representative of the modernism that is at odds with orthodox Christian faith, the issue will be a valuable resource to those who seek to think these matters through in their wider context. The issue should be of interest to those New Zealanders of good will who seek to understand better the continuing phenomenon of religious belief and practice, and are willing to probe beneath the sound-bites of the media. It will be of interest to those who are exploring rational grounds for the faith which they already hold or are being drawn towards. And it is necessary reading for those Christians who have themselves ignored the intellectual challenges of the Enlightenment, and thus opened the way for shallow belief and burgeoning unbelief. Such as they need to be made to think – Geering, and now Kwan, make their readers do just that. 

Peter Stuart

Christians in the twenty-first Century need to heed especially the call to a renewed inner relationship with the natural world, and to resist the cultural mandate to control. As one phenomenologist has said, “The idea of a universe that is selfsubsistent – standing entirely on its own, fully operational and intelligible, independent of anything outside itself – is both odd and modern.” If Christians retreat to an other-worldly preoccupation it does no good to ourselves or the world.

The core papers presented in this issue of Stimulus are from a one-day Colloquium on Creation Care at Bible College, Henderson, on May 22nd. This Colloquium was jointly sponsored by A Rocha, an emerging Christian environmental organisation now affiliated with A Rocha International, and TANSA (Theology and the Natural Sciences in Aotearoa), a centre for science and faith dialogue within the Tyndale/ Carey Graduate School, partly funded by Metanexus.net.

Check out the issue here.

The August 2007 issue is being mailed out. Maurice Andrew discusses forgiveness, identity, and Christian witness. Murray Rae continues the theme of forgiveness and considers whether it can be part of foreign policy for a nation. Mike Mawson considers that old chestnut – Christendom – in the works of two seminal writers, John Howard Yoder and Oliver O’Donovan. Edmund Little responds to previous discussions in Stimulus about re-engaging with the Bible. Mike Grimshaw re-reads Romans 1 to 2:16 “after postmodernity”. And we have lots of book reviews… including Chris Marshall on Michael Baigent’s The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-up in History (!) Read the editorial and see a couple of the articles here.

The May issue of Stimulus is out now. The focus of the issue is on the challenge of Islam. Douglas Pratt provides an historical introduction to Islam as it has challenged and is now challenging Christianity. Peter McKenzie provides an expert analysis of Sharia law. Duncan Roper provides an overview of modern Islamic thought regarding the West and society as enunciated by Sayyid Qutb. Chris Beard shares some personal reflections regarding contact and friendship with Muslims in New Zealand. Peter Stuart presents some perspectives on religious freedom in a pluralist world. Tom Smail presents perspectives on trinitarian atonement.

The February 2007 issue is now out. The issue continues several of Stimulus‘ ongoing themes. A number of the articles engage overtly with our increasingly postmodern contexts and sensibilities.

The Bible
A marked ignorance of, and concern to get to grips with, the Scriptures is identified – particularly with respect to the evangelical expression of the Church. Mark Brown presents solid evidence of Bible disengagement in New Zealand. A Bible Society survey showed only 21% of those church attendees surveyed read their Bible daily, 22% read the Bible weekly, while 57% read the Bible occasionally or hardly ever! The text of Chris Marshall’s Clyde Vautier Memorial Lecture considers the matter more broadly and sharpens the focus on the major factors in scholarship and culture that condition Bible disengagement among Christians in postmodernity. Chris’ article is followed by a discussion on the matter between John Crawshaw and Chris Marshall, facilitated for Stimulus by Gavin Drew. Peter Stuart writes about the ministry of preaching, seeing it as core to the life of the Church and part of the wider ministry of the Word. His article is aimed at those who actually open the Scriptures for the edification of others in the Church, seeking to help them better understand and perform their mission.

Faith and science
The science/faith dialogue is critically examined with special attention to strengths and weakness of postmodern approached to knowledge. Sean Devine suggests that Christianity and science are far more compatible bedfellows than Christianity and postmodernism. “…in contrast to postmodernism, science does not exclude an overarching explanation of human existence.” Nicola Hoggard Creegan’s regular column discusses Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. She concludes that it is a combination of the convincing and the outrageous. While Dawkins’ criticisms have validity, they are false in the larger scheme of things.

Global mission
We are reminded of the global context of the Church and her mission as Andrew Butcher reports on his experiences at the Younger Leaders’ Gathering in Port Dickson in 2006, organised by the Lausanne movement. Andrew reminds us that God has “the whole world in his hands” and shares his experiences of meeting, talking, and worshiping with those who follow Jesus in many different countries. Not a few of those with whom Andrew fellowshipped will suffer severe persecution and may die for their faith.

Again Geering
Lloyd Geering, is again topical. In this issue a report and two review articles cover Geering’s autobiography Wrestling with God and the collection of critical essays about him entitled A Religious Atheist? Together the three contributions scrutinise Geering’s thought, as a cultural and intellectual phenomenon, against the backdrop of increasing dissatisfaction with the modernism that shaped him and characterised his life’s work.

Stimulus is currently planning the next issues. February 2007 will include the annual Clyde Vautier lecture. This year it was Chris Marshall talking about re-engaging with the bible in a postmodern world. We also have Peter Stuart sharing some of the theological foundations for the ministry of preaching.

 We are currently proposing that the May 2007 issue be focused on the issues of Islam and Christianity. Further out, we are currently looking to have August 2007 looking at issues of ecology and the gospel. More to come…

Stimulus 14-4 is now available.   In this issue we look behind Dan Brown’s story and its pseudoscholarship at some of the considerations in scholarship implied by The Da Vinci Code. All but one of the “Christianity and the feminine: The Da Vinci Code phenomenon” articles were given as papers at a colloquium of the same name, organised by the Wellington Theological Consortium, on Saturday 8 July 2006, at the Mercy Centre, Wellington.  

Stimulus 14-3 is now available. It presents papers given at the Forum of the Christian Left (FOCaL) Conference 2006. The conference, entitled “Church and Society after Election 2005”, featured papers from a number of New Zealand commentators including: Dr James Harding, FOCaL trustee and Old Testament lecturer at Otago University; Prof. Peter Lineham, Associate Professor of History at Massey University, Albany Campus; and Dr Anthony Dancer, Social Service Commissioner, Anglican Church New Zealand. Enjoy.

 Stimulus is pleased to give forward notice of its intention to publish the papers given at the FOCaL Conference 2006 (June 30 to Saturday July 1st at Wellington Central Baptist Church) in the August 2006 issue. The conference, entitled “Church and Society after Election 2005”, will feature papers from a number of New Zealand commentators including:
•   Dr James Harding, FOCaL trustee and Old Testament lecturer at Otago University. 
•   Prof. Peter Lineham, Associate Professor of History at Massey University, Albany Campus. 
•   Dr Anthony Dancer, Social Service Commissioner, Anglican Church New Zealand.

In addition, Stimulus is commissioning further comment, for inclusion in the Focus on FOCaL issue, from a range of people whose thought together will assist the issue to evidence a range of social and political perspective within the New Zealand Christian community. These framing articles, interviews, etc, will look at the fundamental question: To what degree, if any, is a left-leaning stance demanded by the biblical story? Further, some attention will be given to the question: Do the old “left” and “right” labels continue to be useful in our contemporary situations?

Stimulus invites short submissions of 300 to 500 words for editorial consideration, which address the issues noted above. Longer, article-length contributions will also be considered. The deadline for the issue is June 30. Writers should consult the Stimulus Guidelines for authors.

Part of Stimulus’ mission is to facilitate dialogue on matters such as the impact of the gospel on socio-political situation in New Zealand. Hence, we are delighted that FOCaL approached Stimulus for support in disseminating the conference papers and facilitating further discussion. Stimulus is well-placed for undertaking this service because Stimulus itself remains firmly non-partisan. In seeking to provide a forum for publication and discussion over the years has been confirmed that the shibboleths of shapely drawn partisan commitments may be informative but they are also potentially obstructive and exclusivist. Stimulus remains committed to facilitating inclusive dialogue across all perspectives.

For more information about the conference and details on how to register, see www.focal.org.nz/conference.htm.

 Just before the election in 2005 a new group entered the Christian scene: namely, “FOCaL” – Forum of the Christian Left. It grew out of four of us meeting for a quiet beer in Saint Lee’s, an old Methodist church in Dunedin which had been converted into a cafe.

The 2005 election saw unprecedented levels of Christian involvement and public discourse recorded in the media. On the one hand that was a good thing; Christians getting involved in society and making a stand for their beliefs and calling the nation to recognise that actions do have consequences. But, it also made the four of us slightly uncomfortable. The Christian voice that was heard seemed to all be from the right – be it the Closed Brethren, Destiny, Maxim, Christian Heritage, or individual pastors making passionate statements about New Zealand’s moral decline (United Future is more centrist but came across as less overtly “Christian” last election). For outsiders to the faith, being politically right-wing seemed to be the default and expected position of Christians.

Likewise, for the four of us as church-attending Christians, being right-wing seemed to be the position that was expected of us by most of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We heard numerous stories of vicars, ministers, and pastors preaching in their sermons that Labour and the Greens were evil, and that Christians should not vote for them; the leader of the Baptist movement publicly declared that Baptists should try to vote out Labour; a principal of a respected Bible college sent out a letter that didn’t name parties, but which was quite clearly cautioning against voting Labour; and a church with which I was associated printed a graph in their monthly magazine charting how each party had voted in relation to “traditional Christian morality.”

 For me personally that graph was highly offensive and very disturbing. In keeping with the dominant rhetoric coming out of Christian circles at the time, United, National, and Act were ranked most godly in their voting patterns, while Labour and the Greens were shown to consistently oppose Christian ethics.Why FOCaL?

Why did I in particular get so excited that night in the café, when someone mooted the idea of starting FOCal? There are several reasons which I will outline below.

As an evangelical Christian holding some socialist values I had always known that some of my Christian friends voted left while others voted right, and this had not been a source of tension. In the lead-up to the 2005 election, however, with the constant media portrayal of the “Christian position” as well as the statements (such as that graph) coming out of individual churches and national church leaders, I began to feel very much a minority. I also began to feel judged by my evangelical peers for supporting the “forces of darkness” by desiring to vote left.

I was feeling disturbed by the ethical reductionism I saw in the anti-left rhetoric coming out of the evangelical churches. Basically it seemed to be about sex, prostitution law reform, and civil unions coming across as the main issues. Naturally there were other issues as well, but they also centred on the realm of personal morality.

I can fully understand why such issues would disturb Christians and how that would put them off voting for the left, but there were so many other issues at stake as well. Reading the Bible I see that sex is not the only topic addressed; in fact it isn’t even one of the main issues in scripture. Biblical morality covers all of life and there were many issues of Christian morality at stake in this election. Some examples were stewardship of God’s good creation; taking a stand against racism; love of neighbour; caring for the poor, the widow, the orphan and the refugee in the land; historic justice and the Treaty.

Again, I can fully understand how Christians could weigh up all the above issues and come to the decision that a vote for the right was the lesser of two evils, but there seemed to be very little discussion about issues broader than sex. There seemed to be a lot of rhetoric and reaction, but little reason and reflection. Naturally, if only one perspective is dominant, many Christians will uncritically conform to it, believing it to be “the” Christian position. With an absence of other voices, many Christians I encountered last year seemed to do just that.

 Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past! The colonial church in NZ (with notable exceptions) did little to challenge the injustices being done during the European settlement of our land, instead focusing on issues of personal morality. Last election the church in NZ (again with notable exceptions) largely failed to address the consequences of those earlier injustices, instead focusing on issues of personal morality. In 2005 many New Zealanders (especially Maori) came to feel that some right-wing parties were explicitly using racism as a tool to win votes among conservative Pakeha. The churches’ uncritical support of those very parties and silence on that issue as presented in the media, suggested that as a whole Christians did not disapprove of that behaviour. FOCaL aimsFOCaL was not started with the idea that a left-wing interpretation of our faith is the only valid interpretation, or with a desire to convert everyone to our perspective. Rather:

1.    FOCaL was envisioned to be a gathering point for Christians with left-wing views. A place for them to be affirmed and supported, and a safe place to discuss issues and seek to apply our faith to society today. To begin that we started a website – www.focal.org.nz.

2.    FOCaL was also intended to be a group that encouraged discussion among Christians in NZ, not one that shut discussion down. We perceived that there was too much sloganeering and reaction, and too little reflection and constructive dialogue in the church during the 2005 election, and we desired for that not to happen again. We hoped that over time FOCaL might become a “focal-point” for Christians with expertise in areas such as economics, race-relations, the environment,  etc. When the media desired a perspective that differed from the more vocal right-wing stance, they could come to us and we could give them names of experts whom they could approach.

With that in mind – the desire to create dialogue and not shut it down – there was significant discussion early on about the use of the word “left” in the name. Some felt uncomfortable that this might be too exclusive. In the end however, we decided that if it is to be a safe place to discuss issues, it is better to have people involved who hold the dominant rhetoric lightly. Also, there are right-wing Christian groups in NZ who do not openly identify their political bias. Thus, when they speak it has the force of saying “This is Christian truth! To disagree with us is to disagree with Christian orthodoxy.” We did not wish to convey that, so by using the word “left” we hope that we are saying “This is a left-wing perspective on Christian truth. You’re free to disagree with us but let’s discuss why.”

 Similarly, we are consciously using the word “Christian” in our name. We are Christians and most of us have come to hold left-wing political views as a result of thinking about our faith and seeking to be followers of Christ in our modern world. Although we do not hold THE definitive Christian position, we are members of the body of Christ and we wish to be held accountable to that fact. If people don’t agree with us that’s fine, but why? Let’s have a discussion about it! We want to inspire Christians in NZ to read their Bibles and do theology. Not explicitly defining ourselves as Christian would make it very hard to hold what we say accountable to the Word of God and the history of Christian thought.First FOCaL conference – June 30th to July 1st Wellington Central Baptist Church

Out of a desire to further these aims, as well as wanting to foster better church-politician relationships, we have organised our first conference – “Church and Society post-election 05” – to be held Friday June 30th and Saturday July 1st in Wellington Central Baptist Church. We feel that the time is right to pause and reflect on last year.

In order for it to be less partisan and reflect a wider sector of the church in NZ, we have invited the Victoria University Religious Studies Department to co-sponsor this event. We have also invited a broad cross-section of political parties to be involved; so far Labour, National, the Greens, United Future, and the Progressives have agreed to send representatives. There should be a good number of politicians present.

 This conference will involve the presenting of papers by respected and well-known Christian thinkers, followed by responses from politicians, academics and social workers. There will also be workshops and times for open discussion. Feel free to come along, listen and discuss!For more details check out http://www.focal.org.nz/conference.htm.  

Rev Nathan Parry is the coordinator of the FOCaL conference occurring in June. He is the minister at Island Bay Presbyterian Church in Wellington.

Welcome to the discussion forum for Stimulus, the New Zealand journal of Christian thought and practice.

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