Category: Slipping the Moorings: Bishop Richard Reflects (page 1 of 2)

In June 2007, I retired as Dean and Assistant Bishop of Auckland. Archbishop David Moxon[1] celebrated a farewell eucharist in the presence of the cathedral congregation, parish representatives, the public, Maori and Pacific Island tikanga, family and friends. Prime Minister Helen Clark was one of the speakers. I listened to all the affirming comments with, I have to say, some mixed feelings. I would have liked to stay longer as dean, but at age 67 it was time to go, not just from the cathedral but from Auckland, the city where I had been born and bred.

Our three children, Rebecca, Joanna and Jeremy, had grown up and stayed in Wellington. With grandchildren now appearing it was obvious we had to join them there and it has been a joy sharing in their upbringing. We bought a 100-year-old house in Hataitai overlooking Evans Bay, Cook Strait and the airport. It needed much renovation and renewal, and our first six months were spent doing the final touches with new bookcases, curtains and the like. We feel very much at home in a snug suburban bungalow.

One of Jackie’s friends advised her that the job of a husband in retirement was ‘to do useful things under instruction’, and I hope I am proving a worthy helper. There has been too much happening to miss work and, as I have said to many, you are no less busy – they just take you off the payroll. But it’s not being busy with church services or committee meetings. I sometimes wake up in the morning thinking: ‘Thank God I don’t have to go to the archdeaconry meeting today, or the diocesan council.’

Rather it is being busy in the way one chooses, making time for family, grandchildren and friends, enjoying the rather illicit feeling of going to a mid-week movie, taking a short break somewhere, or sitting in a pew and being glad someone else is doing the driving. Eight years have run by already in this mode, but there have been plenty of ongoing church and community activities. The difference is that I get to choose the activities.

What do I enjoy? I enjoy preaching and speaking to different groups and still get a few invitations! It was stimulating serving three years each on two government committees – the ACART health ethics committee[2] and PACDAC[3], a peace and disarmament committee. Continuing on the Marsden Cross Trust Board became increasingly fulfilling as plans for the 2014 bicentennial project and commemoration came to fruition. And I enjoyed a half-time locum for 15 months back in my old parish of St Peter’s.

Unexpectedly I was invited in 2007 to a meeting in Singapore of the World Justice Forum (WJF). An initiative of the American Bar Association, the WJF seeks to extend the Rule of Law into communities where people lack citizenship rights, land rights, access to basic health and education facilities, or suffer such realities as gender discrimination, modern day slavery or human trafficking.

The Singapore forum led on to global forums in Vienna, Barcelona and The Hague. A significant WJF project[4] has been the development of a Rule of Law Index whereby respondents (some experts, others chosen randomly) rate their own country for factors such as an independent judiciary, absence of corruption, democratic law-making, freedom of thought and religion, access to the courts, or accountable police and military forces. New Zealand scored close to the top in overall global ratings but, like many Western nations, was marked down on access to the courts for migrants, the poor and non-English speakers, as well as on its excessively high rate of incarceration.[5]

Looking back over my years in ministry, how do I see the 21^st century Church? I have spent 24 of my 42 years as priest and bishop in parish ministry. The parish church is a centre for worship and preaching, study of Scripture and the Christian faith, pastoral care for the sick and needy, hospitality and friendship, a place where births, marriages and dying are suitably highlighted, and service to the community is offered. Parish ministry lies at the heart of the Church’s mission and my years in six different parishes have been satisfying and challenging.

But too often parish ministry becomes an end in itself. I have several times used the phrase ‘public square’ – the Church in the public square. No one studying for ordination today would pass a paper on mission without giving a thorough outline of the Church’s central role as salt, light and leaven in society. In a paper in 1992[6], Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said:

I want to challenge a theology and a history which automatically assumes that the centre of Christianity is the Church rather than the world… I am calling for a suspension of all normal church activities to enable a start from a wholly new perspective: not to seek survival as an institution but to aim to be the Church of Jesus Christ in His world.

Sadly, passing a theology exam on mission seldom translates into robust engagement with the world. I well recall a long discussion on partnership between Maori and Pakeha at the 2002 General Synod in Dunedin. I was getting bored and frustrated as we were exhorted to listen carefully to the other partner, try to hear the nuances, note what was not being said, and to feel our way into another tikanga’s culture. It increasingly felt like an exercise in inter-tikanga navel-gazing. At length I got up and suggested the best way to build partnership was to work together on the issues of poverty and justice that surrounded us on every side. No comment was made until the tea break when a doyenne of the synod came up to me and said: ‘Richard, as soon as you mentioned the outside world you lost everybody.’

The Church makes forays into the outside world, sometimes brilliantly and persistently. Mark Beale, vicar of Clendon, a low decile South Auckland suburb, has done so over 20 years, establishing excellent programmes in housing, poverty, employment, youth activities and prison visiting. Community life has been strengthened and a thriving congregation has developed alongside. Government officials seek Mark out for advice on social and economic policy.

In New Plymouth Archbishop Philip Richardson convenes a group of leaders from different sectors – local body, business, unions, police, education, health, agriculture – who meet regularly around community issues in which all have a stake yet too often see them only from their own pigeon-hole. More widely in Taranaki he has helped declining small town and rural congregations to reach across parish and church boundaries to form partnerships with community groups, police and local schools to provide recreational activities for young people.

Overall, however, running a local congregation is the all-prevailing church activity, bolstered by proliferating committees and networks which meet at regional, diocesan, national and global levels to debate doctrine, liturgy, ministry training, church relationships and other ecclesiastical topics. Maybe the Church is no worse than other organisations, but such activities soak up huge amounts of time and money. The opportunity cost is enormous, not to mention the impact of all that travel on climate change. Those planning yet another conference would do well to recall the World War 2 poster in Great Britain: ‘Is your journey really necessary?’

The Church is well aware of this but seems powerless to change. In 2009 I sought the views of 100 Anglicans, ordained and lay, older and younger, on how they saw the current practice of mission. The results were striking[7]. One question asked if the Church had the right balance between church business and mission. Five per cent thought so, 44 per cent wanted more focus on mission, while 45 per cent called for a radical review. Another question asked if greater emphasis should be placed on linking parish ministries with social services. 21 per cent said ‘possibly’, while 77 per cent said ‘definitely’. Should there be more teamwork between parishes in outreach, such as in Taranaki? Forty per cent said it was worth exploring while 46 per cent believed it essential.

Since my eight years as an industrial chaplain, I have always regarded chaplains as a key part of the Church’s mission. Chaplains (along with laity) take the Church into prisons, hospitals, armed services, schools, universities, industry and business, into networks of society way beyond the reach of the local church. There are some great examples of chaplaincy. Warner Wilder has been an inspiration for 25 years as chaplain at King’s College in South Auckland. He not only attracts large numbers of students to voluntary sessions on faith and life, but also leads the school in working with refugees and the marginalised in neighbouring communities. There are many other chaplains who play key roles in large constituencies, and find great satisfaction in doing so.

Yet chaplaincy is generally not a good ‘career option’ in the Church. The main game is the parish and diocese and there is a perception that one might be forgotten if one spends too much time out in the world, regarded de facto as an ecclesiastical wilderness. This was reinforced by my survey. Asked if a chaplaincy was valued equally with parish ministry, 26 per cent said ‘Yes’, but 69 per cent said it was valued less. To a follow-up question, 89 per cent responded that much greater emphasis on chaplaincy was needed.

With regard to the Church’s laity there is a total inversion of mission theology. If the Church’s key task is to engage the community and its institutions on issues of faith, values, justice, compassion and service, then the laity should be the spearheads supported by the clergy, but exactly the opposite is usually the case. The regular courses available for lay training are exclusively focused on teaching lay people how to help run the local church, lead worship services, or care pastorally for the aged or sick. Here is the ecclesiastical inversion:  the laity are trained to help the clergy run the church, instead of the clergy working with the laity to change the world. I recall ruefully how many of my own Sunday conversations with parishioners were about church matters such as fixing the roof, parish finances or getting volunteers for the church fair.

There were two questions on this in my 2009 survey.  Asked how much emphasis the Church placed on the role of its members at work or in the community, 38 per cent said ‘some’, while 48 per cent said ‘little or none’.  When asked what training they had for such a role over the years, 46 per cent said ‘some’ while 37 per cent said ‘none’. A 1971 survey by the Lutheran Church in America on this topic said:

Lay people continue to see themselves in their expected role of servants of the institutional church. No one proposed that the church should see its major task to encourage and enable its lay people to function as crucial change agents in the various institutions in which they live and work…They worship God in their churches, and serve the churches as best they can both in their institutions and service projects… But they do not find, nor seem to expect, much inspiration or guidance from the church at the most crucial level of their lives – where they carry out their daily work and influence. So, as their despair about the world deepens, the church becomes increasingly irrelevant to what really matters to them.

The late William Diehl, who reports this survey in his 1976 book Christianity and Real Life, was sales manager for Bethlehem Steel in Philadelphia. He was a passionate advocate for lay ministry in the workplace and I had the privilege of staying in his home in the 1990s. He took me one morning to the monthly breakfast meeting of members of his church. Supplied with coffee and pancakes at a local café, the group acted as a sounding board (in total confidence) on ethical dilemmas tabled by group members. The issue that day concerned a manager up for senior appointment but wrestling with a life-threatening cancer known only to one or two. Was it right to invest company resources in making what might in fact only be a short-term move, or should he be sympathetically side-lined? Group members shared their reflections, and the church pastor offered biblical insights. The group’s view was that the promotion should go ahead, noting that the man was perfectly competent to do the job and that any number of life circumstances could shorten someone’s job tenure.

Over the years I have run a variety of training programmes for laity on workplace issues. A biblical theology is laid out, work dilemmas shared and a sense of workplace and community vocation renewed. Many who came said this was the first time any cleric had taken an interest in what they did outside of their church life. They came away feeling their work had been affirmed, and with a stronger sense of vocation as agents for compassion, ethical challenge and structural change. I believe many have left the Church because it fails to address the complex and challenging issues they face in daily life such as in economics, commerce, industry, education, health, government, science or law.

In 1973 an American, Wes Seeliger, wrote an article called Frontier Theology.[8] It contrasted settler theology with pioneer theology, and a settler church with a pioneer church. In settler theology the church is the court-house at the centre of town life, a stone structure, rather dark inside, easy to defend, where the settlers find law, order, stability and security. God is the mayor of the town, sin is breaking the rules and Jesus the sheriff sent by the mayor to enforce the rules.

In pioneer theology the church is a covered wagon, always on the move, creaking and scarred with arrows, bandaged with baling wire, always where the action is, and moving on into the future without glorifying its own ruts. God is the trail boss, and Jesus the pioneer, suffering hardships and showing what true pioneers look like. Sin is failing to take up the opportunities for serving others or righting wrong.

Today’s church needs to ask what kind of theology it lives, settler or pioneer? Being out on the trail is not an optional mission activity but the main game. Can we change? The final question in my survey asked how urgent was the need for change. Sixteen per cent said ‘urgent’, while 84 per cent said ‘extremely urgent’.

There are many lively and energetic congregations around, and it is great to see the historic parish of St Peter’s in Wellington rejuvenating with its new vicar, Brian Dawson. Jazz services, renewed links with the Downtown Community Ministry, free food distribution and leadership in the Living Wage campaign are just some of the new points of contact with the wider community.

But the Church at large has too many old buildings and not enough innovative personnel. In some places demographic change is leading to the sale of churches, halls and clergy houses, and the amalgamation of parishes. But these are reactive responses to decline rather than a proactive move towards more effective mission. Too often clergy work alone with small and ageing congregations, a reality which can be very depressing. Teamwork across parishes and with the community, such as in Taranaki, can revitalise the local church and build strong community links.

In 2014 I attended the launch in Wellington of the Centre for Christian Studies, an initiative to assist students and professionals to think more deeply about life and work in the light of the Gospel. In the capital city where national policies are hammered out, and major ethical issues confront public, corporate and professional leaders, what could be a more focused and appropriate enterprise for the Church? A university lecturer commented that for many students today religion is a totally blank page. There is a task to fill that void and connect faith with life.

Dr John Dennison, a young, visionary and imaginative leader, has been appointed as the first director of the centre, but tragically there are only funds to employ him for one day a week. The amalgamation of two parishes could free up enough capital to fund the centre on a full-time basis. The centre is ecumenical, so a joint churches approach would make funding even  easier. But the prevailing parish-focused paradigm and unimaginative institutional thinking makes such a move unlikely. Many other enterprising projects might be funded if the churches were bold enough to rearrange their assets.

In my 2009 survey I asked respondents to outline creative programmes of community engagement they or their congregations were involved in. I expected about 25 examples but was astonished to receive 125,[9] each an example of the stunning variety of things churches are doing locally today. Theology in the pub, housing for the homeless, coffee shop conversations, coffee clubs for young mums with kids, Mainly Music, programmes on marriage and relationships, men’s sheds, grief counselling (eg Seasons), foodbanks, support and housing for people leaving prison, budgeting advice, community building, environmental advocacy, opportunity shops, learning English, refugee support, weekend events for teenagers, early childhood centres, aged care and many more. Here are churches establishing bridgeheads with people they would never see on a Sunday. Sometimes the contact leads to people wanting to explore spirituality and faith, as Mark Beale has found in Clendon, but church membership is a by-product of programmes that have their own integrity and purpose. Caring for people is worthwhile in its own right.

Engagement 21[10] sold well and found a home in many congregations on both sides of the Tasman. But I was disappointed it was not taken up by theological colleges where clergy prepare for ministry. Ordinands need to be challenged with new ideas on church outreach and equipped with the tools necessary for change. Was Engagement 21 too close to the coal-face, and might have moved the Church outside its comfort zone?

Engagement 21 addressed the critical issue of climate change. Coastal properties in New Zealand are facing increased erosion from storms and rising sea levels. Our neighbours in low-lying South Pacific islands are finding water supplies contaminated and homes at risk of being over-run by tidal surges as the water creeps higher. In more distant nations like Bangladesh, millions will be affected, losing homes and food supplies.

The Genesis 1 story of creation is a clear call to care for the planet that provides life for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. Do we care enough for our descendants to break out of the self-centred, income-protecting policies of business, individuals and government? These policies placed New Zealand 25^th out of 26 nations in a 2014 World Bank review of emission trading schemes. On such shortsighted self-serving policies, Professor Gus Speth[11] has said:

I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy…and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation and we scientists don’t know how to do that.

And former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has written[12]:

Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single, practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience.

There is an unexpected church conflict on climate change. On the one hand the Church benefits financially from investments in companies involved in carbon-producing activities that contribute to climate change. Meanwhile church aid agencies struggle to raise money for communities devastated by floods and storms arising from climate change.  The benefit of the investment income is undermined by the extra funds required for overseas aid. Rod Oram, Richard Milne and Auckland’s Diocesan Climate Change Action Group are lobbying decision-makers to divest church funds from carbon-producing companies. Divestment campaigns take a while to make an impact but, as was found with the tobacco industry, they generate a groundswell for enlightened change.

All of us can take action on important issues in our own life and work.  Our daughter Rebecca has become an advocate on climate change issues through her work as a GP. With a colleague she created a Greening Your Practice[13] toolkit for health practices on issues of sustainability. To date 250 practices throughout NZ are using this resource to take action on energy efficiency, reduced wastage (including unused pharmaceuticals) and better insulated and heated homes for patients. And noting that many health professionals have a high-carbon footprint in both their work and personal lives, they have established a health-sector Carbon-Offset Forest and website to provide colleagues with better understanding of carbon reduction and an avenue for offsetting unavoidable carbon emissions.[14]

What disappoints me about today’s church is its absence from the public square. I smile wryly whenever I read the words from the Hebrew scriptures 3000 years ago: ‘The Word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.’[15] Could this be said of the Church today? Where are the prophets, the visionaries, those with the big picture of the Church transforming society?  There was a time when the media regularly covered church matters. Sometimes summaries of Sunday sermons were published, and in the 1960s a Herald reporter was assigned for five days to cover the annual Auckland diocesan synod. But such assignments were relics of the days of larger congregations and when the Church had a widely recognised role. Today the Church will be reported only if it has something of significance to say, and the courage to say it.

The public silence from church leaders on same-sex relationships for over a decade is very sad. Many bishops at Lambeth 1998 would have voted against the clause declaring homosexual relationships to be incompatible with scripture, believing that texts written 2000 years ago and more did not address the 21^st century context. But I am not aware of bishops subsequently setting this out publicly (with apologies to any who did).

Some bishops have been brave in ordaining as priests some openly gay and lesbian candidates but most, in line with the Anglican Church globally, have kept their heads down, calling for listening, prayer, dialogue, respect, biblical study, and patient waiting for a word from the Lord. Such a word seems a long time coming. Thankfully, others in the Church have taken the lead. I was heartened when Clare Barrie[16] sponsored a petition to the 2014 General Synod calling for progress on same-sex blessings and ordinations. The petition attracted 771 signatures and was read formally to the synod at Waitangi. In the same week, the first of her new appointment[17], Helen Jacobi made a forthright statement on the need for progress and sparked wide media coverage.  Is it a case of where clergy and people lead, the bishops will follow when the path is clear?

It is not easy for bishops to speak out when they are under intense pressure from factional lobbies. I have not been a diocesan bishop but have felt the heat when going out on a limb. Bishops are usually elected because they are judged to be pastorally caring, spiritually inspiring and competent managers with the capacity to preserve unity in the Church. Unfortunately, once ordained, keeping the peace seems to become the all-consuming goal for many bishops.  

Yet at their ordination bishops are also given the role of prophet, one who discerns injustice and wrong and acts boldly to counter it. The prophets of ancient Israel were courageous men and women who ‘spoke truth to power’. They were forthright in their condemnation of poverty, injustice and allegiance to false gods (of which there are many in today’s society). The 7^th century BC prophet Jeremiah ended up at the bottom of a muddy cistern for ‘disloyalty’.[18]

Fear of modern day muddy cisterns can blunt the prophetic voice.

A good leader takes care to represent other viewpoints on a topic but should also express his or her personal view, even if this is unpopular and stirs opposition from those who disagree. Much heat was generated in both church and nation in the long campaigns against apartheid and for a nuclear-free New Zealand. Yet today many church and political leaders who kept silent in the heat of debate proudly proclaim our hard-won policies on these issues.

I would like to see our bishops taking a greater lead on issues of justice. Maintaining peace within the Church is highly desirable, but a peace that merely papers over the cracks, or works for unity at any price, is not a peace that reflects the way of Jesus or the prophets. What about the Church’s goal of unity with all of God’s people? The prophetic words of Isaiah (49.6) ring out compellingly:

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Christ called us to stand in solidarity with the poor, the homeless, the marginalised, and those who suffer the discrimination of race, class, gender or sexual orientation. It is a defective theology that places the unity of the Church ahead of unity with the suffering of humankind.

But the two are not mutually exclusive. Over the years I have found that presenting a reasoned position on difficult topics, backed with good biblical exposition, is often successful in getting a good slice of the middle ground on board. Superficial populist opinions come to be seen as inadequate in the light of greater awareness of the facts and alternative perspectives. Bishops who take a reasoned stand on divisive issues can do much to lead both church and society forward.

But if clergy and people want bishops who will lead and not merely manage, they need to drink deeply at the well of diversity. Anglicanism is a broad church with agreement on the creeds but diversity on a variety of doctrinal and social issues. If a bishop is only allowed to express views with which all will agree, only bland utterances will come forth. The Church needs to allow its bishops to set out their views on key issues, while at the same time being assured that bishops respect the views of all under their oversight. Those in the Church who equate orthodoxy with their own beliefs drive cautious church leaders into silence.

On social justice issues the Church is also largely absent from the public square, although good local initiatives abound and church agencies work tirelessly to care for people in need. Wellington’s bishop, Justin Duckworth, well publicised as the 45-year-old bishop with dreadlocks, jeans and bare feet, and his wife Jenny, have worked for years in Urban Vision communities in Wellington, creating places of refuge and renewal for many of ‘the last, the lost and the least’.

Justin has also worked closely with prison inmates and in October 2013 imprisoned himself in a porta-cabin, surrounded by high wire, on the cathedral forecourt. He lived there for a week, emerging at lunchtime each day to celebrate a eucharist for supporters and passersby. During his long hours of solitude he prayed for each prison inmate in New Zealand by name. His witness was for penal reform to reduce the high rate of incarceration, reverse the punitive attitudes of many politicians and their constituents, and put more emphasis on restorative justice. Ridiculed at first by government leaders, Justin’s action sparked some useful dialogue to substitute rehabilitation for revenge.

For 35 years Anglican priest Charles Waldegrave has been a leader in a Maori, Pacific and European/Pakeha social service and community development team based at the Family Centre in Lower Hutt, Wellington. With its beginnings in family therapy, the team soon recognised that many family problems stemmed from poverty and cultural marginalisation. Adequate income played a key role in improving relationships and the Family Centre developed a social policy research and advocacy role in income and housing, leading to anti-poverty policy changes in New Zealand. They also recognised the need for cultural self-determination, this leading to the provision of Māori and Pacific services led from within their own cultures.

But in terms of a national voice on social issues the Church is MIA – Missing in Action. The only Christian body in New Zealand today with a credible national voice is the Salvation Army. For 40 years Major Campbell Roberts has led the way on social policy, developing a comprehensive expertise and building rapport with politicians of all parties. The Army’s Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit produces an annual State of the Nation report on poverty and other social indicators, developing policy recommendations based on reliable research.

The Anglican Church has funded such work in the past, and has the financial capacity to do so again, but cumbersome inter-tikanga decision-making procedures, along with a lack of urgency and vision, have pushed such a project off the agenda. Nationally, the Anglican Church is invisible in the public square. In my view the Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops, backed by solid cutting-edge research, could become a very effective advocacy group for social justice and for raising public awareness of the plight of many New Zealanders today.

And where is the voice of the Church in public debate on key issues of theology? That field is dominated by atheists, fundamentalists, extremists and stream-of-consciousness journalists who delight in taking potshots at the Church. It is 50 years now since the late Bishop John Robinson of Woolwich sparked a global debate with his book Honest to God.  A thoughtful layperson wrote to me on the need for good theological debate:

Where is the Anglican Church? Why are they keeping their commentaries in-house? Certainly at parish level the demand is not being satisfied.

In the ‘agnostic’ and related faith debates I have engaged in publicly over the years, and in preaching, I have always sought to lead people to a deeper understanding of articles of faith. Simple demolition of traditional views with nothing of substance to replace them is irresponsible. But as people are led beyond literal interpretations of biblical stories to an awareness of the truth those stories point to, roots in the faith are strengthened.

Would I sign up for the priesthood again? Church and society have changed out of sight since I started. It is 60 years since, when still at high school, I set my sights on ordination. It is 50 years since I was ordained as priest, and 20 years as bishop. I have been privileged to stand with people at significant life moments of birth, death and marriage, in times of pain as well as rejoicing, to unpack the richness of the Christian faith and biblical tradition, to preside at worship where traditional words still point powerfully to the divine mystery, to sit in silent reflection alone or as part of a small group. When I retired one person wrote to me:

A lifetime of ministry in the church is a powerful contribution to the spiritual, emotional and social wellbeing of the world. All those marriages and other relationship blessings, funerals and other rites of passage that you have celebrated. All those conversations over the big questions, the ordinary questions, the life crisis questions. The clear messages on social justice, ethics and understanding between faiths. Sermons, speeches, articles, interviews…an incredible witness to faith.

So Yes, I would do it again, but there have been times of darkness and doubt. As I outlined, my first three years of ordination had some very dark days as I wrestled with the stark contrast between the 1950s Christendom Church I had signed up for as a teenager, and the rapidly secularising society and post-Christendom Church I was ordained into in the 1960s. By my mid-twenties, the church tide was going out fast. Many of those who started out with me on the road to ordination as teenagers chose other careers. It was the three years in New York City and on Teesside that opened my eyes to the huge challenges, and excitement, of the outside world and to a ministry that was world-engaging rather than ecclesiastically bound.

I sometimes joke with my brother, Tony, that one of the great things about being a judge is that he doesn’t have to generate the business. Each morning the courthouse opens and the business simply walks through the door. The Christendom era was a bit like that for the Church. But today a church that simply waits for the business to arrive will be waiting for a long time. The Church today needs to go out and engage with people and community. Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey called for ‘a Copernican revolution’: instead of the Church seeing itself as the centre around which everything revolves, it should find an orbit along with other planets in the social order.

To do this the Church needs more outstanding clergy, such as those I worked with in Holy Trinity cathedral in Auckland. There is no shortage of Sunday priests, often very lightly trained, who can do Sunday church in traditional mode. But these will generally not be the drivers of the change we so urgently need. New modes of worship will be required in many places, with more robust music than the ‘mindless ditties’ one bishop referred to in an unguarded moment.

More ‘worker priests’ would be invaluable, clergy working in another discipline not primarily as an income source but because of the opportunity to work with an entirely different network of people. I remember from our Canberra days a priest who taught in a local high school. She was first and foremost a teacher, but around the edges of her teaching, students, staff and families would often approach her to explore personal, relationship or work-related issues.

I have never felt more alive than when engaged in community life. It beats church committees hands down. I have loved working with the media and, apart from the ‘agnostic’ Herald article, have always found journalists and interviewers skilled in catching not just the content but also the flavour of what is being said.

Someone said to me that once I was retired I would be free to speak out and say what I really thought. I have two problems with that: I have never felt constrained in speaking out, and in retirement I still feel part of the Church I have belonged to all my life. Loyalty to the Gospel and to the demands of truth and justice has always been there. But loyalty at its best includes the courage to critique religious and other institutions, including one’s own.

Over the years I have felt a strong sense of vocation, but not the sort of vocation that feels my life has been mapped out by God and I just need to follow the script. Rather, I have a strong sense of grace, a bit like the man who found treasure in a field[19], an unexpected but great gift.  Going to Union Seminary in New York 45 years ago was such a gift for me, a gift that changed everything. I had to make the choice, but opportunity and choice together made the gift.

And once I had taken that step, further steps followed. My own vocation was being shaped by choices already made.  Looking back over a lifetime of ministry, I can see a distinct pattern, a continuity in which each new step built on the ones taken before, so that a vocational path is discerned, as it were, in the rear-vision mirror. At times when I was uncertain what would come next, something came from an unexpected direction, like the call to Canberra. Openness and a willingness to go where vocation leads is a spiritual pattern. As Jesus said to Nicodemus[20]:

The wind (spirit) blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is the same way with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

I am immensely grateful for the gifts of life, health, family, friends, faith and calling. At 75 the end is closer than the beginning! I enjoy good energy and continuing life, and I pray the prayer: ‘God, give us work till our life shall end, and life till our work is done.’[21]

Jackie and I say morning prayer together each day, using the prayer book for ‘ordinary radicals’[22] given by Philip Richardson to the bishops present at his installation as archbishop in May 2013. We enjoy its fresh approach to daily prayer built around the saints and martyrs who have been ‘ordinary radicals’ past and present.

How do I see the end? Not too soon, I hope. I return annually the Certificate of Life required by the church pension board staff who kindly send me a birthday card expressing the hope there will be many more. Although what the actuary thinks of that, I’m not so sure. So, the end? Many years ago in New York I was greatly taken by the words of theologian Henry Nelson Wieman who talked about life beyond death in terms of ‘hope without prediction’ – the details unknown, the subject not open to prediction or speculation. But ‘hope’ in the sense of confidence in the presence of God, the divine Other who transcends the boundary between life and death. I say nightly as I drop off to sleep the words Jesus used on the Cross: ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’

Meanwhile I follow the practical advice of our daughter Jo who wrote a short story about the sinking in 2000 of the Russian submarine Kursk. She reflected on the last hours of those Russian sailors trapped in an air bubble at the bottom of the sea.  One of the sailors in the story, knowing it was only a matter of time, decided nonetheless that he would ‘run until he was touched on the shoulder’.

And I pray the prayer of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the twentieth-century French Jesuit theologian and philosopher:

Since once again, Lord, I have neither bread nor wine nor altar, I will raise myself above these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world.

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[1] Now the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Holy See and Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome. David was knighted in 2014.

[2] See Chapter 8.

[3] Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control.

[4] www.worldjustice.project.org

[5] See Chapter 6.

[6] Empowering the Priesthood of all Believers.

[7] Reported in Engagement 21: a Wake-up Call to the 21^st century Church in Mission, Richard Randerson, 2010.

[8]  http://www.servant.org/writings/parables/pa_ft.php

[9] The projects are outlined in detail in Engagement 21.

[10] The book is now sold out but an electronic version is available free of charge from randersonjr@paradise.net.nz

[11] Yale School of Forestry and Environment Studies, on the BBC Shared Planet programme, 1 October 2013, http:/www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bqws7

[12]  See Footnote 22 for reference.

[13] DVDavailable from greeningyourpractice.com

[14] www.forestsforhealthnz.org 

[15] 1 Samuel 3.1.

[16] Vicar of St Luke’s, Mt Albert, Auckland.

[17] As Vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City, Auckland.

[18] Jeremiah, chapter 38.

[19] Matthew 13.44

[20] John 3.8.

[21] A New Zealand Prayer Book, p.125.

[22] Common Prayer: a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Enuma Okoro. Zondervan 2010.

John Paterson, Bishop of Auckland, had invited me to act as locum priest for a year at St Michael’s, Henderson as we considered longer-term ministry options. Henderson is a lower income suburb in West Auckland, and in January 2000 Jackie and I moved into the vicarage, a lovely old wooden house surrounded by trees, grass, and the nearby Henderson stream. Pukekos and ducks wandered over the lawn, barked at fiercely on occasions by Joshua, our dog, who always took care not to get too close.

Our year at St Michael’s was delightful with a warm and down-to-earth group of parishioners. We met up again with my first vicar from Papakura days, Herb Simmonds, now retired with his wife Margaret. As work on the Royal Commission[1] gathered speed from mid-year, my life was spent commuting during the week to Wellington while being on deck in the parish on Sundays.

The church fair one Saturday was a memorable occasion, and in marked contrast to a fair at an upmarket private school in Canberra. The Canberra fair traded holidays on the Gold Coast, cases of wine and ale, dinners at posh restaurants, bonsai plants, ski equipment and the like, and raised $60,000.

Henderson was quite different. One dad was buying sausages off the barbecue for his family for only $1 each. A Samoan bought up all the vicarage silver-beet to feed the family. Ordinary people worked hard to make cakes and marmalade, grow plants and make clothes, and ordinary people whose lives don’t revolve around restaurants and champagne were grateful to buy things that simply kept body and soul together. The proceeds amounted to $3000, but as one parishioner said: ‘We don’t do this to make money so much as to offer something to others.’

The monthly vestry meetings had some amusing moments. In a fit of energy Jackie had decided the borer-ridden internal doors of the vicarage needed treatment. She sent them off to be stripped of their varnish, after which we applied anti-borer solution and rehung them. At vestry next month the treasurer queried an invoice from Jack the Stripper. I suggested he put it down as vicarage entertainment.

West Auckland had its own unique system of time-measurement. In 1994 a time capsule was put down by the water wheel near the historic Mill Cottage. Installed by the Waitakere City Council, the brass plaque stated:

THIS STONE MARKS THE PLACE WHERE A TIME CAPSULE IS BURIED COMMEMORATING THE 150 ANNIVERSARY OF THE HENDERSON DISTRICT.

THIS CAPSULE IS TO BE OPENED AT THE HENDERSON DISTRICT BICENTENNIAL

 IN THE YEAR 2094

I pointed out the 50-year discrepancy to a volunteer at the historic Mill Cottage. Unaware of the error, she felt that with the plaque now set in stone change was unlikely.

In October 2000 the bishop invited me to accept appointment as Dean of Auckland at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell. It was the third time of asking, the only position I had ever aspired to, and the first time I had been in a space to accept. I had turned the post down in 1990, being newly appointed as the Anglican social responsibility commissioner. Soon after we arrived in Canberra the post was vacant again, and Sir Paul Reeves visited to convey the invitation a second time from the bishop. Again the timing was not right. In 2000 the way was clear, and Jackie and I prepared to move to Parnell. We felt a special induction service was not called for and, in a five-minute ceremony at the start of the Advent Carol service, I was duly installed. Bishop John asked me to take on an additional role as assistant bishop in the diocese, and I was so elected in 2002. It was good to support John, but my main role was as dean.

Coming to the cathedral brought me full circle. On 13 June 1957, in my final year at Takapuna Grammar School, I had been present at the laying of the foundation stone of the new Holy Trinity Cathedral. The date marked the centenary of the signing of the Anglican Church’s[2] constitution at St Stephen’s chapel in nearby Judges Bay, under the leadership of the Bishop of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn. One hundred years later I was part of a large diocesan procession of bishops, clergy, lay-readers and altar servers, all robed and crossing Parnell Road from the original St Mary’s cathedral to the site of the new cathedral. The Bishop of Auckland, John Simkin, laid the foundation stone with several of his masonic brethren, each in full regalia and wielding trowel and cement.

Returning as dean 44 years later was special. I had been ordained both deacon and priest in St Mary’s on its original site. Construction of St Mary’s, a fine piece of Gothic architecture in wood, began in 1886 and St Mary’s was in use as Auckland’s cathedral church from 1888. In the 1960s construction of the chancel of the new cathedral commenced, a lofty Gothic structure in brick in use from 1973. Rae Monteith, cathedral dean from 1949 to 1969, had been the driving force in the building of the chancel.

Eighteen years passed before the construction of the nave began in 1991. During this time a visionary proposal was put forward that ‘Old St Mary’s’ be lifted from its foundations and rolled across Parnell Road, turned through 90 degrees and placed adjacent to the new cathedral. In the face of much opposition the shift took place in 1982, Parnell Road being closed one Saturday while this huge historic church inched its way to its new site. Today Old St Mary’s is a treasured part of the cathedral precinct. Many requests for weddings and funerals come from individuals and families with historic associations with the old cathedral.

In 1991 construction of the Holy Trinity nave commenced under the leadership of John Rymer. John had followed Rae Monteith as dean in 1970 and, retiring in 1990, took on oversight of the nave project. It had been decided not to continue the Gothic pattern of the chancel but rather to blend ancient and modern by building a nave in contemporary design with extensive use of stained glass and symbols appropriate to the 21^st century. Such a dramatic shift in design aroused much controversy but architect Professor Richard Toy’s plan was adopted and the nave completed in 1995.

The theme of God’s creation in the context of Aotearoa and the South Pacific is told in the great west window by Nigel Brown. On the nave’s Parnell Road side nine windows by Shane Cotton depict early parts of the biblical story with Maori imagery, while on the harbour side a further nine windows by Robert Ellis portray with Maori and Polynesian influences the coming of the Gospel to Aotearoa New Zealand. The baptismal font comprises four pieces of sculpted glass by Auckland artist Ann Robinson. Weighing a tonne, it softly reflects the ambient light, especially when refracted in the early morning through the brightly hued aroha (love) window.

The nave altar is of native kauri and was built for the celebration of a papal mass in the Auckland Domain during the 1986 visit of Pope John Paul II. In a moving ecumenical gesture, the Roman Catholic Church gifted the altar to the new Anglican cathedral. Today it symbolises the warm relationships between the cathedral churches of Holy Trinity and St Patrick. Father Bernard Kiely, the administrator from St Patrick’s, and Bishop Patrick Dunn, became close ecumenical colleagues, with the two congregations sharing in worship on Ash Wednesday each year, and at other times.

As dean I felt Holy Trinity was one of the great treasures still to be discovered in Auckland. Today it is heartening to see the increasing use of the cathedral not only for services of worship but for concerts, forums and school visits, as well as by pilgrims and visitors. The current dean, Jo Kelly-Moore, has energised and enthused the cathedral congregation around her. Together they have raised the funds for a major programme to reconstruct the two organs, build a new chapel beyond the high altar and form a covered connection between Holy Trinity and Old St Mary’s.

Jackie and I came to the cathedral following some very public in-house divisions. A clash between the dean and the director of music, along with a shortage of operating finances, caused a dispute that spilled over into the congregation, leading to the departure of the director of music in 1998, and the dean in 2000. The cathedral also had an accumulated operating deficit of $200,000.  Disputes between cathedral deans and music directors are legendary, so my first call after being appointed was to Peter de Blois, the new music director. We enjoyed a warm and collegial relationship throughout my time there. When Jackie and I moved into the deanery much healing work had been done through the pastoral skills of a priest couple, John McAlpine and the late Jenny Harrison. Congregational rapport was quickly rebuilt and the operating deficit cleared over a five-year period. 

I was greatly blessed with creative staff members Sarah Park, Catherine Thorn and Jayson Rhodes who came as newly ordained clergy to the cathedral. Sarah has great liturgical skills and working with her on the traditional three-hour service on Good Friday was always an inspiration. Jenny Chalmers and Michael Smart were senior members of the team, handling much of the pastoral work along with baptisms, weddings and funerals, of which there were many.

Michele Roberts joined our team as an assistant priest in 2006 and made a major contribution in establishing a Mainly Music group, a programme of music and dance for very young children which also provides a community meeting space for mothers and other caregivers. From my office on St Stephen’s Avenue I could see the steady trickle of young mums with pushchairs up and down the road to the shops. With a group of parishioners Michele gathered the equipment and seeding finance necessary to support the group. Within three months more than 55 families had signed up with, unheard of in church circles, a sizeable waiting list.

Officiating at funerals was a most significant ministry. When the deceased is of ripe old age there is sadness, but acceptance of the timeliness of the death, and a celebration of a life well lived. By contrast funerals for young people are poignant and challenging. I recall the funerals for three young adults who had died, one by suicide, one from a car accident and one who died inexplicably over night with no known symptoms. The impact on families and friends was huge. Alongside the trauma of deep grief are questions of ‘Why?’, and ‘Where do we look for consolation and hope?’

Sometimes a family plumbing the depths of spiritual searching gave an implied message that ‘we don’t want anything religious’. Of the hundreds who came to such funerals many were in the same space. The essential truths of Christian faith are not well known today, but there is no shortage of caricatures and Sunday School pictures literally interpreted. I was every bit as anxious to avoid those as were many in the congregation.

I sought to speak of God not as a divine miracle-worker or architect of illness, accident or natural disaster, but rather as a mystery of love that encompasses and upholds us. Vulnerable to the darkness and light of human living, we are yet surrounded by love in the midst of grief. The experience of the two disciples on the Emmaus Road[3] has always helped me in dealing with grief. Here were two people devastated by Jesus’ death who experienced a stranger walking with them along the way. They did not recognise who it was. There was no instant transformation from grief to joy. But as Jesus became known to them in the breaking of the bread, new hope and life appeared. Grief can last a long time but, sustained by a love which is both human and divine, its pain can diminish and be replaced by the flowering of a future with new meaning.

In July 2005 Prince William attended a service at the cathedral while on his first official visit to New Zealand. The All Blacks were playing the Lions at the time but I felt it wise not to refer to the rugby. Instead I reflected on the Treaty of Waitangi and the continuing bonds between the Queen and this country, while acknowledging the multi-cultural and multi-faith nation Aotearoa now was. It being just three days after the London Underground bombings in which 50 people had been killed, I expressed how our hearts went out to the families of the victims, the injured, and to British visitors to this country.

After the service I escorted the prince to the door where two lines of school-children fanned out in a V- shape. I wondered which line he would go down and noted the disappointment on the right when he headed to the left. The warmth towards him was palpable when from the end of the left flank he moved over to the right to greet all the young people there. We presented him with an inscribed copy of A New Zealand Prayer Book to mark the occasion.

My reference to a multi-faith and multi-cultural society fitted well with an inter-faith dialogue in Jogjakarta, Indonesia in December 2004. I was part of a New Zealand government delegation of twelve from different faith groups. Sponsored by the Indonesian and Australian governments, with support from New Zealand, the conference brought together 124 delegates from 10 religions and 13 nations in South-East Asia and the South Pacific.

‘Clerics vow action on terrorism’read the post-conference headline in the Jakarta Post. Growing concern over threats to peace and security in the region spurred the initiative for this event. In his opening address Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stated the concern succinctly: ‘When ethnic and religious prejudice is compounded by economic and political rivalries, as well as by mutual grievances deemed unforgivable, the resulting situation can be explosive.’ Prime Minister Helen Clark was a driving force in the dialogue, believing that religious groups could play a leading role in building bridges between diverse communities in peace, development, security and education.

The global population today is made up of Christians (33 per cent), Muslims (22 per cent), Hindus (15 per cent), Buddhist (6 per cent), other religions (10 per cent) and no religion (14 per cent). While religion has often been claimed as the basis for crusades and holy wars, past and present, delegates were of the view that such claims could never be justified. That view had been strongly stated in 2003 by an international panel of experts on terrorism, meeting in Norway, which declared that suicide terrorism was not caused by religion, even although extremists might claim religion as a rationale.

Instead, said the panel, terrorism more often resulted from rapid social, political and economic changes, or other forces that left minorities with a sense of exclusion from access to power or economic opportunity. Oppression of religious or cultural minorities can also be a potent driver. It was the unanimous view of the conference that no religion could properly be used as a basis for terrorist activity. Religions share a belief in one God or spiritual reality, one human family on earth, and a commitment to unity, justice and peace for all, irrespective of country, culture or creed.

The conference schedule at Jogjakarta was tight and I had been invited to chair the final plenary session to produce a conference statement. With the clock ticking, and faced with 124 delegates from different nations and religions, some of whom had no English, this was a formidable task. Things were not helped by the Australian delegation which seemed intent on raising points of order about the process. Since the final draft statement had emerged from three days of intense consultation, I ruled process issues out of order, a move supported by the majority which allowed us to reach agreement.

The New Zealand delegation recommended to government that we develop a national statement on religious tolerance and harmony, along the lines of similar statements in Indonesia and Singapore. We also recommended programmes to inform and educate New Zealanders on religious and cultural diversity. In the 1950s, when Auckland was largely Pakeha and Christian, it seemed natural to see faith exclusively through the eyes of Western Christianity. But Maori urbanisation, the influx of Pacific Islanders, and recent waves of new citizens from Asia, Africa and Europe have led to a society where Pakeha now number less than 65% of the total. Different languages are heard in the streets. Mosques and temples are scattered among the churches, which themselves accommodate multi-lingual congregations.

We cannot be complacent. The desecration of Jewish graves in Wellington and Auckland, the rising influence of the religious right and the National Front, hate mail directed to Muslim leaders following the 11 September attacks in New York, and the anti-migrant attitudes that thread through much of our popular discourse are signs that prejudice and ignorance lie close to the surface. So while ‘clerics fighting terrorism’ makes a good headline, the role of healthy religion in peace-making is significant. A paper from the World Council of Churches at the time of the Yogjakarta dialogue said:

Contacts and relations of precious trust and friendship between people of different religions, built quietly by patient dialogue during peacetime, may in times of conflict prevent religion from being used as a weapon. In many cases such relations may pave the way for mediation and reconciliation initiatives.

Three weeks after the inter-faith dialogue in Indonesia, that nation and others nearby were devastated by the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. As the shock waves continued into the new year, I thought New Zealand should make some national observance of this tragedy which affected not only the immediate victims of the tsunami but many of their families and friends in New Zealand. The recent inter-faith dialogue underlined for me our unity as human beings across faith and cultural boundaries.

I proposed that Holy Trinity Cathedral should host a multi-cultural and multi-faith memorial service. Having proposed the service I promptly left town and went on summer vacation cycling the Otago Rail Trail. I was very grateful for the organisation undertaken by my priest colleague, Catherine Thorn, keeping in touch with her by cell-phone as she made arrangements with Government, faith leaders and the community at large.

The service on 16 January 2005 took place under national flags hanging above the cathedral altar and in the presence of Prime Minister Helen Clark, Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, 16 consular representatives from different nations, 23 members of Parliament and a congregation of 500 comprising many nations, races and faiths. Leaders from Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Christian faiths joined together in the service, each contributing a prayer or reading from their own tradition. Children from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and Thailand lit candles. One minute’s silence was observed at 1.59pm, three weeks to the day since the tsunami hit the Indonesian shore.

In her address the Prime Minister said that ‘this catastrophe has seen human beings reaching out to one another on an unprecedented scale. The common humanity of people has shone through at this time of great adversity for so many’. I addressed the tragedy of the tsunami, as well as the rationale for holding an inter-faith service in a Christian cathedral:

There is but one God, who is the God of all who inhabit this fragile planet on which our life depends. That God has been expressed in different cultures, different scriptures and different creeds. The insight from Indonesia was that good faith has a firm centre and open edges, enabling us to affirm the convictions that have given us life, while being open to the convictions and insights of others, and able to work together in a common cause.

Because God is one, all who walk the face of this earth are one, part of one global family. The images of the tsunami that have shocked us these last three weeks have shown us that in Aceh and Phuket, in India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, the needs and aspirations of people, wherever they may be, are essentially the same : to cherish those closest to us, to be part of a family or whanau which gives us love, to find a place to live with food to eat, health and education for our children, to have work which gives meaning to our lives and offers service to others, to be free from conflict and war.

It is with that unity of belief, and this newfound unity with members of the human family of whom we knew little before the tsunami, that we gather today. We pay tribute to the unprecedented numbers of people from many nations who have lost their lives in this disaster. We remember those who are still missing, some of whom may never be found. To those of you who grieve for loved ones today we extend our love and compassion, and pray with you that you will know the strong presence of a God who cares.

We also at this time reflect upon the nature and presence of God. ‘Where was God in this disaster?’ many have pondered. It has been suggested that the tsunami was an act of God, but what sort of God would inflict such misery on untold thousands of innocent people? God does not cause natural disasters. Natural disasters are the result of forces that have ready scientific explanations, in this case the shifting of tectonic plates on the Earth’s surface.

God is found rather in the worldwide outpouring of compassion and generosity that has followed in the wake of the tsunami. God’s love is seen in the help which victims have offered one another, in the doctors and aid workers, police and armed services personnel who have poured in from all over the world, in the responses of governments, and most of all in the extraordinary generosity whereby ordinary people have offered financial assistance.

This love is part of all religious traditions, and indeed of all humanity at its best. A Muslim saying goes: ‘Prayer carries us halfway to God, fasting brings us to the door of his palace, and almsgiving procures us admission.’ Compassion for the poor lies also at the heart of Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism and Hinduism. In today’s Gospel reading of the three travellers[4], it was the one who turned aside from his journey to assist the man beaten up on the side of the road who was commended for doing that which was pleasing in the eyes of God.

The service was well received but I received letters of concern from some who felt the Christian faith was compromised by worshipping alongside people of other religions. The point is an important one. Belief in Jesus as the Son of God is central to Christianity, but others are just as passionately committed to the faith and culture in which they have been raised.

My belief in the uniqueness of Jesus is in no way diminished by engagement with peoples of other faiths. The service in the cathedral was not one where elements from different religions were poured into a melting-pot and some bland lowest common denominator emerged. Each faith leader prayed or read from his own tradition which was not compromised. Binding us together was our shared humanity and compassion for people who are part of one human family, a compassion arising out of different religions. For me inter-faith encounters have enriched rather than diminished my own Christian faith. The Muslim insight quoted above is fully compatible with a Christian understanding of the divine love, but brings a fresh perspective to it.

The Jogjakarta recommendation to formulate a statement on religious diversity for New Zealand was followed up by Joris de Bres on behalf of the Human Rights Commission. I was part of an inter-faith working group that consulted widely, and Paul Morris[5]  produced successive drafts that led to the publication in 2007 of a statement Religious Diversity in New Zealand. The statement carried forewords by Dame Silvia Cartwright in her capacity as chair of the National Commission for Unesco, and by Prime Minister Helen Clark, who wrote: ‘It is my hope that the statement will help all New Zealanders, of whatever faith or ethical belief, to feel free to practise their beliefs in peace and within the law.’

During the consultation process, debate arose about whether or not New Zealand is a Christian nation. New Zealand has a 200-year history of Christian faith, and about half the population define themselves as Christian. But the ‘Christian nation’ tag ignores the religious perceptions of Maori who preceded European settlement by hundreds of years. Nor does it acknowledge the multitude of other faiths in New Zealand today, especially after a half century of multiple migrations.

New Zealand is also a secular state with no official religion but creates space for all religions to flourish in an atmosphere of freedom. The free expression of religion in the lives of citizens has the capacity to shape for good the values, attitudes and policies of society. Nonetheless the drafting group felt it important to acknowledge the historical contribution of Christianity without giving preference to any religion above another. The statement began:

Christianity has played and continues to play a formative role in the development of New Zealand in terms of the nation’s identity, culture, beliefs, institutions and values.

It went on to scope contemporary religious diversity and the positive roles played by other faith communities. Different faiths work together with government and other groups, including the non-religious, to achieve policies of non-discrimination, freedom of expression, multicultural awareness in workplaces and public services, and education in schools about different religious, spiritual and cultural traditions. Many programmes throughout New Zealand aim to foster positive awareness of our multi-faith and multi-cultural society.

In a joint statement in May 2007 the Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops affirmed the statement, saying they applauded the way it grappled with ‘our realities as a multicultural and diverse community in these islands’. They also said:

From our own faith position we cherish freedom of thought and freedom of religious expression, both for ourselves and others. This is inherent in our understanding of the Christian Gospel as a gift that is freely given, to be freely experienced and freely received in a climate of freedom itself.

The statement has no legislative force but is an aspirational expression of the kind of nation we can choose to be.

Early in 2000 Bishop John Paterson invited me to take on the chairmanship of the Selwyn Foundation, the Anglican aged care agency in Auckland with several residential facilities. It was a daunting prospect. The Foundation was in disarray with the director for the last 15 years about to retire, the chairman having resigned after only two years along with half the board, and the agency losing $2 million a year.

I had no ready solutions in mind but decided to start by interviewing personally all the board members (including those who had resigned) and key staff members. I felt we needed to establish a new clarity and unity in purpose, find new board members and a new director, and take steps to balance the books. We were fortunate to recruit as director the Rev’d Duncan Macdonald, an Anglican priest with a background in social services and in the Accident Compensation Commission. He brought skills which blended compassion and care with the management acumen required for a large corporate body.

Working with Duncan on the finance side was Fred Pau and under their leadership the situation was turned around. Selwyn was greatly overstaffed: through an incremental programme of voluntary redundancies a large loss was turned into a significant annual surplus. I made it clear that there was to be ‘no watering of the orange juice’: quality services were to be retained.

The surpluses have allowed the foundation as a not-for-profit body to develop new services of outreach in local communities. Board member Sally Naulls has worked with 40 Auckland churches to establish programmes for the elderly with social events, meals and contact with a community nurse. Funding has been made available for aged care partnerships with Maori and Pacific Islanders through the churches. New aged-care facilities have been built and other agencies blended into the Selwyn network.

In New Zealand today privately owned aged-care facilities are mushrooming and good profits are to be made by caring for those who can afford it. The Selwyn Foundation’s mission is to seek out the many who cannot afford adequate care in their older years and to provide for them on the basis of human need, a vision inherited from the founder, Canon Douglas Caswell, 60 years ago. An old black-and-white film is often screened at foundation events. Named Indictment, the film documents Canon Caswell’s work as city missioner in the 1950s and has graphic footage of people living in Ponsonby in run-down housing, without adequate water supply, heating or toilets, often hungry and socially isolated.

It was Caswell’s engagement with the community that motivated him to provide a better place for people in their older years. Sir Robert Kerridge showed the film in his chain of cinemas over several weeks and a concerted effort led to the building of the first accommodation, Selwyn Village, at Point Chevalier. Since then the foundation has grown into a highly successful organisation, but as chair Ialways asked how well we were addressing the needs of the 21^st century counterparts of the aged poor who figured in Indictment. That film is a dramatic reminder of the Church’s history and its ongoing challenge.

In 2003 I was approached at the cathedral by two women who wanted to see the beginnings of Christianity in New Zealand suitably commemorated. On Christmas Day 1814 the Rev’d Samuel Marsden of the Church Missionary Society preached at Oihi[6] in the Bay of Islands from the text: ‘Fear not! I bring you glad tidings of great joy.’[7] Marsden had come to Sydney in 1794 as a chaplain to the convict colony with a brief to establish a mission in New Zealand at a suitable time.

At Parramatta he established a small farm and invited Maori to come and spend time gaining skills in farming. One of those who crossed the Tasman was Ruatara, a Ngati Torehina chief whose home was the Rangihoua pa on the far northern shore of the Bay of Islands. It was Ruatara who in 1814 invited Marsden to ‘come to my place’ and it was there that the historic sermon was preached.

The two women who came to see me were the Rev’d Patricia Bawden, now in her 80s, who has had a vision for 50 years of Oihi as a place for pilgrimage. With her was a local landowner, Diane Paterson, equally committed to the project. Following that meeting Iwas invited by John Paterson to chair the Marsden Cross Trust Board, an ecumenical body set up to take the vision forward. Twenty hectares of land were acquired adjacent to the Cross and the Rangihoua Pa. It was very moving in January 2013 to see Hugh Rihari, a descendant of Ruatara, and John King, a descendant of the missionary John King who came with Marsden 200 years earlier, wielding shovels together as they turned the first sods for a commemorative project.

The project involves a semi-circular and open building of welcome, Rore Kahu[8], along with a series of historic panels stationed along a path leading down to the Cross. The Rangihoua Heritage Park was opened by the Governor-General, Sir Jerry Mateparae, on 21 December 2014. Four days later, on Christmas Day, an ecumenical bicentennial service of worship was held by the beach adjacent to the Cross.

Rangihoua is already a place of pilgrimage for young people and other church groups. This will increase, as visitors from New Zealand and around the world arrive by road or boat. Rangihoua commemorates the roots of Christianity in Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as the forming of an enduring partnership between Maori and Pakeha. It predates the Treaty of Waitangi by 25 years and is an important part of our history, and future.

Reflecting on my years as both bishop and dean, I have felt vocationally most at home as dean. Bishops have an important leadership task but administration, committee work and pastoral care of clergy and parishes can stand in the way of a community-facing ministry. Maintaining harmony too often precludes prophetic action. As dean I valued the freedom to develop a public profile through preaching, articles in the New Zealand Herald, and through radio and television. I based what I said in public around many of the themes I have outlined, aiming to address the underlying issues of faith, personal values, social ethics, justice and compassion.

---

[1] See Chapter 8.

[2] Known then as the Church of the Province of New Zealand.

[3] Luke 24. 13-35.

[4] Luke 10. 25-37.

[5]  Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

[6]  In 2014 the NZ Geographic Board recommended the earlier name of Hohi for the site.

[7] Luke 2.10.

[8] Rore Kahu means ‘soaring eagle’, the name of the hill on which the building stands.

Ethics are a way of thinking, a worldview, a set of goals which shape the things we value and the decisions we make. Just as we breathe the air as a natural process, so every action or decision we take is governed by a framework of ethics which we usually apply without conscious thought.

But what kind of ethical air do we breathe? Is it the ethical air of consumerism? Or success, prosperity and the good life? Or the ethics of corporate or political advantage? Is it Ayn Rand’s virtue of selfishness? Or the heady world of global finance? Or tribalism, or nationalism? We are surrounded by people or groups whose lives are shaped by one or more of such ethics. Which begs another question: what sort of ethic shapes our own life?

An invitation soon after returning to Auckland in 2000 took me right into this question. A Member of Parliament rang to ask if I would consider joining a Royal Commission on Genetic Modification (RCGM). The RCGM was to address questions such as whether genetically modified crops would enhance food production, or eliminate possums, or lead to more effective therapeutic outcomes in medicine, all without harm to human wellbeing or the environment.

Another phone call next day from a government official asked the same question. I replied that I was not a scientist, having abandoned such studies after scoring only 53 in School Certificate Chemistry 45 years earlier. ‘No problem,’ each replied, explaining that science was to be only one part of the commission’s work, other essential features including ethics, economics, environment and the Treaty of Waitangi.

I was stimulated by the challenge, and two months later joined three other commissioners in a large empty room in a Wellington high-rise office building. Our Chair was former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum. The other members were Dr Jacqueline Allan, a South Auckland GP with Maori heritage from Kati Mamoe in the South Island, Dr Jean Fleming, a senior scientist at the University of Otago specialising in reproductive biology and anatomy, and myself. The two women carried the science, Sir Thomas the legal and oversight concerns, while my brief was vaguely described as ethics, a topic that seemed equally vague to many who later made submissions.

Also at the first meeting was a government official with a guide-book on Royal Commissions, and the two-page mandate from the Government which asked us to recommend strategic options for New Zealand regarding the use of genetic modification (GM) in crops, food and medical applications.  We were charged to take into account such factors as risks and benefits, liability issues, intellectual property, the Treaty of Waitangi, opportunities for New Zealand, global developments, human health, environmental, economic, cultural and ethical issues, and regulatory processes in New Zealand.

We employed a manager and staff, and decided on five modes of consultation: meetings with the public and on maraes throughout New Zealand, formal submissions by Interested Persons (IPs)[1], written submissions from the public and a telephone survey. The public meetings began on a bleak winter’s afternoon in Invercargill. Only a handful of people showed up but Mayor Tim Shadbolt got us away to a cheery start.

The pace quickened as news of the process spread. The Nelson meeting was particularly lively with a large crowd and some very creative contributions by children and young people deeply concerned about the environment. A school class presented in Manukau with some well-prepared graphics. Public meetings were generally not attended by GM supporters, so the overall message was strongly green and in support of a GE[2]-free New Zealand.

At each of twelve meetings on marae around the country we were formally greeted, and Sir Thomas had asked me to reply. I am not a fluent Maori speaker but had learnt enough over the years to respond appropriately. Maori were concerned about changes that might affect native flora and fauna, such as the manuka tree or the tuatara lizard, but some Maori farmers saw benefits from GM in crops and animal farming. The final marae meeting was at Turangawaewae in Ngaruawahia. Some of us slept overnight on the marae, being woken for prayer on the mattresses at 5am.

The formal submissions from IPs were received over twelve weeks in a court-room setting in Wellington. About 300 groups applied for IP status, but status was strictly limited to those with a perceived background and expertise in the topic. We had decided that no political party could gain status, but the Greens argued successfully that they were an environment movement, of which the political party was merely one arm. We selected 117 groups for IP status including primary producer boards such as wool and meat, scientific research groups, medical groups, consumer groups, religious groups and environmentalists.

The hearings began with producer boards and scientific groups, followed by medical users, religious and green groups. Each IP had its day in court, during which it was open to cross-examination by any of the other 116 IPs. Careful management of time was required and Sir Thomas allocated a set time for each presentation, followed by a set time for questioning divided among those wanting to cross-examine.

Many of the green groups saw Monsanto as the bête noire because of its production of GM crops in North America. A flurry of opposition IPs put their hands up to cross-examine Monsanto and were allocated seven minutes each. However, the appearance of Green Party MP Sue Kedgley always had an electrifying effect on the hearing. Her delayed arrival on this occasion produced a chorus of voices to the Chair: ‘Ms Kedgley can have our seven minutes, Sir’, and her time for cross-examining was considerably extended.

The producer boards made well researched power-point presentations on the benefits of GM in farming and food production. Some proposed GM grasses to minimise the need for artificial fertilisers, thus reducing chemical runoff into rivers and waterways. They called for more funding for research into innovative technologies.

The interaction between supporters and opponents of GM had some amusing moments. On one occasion an IP advocating sustainable earth policies was cross-examining the CEO of a producer board, suggesting that current levels of resource use and pollution could mean that two earths might be needed to sustain our consumerist lifestyles. ‘Would you regard that,’ he asked, ‘as a viable world-view?’

‘Viable world-view’ was clearly not a category familiar to the CEO, who was somewhat stuck for an answer. ‘Ye-e-e-s, perhaps so,’ he cautiously responded. His cross-examiner then put to him another scenario that with careful stewardship of current resources, the one earth we had could adequately provide for all our needs. ‘Is that,’ he asked, ‘a viable world-view?’ Experienced now with the concept of viable world-views, the CEO agreed more confidently that it would be.

Sustainability came in for the kill. ‘Well, now,’ he asked, ‘how can there be two viable world-views completely opposite to each other?’ Totally flummoxed, the CEO sat head in hands for some long moments. At length his female deputy leaned across and whispered in his ear. His face brightened at once. ‘Our organisation,’ he beamed, ‘believes there can be more than one viable world-view.’

The medical groups presented evidence supporting GM therapies to deal with intractable illnesses. Mention was made of one family with a genetically transmitted cancer gene that had already claimed many lives. GM options to eliminate such a rogue gene were canvassed.

The week before Christmas 2000 turned out to be the most moving week of the hearings. Several parent groups spoke passionately of their experience caring for children with extremely rare diseases, many of which I had never heard of. Some of these diseases have a strike rate of only one in thousands of live births, so that in a small population there are only a handful of such sufferers. Most of the children had a shortened life expectancy but required 24/7 care from parents who were physically exhausted and lived daily with deep grief and emotional trauma. Could there be GM options to help?

A later week was set aside for religious groups, and I had a good time cross-examining colleagues on their biblical theology. Several presentations were based on the biblical story of Creation in Genesis 1 which balances the use of God-given talents and opportunities for human wellbeing with careful stewardship to preserve the earth’s life-giving capacity for future generations.

The green groups presented their concerns with passion. Possums and gorse were cited as examples of introduced species that run rampant and destroy other flora and fauna. Thalidomide and asbestos were named as products considered beneficial but which had tragic unforeseen consequences. That, they submitted, could be the case with GM.

Organic farmers feared crop contamination by GM seeds blown from neighbouring fields, or by bees transmitting GM characteristics from one plant to another. It was also emphasised that GM-free food would be of positive economic advantage in global trading in a world seeking safe and healthy foods. This could be New Zealand’s niche market, it was suggested, and part of our ‘clean green’ brand.

The telephone opinion survey came up with divided views on GM, while the call for written submissions from the public produced more than 10,000 responses. Around 92 per cent of these opposed GM, violently so in many cases. Many were of a form-letter variety with succinct two-word messages scrawled across the page. Each was read by staff and comments of substance noted.

By the end of March 2001 the consultation process was complete. There had been thousands of pages of data and a multitude of conclusions and opinions. We took a week off to let things settle.  The following week we four commissioners met by ourselves for a first review of our conclusions.  Impeccable jurist that he was, Sir Thomas had established a protocol that we would not discuss conclusions until we had heard all the evidence.

So it was that we ended up for a two-day retreat at a secluded guesthouse in the South Wairarapa. After morning coffee we sat around in comfy chairs and addressed a central proposition that had been made to us again and again during the consultation process: ‘New Zealand should declare a total ban on any use of GM.’ What did we think? It took only a few minutes to establish that none of us supported such a proposition. Human advancement proceeds by way of innovation in science and technology, and it was a Luddite approach to ban any technology out of hand.

But significant questions had been raised about GM, questions to which there were as yet no answers. We felt that GM usage should not be adopted in New Zealand until those answers were found. We saw the need to ‘preserve opportunities’ for the use of GM, but also to ‘proceed cautiously’ with further research of both field and medical GM options. We made 49 recommendations to strengthen existing environmental legislation, all but one of which were implemented by Government. Fourteen years down the track I am not aware of any GM usage of crops in the open field, or of GM uses in medicine.

We reached that overall conclusion in a short space of time, but it took another four months to  assemble a huge volume of material into a coherent report. We summarised the key issues under three headings: strategic and economic issues, health and environment, and cultural, ethical and spiritual concerns.

The latter heading raised questions about underlying values. I had suggested we develop a set of values as a measuring rod for any conclusions we reached. The others were not so sure about this. Who were we to decide what values were appropriate? And in a nation of great diversity could there be any consensus about underlying values?

I pointed out that a range of values was implicit in the 17 factors that were part of the RCGM mandate.  Values were also expressed, implicitly or explicitly, in many of the submissions. But the ethics box was often left empty in the template we produced for submitters, some IPs simply stating: ‘we always seek to act in an ethical manner.’ Others, especially in the medical area, tabled organisational codes of conduct which addressed important items such as patient confidentiality or transparency of information, but did not cover macro-questions such as whether it was ethical to use GM at all.

We decided to give the values question a go. One morning over coffee the four of us sat down in front of a blank whiteboard and brainstormed possible underlying values. Surprisingly, we quite quickly reached consensus on seven:

• Preserving the uniqueness of Aotearoa/New Zealand, finding our own tailor-made approach
• Preserving the uniqueness of our cultural heritage, enshrined in the Treaty of Waitangi
• Ensuring the sustainability of our environment for future generations
• Recognising that we are part of a global family, and hence cannot be isolationist
• Ensuring the well-being of all citizens, avoiding winners and losers
• Providing for maximum freedom of choice within established guidelines
• Ensuring effective participation in decision-making, as befits a democracy.

From there we developed a strategy for ethical decision-making whereby any decision or choice being considered was tested against the seven values. A proposal to genetically modify sheep, for example, or to release GM crops in the field, required not only all the relevant information but also had to be tested for congruence with the values. A diagrammatic outline of this process was included in our report.

The 14 months on the RCGM was a significant time in my life. I felt privileged to work as part of a team with three colleagues from other disciplines. Some of our views differed but we were able to debate and reach consensus without any final dissenting opinion. It was a privilege to visit many parts of New Zealand and absorb the wide range of submissions made. I was impressed by the integrity, expertise and commitment of those we met, whether scientists sharing their knowledge and research objectives, or green groups passionate about the environment, or young people expressing their hopes for the future.

The consultation process sparked some remarkable dialogue. In the early weeks of the hearings much of the interaction between IPs was adversarial. It would be naïve to suggest all differences were nicely overcome – they were not. But a mood of negotiation which showed listening was going on was apparent in later weeks. One IP might say, for example: ‘we know that … is very important to you, but could you live with … which is important to us?’

Ethical decision-making based on values is fundamental to public and private life. Operational values such as honesty and transparency are the glue for fairness and trust in any organisation. But ultimate values are to do with the overall purpose of any organisation, be it a business, trade, profession, government, church or community body.

This was clear in an all-day planning session a colleague and I ran for the Board and senior officers of Christchurch Hospital in the 1990s. Those were the days of ideological madness when the nation’s public hospitals had been renamed Crown Health Enterprises, demonstrating that the concept of public service had been replaced by that of profit-making enterprises.

During the day we sought to establish a set of goals for the hospital as a basis for policy-making. By day’s end we had listed twelve goals, two of which appeared to be in conflict. One was an operational target ‘to work within our allocated funding’, while the other identified the fundamental purpose of the hospital ‘to provide a health service for the people of Canterbury’. In a time of severe funding constraints and heavy pressure to live within their budget, hospital managers felt the tension keenly. They had already severely pruned expenditure, and further cuts would reduce services to those in need.

They could see clearly that service reduction would help them meet a financial goal, but would also undermine their basic raison d’etre. In the end they decided that when all avenues of fiscal prudence had been exhausted, their task was to become advocates for more funding to allow the hospital to continue to fulfil its purpose.

This illustrates what in my experience is one of today’s fundamental ethical issues. Core purposes and responsibilities can be undermined by a preoccupation with lesser operational objectives. Christchurch Hospital had not lost sight of its core purpose, but corporate bodies with profit as their de factoprimary objective can easily lose their focus on public service. I am not suggesting profit-making is inappropriate. Profit is essential for investment, growth and development, but profit should be pursued in a manner congruent with serving the public.

In recent years the concept of stakeholder responsibility has developed within the corporate and public sectors. Stakeholder groups include owners, staff, suppliers, customers, community and the environment. Groups such as the Sustainable Business Council emphasise such a holistic approach to business. Stakeholder responsibility is a measure of best practice in ethical investment which involves not just the avoidance of ‘sin stocks’ such as tobacco, military armaments or pornography, but works proactively to invest in companies committed to sustainability.

I have worked hard on such issues over many years, but progress can be slow in the face of prevailing attitudes that profit-making for the shareholder is the only ethical requirement. Milton Friedman, for example, has written[3]:

Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for the shareholders as possible.

Contrast the words of business leader Rodman Drake:

The advanced thinking on ethics is that a company is not just there to make money; it is there to make money as an end product of serving society well. Corporations which do this in an ethical manner are the ones that will succeed over time, and create wealth and pass wealth from one generation to another, and be living evidence of creativity and a contribution to society.

Too often a narrow focus on profit-making goes hand in hand with a view that addressing the needs of other stakeholders such as staff or the environment will reduce profits. The alternative view is that when staff and customers feel well treated by a company tangibly committed to environmental and community goals, there is a payoff in loyalty to the company as one that is good to do business with. Stock-market data over many years shows that companies operating with a broad stakeholder ethic perform just as well if not better than companies with a narrow focus on the bottom line.

Judge Mick Brown[4] of Auckland is another leader who distinguishes between operational and ultimate purposes. Addressing an Anglican synod one day he lamented the fact that each day in his court he faced a procession of petty offenders charged with theft, vandalism and other minor anti-social acts. He noted that they were mainly young, often brown-faced, and almost always poor and unemployed.

Waxing eloquent, he said: ‘I know there are many people who like to go home at night, draw the curtains, and settle down in front of TV with a nice meal and a glass of wine. I have some advice for them: DON’T SIT TOO CLOSE TO THE WINDOWS!’

Judge Brown stated that until the nation was prepared to address the underlying social and economic structures that gave rise to poverty, injustice and alienation, there would be no end to criminal activity. He did not say that such activity should be condoned, but rather that unless basic causes of crime were addressed the courts would forever be dealing with symptoms. Here was a man who was not satisfied simply to carry out his prescribed role in society, but was committed to explore and speak out about the deeper roots of a problem.

In 1991 in Auckland, Professor Karen Lebacqx[5] addressed a conference on Ethics at Work[6]. Her topic was Justice as a Norm for the Delivery of Health Care. Many of her audience expected an overview of complex ethical issues in western medicine, but Karen opened up a far wider perspective:

During the hour that I am speaking to you, 50 children will die in Africa of disease and malnutrition. Disease and malnutrition are the causes of these children’s deaths, but not the reasons for them. These children are dying because their governments are redirecting funds much needed for social services into the repayment of loans to wealthier nations….Their  health status has to do with the systemic factors of justice and injustice around the world.

It was the same message as Judge Brown’s: preoccupation with business as usual can blind us to the larger issues of justice. Karen introduced the parable spoken by the prophet Nathan to King David[7]. The parable tells of a rich man who, although he had many flocks and herds of his own, took a poor man’s only ewe lamb to provide food for a guest. Her reference to Hebrew scripture had no sense of religious preaching about it. Having painted starkly the realities of the gap between rich and poor nations, she drew on an ancient prophetic voice to illustrate precisely a major contemporary injustice.

In 2008 I was appointed to ACART[8], a government health ethics committee. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is an area of great complexity with the potential for deep-felt and long-lasting trauma for those unable to conceive and carry a child in the normal way. Many have family members or friends who have gone through the pain of creating embryos artificially, having them implanted and then enduring the long wait to know the outcome. If unsuccessful they go through the process again, prolonging the trauma.

The care of the medical and counselling personnel at fertility clinics is impressive. Their approach is seldom narrowly clinical, but blended with a strong pastoral sense of each person’s need. One doctor said, for example, that the pain to a woman of not giving birth naturally was not eliminated by the eventual birth of a child via ART. Often there could be a sense of failure which endured for a long time.

ACART’s role is to develop guidelines for ART procedures in accordance with the government HART[9] Act 2004. The Act names seven principles to be followed, priority being given to the wellbeing of any child born as a result of an assisted procedure. Other principles include the wellbeing of women involved, the preservation of the health, safety and dignity of present and future generations and, in the case of donors of eggs, sperm or embryos, access by offspring to information about their genetic parents. Ethical and spiritual perspectives, including those of Maori and other cultures, are also highlighted.

The HART Act allows eggs, sperm and embryos to be frozen for future use. Sometimes genetic tissue is removed from very young people facing treatment for cancer and stored for later use. Similar procedures may be used for women wanting to defer child-bearing.

At times ethical principles clash. Should there, for example, be some upper age limit for a woman to carry an embryo sourced from a donor? There was a case in England where a woman in her late 50s gave birth to a child from a donor embryo. Before the child had started school the mother said she regretted her decision, citing her health and energy levels, her feeling of being a grand-mother alongside other parents, and the recognition that in her child’s teenage years she would be in her 70s with diminishing energy.

The HART Act lays down no guidelines for the age of a prospective birth mother. Avoiding age discrimination is often cited today, but the Act names the wellbeing of child and mother as over-riding principles. Age takes second place to wellbeing. This raises another question: who speaks for the unborn child? Prospective parents have the opportunity to demonstrate their suitability to a fertility counsellor, but the long-term wellbeing of a prospective child can only be guessed at.

Another ethical conundrum arises with the creation of what have been dubbed ‘saviour siblings’ or ‘spare parts babies’. Where parents have a child with some debilitating or life-threatening condition, it is now possible to select an IVF embryo which is a genetic match for the existing child and transfer stem cells at the birth of the new infant to ‘save’ its older sibling. The advantage for the existing child is clear, but could the younger one be left with feelings of ‘they only wanted me to help save my older brother or sister?’ The ethical principle of giving and saving life is a clear one. But it is also ethically desirable that any child born should be loved for its own sake. Ensuring this latter principle is fulfilled is a vital factor in ethical decision-making.

ACART decision-making processes are lengthy, causing great distress to parents who see their period of optimum fertility shrink and their hopes diminish. Much of the background work falls on a very competent but over-worked and under-resourced Ministry of Health secretariat. Draft guidelines go out for public consultation and might also be referred to other groups for comment, or sit on a Minister’s desk awaiting attention. There is little political pressure on governments to increase resources, but the delays are devastating on would-be parents.  I was greatly stimulated by my time on ACART and would like to see greater priority given to this work. 

Dwarfing all other ethical issues in recent times was the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008. How did the US housing finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, get into such trouble? In retrospect we can see how it happened, both in America and in New Zealand. Many people wanting no more than a basic family home were pressured by rising house prices and tempting mortgage deals to buy properties at inflated values. Then when the housing bubble collapsed they were forced into mortgagee sales as their mortgage exceeded the reduced value of their home.

There’s a significant difference between a house and a home. A house provides a home where people live, grow up, raise children, and know the love and security of a family. But move along the spectrum a little and a house can become an investment, or a bit further and house-trading can become a way of life. Further along the spectrum again there develops a frenzied maelstrom of buying and selling characterised by greed and reckless dealing by banks and other financial institutions.

‘The misdemeanours of the bankers will be paid for by millions of people in the real economy losing their jobs. And in paper money the trillion will be repaid in higher tax on people who have no responsibility for its disappearance. And the little tossers in the investment banks who’ve put away their two and three and four million in bonuses each year over ten years…they’ll hang on to it all. And they of course will be the only ones who don’t pay back a coin. Which is bloody odd when you come to think of it. Because really they ought to be in prison.’ A Week in December, Sebastian Faulks. Vintage Books, 2009.

Wisdom often proceeds ‘out of the mouth of babes and sucklings’ as I experienced one evening driving our grand-daughter Julia home. Only seven years old at the time, she asked about a land agent’s sign. I explained how houses were bought and sold, how people made sealed offers to the land agent, and how when the offers were opened the house was sold to the person offering the most money. ‘Why,’ Julia asked, ‘would the house not be sold to the one who offered the least money, because that person would probably be the one who most needed the house and could least afford it?’

What we saw in the New Zealand property market was a minuscule version of what happened in America. Of the several films on the global financial crisis, the one that shook me most was Inside Job. It showed graphically how the poor were ripped off at each end of the money-train. At one end they were conned into unsustainable home purchases, the debts on which were re-packaged and on-sold through a variety of shonky schemes and eventually purchased by pensioner funds or local school boards. The shonky schemers are the true looters in society: they clip the ticket at each stage of the transition, but when their schemes imploded it was the struggling homeless or retirees who lost out.

A second stunning insight from the film came from interviews with academics from prestigious US universities, some of whom served as trustees of the very banks that collapsed. When asked if they saw any conflict between their supposedly objective role as academics and their life as bank trustees, they were totally unable to grasp the meaning of the question. They had lost their moral compass to such an extent they could no longer perceive the moral conflict in their lives.

The academics would doubtless be outraged to be described as amoral or immoral, yet their blindness to the corruption over which they presided fits that category. This inability to discern evil has been graphically described by a Muslim novelist, Kamel Hussein, of Egypt, in his book about Good Friday, City of Wrong. Hussein writes:

The day was a Friday. But it was quite unlike any other day. It was a day when people went very grievously astray, so far astray in fact that they involved themselves in the utmost iniquity. Evil overwhelmed them and they were blind to the truth, though it was as clear as the morning sky. Yet for all that they were people of religion and character and most careful about following the right. They were endeared to the good, tenderly affected towards their nation, sincere in their religious practice, and characterised by fervour, courage and integrity. Yet this thorough competence in their religion did not save them from wrong-doing, nor immunise their minds from error. Their sincerity did not guide them to the good. They were a people who took counsel among themselves, yet their counsels led them astray. The people of Jerusalem were caught that day in a vortex of seducing factors and, taken unaware amid them, they faltered. Lacking sound and valid criteria of action, they foundered utterly, as if they had been a people with neither reason nor religion.

The Occupy movement in late 2011 was an international outburst against global financial institutions that allow the 1 per cent of the world’s population to grow fat at the expense of the 99 per cent[10]. In Wellington the Occupy movement made the city’s Civic Square their base. I was at the time locum priest at St Peter’s, my previous parish, and Occupy asked if they could hold their opening event in the church in the event of wet weather. The parish council agreed, but the weather was fine and the event held outdoors as planned. I went along to Civic Square and sat on the paving stones for a while, listening to the voices of many of the marginalised in Wellington. A few from government and business also attended and listened in.

It is not always easy to see how such movements contribute to positive change.  Two years later the Wellington City Council agreed to pay a Living Wage[11] to all its employees, and to expect the same from its contract service providers. One could not prove a direct connection between Occupy and the Living Wage but I believe movements like Occupy and the Hikoi of Hope help to make people aware of the realities of deprivation and hence are effective engines of change.

‘Looking down the table at her guests now, Sophie tried to calculate their worth…but apart from Farooq al-Rashhid, who’d shifted tons of limes from the groves of Mexico and Iran via the steaming vats of Renfrew down the gullets of the masses…, none of them had engaged with anything that actually existed’. A Week in December, Sebastian Faulks. Vintage Books, 2009.

A must-read novel with a global finance theme is Sebastian Faulk’s A Week in December[12], of which Literary Review writes:

The dark conclusion on which everything converges is that there are two types of terrorist in this country: one type universally reviled and against whom no measure is unjustified, and the other, one who arguably does more damage, who gets invited to dinner with the Tory party leader.

In August 2014 Nicky Hager launched Dirty Politics, a book which went viral overnight and dominated the period leading up to the September General Election. The book was based on a large number of hacked emails between Prime Minister John Key’s office and Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater. Further emails showed a very cosy relationship between Slater and Justice Minister Judith Collins, who was forced to resign her ministerial portfolio prior to the election.

Hager’s theme was that the Government was using the Whale Oil blog to promote its right wing policies by leaking information to discredit other political parties, individuals or community groups, or even members of their own Party thought to be less than loyal.

No one looks to politics for a model of sweetness and light, but what shocked many New Zealanders was the extent and vitriolic nature of what Dirty Politics outlined as going on behind the scenes. Public Relations extend along a spectrum from providing information, to promotion of a point of view, to outright manipulation. Many felt Whale Oil was at the latter end of the spectrum.

Four basic ethical principles are undermined in the process. Truth becomes the victim of lies or misrepresentation. Personal attacks discredit individuals rather than debate the merits of what they are saying. Promotion of an ideology overrides any consideration of what that ideology might be delivering for the most needy and vulnerable members of society. And finally, democracy is undermined when misinformation deprives citizens of their informed decision-making role while political manipulators skew the playing field to their own advantage.

But while many were shocked by Hager’s revelations, others just shrugged their shoulders and said: ‘Well, that’s politics, what would you expect?’ Many media commentators took a similar approach, either ignoring or failing to understand the ethical significance of what was plainly before their eyes. It is a sad comment on a nation’s ethics when many of its politicians, journalists and the public at large have lost the capacity to see the difference between right and wrong.

In this chapter I have focused on the ethical air we breathe, and have linked it to organisational purpose. If the operating ethos of any company, government, church, public sector body or community service organisation is de facto narrow, institutional, profit-centred and self-serving, corporate practice will reflect that goal. I say ‘de facto’ because most organisations profess a mission statement claiming their aim to be of service to others, but that aim is too often over-ridden or ignored.

Some corporate leaders do so intentionally. Others go along with a prevailing self-serving ethic because they feel powerless to change it, and there are some for whom any wider purpose is not even envisioned. In many situations operational concerns such as cost-cutting or profit-maximisation take precedence over core values. I remember from my days as an industrial chaplain visiting a large company where everyone from the managing director down felt that, much as they would like to change, it was not in their power to do so. All too often lesser and meaner values become so embedded in a corporate ethos that any wider purpose vanishes from the radar.

The Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, wrote in 2012[13]:

A moral revolution is needed when capitalism is no longer a system for the common good but an end in itself…Instead of the market being framed by wider moral principles, it comes to substitute for moral principle. If you can buy it, negotiate it, earn it and afford it, then you are entitled to it – as the advertisers say – because you’re worth it.

Ultimately financial failure is the result of moral failure: a failure of long-term responsibility to the societies of which we are a part, and to future generations who will bear the cost of our mistakes. It is a symptom of a wider failure: to see the market as a means not an end.

Over the years I have been privileged to work with many people in the public and private sector who share that vision and have the courage and will to work to achieve it. They are people who breathe an ethical air that works for the common good and the wellbeing of planet earth. We need many more of them.

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[1] ‘Interested Person’ is the legislative term but submissions were all from groups or organisations.

[2] The RCGM regarded the term ‘Genetic Engineering’ (GE) as synonymous with GM.

[3] In Capitalism and Freedom.

[4] Mick Brown of Auckland was a District Court Judge who later became the Principal Youth Court Judge.

[5] Theologian and teacher of social justice and ethics at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

[6] Organised by Dr John Hinchcliff of the Auckland Institute (now University) of Technology.

[7] 2 Samuel 12.

[8] Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology.

[9] Human Assisted Reproductive Technology.

[10] ‘We are the 99%’ was one of the slogans of the Occupy movement.

[11] The Living Wage campaign is global. In New Zealand a living wage (in 2014) was calculated to be $18.40 per hour, about $5 per hour higher than the legislated minimum wage.

[12] Vintage Books, 2009.

[13] Has Europe lost its soul to the markets?, The Times, 31 January 2012.

In 1992, Stephen Hall[1] invited me to Perth to run a series of seminars based on my poverty and justice work in New Zealand. My recently published book, Hearts and Minds, had been well received across the Tasman. I was impressed to see the partnership Stephen had developed with Aboriginal people around the Swan River. It was my first contact with such work and would turn out to be an important first step in my introduction to Australia.

Travelling home, I had been invited to make whistle-stop calls in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. The stop in Canberra was to prove especially significant. I had been invited to give a brief address on social responsibility issues in New Zealand at an end-of-year function at St Mark’s Theological Library.

The library had been founded by Ernest Burgmann, arguably the diocese’s most influential bishop in church and nation. Elected bishop of Goulburn in 1934, he retired as Bishop of Canberra & Goulburn in 1960, the diocese having changed its name in 1950 to include Australia’s fast-growing capital city. Burgmann had a love for theological education, and wanted theology to inform key issues of the day. Psychology was part of his studies and he was committed to social justice and workers’ rights.

As president of the Australia-Soviet Friendship League, he opposed legislation to ban the Communist Party in 1951, this earning him the title ‘the red bishop’. A prolific writer and public speaker, Burgmann was described once by Prime Minister Robert Menzies as ‘that most meddlesome priest’. Bishop for 26 years, he retired at age 75. The library he founded was opened in 1957 and now operates as St Mark’s National Theological Centre within the School of Theology of Charles Sturt University.

So it was to this place with its rich history that I came on a very wet evening in December 1992. My plane was late and, as I arrived, plates and glasses from the end-of-year function were being cleared away, many party-goers having already departed. An extended address at that stage was clearly not wanted, so I spoke briefly on socio-economic issues in New Zealand and the churches’ response, followed by a brief discussion. Next day I went on to Sydney and then home, where Jackie and I celebrated our silver wedding anniversary with family and friends just before Christmas.

I had stayed in Canberra with a retired priest, Ted Arblaster, and his wife, Mary. We had much in common and Ted, along with Ken Batterham, Geoffrey Brennan and others, was behind an invitation that came out of the blue shortly after. The diocese was looking for a new bishop: would I be prepared to be nominated? After discussion with Jackie and the family, I felt I should allow my name to go forward, and in January 1993 found myself on another whistle-stop tour, this time around the diocese meeting small groups of Anglicans in town and countryside.

There was something vaguely hush-hush about all this as twenty years ago it was considered not done to be ‘canvassing’. However, I was consoled by the fact that it was not my idea and, having bumped into one of the other candidates by accident, felt satisfied this was not some brash Kiwi initiative. Things are much more open today and it makes a lot of sense for people to have a Q&A with someone who might be their leader for years to come.

George Browning, an assistant bishop from Brisbane, was elected as bishop, but I was surprised some months later to be asked if I would consider coming to Canberra as assistant bishop with responsibility for the Church in the wider community. Vocationally this built squarely on my social responsibility role in New Zealand and it seemed right to Jackie and me to accept.

‘Crossing the ditch’ to New Zealand’s ‘west island’ had some family implications. It was not a case of the ‘chickens leaving the nest’ but rather ‘the nest leaving the chickens’. As a family we had enjoyed 16 settled years in Wellington, during which time Rebecca completed high school and was about to graduate from the University of Otago medical school and marry David. Jo had moved from school entrant to university graduate in the same period, completing her BA in English, arts and drama.

Jeremy had just finished high school and came with us to Canberra at one point to consider university enrolment there. He preferred to be with his Wellington friends, however, and we agreed to help with accommodation in Wellington as well as travel to Canberra in vacations. Jo spent much of 1995 with us in Canberra, pursuing her reading and writing, and undertaking voluntary work as a ‘diversional therapist’ at Brindabella, an Anglican aged care facility in Canberra. We greatly enjoyed her company as we settled into a new environment.

Jackie faced the biggest challenge of finding work in a new city. It is a mark of our largely male-dominated culture that wives and families generally follow along where ‘the man’ goes. There are some changes in the next generation, but I readily concede that Jackie is the one who has said ‘whither thou goest I will go’, at some cost to herself and her own counselling gifts. For that I am grateful and somewhat chagrined.

With the help of Canberra friends, Jackie explored options for counselling positions in the Canberra state school system as well as the Catholic one, all to no avail.  But a position was advertised for school counsellor at Canberra Grammar, the Anglican boys’ school. She was flown over for interview and we were delighted when she was offered the position. CGS was a far cry culturally from Viard College in Porirua, but the challenge of individual, relationship and school dilemmas no less deep.

At the end of 1994 we moved from Wellington to Canberra. I went six weeks ahead of Jackie, gallantly leaving her with much of the burden of packing up. Friends were very supportive as we got ready to go. Two sent a card with Moses, having parted the waters, saying to some disgruntled followers: ‘What do you mean it’s a bit muddy?’ Others prepared us culturally with the CD My Home Amongst the Gum Trees, and another entitled Great Australian Trucking Songs, the latter including such all-time Aussie favourites as The Lass on Goulburn Hill and A Light Shines for Me in Tarcutta.

Radical from New Zealand for Canberra was the headline in the English Church Times[2] over an article by its Australian correspondent, Muriel Porter, noting that I had been a ‘marked figure in New Zealand for (my) criticism of economic rationalism, and of the purchase of Australian-made naval frigates’.

St Thomas’ Day, 21 December 1994, was chosen for my consecration service in St Saviour’s cathedral at Goulburn. The early summer temperature was over 40C degrees, with iced water being handed out at the door. Many from the diocese were present, along with bishops from different parts of Australia. I was greatly moved to see a contingent from New Zealand including parishioners from St Peter’s, our old Wellington parish, church colleagues, the New Zealand high commissioner in Canberra, Graham Fortune, and a solid team of clan Randerson. My good friend, Bruce Gilberd, was the preacher that night, and it was special to have our daughter Jo as my chaplain.

My pastoral staff had a special history. A St Peter’s parishioner, Nola Bayliss, had brought back from Australia a simple unadorned shepherd’s crook made from Australian wood. When my appointment was announced she felt she should pass the crook to me so that it might be taken ‘home’ and used pastorally in my new role. In no way did it match the standard episcopal crook, elaborately carved with silver encrusted ornamentation, but I was honoured to receive it and use it during our years in Australia.

Preaching in a country parish one Sunday, I asked the children what they thought the crook was. They were totally mystified but at length the silence was broken by a retired sheep farmer who told us about his life running sheep and how they didn’t use wooden crooks anymore because they now used metal ones if they used one at all. It was a long step from there to why a bishop should be carrying one today, but hopefully the connection of ‘tending the sheep’ was made.

The Canberra & Goulburn diocese, with some 60 parishes, occupies the south-eastern part of New South Wales. It is a delightful part of Australia, although drought is at times a harsh reality for farmers. From its centre in Canberra, the diocese extends east via the Great Dividing Range to the coast at Batemans Bay. The Snowy Mountains lie across the southern boundary with Wagga Wagga marking the western end.

Sundays for a bishop are generally spent leading worship in one or other of the parishes. In and around Canberra this would usually mean a morning visit to lead worship and preach. During the second part of the year such visits often included a confirmation service when younger people (and sometimes older) would confirm their baptismal promises and receive the laying on of hands by the bishop. It was always very moving to see the commitment of candidates, learn of their backgrounds and hopes for the future, and experience the heightened sense of faith in the life of clergy and people.

No parish was more than a three-hour drive from Canberra, but for the more distant ones Jackie and I would often drive out together on the Saturday for a social event, dinner and address before staying over for the Sunday service. On one occasion we were at Tumbarumba where the parish was holding a parish gala. Jackie was asked to judge the baby show and, knowing the potential such events can have for inter-parental friction, I quickly moved off to try my hand at the coconut shies. Baby shows, in my experience, can only be successful when the number of prizes and categories exactly match the number of babies entered. Whether it be the darkest, blondest, cutest, curliest, sweetest or whatever, make sure no one goes home without a prize. I didn’t score a coconut but Jackie managed the baby show without any outbreak of hostilities.

At Eden, an old whaling and forestry town on the south coast, and on another occasion at Boorowa, I was asked to receive the debs at a debutante ball. The last such ball I had attended was 30 years earlier when Bishop Eric Gowing had received the debs in the Auckland town hall. So it felt like a time warp to be receiving the debs myself on the other side of the Tasman. I felt a little conflicted at Eden insofar as the All Blacks were playing the Springboks and I had to sneak out to an adjoining bar between fox-trots to catch the score. The social ethos surrounding debutante balls may have changed out of sight over recent decades, but it was moving to experience the warmth of a local community and to celebrate the gifts and grace that young people bring to it.

It was always a great gift to have Jackie with me on parish visits. I was usually the designated preacher or speaker but Jackie, a talented and indefatigable conversationalist, always sparked lively discussions. Often, having finished greeting parishioners after church, I would look across and see Jackie surrounded by a dozen or so women, all leaning in and hanging on to every word as she shared ideas on life, faith, church, families, young people, counselling, relationships, politics and most topics in between.

The All Saints’ parish church at Ainslie in Canberra had an intriguing history as a mortuary station on the railway line from Sydney to the Rookwood cemetery. Trains operated daily carrying mourners and coffins to the cemetery, discharging passengers (both living and departed) within the beautifully pillared brown stone station at Rookwood. Two angels with trumpets, one of Death, the other of Life, adorned the station archway, warning or assuring all visitors. Only the living required tickets for the train, the fare schedule noting ‘corpses free’.

The mortuary train was discontinued in 1948 as motorised traffic grew, and in 1957 the Rookwood station was put up for sale ‘as is where is’. It was a time when Canberra was rapidly expanding with clergy scrambling to build churches in newly-established parishes. The first priest at Ainslie was Ted Buckle, well known to many in New Zealand as priest and subsequently assistant bishop in the diocese of Auckland. Ted, with his wife Mona, had lived in the Snowy Mountains where Ted had been the Anglican chaplain to the Snowy Mountain Scheme. As the huge hydro construction came to an end, Ted was appointed to Ainslie, his photo on the church wall showing a determined young man with both vision and glint in his eyes.

Ted and the parish purchased the mortuary chapel for 100 pounds, had it dismantled stone by stone and moved by rail to Canberra where it was painstakingly re-erected with stained glass windows from England, and a new roof following a fire at Rookwood. The two ends were closed in, leaving an interior space with impressive pillars each side of the centre aisle marking the path of the single rail track into the station. The two angels with trumpets were strikingly repositioned at the entrance to the choir, although the angel of Death leaked badly in heavy rain. The overall impression was superb and I found the church had a beauty and gravitas which made it an inspiring place in which to worship.

Dennis Vanderwolf, the very colourful rector of the parish during our time, had a strong sense of ministry within the wider community. More than once I preached at the annual AIDS Day service, led musically with rousing songs from the Gay and Lesbian Quire, and with the more risqué Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, gay men dressed in nuns’ habits, in attendance. Another event at All Saints was the Police Association service recalling the lives of members lost on active duty, and affirming the service provided by police to the community.

As part of my role as bishop in wider society, I was able to adapt the poverty and justice seminar format from New Zealand to the Australian scene.  I also chaired the diocesan social services and aged care boards. Aged care was expanding fast with new facilities under construction in Canberra and at Merimbula on the south coast. Diocesan Careforce had a voluntary funding base which expanded during my time to make possible the appointment of a full-time staff person soon after I left.

There was a general interest in trans-Tasman approaches to poverty and I was several times invited to address conferences locally and nationally. I wrote opinion pieces for The Canberra Times, including one on the Goods and Services Tax being proposed at the time for Australia. The proposal led to a hot public debate with a demand from social service groups that essential basic food items should be exempt, an exemption that does not exist in New Zealand. My own view has been that provided adequate income compensation is made to those on low incomes, they need not be disadvantaged, the critical word being ‘provided’. The GST was subsequently introduced in Australia, including the exemption.

During our time in Australia two official delegations were dispatched from Australia to review the economic restructuring in New Zealand. Both returned with similar conclusions that while there might be a few things to be learned, the Australian government would not want to consign 25 per cent of its population to the extremes of poverty being experienced across the Tasman. I reflected that Australia was adhering to a far higher standard of social morality than could be said for New Zealand.

A controversial public statement I made concerned the 1998 national waterfront dispute. The waterfront employers’ group, the Patrick Corporation, had introduced major changes to improve productivity by reducing worker entitlements and introducing non-union workers to counteract the influence of the Maritime Union of Australia. In April 1998 when the union took industrial action, Patrick moved to lock out its whole waterfront workforce and replace them with non-union labour. In this they had the support of the Liberal-National Government of the day.

Addressing the Canberra May Day rally two weeks later, I affirmed the importance of trade unions as a means to achieve just wages and conditions for working people. But I also noted that the Canberra & Goulburn diocese had many rural parishes and that the capacity for farmers to get their produce across the docks in a reliable and cost-effective manner was vital to their survival. I deplored the fact that the Federal Government, having put much emphasis on fair dealing between employer and employee free of outside influence, had weighed in heavily in support of Patrick’s move in locking out the workers. I suggested the Government was sowing the seeds of a bitter harvest: it might win the waterfront battle but lose the more significant goal of long-term industrial harmony.  I called for the abandonment of partisan power in the dispute in favour of a mediated settlement that would benefit all Australians.

The statement was even-handed and carefully worded. Nonetheless it stirred up a hornet’s nest among farmers in the diocese, many of whom had bitter memories of union action over many years. To them any supportive reference to unions was anathema. Some threatened to withdraw their financial contributions to the church. Here is a challenge for any bishop: does one keep silent on key issues to avoid alienating parts of one’s constituency? Too often bishops keep silent or make bland utterances to keep the peace and maintain church revenue and membership.

Yet here was a major issue that was splitting the nation. What does it say if the Church says nothing in the face of major issues of social justice and conflict? The Archbishop of Melbourne, Keith Rayner, affirmed the Church’s role in speaking out on contentious issues. ‘We have no axe to grind, no need to impress an electorate at the next election, to maximise profits, or maintain inherited work practices. We cannot enforce a solution: but we can at least call for principles of justice and honesty.’

A less controversial local issue involved the seizure of a working couple’s home by the ACT Supreme Court sheriff to recover an unpaid debt. The action arose when a boy had been throwing stones at a couple’s house. The husband, an Eastern European migrant, had taken the boy inside and called on the boy’s parents to intervene. The parents laid a charge of kidnapping and the husband was brought before the court. The magistrate, sensing the reality of the situation, fined the man some paltry amount which he refused to pay ‘on principle’.

The situation escalated, further fines and charges inflating the amount owed, until eventually their house worth $295,000 was seized and sold for $80,000. The reason for the pathetically low sale price was that the sheriff could sell property to recover a debt with no reserve price. No effort to market the property was made other than a minimalist public notice. A government insider was able to pick up a valuable property for a fraction of its price, resulting in this case in a $200,000 loss to the couple.

I was outraged by such institutional injustice, especially in a comparatively small jurisdiction such as the ACT where one might expect a better chance of sorting things out. I said that clearly this was a case where the law had not delivered justice, and that ‘it was not enough for officials merely to follow the rules. They must ask whether or not the rules deliver a just outcome’. I also suggested that the ACT Government had a moral responsibility to make good the huge amount of money lost by the couple. There was a lengthy television interview and the case was a news feature in The Canberra Times, its billboard for the day trumpeting: BISHOP TO GOVT – PAY UP. I don’t think they ever did, but action was taken to repair what really amounted to insider trading at the expense of the powerless.

An ally and friend on the social justice front was Bishop Pat Power, my opposite number in the Roman Catholic diocese. Pat was born in Cooma, south of Canberra, and grew up in Queanbeyan on the outskirts of the ACT. He had a fine sense of justice and a special affinity with working people and those on the margins. Together we appeared at several events, one of them being a public rally on the parliamentary lawn in Canberra at a time when newly elected federal MP Pauline Hanson was making a huge impact. Pauline had won the Brisbane seat of Oxley in 1996, describing herself as a mother of four, sole parent and successful proprietor of a fish and chip shop.

She placed great emphasis on her opposition to multi-culturalism, immigration and federal assistance to Aborigines. Against that background Bishop Pat and I, along with others, spoke on the importance of national policies that were inclusive of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, and welcomed newcomers to Australia. Pauline won great acclaim from many but her parliamentary time was short-lived, lasting only until the next election.

On another occasion Pat and I travelled to Cooma to oppose government plans to close the local jail. We were not greatly in favour of jails, but the closure of the Cooma jail would entail long journeys for family members wishing to visit inmates, with all the cost of time and travel. The jail was closed for three years but reopened in 2001 because of an increased prison population.

Bishop Pat and I also made a joint appearance before the ACT housing committee to advocate for better housing for the poor. The date was 17 March, St Patrick’s Day, and Pat felt it appropriate that we should honour his patron saint with some liquid sustenance before making our appearance. In good ecumenical spirit I concurred without demur.

My public critiques of policy-makers notwithstanding, I was invited in 1998 by the ACT government to chair an enquiry into the nature and extent of poverty in Canberra. This was a significant opportunity to lead a committee comprising representatives of community groups as well as of various departments of the ACT public service. Teamwork between those working at the grassroots and public policy-makers was a visionary and constructive opportunity which I was excited to lead. I was able to oversee foundations for the enquiry before leaving Canberra, and I was pleased Bishop Pat was able to take on the leadership of the group.

I spent three days behind the ancient barb-wired grey stone walls of the state-run prison at Goulburn. With others from local churches, including the Roman Catholic archbishop Francis Carroll from Canberra, we ran a voluntary programme on life issues and relationships for inmates. The programme had a faith dimension and around 30 people opted in. Those three days gave me an insight into the basic humanity of people whose path in life seldom crosses that of the comfortable middle class. These men had a genuine desire to make a new start but I could see just how hard that would be, going back into the same social milieu from which they had come, and with the added stigma of being a ‘convict’.

A new prison under construction in Junee was opened during my time. It was the first privately run correctional facility in New South Wales and, compared with Goulburn jail, had all the advantages of a new complex with innovative and attractive features. As arrangements for the new prison were being made, I received a call one morning from the human resources manager at Junee. He wanted to know how many church services he could purchase for $5000 per year.

His contract with the state government required the provision of spiritual and religious services to inmates. I wondered if he was thinking that a Sunday church service might cost around $100, and if he purchased 50 we might throw in the other two for the year as part of a bulk deal. I explained that the provision of spiritual care was not based on the purchase of church services, but that our local priest in Junee, along with other clergy and church visitors in the area, would be very willing to act as chaplain to the new correctional centre. I helped him make the contacts with our clergy.

Work within church schools had a particular challenge. I loved the exchange with students on key issues of religion and society. On one occasion at Radford College, a co-educational Anglican high school, the topic for the day was religion and science, and we quickly got into a debate about the creation of the world. Many see this as a simple polarity: either you believe in Stephen Hawking and the Big Bang, and Charles Darwin and evolution, or you believe in the biblical account in Genesis. The two options are mutually exclusive in the popular mind, the choice not being helped by biblical literalists.

I explained that to see the biblical account of creation in scientific terms was a category mistake. The question of how the universe was created is essentially a scientific one. Religion has a totally different role to paint a picture of how humans should understand the world and live in it. The creation stories in Genesis offer a vision of life which is essentially relational – a relationship with God and with all people, seeing all humanity as family. From this concept of family stem all our endeavours for reconciliation, justice, peace and the well-being of all. We live also in relationship with the universe, planet earth and all living creatures, seeing these as gifts to be nourished and sustained to provide life for future generations.

All civilisations have their stories of origin of the earth and its species, and the biblical one has parallels with the dreamtime in Australian aboriginal mythology, and the Maori story of Rangi and Papa. I have never heard either of those two mythologies portrayed as scientific accounts of the world’s creation, but they share with the Genesis story themes of the connectedness of all human life and creation, and the mandate of stewardship and care for all life. To explore such issues with lively young minds is a great privilege.

A different challenge awaited me at an open forum for the senior classes at Canberra Girls’ Grammar School (CGGS). About 120 students gathered in the school’s auditorium for an ‘ask the bishop’ session. Written questions had been submitted in advance, and 75 per cent were about sex. Now you could say there’s another category mistake with an ageing male cleric giving advice to a large crowd of young women on sexual relationships. A wide variety of views was doubtless present, and it wasn’t much use just trotting out the Church’s traditional teaching of ‘no sex outside of marriage’.

Instead I suggested there is a broad spectrum of types of sexual relationship, from promiscuous and abusive relationships at one end of the spectrum to a relationship at the other end arising from a deep love and ongoing commitment to another person. And that what mattered was not so much where we might currently be on the spectrum, but what we aspired to in terms of a committed relationship grounded in love. Again a lively discussion ensued and I found it both enriching and enlightening to engage with the thinking of students 40 years my junior. Staff members sitting in on the session said they felt it had been constructive.

Some time later I was invited to chair the CGGS Board. It cannot be assumed that being a bishop automatically equips one for chairing a large school board. For me it was a steep learning curve, and I am greatly indebted to the mentoring I received from Lynette Glendinning. Lynette, an Anglican, is a management consultant with great skills in helping groups listen to each other, set new goals and develop team relationships. She consults with large government departments and in business, and gives much time voluntarily to church and community groups.

I invited Lynette to lead a planning day for the board and from that changes began to take place. The board was hard-working and committed, and it was impressive to see many projects in new building and curricula development under way. But several board members had been there for 15-20 years, and likewise among the teaching staff there was a need for rejuvenation. Lynette assisted us to reflect on the future challenges in education and to set in place strategies for change.

When I became chair the official name of the school was Canberra Church of England Girls’ Grammar School. This was an anachronism since the title ‘Church of England in Australia’ had been changed to ‘The Anglican Church in Australia’ in 1981. ‘Church of England’ smacked of colonial days, whereas the new title asserted the independence of the Australian Church within the worldwide Anglican Communion. I consulted the board who felt we should explore with parents, ex-pupils, staff and students the option of removing ‘Church of England’ from the school’s name.

I anticipated stiff opposition, but was pleasantly surprised to find widespread acceptance of the change. I did, however, have a long series of email exchanges with a parent working in the armed services who was quite certain the move was a covert step down the road to republicanism. The change was agreed to and the school is now known as Canberra Girls’ Grammar School.

I especially appreciated invitations to address gatherings of people outside the Church – opportunities to engage in dialogue with people from other walks of life, listen to their issues, and reflect on the deeper purposes and values of human endeavour. I spoke at conferences of judges and magistrates, the medical profession, educators, business leaders and social service agencies.

In August 1998 I delivered the Langford Oration to the Royal Australian College of Medical Administrators. I entitled the address Corpus Sanum cum Spiritu Sano and asked questions about the over-arching purpose of health organisations. The World Health Organisation in 1946 defined health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of infirmity or disease’. Maori have a similarly broad definition, defining the four pillars of health as te tinana (physical health), te wairua (spiritual health), te hinengaro (mental or emotional health) and te whanau (family or community well-being).

In dealing withte wairua or spiritus sanus I described spirituality as that background of beliefs and values that gives meaning, purpose and direction to our lives. Peter Berger[3] used the term ‘sacred canopy’, and spirituality is a life lived mindful of that canopy. It is a wider term than religion, although many people express their spirituality in theistic terms in a religious context.

In an address at a service in Goulburn cathedral in March 1995 to mark the opening of the legal year of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, I affirmed that the ultimate purpose of any profession is to serve individuals and the community. A lawyer had said to me that the great danger for the legal profession today was that professionalism in a narrow sense might obscure the wider purpose of justice.

That narrow sense of professionalism has been described by Sir Gerard Brennan[4]:

It has now been clearly recognised that legal knowledge, like lawyers’ time, is a valuable commodity. It can be turned to financial account… Note, however, the significant change in attitude that that approach engenders…The meaning of the profession is (no longer) the pursuit of justice according to the law for the community, but the provision of opportunities for each individual member to turn his or her expert knowledge to financial account.

Complementing Sir Gerard’s warning, Sir Owen Dixon[5], outlined a higher view of professionalism:

Members of a profession master and practise an art which is indispensable to the progress of society, and the skill and knowledge of the profession must be available to the service of the state or the community.

The question we must always ask, in any profession, I suggested, was ‘Whom do we serve?’

After the service I walked out with Supreme Court judge, Justice John Dowd. A local reporter wanted a photograph of the two of us in our colourful robes, sitting on a large rock outside the Cathedral with our backs to each other. Neither of us felt this was a great message to be sending, and the outcome instead was a very nice photo of the two us standing side by side.

Another initiative I took in public values was to establish the Canberra Forum. The forum was designed to create a space where leaders in their respective professions might share some of the background to their work, and the ethical challenges they faced. Forum events began with a sit-down meal in one of Canberra’s social clubs and were then followed by the invited speaker and discussion.

The Hon Michael Kirby[6] attracted a capacity crowd the night he addressed the forum. Justice Kirby is a significant Australian jurist who recently led the UN Human Rights Council Inquiry into abuses in North Korea, his report being published in February 2014. He has given strong support to gay and lesbian rights, having declared in 1999 in Who’s Who in Australia his 30-year relationship with Johan van Vloten. As a lifelong Anglican who had grown up in the suburb of Concord in Sydney, he said he had always felt singled out for God’s blessing by the Anglican prayer that begins ‘O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord’.

Justice Kirby presented a stimulating background that night to many contemporary issues of justice and law. One questioner asked how one made a judicial decision in the absence of precedent. He replied that when there was no previous case law one needed to refer to higher principles, such as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Laws that fail to reflect higher purpose cannot deliver justice.

The bishops of the seven dioceses in New South Wales[7] met regularly at the home of the Archbishop of Sydney. The Sydney diocese swamps all the others in terms of numbers and finance, and is well known for its conservative and often fundamentalist viewpoints. A current example of that in my time was a debate in the Sydney synod about lay presidency at the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. It is universal Anglican practice that only a priest may preside at such services, so for Sydney to be contemplating lay presidency was a major departure from long-standing tradition.

The issue surfaced from time to time at meetings of the New South Wales bishops which were graciously hosted by the Archbishop of Sydney, Harry Goodhew, and his wife Pam. Harry was the glue that held together the diverse views of the bishops. An evangelical himself, an essential qualification for being Archbishop of Sydney, he was mindful that Anglicanism was a broad church and reflected this in his inclusive approach to those with differing theological views.

The lay presidency issue put him under intense pressure. A large majority of the clergy and laity in the Sydney synod supported it, but without his vote it could not proceed. ‘Help me, fellas,’ he said to the bishops one day. ‘I don’t want to step out of line with the worldwide Anglican consensus, but standing against the majority of one’s own synod is not easy either.’ Harry withstood the pressure and the Sydney diocese has not yet gone down that track.

Nationally, Australia’s 40 or more bishops met annually in conference at Gilbulla, a Sydney diocesan conference and retreat centre with basic facilities, situated next to a large pig farm. An unfavourable wind brings a pungent reminder of Jesus and the Gadarene swine[8]. Since my departure the bishops’ meeting has moved to more salubrious locations such as the Barossa Valley, the Gold Coast or Western Australia.

Differences of theological opinion were evident at these meetings. From time to time the Sydney bishops would table an agenda item on the uniqueness of Christ. None of us had any doubt on the subject, but it was important to Sydney to check we were all doctrinally orthodox. One year the bishop of Wangaratta, Paul Richardson, shared that in his previous post in Papua New Guinea he had found certain parallels between Christianity and indigenous religions. Temperatures rose as the potential for ‘pagan influences’ raised its head and the primate[9], Keith Rayner, well-honed in managing such situations in the national church, gently moved the agenda on to the next item.

My first national meeting of the Australian bishops was attended also by the newly elected Anglo-Catholic bishop of Ballarat, David Silk, who had migrated from England a few months earlier. Work on the revision of An Australian Prayer Book had been going on for several years and the bishops were now being asked to approve the final draft to go to the forthcoming General Synod. David had a background in matters liturgical and was sitting in the meeting with a huge pile of papers beside him.

When the topic of prayer book revision came up he intervened to say he had reviewed the various forms for the Holy Communion service and found them inadequate in several respects. The papers he had brought contained major revisions or substitutions for those services. This news stunned the meeting, its members, including the primate, expecting more of a consensus assent to a document worked over and revised many times. In the silence David asked the Primate: ‘Shall I distribute my documents first, Your Grace, or would you like me to speak to them before passing them around?’

His Grace clearly wished to have them neither distributed nor spoken to but, bowing to the inevitable, agreed it was better to have them passed around and then discussed. David proceeded to summon several of the bishops to hand out the papers. ‘Harry,’ he said, nodding to the Archbishop of Sydney, ‘would you kindly pass this lot around?’ It was the most astonishing ecclesiastical coup I have ever experienced. David was successful in getting much material of an Anglo-Catholic nature incorporated into the new prayer book, even although this made it much less attractive to Sydney.

The new Australian prayer book was further debated at the General Synod in Melbourne in 1995 and finally adopted. The communion services display many contemporary features, but none of them captures the quintessentially Australian flavour of a prayer by an Aboriginal woman, Lenore Parker. It includes evocative images:

God of holy dreaming, Great Creator Spirit, from the dawn of creation you have given your children the good things of Mother Earth. You spoke and the gum tree grew. In the vast desert and dense forest, and in cities at the water’s edge, creation sings your praise. Your presence endures as the rock at the heart of our Land.[10]

The prayer appears as a separate prayer of thanksgiving but, turning a blind eye to constitutional niceties, I would on occasions use it in lieu of the first part of the eucharistic prayer. An earlier proposal had been that the prayer in fact be part of one of the eucharistic prayers, but sadly it had been relegated from that more prominent spot as the liturgical commission wrestled with the proposals brought by David Silk. It was a sad triumph of neo-colonial partisan churchmanship over indigenous tradition.

At the same General Synod I was stunned by one of the opening procedural motions dealing with such matters as hours of sitting and order of business. The motion that shocked me accorded to the sole Aboriginal bishop, Arthur Malcolm, the right to speak ‘if called upon by the President but not to propose motions or to vote’. The Aboriginal bishop was not a member of his own national synod!

I could hardly believe this but found on enquiry how it came about. Australia is divided into separate dioceses with synod representation based on diocesan delegations. Diocesan bishops are members of synod as of right, but clergy and laity are elected by each diocese in numbers proportional to size of diocese. Anachronistically, assistant bishops are not members of the House of Bishops, even though many of them oversee large metropolitan regions that numerically dwarf small rural dioceses.

Assistant bishops have to be elected to General Synod as one of the clergy delegates for their diocese, this displacing a clergy person from election. Arthur Malcolm held the office of assistant bishop in the diocese of North Queensland, a very small diocese which qualified for only a few seats. Bishop Arthur had not been elected to one of them and was thus a stranger in the General Synod in the country where his people had lived for 40,000 years.

I was appalled, and described it as a situation of ecclesiastical terra nullius, the doctrine of European colonisers that Australia was terra nullius, ‘belonging to no one’, and hence could be freely occupied. It was clear to me that the Anglican Church was operating on the same principle. With Australia divided into geographical dioceses, and synod representation arising exclusively from that base, there was no land whereby indigenous Australians could gain representation. Only within the colonisers’ system of church governance could an Aboriginal stand part of his own synod. In this case he had been excluded.

I shared my sense of outrage with a senior colleague who advised me that as a newcomer to Australia I should keep silence. Keeping silence has never been one of my better developed skills and in August that year I put my thoughts on paper for the Samaritans Foundation in Newcastle, speaking on The Year of Tolerance, Social Justice and the Church. In my paper I said:

The Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders are the host peoples of Australia, but the history of Australia, as in most colonial nations, has not been one of reciprocity. As the settlers have gained in numbers and power, they have taken over the land. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have been killed, driven from their traditional lands, impoverished in terms of culture, spirituality, socio-economic well-being and political representation. Large numbers of indigenous people are in prison and may die in custody. Adequate income, housing, education and employment are not available to many of Australia’s indigenous people today.

On the question of indigenous church representation, I quoted Article 19 of the United Nations Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:

Indigenous peoples have the right to participate fully, if they so choose, at all levels of decision-making in matters which may affect their rights, lives and destinies through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions.

I suggested that the Church’s constitution should be varied to allow for General Synod representation other than on the current exclusive basis of diocesan land areas and that a case should be made for indigenous representation in its own right. I said that the current church structures were assimilationist, subsuming indigenous peoples into a settler structure where their own cultures were not affirmed. I continued:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representation on General Synod should not be seen as a granting of some concession by the Settler Church to indigenous Australians. Rather it would be a step into a new relationship which would be mutually enriching. God’s gifts have been given to all peoples, and the bringing of gifts previously neglected into a full and rightful partnership would enhance both the life and the mission of the Church as a whole.

In 1997 Ted Mosby became a bishop for Torres Strait Islanders, based on Thursday Island. His appointment was on the same subordinate basis as Arthur Malcolm’s, as an assistant bishop in the diocese of North Queensland. Writing in a NATSIAC[11] publication, Ted said:

The system and understanding of the time when the Anglican Church was established in Australia erased any chance of equality and rights in all levels of decision-making. Our indigenous leadership system was not given due dignity and respect by those who had come to be Australians. We did not ask them to come, and they did not ask us if they could come and share this life in this land. Our leadership system was humiliated, making it weak. Still today the General Synod speaks for the body of Anglicans who came from other countries to Australia, and not the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anglicans.

Ted and NATSIAC were likewise pushing for indigenous representation in its own right.

In August 1995 I circulated my paper around the church leadership and received an appreciative response from the primate, Keith Rayner, who felt the suggestion should be furthered by the Constitution Review Commission. Bishop Bruce Wilson from Bathurst sent a longer letter which was both supportive and reflective. The issue was not a new one, and Bruce had been addressing it ecumenically in his role as chair of the National Council of Churches’ Task Force for Reconciliation. One of the issues the council had faced was that indigenous representation was often experienced by Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as tokenism. The membership was predominantly white and decisions reflected the majority white view. Indigenous members were being described by some as coconuts – brown outside but white inside. In Bruce’s view, only an equally weighted membership system could succeed.

This was precisely the problem experienced by Maori Anglicans in New Zealand. There had been a Maori bishop with subordinate status until 1978 when the incumbent took on episcopal status in his own right. Maori quickly recognised, however, that independence was one thing, but being a continuing minority another. Further constitutional review led in 1991 to a system whereby agreement between Maori and the dioceses was required before any decision could be made by the General Synod.[12]

To further the discussions within the Australian Church, the primate called a two-day conference in Brisbane where those of us present explored the issue and discussed ways of making progress. I was not part of the formal constitutional review process but at the next General Synod in Adelaide in 1998 a proposal was brought to establish six indigenous places in the synod – a bishop, priest and lay member for each of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island groupings within the Church. Furthermore, the two bishops were to sit as members of the House of Bishops. The motion was passed unanimously amidst much singing, shedding of tears, and prayers of thanksgiving.

The Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls’ Training Home was located in our diocese. The ‘Coota girls’ belonged to Australia’s stolen children generation. Opened as a hospital in 1897, the Cootamundra Home housed 1200 young Aboriginal girls from 1911-1969. These girls were ‘stolen’ from their families under the 1909 Aborigines Protection Act, part of a policy of forced assimilation whereby young Aborigines could be removed from their families and communities so that they might be ‘saved’ into European society.[13]

In places like the Cootamundra Home they were trained for a life of servitude in European homes, separated from family and culture. Any trace of Aboriginal thinking had to be erased if they were to have any future in a white society. Their vocational assignment as domestic servants was an indication of the prevailing view that they were of inferior intelligence. Children who were less black than others were particularly targeted as it was thought that being brown rather than black would enhance the chances of assimilation.

I visited the home on one occasion and found that memories of the Coota girls and their sufferings lingered. The home had later been taken over by the Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship as the Bimbadeen Christian Training and Conference Centre, which trains Aborigines for ministries in church, community, workplace and family.

In 1995 the Federal Government established a National Inquiry into the Stolen Children, jointly chaired by Sir Ronald Wilson[14] and Mick Dodson[15] and aided by an indigenous commissioner in each region. In less than a year the Inquiry heard from 777 groups and individuals all over Australia, 535 of whom had been stolen children or families affected by the forced removal policy. A formal report[16] was produced in April 1997 and tabled in federal parliament the following month.

Michael Horsburgh[17] and I made submissions to the Inquiry in Canberra on behalf of the national Anglican Social Responsibilities Commission, stating:

The Social Responsibilities Commission joins with other parts of the Anglican Church in offering its unreserved apology for the involvement of Anglicans, both individually and corporately, in the policies and practices that allowed the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children from their families…It may be that many of those involved believed that they were acting in the best interests of the children concerned. The SRC does not wish to impute any particular motives to those involved. It simply states that no amount of explanation can detract from the now observable consequences of those misguided policies and practices.

The Inquiry recommended a variety of proposals including counselling, formal apology to the Stolen Children generations, family tracing and reunion services, and monetary compensation under such headings as racial discrimination, arbitrary deprivation of freedom, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, disruption of family life and loss of cultural and native title rights. The churches were charged with making available personal records that might assist family reunions, providing culturally appropriate services, and returning mission and institutional land to indigenous peoples.

A formal apology was never contemplated by the federal government, Prime Minister John Howard insisting ‘we must not have a black armband view of history’, although ‘personally he was very sorry’. The Inquiry asked us if this generation could be guilty for the sins of our ancestors. I replied that while we cannot be personally guilty for the wrongs of others yet our generation is responsible for putting right the wrongs that had been done.

In May 1998, as chair of the ACT Churches Council, I tendered an apology to the stolen children on behalf of the ACT churches at an ‘Honour the Grief’ ceremony in Parliament House. We passed over a ‘Sorry Book’ which was a heartfelt expression of our grief and sorrow, along with a commitment to do what we could to put things right. As part of my address, I said:

An apology that incorporates both an acknowledgment of wrong and a commitment to rectify the wrong has the spiritual capacity to evoke from those who have been wronged a spirit of forgiveness which lays the path for reconciliation and future partnership. Such forgiveness is not something that we, the descendants of the wrong-doers, are entitled to,   but if forgiveness is offered we should accept it humbly as an act of grace.

It was not until 13 February 2008 that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology to the Stolen Generations, an apology endorsed almost unanimously by the federal parliament.

At Christmas 1997, following the issue of Bringing Them Home, I was preaching at the midnight Eucharist at St John’s, Reid in Canberra. I drew a parallel between Jesus, Mary and Joseph as outcasts in the manger and the stolen children as outcasts in their native land. Many saw the link but there were complaints from a few who believed I should be preaching about Christmas, not politics.

Diocesan life had some lighter moments. In the late 1990s there was a proposal to introduce a faster rail service between Canberra and Sydney. The existing train took four hours to cover the 300 kilometres and there were two proposals to accelerate the schedule. One was a tilt train which would use the existing track and trim an hour from the schedule. The other, Speedrail, would revolutionise the service, cutting the time in half with a German mag-lev train on completely new track.

It must have been a slow day at the diocesan office when, pursuing my lifelong interest in rail, I decided to issue a media release in support of Speedrail. Since opinions on rail technology lie outside the normal expertise of a bishop, I based my support on socio-economic benefits such as new jobs and enhanced family incomes. It must have been an equally slow day at the Canberra TV studios for, within an hour, a camera crew came by to do an interview. Dressed in my purple gear outside St John’s church I spoke solemnly about jobs and income.

The TV crew, however, could not keep off the rail technology dimension and asked me what I thought about the tilt train, my reply being that it was not fast enough to bring the benefits of Speedrail. In what has gone down in family annals as a great hoot, the interview was introduced with the words: ‘In a surprise move today the Anglican Church has come out in support of Speedrail,’ and concluded with the statement: ‘Bishop Randerson has ruled out the tilt train as being too slow for the route.’ Fifteen years later, no change to the service has been made.

In July 1998 Jackie and I set off for the 10-yearly Lambeth conference of bishops and spouses in Canterbury, UK. In chapter 3 I wrote of my experience at the 1988 conference as a staff member, and the significant insights I gained. Perhaps I was at a different stage ten years later as I found the 1998 event less exciting. There were good times sharing with colleagues from around the world in prayer and biblical studies, but fewer speakers of substance, and the main agenda topics somewhat institutional.

The question of same-sex relationships dominated the 1998 conference with heated divisions between African bishops and the more liberal West. Jackie and I had some close encounters with two African bishops and their wives with whom we shared accommodation. At the conference venue at the University of Kent, six bed-sitter student units had been re-arranged to accommodate three episcopal couples. This was our base for three weeks, the other two couples being from Uganda and Nigeria.

Breakfast was self-serve after the early morning Eucharist, with all food delivered to the unit. A huge commercial carton of loose cornflakes sat on the floor (we only got through half of it), and there were daily deliveries of milk, eggs, bacon, yoghurt, bread, butter and jam. While Jackie and I busied about organising our own breakfasts, the two African bishops sat down at table awaiting service by their wives. Each morning as the meal ended I would jump up to clear dishes and start the washing-up. But I had scarcely got the dishes in the water before one of the African wives would appear by my side saying: ‘No, no, my Lord, you must not go near the sink’, and taking me by the elbow she would steer me back to my seat at table. I could see I was living in the wrong culture.

The Ugandan bishop had become a de factospokesman for the anti-gay African bloc at Lambeth and was often quoted in the morning newspapers. While waiting for his breakfast he would study the papers and share snippets with us. The atmosphere was not very conducive to contrary opinions but I did on the last day express the view that any anti-gay outcome from the conference would make it much more difficult for us in western nations. This thought was too much for him and he leapt up, slamming his hand on the table and saying: ‘THERE ARE NO GAYS IN AFRICA’. His dear wife, Faith, sitting next to Jackie, leaned across and whispered: ‘There are gays in Africa’.

During my time in Canberra, and later back in Auckland, I had to handle cases of sexual misconduct by clergy. Prior to the mid-1990s the Church, along with other institutions, did not have an effective system to deal with such situations. Too often reported cases had been swept under the carpet, or the cleric concerned moved on to another diocese. Local bishops acted at their own discretion, leading to a variety of practices which were inconsistent, often ineffective, treated complainants unfairly and did not protect church members from further abuse.

By the 1990s, however, dioceses on both sides of the Tasman were scrambling to put precise protocols in place for dealing with sexual misconduct. The protocols typically require of offenders a period of stand-down, repentance and reparation, and counselling to ensure a priest may only return to ministry if it is judged safe to do so. In some cases clergy may never resume ministry if it is felt they would be an ongoing threat to those under their pastoral care. As a bishop I was greatly relieved when the protocols came into place. It is both easier and more effective for a bishop and the priest concerned to follow a detailed process which ensures the safety of parishioners as well as providing an opportunity for the rehabilitation of the priest where this is possible.

Our five years in Canberra concluded at the end of 1999, but there were two pleasant occasions at Canberra Grammar School before we left. The first was the school’s end-of-year Speech Day where I had been invited as guest speaker. My theme was A Spirituality for Australia, which I illustrated with examples of lifestyle and vocational choices.[18]

At the same event I knew confidentially that the Ian Powell award for outstanding staff member of the year was to be awarded to Jackie. As different elements of the winner’s background were described it gradually became clear who it was. I watched Jackie’s stunned reaction to the personal lead-up, and others also who were clearly delighted with the choice. As school counsellor for five years, Jackie had given everything to the hundreds of boys she counselled, as well as to the wider fabric of school life. She had a special bond with the headmaster, Tim Murray, and would meet him at the end of each week to review overall trends or issues within the school. Receiving the Ian Powell award was a great affirmation of Jackie’s work and a warm conclusion to her time at the school.

A few nights later Canberra Grammar held its senior prize-giving in the school hall. This was a formal occasion when all the graduating students came with their parents for speeches, dinner and the awarding of prizes. The guest speaker was former Prime Minister, the late Gough Whitlam, a pupil of the school in the 1930s. Mr Whitlam, with his wife Margaret, had got lost in the leafy circular roads around the school and the entrée was already being served when they arrived.

I attended the prize-giving on behalf of the diocese and was sitting opposite the chairman of the board, Dale Budd. Margaret Whitlam was to my left, with Gough next to the chairman and Jackie on his right. The speech was to follow the entrée and Margaret whispered to me: ‘make sure he knows how long he has to speak for, or he’ll go on for ever.’  I felt this was an assignment for the chairman, with whom I could not discreetly speak because of the seating arrangements.

The speech got off to a good start with Mr Whitlam recounting how he had got top marks in religion at school but the headmaster decided to award the prize to Francis James[19], who came second. When Gough asked for an explanation the headmaster said: ‘You know it all, Whitlam, but James actually believes it.’ Gough said he became an agnostic from that day.

This opening story was well received, and the speaker moved on to discuss church statistics and the declining numbers in mainline Australian churches. He had a sheaf of notes and after each page would dramatically thrust it behind him for me to field. At the 20-minute mark Margaret again whispered urgently in my ear that I had to do something to stop him. I leaned across and conveyed this information to the chairman who said: ‘Oh, I think you should tell him, you’re the bishop.’

I didn’t feel up to the task either but at the 40-minute mark came another urgent communication from Margaret to do something. By this time Gough was canvassing an obscure point of Church-State relations in Europe in 1866 (‘or was it 1867?  No, I think 1866’). I wrote a note that it was time to serve the meal and placed it on the podium. Gough stopped in mid-sentence to read it and said: ‘Huh! The bishop says it’s time for me to stop and I haven’t even got to my second point yet.’ He carried on, the serving staff by now standing at the doors with hot food trolleys. As the hour came up they started to serve the food and in a clatter of crockery and cutlery the speech came to an end.

After the meal came the prize-giving. I was sitting on the stage next to Gough, who presented the Whitlam Prize early in the piece. We settled back to observe the procession of prize-winners across the stage, punctuated by small rounds of applause. Gough started a conversation: ‘SO WHERE ARE YOU FROM, THEN?’ he asked in a voice that could have been heard halfway down the hall. ‘New Zealand,’ I whispered. ‘HA! NEW ZEALAND. I WENT THERE ONCE. MET YOUR PRIME MINISTER. NOW WHO WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN?’  ‘Umm…Norman Kirk, perhaps?’ ‘KIRK, YES, THAT’S THE MAN. GREAT MAN, KIRK.’

But there was no doubt who was the star of the show. As the formalities concluded, Gough Whitlam was mobbed on stage by students wanting his autograph on their programme. It was after midnight when people were taking their leave, and I commented to the Headmaster that this must be the first occasion on which the school prize-giving had extended over two days.

Our five years in Australia had been enriching. Australia has much in common with New Zealand but is different enough to offer new experiences. I had a sense of being at home and yet also challenged by a new environment. A larger population has a greater range of people to reflect on issues of the day. I felt this in the General Synod where the depth of wisdom went far beyond the merely pragmatic. I was a smaller fish in a bigger pond, but the stimulus of the larger body was enlivening.

I felt well received by my fellow bishops, local churches and the community at large, although as a newcomer I lacked the background knowledge of clergy or the flavour of parishes. Professionally, chairing the boards of social services and a significant grammar school was a steep learning curve, but one I enjoyed. Opportunities to address professional groups and social service gatherings I always valued. Jackie and I both loved moving around very diverse urban and rural parishes where we experienced Australian life at a personal level.

I had been invited to bring something to Australia from across the Tasman, but also gained much in new challenges and insights. For Jackie too it had been a high point professionally. We were inspired by amazing places such as the Snowy Mountains, Kakadu and Uluru. We had each been engaged in a variety of challenging personal and national situations. We came away with good friendships that have lasted. We came home to a new millennium with the next step in ministry still in the melting-pot.  

---

[1]  Anglican Social Responsibility Officer in the Diocese of Perth.

[2] 18 February 1994.

[3]  Berger is an American sociologist, one of his books being entitled The Sacred Canopy – Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967).

[4] Chief Justice of Australia, 1995-98.

[5] Chief Justice of Australia, 1952-64.

[6] Justice of the High Court of Australia, 1996-2009.

[7] Sydney, Newcastle, Grafton, Armidale, Bathurst , the Riverina and Canberra-Goulburn.

[8] Matthew 8.28.

[9] In ecclesiastical circles, a primate is the archbishop who heads a national church. Not to be confused with primates of the animal species, there was nonetheless an interesting exchange when a research primatologist  accidentally sent a letter to the Anglican Primate of Canada. The latter’s secretary completed the questionnaire noting similarities between the species. His boss, he said, had a penchant for eating bananas at lunch-time, and had once been found on all fours searching for his spectacles under his desk. He pointed out, however, a significant difference between the species, which was that the Anglican primates were the only known all-male species on earth at that time able to reproduce themselves without female agency.

[10] A Prayer Book for Australia, shorter edition, p. 218.

[11] National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anglican Council

[12] See chapter 4.

[13] Films like The Rabbit-Proof Fence graphically portray the pain and heartbreak for both parents and children as they were torn away from each other, in some cases never to be reunited even decades later.

[14] President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission.

[15] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

[16] Bringing Them Home:  The Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.

[17] An associate professor at the University of Sydney where he taught social policy from 1972-1999.

[18]  Chapter 1 in my book A Word in Season.

[19] Francis James was a professional journalist and lifelong Anglican.

By 1990 I had spent twelve challenging years at St Peter’s. Our children had enjoyed settled years at Clifton Terrace School, Rebecca and Joanna going on to Wellington Girls’ College and Jeremy to Wellington College. Jackie had returned to paid work with a part-time position at the National Marriage Guidance office, and later resumed her earlier commercial teaching role at Viard College, a low-decile Roman Catholic school in Porirua. There her skills in counselling were soon recognised and she was appointed guidance counsellor.

For myself I had no clear idea about a next step in ministry. I was not looking to move, but after twelve years, and at age 50, a move could well open up fresh opportunities for me as well as for St Peter’s. In 1986 I had proposed to General Synod that the Anglican Church establish a Social Responsibility Commission (SRC), and this was agreed to. Funding for a full-time commissioner was obtained from the St John’s College Trust as part of its role in supporting theological education, the theory and practice of social justice being seen as part of such education. 

With my background and public profile in social justice matters I applied for the job and was rather surprised not to be appointed. Instead, a New Zealand priest resident in the UK for many years had also applied and got the job. But having come to New Zealand and surveyed the scene, he decided the job was not for him after all. Archbishop Brian Davis then approached me and said he hoped I would accept the position, which I did.

Acceptance was not without its personal angst, however. Soon after taking up the new appointment, my good friend and colleague, Bruce Gilberd, by now Bishop of Auckland, sounded me out about being the next Dean of Auckland, at Holy Trinity Cathedral. This was tough. I had never had a game plan for a church ‘career’ but ten years earlier I had said to a colleague that if there was one position in the Church I would like it would be as Dean of Auckland. The combination of good worship, preaching opportunities and being a voice in the city had a strong vocational pull. And now it was on offer, just after I had committed myself to a new social justice position.

I wrestled for several days with this dilemma, each of the positions tugging at me strongly. The timing was awful. But there was no way I could, or would, turn back from the call to address the poverty and justice issues which were worsening at that time. That did not save me, however, from some dark hours one summer evening on a Northland beach where I felt keenly the grief of having taken ‘the road less travelled’.

The SRC’s limited budget of $75,000pa covered my stipend, housing and travel costs around the country. I was provided with a generously-sized room free of charge at the Wellington City Mission in Newtown. A voluntary treasurer handled the small amounts of money involved, and a committee met quarterly as a kind of sounding board. In reality I was very much a ‘one man band’ with a general job description but with the specifics to be worked out.

From industrial mission days I knew what it was like to promote something new outside the Church’s traditional parish structures. One is accorded a polite hearing at a diocesan synod before the synod hurries on to consider important matters such as the diocesan budget or church legislation.

I pondered how to handle my new job. There were two distinct elements to be inter-woven, one to resource local churches in the theology and practice of social justice, the other to address the poverty imposed on thousands of New Zealanders as a result of government policies. Radical changes began with a new Labour government in 1984 which introduced policies aimed to put backbone into the economy by promoting initiative and rewarding enterprise. The policies became known as ‘Rogernomics’ after their architect Roger Douglas, the Treasurer. Tax cuts led to disproportionate benefits for the affluent, while reductions in import tariffs threw many thousands out of work as local businesses could not survive against low cost foreign goods. Unemployment figures grew rapidly, and the number of people living in poverty multiplied.

The change to a National government in 1990 entrenched the programme. ‘Rogernomics’ was replaced by ‘Ruthanasia’ under the direction of Ruth Richardson, the new Treasurer. The seats on the government benches were scarcely warmed by their new occupants before sweeping welfare cuts were announced to take effect just before Christmas. Labour laws were toughened to reduce the rights of workers and put more power in the hands of employers. It was said at the time: ‘you incentivise the rich by giving them more money and power, and the poor by giving them less’.

To get the Church on board with the new socio-economic realities, I devised a workshop format with three elements. The first element was a theological one, linking the Creation story of Genesis with the Revelation story of the world’s ‘end’, or purpose. Common to each story is the vision of a God-centred creation living in harmony and caring for the well-being of humanity and the earth itself. The second element asked participants to list the signs of poverty and stress they saw in their local communities, while the final section explored strategies for addressing poverty locally and becoming voices for justice nationally.

People were deeply concerned by the new levels of poverty. There was an immediate demand for the workshops and, over the period 1990-94, I conducted 150 throughout New Zealand – from Kaikohe to Invercargill, in Greymouth and Gisborne and multiple points in between. Workshops varied in format from an all-day event in Auckland attended by over 100 people to a gathering of 10-20 folk for an evening session in Gore.

Participants were most animated when they broke into groups to discuss poverty in their communities. With felt-tip pens and large sheets of paper they wrote lengthy lists arising from personal experience or local knowledge. Some knew about unemployment having been thrown out of a job with little prospect of new work. Parents knew about poverty because they could not pay the minimal school fees for their kids at the local school, or afford money for them to go on class trips. Children knew because they felt excluded by their peers.

Teachers knew about poverty because they saw students coming to school without lunch or with no shoes or raincoats. Doctors knew because they encountered poverty-related illnesses such as TB, pneumonia, infectious skin diseases, or asthma arising from under-heated houses. Budget advisers knew from their clients that money ran out not because of bad spending but from inadequate incomes. Social workers knew from their experience of two or more families crowding together in one house because decent housing was either unavailable or unaffordable. And foodbanks knew about poverty from the ever-increasing demand for food parcels.

I remember sharing some of these experiences with one of the government’s policy architects. He responded that this was all collateral damage, an inevitable feature of an economy being restructured for the benefit of all. Some 20 years on poverty is undiminished, and the ‘restructuring’ goes on.

In Wellington between seminars I analysed reports from government, trade unions, business, employer groups and social agencies. I also used grass-roots information from the workshops to make media statements on critical issues and wrote opinion pieces for The Dominion and Evening Post. A public profile grew quickly. In October 1991 The Listener did an interview which appeared with the title The Rev Stirrer. An informal poll in the Anglican Church nationally found that I was the best known church leader, although I hasten to add that ‘best known’ did not mean ‘most popular’.

I certainly was not popular with the late Roger Kerr of the New Zealand Business Roundtable who called me in for a meeting one day, quizzing me extensively about my annual $75,000 budget. In retrospect I think he wanted to assess what credibility there might be in a one-man operation working out of one room in a church office in a low-decile suburb. In terms of staff and budget the SRC was a minnow compared with the NZBR with its substantial offices in central Wellington, several staff, a budget backed generously by big business and the capacity to commission research on social and economic policy.

But what the NZBR totally lacked was the grass-roots contact I had weekly with the poor and those working with them. The deepening realities of poverty were invisible to Wellington policy-makers in both business and government. Their only knowledge of the poor was through cold statistics on pieces of paper, not by personal encounter with the daily realities of homeless people and sick children.

I received telephone calls from Members of Parliament and government officials inviting me for a chat. I am not sure I handled those interviews as well as I might. Sometimes the conversations were diffuse, on one occasion veering off into a discussion about the philosophy of Karl Popper. In retrospect I feel I should have been more pointed in my comments, challenging policy-makers to reconcile their policies with the extreme deprivation being experienced by thousands of Kiwi citizens, and to consider the social morality of their decisions.

Grass-roots poverty was endorsed by official statistics. Tax cuts meant the top 20% of earners saw their net income increase by 7% between 1987 and 1992, while the bottom 20% went down 2.9%. Welfare cuts were vicious: a married couple, unemployed, with two children suffered a cut of 7.9%. The cut for a single beneficiary with two children was 8.9%, while for a single unemployed person aged 21-24 years the cut was 24.7%. One mother told me poverty was cumulative: ‘Everything starts to run down and wear out. But even more than that, your resilience goes. You use up all your mental resources as well as your human ones.’

By 1991 unemployment had swollen to 10.9% as a result of economic restructuring. There was a disproportionate impact on Maori and Pacific Islanders whose unemployment rates were three times the average, and also on young people aged 15-19 whose unemployment rate was twice the average.

One young woman only two years out of school said she had applied for every office job in Rotorua without success, and had now lost the confidence to go out and mix with strangers. ‘I’m at home all day, I do nothing, I see nothing. I know what I’m looking for in life, but because I’m not working none of it is possible.’ A report at the time[1] said:

Unemployment is a human tragedy. The cost is not merely in financial terms, but in the realities of despair and meaninglessness, children growing up without the basics of clothing, health and education, young people having their futures closed down in the prime of life, and older people losing their dignity and their friends at a time in life when they might expect a degree of ease and security. A whole generation is growing up whose lives are being wasted before they have even begun.

Other churches shared these concerns and in 1993 the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services called on church leaders to join them in addressing the adverse impacts of government policies on vulnerable groups in society. Ten of the churches[2] responded and worked together to produce a major report published in 1993.[3] Edited by Ruth Smithies and Helen Wilson, the report drew on the expertise of 36 clergy and church members.

This comprehensive document was distributed to all churches as a guide for study and action. Topics addressed included unemployment, housing, families and children, health, welfare and taxation. A basis of Christian values was set out considering such topics as the common good, the value of work, a preferential option for the poor, and how Christian ethics intersected with policy-making. Resources for worship were inter-woven with strategies for action.

A statement was prepared to be read out in congregations nationwide in January 1993. It was reported that Prime Minister Jim Bolger, a committed Roman Catholic, had been surprised at Mass when the statement was read. Somewhat disconcerted, he attended Mass the following Sunday in a different church where, because the mail had arrived late the previous week, he heard the statement read for a second time.

The Business Roundtable was alarmed by the impact the churches were having in under-mining the ideology of economic rationalism. To counter this the NZBR invited an American Roman Catholic priest, Father Robert Sirico, to visit New Zealand. This was a common ploy to import an overseas ‘expert’, carefully selected as a supporter of policy proposals on education, health, housing, taxation or other major topic. Upon arrival the expert was briefed with current data before setting out to give a series of lectures and media interviews authenticating government plans.

Fr Robert Sirico was considered an expert in theology and social justice. In the USA he was regularly on the speaking circuit with a variety of addresses supporting New Right socio-economic policies. In his addresses, Fr Robert outlined his own background as having once been engaged in social service activities such as handing out food parcels to the poor. However, he had come to realise that this was an endless and self-defeating task and that policy changes to give the poor a ‘hand up’ rather than a ‘handout’ was the better way to go.

The churches fully supported giving people a hand up to independence and self-sufficiency. The problem was what happened in the meantime. It was a worthy aim to be taking steps towards full employment, such as had been the case until 1975. But with unemployment running at 11% in the 1990s, people still had to be fed and housed. The official assumption seemed to be that the poor, tens of thousands of them, would just have to wait, even if it took years. They are still waiting.

A highlight of Fr Sirico’s visit was an address to a corporate dinner party at an up-market Wellington hotel. Business leaders paid $100 or more for a ticket, and a good crowd signed up. But church leaders were an important part of the target audience, the organisers believing the churches needed to have their theology and social justice views informed by a foreign expert. But no church leader was going to pay $100, nor in fact any money at all, to listen to someone whose message they knew all too well. So a charity table was established for several of us in an outer circle which was dramatically transformed into outer darkness when the lights were dimmed for Fr Sirico’s address.

At question time I raised an issue and, although I was invisible in the gloom to the speaker, he had no difficulty identifying from which table the question came. ‘Thank you, comrade, for that question,’ he began his response. Meanwhile from another table, a corporate one, a question was raised about a statistic given in the address. ‘Were we aware,’ Fr Sirico had asked, ‘that every welfare beneficiary in New Zealand costs the taxpayer $80,000 annually?’ The questioner asked for an explanation of this amount which seemed inordinately high, especially in 1993 values.

It was an easy calculation, the speaker replied, quoting the actual figures: one simply divided the total welfare payout by the number of beneficiaries and the result was $80,000. He went on to deal with other questions, but some table-cloth recalculation was going on at the first table. The questioner said they had done the arithmetic on the $80,000 calculation and found the amount was only $8000. Fr Sirico was quite unfazed: ‘must have slipped a decimal point,’ he replied, ‘but it’s still a lot of money.’

I was only four years in the social justice job, but I found it most fulfilling to bring insights and action strategies on crucial national and local issues to the hundreds who attended the 150 seminars. A high media profile helped to bring challenge and hope to the wider population and I received good feedback,  even from some with different views who felt the issues I raised were real and well documented.

People were greatly distressed by the mayhem they saw being visited on their communities. Decent people were suffering real hardship, and feeling the failure of not being able to provide adequately for their children. To many decision-makers the poor were simply numbers on their computer. What decision-maker ever saw his or her family suffer during those times? On the contrary, they saw their salaries increase as taxes were reduced. One senior politician said to me: ‘we’re just ordinary people like anybody else, you know, Richard; you can see us around the super-market and launching our boats at the beach on the weekend’.

But the incident with Jim Bolger and the 1993 social justice statement highlighted the tension caused by the impact the churches’ public voice had on church members inside the policy-making processes. This became apparent during two dialogues I convened in 1994 between Members of Parliament and church social justice leaders. Labour MPs were invited to one meeting and National MPs to the other, with about a dozen attending in each case. Those of us on the social justice side listened to extended speeches about the pain MPs had felt on the receiving end of church statements, or at church on Sundays enduring sermons on the poverty and injustice that stalked the land.

I acknowledge the integrity and compassion of many in government, business and the public service, both Christians and others. It has been my privilege to work with them as members of congregations I have served. Some have quit the church but others in senior roles have continued over long years and I affirm their vision and commitment. The difficulty through the 1990s was that the debate of necessity became very polarised because of the extreme socio-economic policy settings and the unprecedented hardship this was visiting on hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders.

The churches’ voice was strong in advocacy for the latter. But opposition to the policies was construed as opposition to reform, and the churches were tagged as old-fashioned socialists whose basic viewpoint was ‘up the taxes and dish out the cash’. This was a misrepresentation. From a biblical viewpoint careful stewardship of scarce resources is an ongoing principle, but managing resources for the common good is the ultimate goal. Resource management is no more than a means to that goal and all the evidence showed little common good coming from the reforms. Those who could afford least were bleeding, while those who had plenty of fat to come and go on were doing well.

I have never heard a policy-maker say the changes were not for the common good. But with the hardships having continued now for 30 years, claims to be working for the common good are entirely vacuous. The MPs at the two sessions were surprised to learn the churches did not oppose reform per se. But the new policies were locked in and not open to review. The impact of the churches in the early 1990s enabled local responses to poverty, and created in the public mind a groundswell for change further down the track.

---

[1] Hand to Mouth, Inner City Ministry, Wellington, 1991.

[2]  The churches were Salvation Army, Presbyterian, Society of Friends, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Associated Churches of Christ, Apostolic and Anglican.

[3] Making Choices: Social Justice for our Times.

‘Like a mighty tortoise moves the Church of God’ is a parody of a line in one of the Church’s traditional hymns. Like any institution, the Church is often conservative in its beliefs and attitudes. But from the mid-1960s New Zealand Anglicans have made major changes in church life, and joined with others in the struggles against apartheid and for a nuclear-free New Zealand.

As a young curate attending my first diocesan synod in 1965, I listened to the opening salvos of a debate on the ordination of women as priests that lasted for 12 years. The Rev’d John Mullane was a key proponent, arguing that men and women were equal in the eyes of God, and had God-given gifts to enhance the wellbeing of Church and community. To exclude half the Church’s members from priesthood was not only a denial of such equality, but also deprived the Church of women’s many gifts and insights.

Anglo-catholics and evangelicals disagreed. These two wings of the Church found a rare unity in vigorously opposing the ordination of women, but for totally different reasons. Evangelicals hold firmly to the teaching of scripture about male headship. ‘A husband has authority over his wife, just as Christ has authority over the Church’,[1]  wrote St Paul, reflecting the patriarchal culture of his day. He added[2] that women must not teach or have authority over men, but should keep silent. By contrast, Anglicans of a catholic disposition saw a priest as an icon of Christ, and hence necessarily male and part of an unchangeable tradition going back 1900 years.

There were some fascinating arguments. One synod member expressed her belief that because God was male only a male could represent God at the altar. But the speech that stands out in my mind came from the Rev’d Kenneth Prebble, the saintly and highly regarded vicar of St Paul’s, Symonds St. Standing in his black cassock, and speaking in hushed tones with eyes and hands directed to heaven, he made the point that when God wanted to send a saviour to save the human race, He could have sent a woman, but He sent a man. And when our dear Lord wanted to appoint twelve faithful disciples, He could have chosen women, but He chose men. And when God wanted to raise up an apostle to the Gentiles, He could have chosen a woman, but He chose a man. Father Prebble then drew the obvious conclusion about gender and priesthood.

The synod sat in hushed silence pondering his words, a silence broken only when the Rev’d Watson Rosevear[3] rose to his feet. He said he had listened carefully to the previous speaker and was glad to hear him acknowledge that women could have been chosen for any of those positions, thereby conceding there was no question of principle involved, simply a matter of historical accident.

The mills of God, or at least of the Church, grind slowly. Lengthy discussions and complex rounds of local and national decision-making are required to change the Anglican constitution. By 1976 all the boxes were ticked for women to be ordained, but at the final moment a last-ditch appeal delayed things another year.  In spite of the 12-year process, New Zealand was one of the first Anglican Churches worldwide to ordain women as priests. On St Andrew’s Day, 30 November 1977, the Church rejoiced at the ordination of the first female priests in Christchurch, Napier and Auckland. I was the preacher at the Auckland ordination, although in retrospect have felt how appropriate it would have been for the preacher to have been John Mullane, a pioneer in this long-running drama.

There is no question that the advent of women priests has greatly enhanced church leadership. As women were appointed to local congregations much of the original opposition fell away. The arguments seemed to stop the day the first ordinations took place. One heard, from both women and men, statements like: ‘Well, of course, I’m totally opposed to the ordination of women in principle, but our priest Susan (or Jenny, or Kate) is doing a great job in our church’.

The next step came in 1990 when Penny Jamieson was elected Bishop of Dunedin, the world’s first woman diocesan bishop. Penny retired in 2004, then in 2008 Victoria Matthews was elected Bishop of Christchurch, and in 2014 Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley in Waikato. Bishop Victoria has become known nationwide for her leadership in church and community through the ongoing trauma of the Christchurch earthquakes.

Sadly, there are many places still where women priests are not permitted. In Sydney, where the doctrine of male headship is deeply entrenched, women are excluded from a priestly role. But elsewhere in Australia Sarah Macneil was consecrated Bishop of Grafton in 2014, and there are also several women assistant bishops. In England the logjam preventing the appointment of women as bishops was finally breached by a substantial majority of the General Synod in July 2014.

Eighteen years earlier I wrote on this issue[4]:

Recent suggestions that the consecration of women as bishops will impair unity is one way of looking at things. The other way is to recognize that not to have women as bishops will be an even greater impairment to unity. With regard to the scriptural arguments about male headship, one needs to acknowledge the culturally conditioned milieu in which the scriptures came to birth. The culture was one of patriarchy, and it is not at all surprising that this should be the background in which scripture was written.

But there are other more abiding themes in scripture which affirm the great variety of gifts in the body of Christ, and which transcend differences of gender. I would predict that those who now hold to views of male headship will find that view subsumed into something richer and more inclusive, and expressed in a leadership of the Church which draws on the insights, talents and faith perspectives of women and men alike.

Another major shift in church teaching occurred in 1970 while we were in New York. This involved marriage when one or both of the partners had been divorced and the previous spouse was still alive. The Church’s teaching has always been, and remains so today, that marriage is lifelong in intent. A couple once asked me to marry them using the words ‘for as long as love doth last’. I declined insofar as the words lacked lifelong intent.

But they had touched on an important point. Should the Church compel a couple to stay in a loveless relationship or, if they split, forbid either from marrying again? With the best will in the world not all marriages work. Even after intense effort and counselling it sometimes becomes clear that a mutual, loving relationship cannot be sustained. The Church was caught in the bind of wanting to affirm the lifelong nature of marriage and yet to make pastoral provision for those who had genuinely tried but things had not worked out.

As a young single curate in Papakura I recall visiting a woman twice my age who had separated from her husband. The separation had caused her great pain, sadness and regret, yet there had been no other way. Her sadness was compounded because, although a committed church member, as a divorcee she was no longer able to receive Holy Communion when she went to church. I tried to explain that she was still fully welcome even if unable to receive communion, but I had a hard job convincing even myself that this was right.

Turning a good principle into an unbending rule can be harsh and uncaring, and not expressive of Jesus’ love for people whatever their situation.  I welcomed the 1970 rule change which, in my experience, has not undermined the principle of marriage as lifelong in intent. What has changed is that the Church can now exercise compassion when things do not work out as planned, and offer the option of a fresh start in building a relationship with all the fulfilment married love can bring.

Clergy at the time who felt conscientiously unable to officiate at such a marriage were able to refer a couple to another priest. Some feared a Hollywood-style serial marriage situation might result, but the fears proved unfounded. In my experience couples presenting for marriage following a divorce take even greater care in their preparation and commitment. The learnings from their previous relationship, and the desire to put everything into a new commitment, often ensure a stronger foundation for success.

Reform of the Anglican Prayer Book became an issue around 1960. Until then the Church had used the 1662 Church of England Prayer Book as its central core of worship. Based on earlier versions in 1549 and 1552, and with some minor revisions proposed in England in 1928, the 1662 book had been used by Anglicans everywhere for 300 years.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1532, played a major role in shaping the early prayer books. But as the charmingly archaic words of the preface to the 1662 book make clear, the compilers did not intend that any form of service should be set in stone for all time:

It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any new variation of it. For, as on the one side common experience sheweth, that where a change hath been made of things advisedly established (no evident necessity so requiring) sundry inconveniences have thereby ensued; and those many times more and greater than the evils, that were intended to be remedied by such changes: So on the other side, the particular forms of divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent, and alterable, and so acknowledged; it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such changes should be made therein, as to those who are in place of authority should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient.

For 300 years no ‘weighty and important considerations’ had led to any change, but around the world by the mid-20^th century many Anglicans felt that the language of the 1662 book, while elegant, beautiful and familiar, no longer spoke simply and clearly to modern worshippers. Major shifts in theology also called for prayer book renewal.

Traditionalists, however, believed things should stay as they were. Archbishop Reginald Owen opposed any move for prayer book reform and, as president of the Wellington synod in the 1950s, firmly squelched any discussion on the topic. At the conclusion of a synod a senior cleric customarily rises to propose a motion of thanks to the bishop for his wise presidency. On this occasion the proposer moved ‘that members thank the bishop for the indifferent manner in which he had prevented all the doings of the synod’. The synod roared with laughter at this witty use of two words that today mean something totally different from their ancient meaning.[5]

In terms of theology, the old prayer book laid heavy emphasis on sin. In one of the confessions, for example, we admit we are ‘miserable sinners’ and ‘there is no health in us’. Even in the prayer of thanksgiving after communion, we still reminded ourselves that we are ‘unworthy through our manifold sins’. To be aware of shortcomings, and seeking to live a better life, is healthy.  But an over-emphasis on unworthiness and our own failings can have a negative impact on the oppressed, or those struggling with depression or lack of self-esteem.

In 1966 ‘the little red book’ appeared with the first proposed revision of the Holy Communion service.  People loved it and hated it. My vicar sent me to visit an older member of the parish who had announced he would not attend any church using that ‘new-fangled’ service. We had a nice cup of tea and a long conversation but he was unbending.

Over the next 25 years feedback led to further revisions not only of the Holy Communion service but of the services for baptism, weddings and funerals as well. In the marriage service, for example, the primary purpose of marriage was changed from being for the ‘increase of mankind’ to having ‘the intention that husband and wife should be united in body, heart and mind (and thus) fulfill their love for each other’.

Having grown up with the old prayer book, I still enjoy using it on occasions. The old Holy Communion service is still in use although not as the main Sunday service. A New Zealand Prayer Book (NZPB), He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, published in 1989, has some very evocative language such as this from a Holy Communion service:

We offer thanks and praise to God for this good land; for its trees and pastures, for its plentiful crops and the skills we have learned to grow them. Our thanks for marae and the cities we have built; for science and discoveries, for our life together, for Aotearoa, New Zealand.[6]

And from one of the marriage services:

Marriage is the promise of hope between a man and a woman who love each other, who trust that love, and who wish to share the future together. It enables two separate people to share their desires, longings, dreams and memories, and to help each other through their uncertainties. It provides the encouragement to risk more and thus to gain more. In marriage, husband and wife belong together, providing mutual support and a stability in which their children may grow.[7]

The traditional vows ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health’ remain but there are other options such as ‘today I take you to be my husband/wife. Whatever life may bring I will love and care for you always’.

The funeral service has a moving thanksgiving for a loved one:

God, we thank you that you have made each of us in your own image, and given us gifts and talents with which to serve you. We thank you for (Betty), the years we shared with her, the good we saw in her, the love we received from her. Now give us strength and courage to leave her in your care.[8]

The new prayer book, published in 1989, also includes services in Maori, Fijian and Tongan.  When the final touches were put to the new services at a General Synod in Christchurch, a Maori member said to Pakeha: ‘Don’t think all these prayers in Maori are just translated from the English: we’ve expressed it all in our own language and images’. He gave an example of how the English words[9] ‘We shall all be one in Christ’ are expressed in Maori idiom ‘Ko te Karaiti te pou herenga waka’, which says ‘Christ is the hitching post where all the canoes tie up’.

The language of the NZPB is gender-inclusive, although this was not the case at the outset. At St Peter’s the arrival of new batches of draft services required parish twinking parties to remove offending male references. Sitting around a big table in the church hall and, under instruction from some of the parish feminists, words such as ‘men’ were whited out with Twink and ‘people’ written in. ‘Mankind’ became ‘humankind’, and ‘brothers’  changed to ‘sisters and brothers’. The congregation was encouraged to make appropriate changes in hymn-singing, this sometimes producing variations which neither rhymed nor scanned.

One or two parishioners staunchly opposed such changes, with some amusing moments. One year Christmas Day fell on a Saturday, a very unpopular year amongst clergy who have to front up again on Boxing Day to take Sunday services.[10]

That year I went to the church on Boxing Day to take the 8am service and was met by a member of the congregation who addressed me fiercely: ‘You should see this.’ He led me round to the church hall where I was confronted by the signs of a wild party the day before – streamers hanging from the roof, bottles on the floor and left-over food and plates on all sides. Unbeknown to me, the hall had been hired for an anti-Christmas party by a Wellington women’s group. Their message was that Mary, having been recruited to be the mother of Jesus, had now become a role model for women as submissive, powerless, stay-at-home mums. Hand-made posters adorned the walls, one of the milder of which read: ‘Peace on Earth; Good-bye to all Men.’  My companion commented that it was outrageous that the church hall should be used in this way. ‘Outrageous indeed,’ I said weakly, and went home for breakfast.  

Returning for the 10am service, I was met by one of the leading feminists in the parish, with big smile and eyes aglow, who took me by the arm and said:  ‘You should see this.’ And so for the second time I was led round to view the scene of devastation. ‘Isn’t it wonderful,’ she said, ‘that St Peter’s should be giving its support to advance the cause of women?’  ‘Wonderful indeed,’ I agreed and went off to take the service.[11]

Treading carefully through times of transition is not always easy, even at a liberal church like St Peter’s. Some visionaries took the lead on issues like women’s ordination, shared leadership, contemporary forms of worship and inclusive language, but others found the changes difficult. As a younger priest I had watched as others took leadership roles, but in the 1980s at St Peter’s I became more involved in movements for change. 

In the wider community the Church joined others in working for peace and a nuclear-free New Zealand, and against apartheid in South Africa. The Rev’d Dr George Armstrong[12] was prominent in both these movements. As the Cold War and threats of nuclear weapons were escalating in the 1970s, George assembled a flotilla of small vessels to sail out into the Hauraki Gulf to block the passage of American nuclear-armed vessels into the Port of Auckland.

Known as the Peace Squadron, the flotilla would sail whenever a nuclear-armed vessel of any nation sought to enter port, although the only vessels seeking such entry were from the USA. The first visits were by the USS Truxtun and USS Long Beach in 1976[13]. With each visit the flotilla of small boats grew larger. Dinghies, canoes, sail-boats and motor-boats carrying nuclear-free flags and peace signs sailed into the path of the incoming vessels, forcing them to slow down and at times stop.

It was a fearsome encounter. The sheer size of the American ships towering over the tiny protest vessels, at times in rough seas, was terrifying. The terror was compounded by the presence of water-borne police and military sent to drive off the Peace Squadron boats and clear a path for the US Navy.  Helicopters were dispatched to create a downdraft, creating waves which swamped some smaller craft.

Although no naval ship was ever prevented from entering port, the action led to a groundswell for change in national policy on ship visits. What began in the public mind as the madcap actions of ‘peaceniks’ began to change public attitudes. Between 1978 and 1983 opposition to nuclear-armed ships rose from 32% to 72%. A ban on nuclear-powered vessels was also part of the campaign and, because of US policy to ‘neither confirm nor deny’ the armaments or power mode of their vessels, the call was for any US naval ship to be banned. 

In 1987 Prime Minister David Lange’s Labour government passed legislation to ban all nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered vessels from New Zealand ports. The US Government reacted by excluding New Zealand from intelligence sharing or participation in ANZUS[14] military exercises. Recently the standoff has thawed and co-operative defence relationships are being restored.

The anti-nuclear stance by a small Pacific nation has been instrumental in encouraging peace initiatives around the world, but not without some amusing moments. At a social gathering in New York City I was chatting with a local person. ‘Are you from Noo Zeelan’?’ she asked. ‘Is that the country that won’t take our ships? That’s the problem with you people from that part of the world – Noo Zeelan’, Nicaragua, the Philippines. All trained by the communists and runnin’ round with guns shootin’ one another.’

Another conversation started in the same way but with a totally different ending. This woman concluded: ‘Well, you just keep on doing what you are doing. Why, that Ronald Reagan is just a B-grade actor from Hollywood and doesn’t know what he‘s doing.’

While some saw the anti-nuclear policy as anti-American, it was in fact based on principles fundamental to human life and existence. This was spelled out in the 1989 nationwide statement[15] signed by the Anglican archbishop, the late Brian Davis, and 93 other church leaders, clergy and members of all denominations. The statement called on the Government to reject proposals to purchase new state of the art ‘Anzac’ frigates from Australia, asserting that ‘New Zealand’s best defence strategy was to commit itself to a policy that builds economic stability and regional development on a co-operative basis between nations of the South Pacific’. It stated further that this could best be achieved:

by naval vessels suitable for civil defence purposes in the region, for fisheries surveillance and protection, and to counter low-level military situations, and by increasing overseas aid and development allocations which would help build educational, health and economic infrastructures in smaller island states.

The group noted that the high-tech Anzac frigates were far too sophisticated and expensive for peace-keeping in the South Pacific, and could in fact drag New Zealand back into global Cold War scenarios. And at a time when Government overseas aid had been frozen for six years at 0.27% of Gross National Income (GNI)[16], such huge expenditure on military equipment at the expense of human well-being, justice and peace was immoral. The statement pointed out that 150,000 New Zealanders were unemployed, 20,000 families homeless, and recent cuts in hospital services seriously endangered the health of the nation, especially those who were poor.

As with the anti-nuclear movement, there was much opposition to the frigate purchase. Speaking for the clergy group, I addressed a large rally from Parliament steps, standing alongside leaders of other community groups. In the end the Government decided to purchase only two of the four frigates, with an option to purchase the other two at a later date. That latter option was never taken up.

Another element in the resistance to nuclear weaponry was the symbolic declaration by towns, buildings and institutions to be nuclear-free. The Wellington City Council declared the city nuclear-free, a large sign to that effect greeting the thousands of passengers travelling from the airport to the central city. Many churches, including St Peter’s, followed suit and attached ‘Nuclear Free’ signs to their doors. Brightly coloured helium-filled balloons with peace messages were often released into the air by the St Peter’s congregation on Peace Sunday to mark Hiroshima Day and the Feast of the Transfiguration on 6 August.

In 1984 Jackie travelled with a group of twenty-five New Zealanders to Eastern Europe.  Sponsored by the National Council of Churches and led by its general secretary Alan Brash with his wife Eljean, the group visited the Soviet Union, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and East Germany.  Members were actively involved in local peace groups and believed that contact with Christians in Eastern Europe was a small step in peace-building during the time of the Cold War.  Our own congregation of St Peter’s explored a twin relationship with St Vladimir’s Orthodox parish in Leningrad (now St Petersburg again) as a result of Jackie’s meeting with them in 1984.

At the time US President Ronald Reagan was labeling Russia ‘the evil empire’, but the group was aware that many in Russia and neighbouring countries wanted international peace as much as they did, especially because of the suffering they had experienced.  Human contact was critical: leaving it to the politicians was just not enough. Understanding and friendship between New Zealand churches and peace groups with their Eastern European counterparts needed to be achieved by face-to-face meetings to build confidence and trust.

Each of the countries visited had its own unique identity and way of life.   One of the strongest impressions was the beauty and intensity of Orthodox Church worship. The experience of such worship was profound and Jackie said: ‘I now always cross myself in the Orthodox way when receiving communion.’ The group shared their insights widely back in New Zealand, their contacts being consolidated by a return visit from Russia some years later. 

Running parallel to the Peace Movement in the ‘70s and ‘80s was the growing tide of opposition to South Africa’s apartheid regime. The question of international rugby matches between South Africa and New Zealand was hotly contested. One side of the debate argued that rugby was an exercise in bridge-building, demonstrating through sporting exchanges the values of a racially open society as against apartheid. The other side claimed that by refusing to play sport with South Africa, the strength of opposition to apartheid would be made clear, and that this would be a greater force for change.

This position was undergirded by the Gleneagles Agreement of the Commonwealth Heads of Governments in Scotland in 1977.[17] Part of the wording of the agreement was:

They accepted that it was the urgent duty of their governments to combat vigorously the evil of apartheid by withholding support for and by discouraging contact or competition with sporting organisations, teams or sportsmen from South Africa or from any other country where sports are organized on the basis of race, colour or ethnic origin.

Despite this Prime Minister Robert Muldoon took the position that his government would not allow politics to interfere with sport and, with no official barrier to sporting contact, the Rugby Union invited the Springboks to tour nationwide in the winter of 1981. The civil disturbance that ensued was the largest since the 1951 waterfront dispute. More than 150,000 people took part in over 200 demonstrations in 28 centres, and 1500 were prosecuted for their actions during these protests.[18]

At the second match in Hamilton, protesters breached the perimeter fence. Students and staff from St John’s Theological College in Auckland were prominent among the hundreds who made their stand in the middle of the playing field. Police stepped in but it proved difficult to move such a large group on.[19]

The mood was ugly as thousands of rugby fans became angry as the game was delayed. They grew even angrier when it was announced the game would be abandoned. Now the police had an even bigger problem on their hands – how to get the protesters off the field without being attacked by a very angry crowd. In spite of their best efforts, violent skirmishes broke out. Many were injured, blood flowed and medical workers were stretched to deal with the wounded.

No other games were cancelled, but this was only achieved with huge rolls of barbed wire and increased numbers of police using batons, dogs, helmets and shields. In the ensuing confrontations many protesters, as well as members of the police force, were injured. It was farcical to say that the tour was an exercise in bridge-building. But millions of blacks watching in South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent were greatly encouraged to see thousands of New Zealanders willing to put their bodies on the line to end racial injustice and an oppressive government. In their continuing sufferings and struggles, the tour protests brought life and hope.

Apartheid lasted for another decade and debate continued in New Zealand. Many churches passed motions opposing apartheid and did what they could to show solidarity with blacks in South Africa. Tim Francis, New Zealand’s ambassador at the United Nations during the 1981 tour, said he could not have held his head up with African colleagues had it not been for the protests from New Zealand.

Changes in race relationships were also going on in New Zealand. The Waitangi Tribunal was established in 1975 by the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. The Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry set up to make recommendations on Maori claims relating to actions or omissions of the Crown that might breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi.[20]

A good example of the Tribunal’s work may be seen at Ngai Tahu headquarters in Christchurch where a document of formal apology by the New Zealand Government for the wrongful alienation of Ngai Tahu land in the 19^th century hangs on the wall. The document is signed by Jenny Shipley, Prime Minister of the day. 

The apology followed a finding by the Waitangi Tribunal that the claim by Ngai Tahu to the greater part of South Island was legitimate. But with that acknowledged, Ngai Tahu said they recognised the place of the many other settlers who had come subsequently to New Zealand, and did not want all of the land for themselves.

Instead an agreement was reached whereby the Crown allocated $170 million to Ngai Tahu, money which has been invested for the provision of health, education, housing and the general well-being of the tribe. Ngai Tahu were also affirmed as the guardians of 130 species of native flora and fauna, and of sacred sites such as Aoraki/Mt Cook. The mountain was deeded back to Ngai Tahu, who then formally returned it to the nation.

A basic dynamic of human relationships underlies this process. When a wrong has been done the wrong-doer is called on to acknowledge and repent of the wrong, and to make appropriate reparation. The act of repentance in turn frees the wronged party to act generously and, in a spirit of reconciliation, a new partnership is established.

We understand this dynamic at a personal level, but to see it as equally valid at the collective level between different groups, nations and races is a more recent insight. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa is based on this same understanding. In Australia the 1997 report on the stolen aboriginal generations significantly raised the awareness of Australians, although it took ten years and a change of government for an official apology to be offered.

At the same time New Zealand Anglicans were having their own debate about the respective roles of Maori and Pakeha in church governance.[21]   Anglican Maori had long wanted their own bishop, but this was not easily achieved since the structure of the Church was based on geographical dioceses rather than ethnic or cultural factors. The idea of a Maori bishop was first suggested in 1876, but deemed unnecessary by the General Synod of 1880. Almost half a century went by before the Rev’d Frederick Augustus Bennett was consecrated as the first Bishop of Aotearoa in 1928. He served, however, as a suffragan (assistant) bishop under the authority of the Bishop of Waiapu. Bishop Bennett was licensed in Waiapu because of the large concentrations of Maori in that diocese which includes the East Cape, Bay of Plenty, Poverty Bay, Hawke’s Bay, Taupo and Rotorua.

A Maori bishop was a major step forward but had some restrictions. The Bishop of Aotearoa could not minister to Maori in another diocese without the consent of the diocesan (Pakeha) bishop. This was not always forthcoming. In the 1940s, for example, the Bishop of Auckland, John Simkin, believing he was responsible for all confirmations in his diocese regardless of race, declined to let the Bishop of Aotearoa confirm 100 Maori soldiers at Ohaeawai. Episcopal powers have their boundaries, however, and in the end army trucks took the candidates to Rotorua where they were confirmed by Bishop Bennett.

A second step came in 1978 when the Bishop of Aotearoa was accorded diocesan status, no longer under the authority of the Bishop of Waiapu and with the same status as diocesan bishops. Today Maori and Pakeha bishops cover the same geographical territory but ministering to different flocks. This was another significant step forward, and a major shift from the concept of only one bishop for a geographical region.

It immediately, however, prompted the next question: what does it say about Maori when they have one bishop while Pakeha have seven? Is it not just tokenism when one Maori bishop can be outvoted by seven Pakeha bishops? Could this not be restructured to reflect a stronger bi-cultural partnership as envisaged by the Treaty of Waitangi?

But such restructuring would require major constitutional revision. A commission was set up to investigate possibilities and embarked on a ten-year consultative process. Many church members initially sceptical or apprehensive about possible changes were assisted by the dialogue to see the meaning and importance of what was being proposed.

I headed a Wellington diocesan group responsible for explaining the proposed changes. We held meetings in different centres culminating in a special one-day synod in 1990 in Palmerston North. I proposed that the synod support the change in principle and a vigorous debate ensued. One woman told us that the previous night she had a nightmare in which a horse-drawn wagon was moving across a rocky hillside. On closer inspection she could see that the wagon was a band-wagon with ‘Anglican Church’ painted on the side. It came to a crossroads with tracks leading up or down. Tragically the Anglican band-wagon took the downhill path to destruction.

Synod members didn’t know quite how to deal with nightmares, but Rachel Underwood[22] said she was encouraged to hear the wagon was a band-wagon because the essential feature of a band was that members with quite different instruments learned how to play together in harmony.

The day went on and by closing time the mood seemed to be quite favourable to the motion.  I was exercising my right of reply when I was interrupted by an archdeacon who had earphones plugged in as he listened to the rugby. He asked what was meant by the words ‘support in principle’, setting off a lengthy procedural wrangle that led to the motion failing. I was angry that a church leader listening to the rugby successfully derailed progress made in a constructive day’s dialogue on a matter of great substance.

Nonetheless in 1991 the Church nationally, on the advice of the commission, adopted a two-tikanga model, Maori and Pakeha, for church governance.  The Diocese of Polynesia[23] also joined to make a three-tikanga body in which Maori and Polynesian voices now have equal standing with Pakeha. Today there are nine Pakeha bishops, five Maori and three Polynesian but decisions affecting the Church as a whole now require the agreement of all three tikanga. The numerical majority which allowed Pakeha to outvote Maori or Polynesia has been done away with. Underlying this structure is the biblical concept of different parts of a body working together for the common good.[24]

There is also a parallel with the Treaty of Waitangi. In 1840 when Maori entered into a partnership with Queen Victoria and her subjects, Maori greatly outnumbered Pakeha. But the Treaty embodies a concept of equal partnership not based on numbers.

Changes have been made in resource-sharing as well as in governance. No longer do Maori need to come cap in hand for a budget allocation from a diocesan synod. Instead church trust funds and properties have been divided so that each tikanga can decide on its own priorities and funding.

The changes have not been without their tensions. In my view too much time is spent reviewing inter-tikanga relationships rather than working together on projects to meet community needs. Partnership is built best through co-operative endeavour rather than introspective analysis in a committee room. I think also there are times when Pakeha do not always say what they think out of a fear of being branded racist. True partnership involves plain speaking by all parties, not silent acquiescence with something that needs to be challenged.

A current cultural difference between Maori and Pakeha is in the age of their bishops. Tikanga Maori seem to emphasise the wisdom of years, with four of their five bishops being aged from 68 to 90. By contrast four of the Pakeha bishops are aged from 42 to 50, perhaps indicating an emphasis on energy and creativity.

Some creative endeavours in building tikanga relationships have occurred. In 2006 John Bluck, as bishop of Waiapu, led a year of pilgrimage around the diocese to places where bicultural partnerships had formed. John writes:

Over 1000 people took part in the twelve pilgrimages across Hawkes Bay, the East Coast and Bay of Plenty. Journeys lasted for up to three days and the pilgrims sang and prayed and gathered stories. Those stories were later published and continue to be celebrated and added to across the diocese.

Looking back over some of the major changes in church and society from 1965-1990 I can see how my own leadership developed as I grew in confidence and awareness of the issues. There were times when I felt very nervous laying out a case to a synod in the face of much opposition and there was disappointment when motions were lost, although I try to keep in mind the maxim that ‘you win some and you lose some’. But what is always painful is knowing you have lost not for any good reason but simply because institutional inertia has won out against the forces for justice and change.

I have been encouraged by the positive experience of finding that when one sets the issues out carefully, provides relevant background and a biblical underpinning, many are ready to take the changes on board. Today many of the changes outlined are taken for granted, and both church and society have flourished in consequence, but it took 25 years of hard work and debate for those changes to be made.

---

[1] Ephesians 5.23.

[2] 1 Timothy 2.11.

[3] Watson Rosevear was sub-warden at St John’s Theological College and later Assistant Bishop of Wellington.

[4] The Australian Church Scene, 7 July 1996.

[5] In the 1662 prayer book indifferent means impartial, while prevent means to go before or to lead.

[6] NZPB, p.477.

[7] Ibid., p.790.

[8] Ibid., p. 829.

 [9] Ibid, p.479.

[10] In a shameful dereliction of duty, some clergy have cancelled Sunday services in such years, feeling they are all ‘Christmased’ out.

[11] An arrangement had been made that the hall would be cleaned later in the day, and it was so restored.

[12] George was for many years lecturer in theology at St John’s College in Auckland.

[13] Source for this and some later details: NZ History Online.

[14] ANZUS is the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty signed in 1951.

[15] Referred to in chapter 3.

[16] In 2012 the figure was 0.28%.

[17] Source: NZ History Online.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Media staff skilled in sporting commentary found themselves with a demonstration to report instead. They quickly adapted, however, and listeners were treated to some adrenalin-pumping lines like: ‘a demonstrator’s sprinting down the touch-line closely followed by two policemen. They’re gaining on him; they’ve brought him to the ground just five metres short of halfway.’

[20] http://www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/waitangi-tribunal.

[21] I drafted this section in collaboration with our son, Jeremy, who was researching the topic in connection with the history and values of Playcentre.

[22] A parishioner at St Peter’s.

[23] The Diocese of Polynesia includes Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and other Pacific islands.

[24] Romans 12.

In 1978 I was invited to become vicar of St Peter’s church in Wellington, an inner city parish with a long tradition of outreach to the community. As part of the ecumenical Inner City Ministry (ICM)[1], St Peter’s worked with people on the edges of society. The position fitted the outward-looking style of mission we had learned in New York and we decided to accept. Now a family of five, Joanna and Jeremy having been born while we were in Auckland, we packed up in April that year and headed south to the capital.

Jackie had made her own enquiries and asked what might be expected of her. ‘Be yourself,’ was the reply from Rachel Underwood. This was a great relief to Jackie who nonetheless did much to build relationships and provide a listening ear to many. She was at the centre of vicarage hospitality, providing ‘open house’ every year on Christmas Eve prior to the midnight service. This was an annual tour de force with young children, Christmas preparations and church services all mixed in with coffee and sandwiches for dozens of parishioners. ‘We must have been mad,’ we sometimes think looking back, but these occasions were greatly appreciated and did much to build a sense of family and belonging.

I felt both humbled and challenged to be stepping into a 130-year history as the 13^th vicar of St Peter’s. I was 38 at the time and, with a young family, felt we were entering a long period of focused ministry. I had no particular plan in mind other than to deepen and extend the ministry already in place. The congregation was a lively and thinking group that included young people and families as well as older members who had been at St Peter’s for many years. It was a church that believed in taking both the Bible and the world seriously.

The first St Peter’s church was opened in September 1848. Four weeks later a huge earthquake hit the city (7.1 on the Richter scale), causing far more devastation than an 8.3 earthquake in 1855. The new church opened its doors and was soon filled with locals making a temporary home there.

The area known as Te Aro was a mix of trade and well-to-do homes. St Peter’s grew quickly and the church was extended four times before a much bigger building was needed. The first church was removed from the site and on 21 December 1879 the new, and existing, St Peter’s was opened. It had been built in only seven months at a cost of 7000 pounds. The parish celebrated the centennial of the church in 1979, the year after our arrival.

The Reverend Arthur Stock was a remarkable man who was vicar of St Peter’s from 1856-1888, and from 1870 Archdeacon of Wellington. Part of his pastoral duties was as chaplain to the city jail, based at that time in the parish. As chaplain he met a prisoner, Walter Tricker, a Maori condemned to death for murder. Stock quickly became convinced the man was innocent and campaigned for six years for a review of the case, Tricker at length receiving a full pardon. Arthur Stock had an unexpected field of expertise as an astronomer and for some years was in charge of the Carter Observatory in Wellington. As astronomer he observed the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882 ande was theHe was in charge of the Carter ObservatoryH wrote a book on the topic.[2]  

As part of its outreach the parish started a school in 1854, and in 1900 established a mission to impoverished Chinese living around Haining Street. As the numbers of the poor in Te Aro grew, St Peter’s opened in 1904 the Taranaki Street Mission which in 1929 became the independent Wellington City Mission. The first city missioner was the Rev’d Fielden Taylor who continued in the post until his death in 1937 at 58 years of age.

By the turn of the century the nature of Te Aro was changing. Urban change led to many parishioners moving out to the newer suburbs. For the first half of the 20^th century St Peter’s, like many city churches, experienced a decline in its membership and it was only from the 1960s that a turnaround took place. Allan Pyatt, later Dean and Bishop of Christchurch, exercised a very vigorous ministry from 1958-62. At the time it was claimed that St Peter’s had the largest Evensong congregation in New Zealand.

But it was Pyatt’s successor, Godfrey Wilson, who brought a vision for major changes in city ministry. Godfrey took time out to study urban ministry in Chicago, and also in Sydney with Ted Noffs at the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. He wanted to strengthen St Peter’s engagement with the community and had part of the old parish hall converted into the Catacombs. Fitted out in dimly lit cave-like style, and staffed by volunteers from local churches, Catacombs was open nightly as a drop-in centre for coffee and conversation. On Friday nights speakers were invited to talk on some topical issue, followed by energetic debate with a lively audience.

The establishment of the Inner City Ministry (ICM) reflected both the parish tradition of outreach to those in need, as well as the proposals for church union in the 1960s and 1970s. The Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches, the Churches of Christ and, at a later stage, the Anglicans, were engaged in these proposals.  The negotiations aroused strong opinions within the Anglican Church and failed to get a sufficient majority to allow the proposals to proceed. The negotiations were at length abandoned to the disappointment of many.

During the years of negotiation, however, St Peter’s and other inner city churches, Wesley Methodist, Mt Victoria Presbyterian, and the Society of Friends (Quakers), felt church union could be foreshadowed by a joint city outreach through the ICM. The first director (1973-76) was Bob Scott, who had been associate priest at St Peter’s with Godfrey and shared Godfrey’s vision. Under Bob’s leadership, the ICM attracted government and other funding, allowing it to take on staff to deal with issues such as homelessness, poverty and unemployment.

The ICM also acted as an advocate for the poor, making policy submissions arising from grassroots experience to government or city council, or representing clients in dealing with Social Welfare on benefit entitlements. While the poor struggled, tax cuts were made which delivered large windfalls to the wealthy at the expense of those with least. Several ICM members formed a group to forego the extra income in favour of making an income transfer to those who had missed out.

The St Peter’s congregation included a great diversity of people with around 120 at church each Sunday. The Sunday school was led by Penny Jamieson who in 1990 became Bishop of Dunedin, the first woman in the world to head an Anglican diocese. It also included on some Sundays the Governor-General, Sir Paul Reeves, with his wife Lady Beverley and family. One Saturday night the vicarage phone rang: ‘Paul Reeves here. We’re coming to church tomorrow but no fuss, we’ll just slip quietly into a pew.’ At 9.55am next day the church door opened and in walked Sir Paul and his family, flanked with an entourage of aides-de-camp in military uniforms, and ‘slipped quietly into a pew’. At one Christmas midnight service Paul found himself kneeling at the altar rail next to a large dog. The dog didn’t take communion but I gave it a blessing.

St Peter’s people were not all of one mind, however. One man implored me to preach a sermon berating the congregation for their sinfulness and calling them to repent lest they end up in the fires of hell. I told him that was not my kind of theology, but he hung in at St Peter’s nonetheless. There were also strong leaders among the women and issues of inclusive language and shared leadership were a central focus during our time at St Peter’s.[3]

Many times I had to manage deep differences of opinion. On one occasion a parishioner placed copies of the glossy and well-funded magazine Above Rubies on the bookstall. Above Rubies extols the image of the faithful and loving wife who serves her husband and family in a committed and caring way. The underlying theology is that of the man being head of the house, following a literal interpretation of St Paul.[4]

A few days later a leading feminist saw the magazines and threw them all in the rubbish bin, replacing them with another magazine called Vashti’s Voice. Vashti appears in the biblical book of Esther[5] as the wife of Ahasuerus, King of Persia. During one of the king’s parties for the lords and nobles of the kingdom, he called for Vashti to present herself so that all could see what a beautiful wife he had. Not seeing herself as a show pony, Vashti declined the invitation and was promptly divorced by the king. He then took Esther, a Jewish woman, for his wife and she becomes the central figure as the advocate for the Jewish people.

Many sermons have been preached about Esther but clearly Vashti is the role model for self-respecting women. The bookstall saga had a third episode when the promoter of Above Rubies was next in church and was delighted to find all the copies had been snapped up already. She went away to get some extra copies, the fate of which I never discovered.

Much care was needed in handling relationships between St Peter’s and the Bishop of Wellington, Edward Norman, elected bishop in 1973. He was a man of deep faith and clergy spoke well of his pastoral care for them. But he was a man of traditional views on church and society who did not always see things the same way as we did at St Peter’s. However, we maintained good relationships and on one occasion when he came to St Peter’s for a confirmation service, I walked him to his car after morning tea. I thanked him for coming and he replied: ‘you know, I always enjoy coming to St Peter’s; you have such an interesting bunch of odd people here. I even met an unemployed person in the kitchen.’

As I got to know Bishop Edward I recognised that two of his prime commitments were the preservation of the Anglican tradition, and maintaining law and order. Many felt he had been elected bishop because of his well-known opposition to the proposal for church union. This made him cautious of the St Peter’s plan to join with other churches in the Inner City Ministry. In my view, healthy inter-church relationships expand one’s faith rather than diminish it.

Bishop Edward’s commitment to maintaining law and order may well have arisen from his distinguished leadership role in World War II, where he received an MC for bravery. Law and order is a desirable thing but in the bishop’s case appeared to have two byproducts: it gave him an inherent trust in the views of those who held authority in society, and also made him wary of protest movements lest they undermine law and order. So the path was set for differences with St Peter’s, and at times with other clergy and parishes as well.

We struck a bit of trouble in the early 1980s when a South African Anglican priest, David Russell, was arrested and imprisoned for defying government attempts to stop his anti-apartheid campaign. Russell worked mainly among blacks, especially in squatters’ camps around Cape Town. He had been banned from leaving Cape Town but defied the ban and attended a diocesan synod at Port Elizabeth. The visit received much publicity, as well as a standing ovation from synod members. But it also led to his arrest and imprisonment for 12 months.

David Russell said his actions were ‘a religious and moral duty’. Desmond Tutu, at the time general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches, called the sentence vicious and said that such injustices filled the people with revulsion, bitterness and anger. But the magistrate said that the priest had acted in ‘open defiance of the law with no sign of remorse, and a stiff penalty was called for’.

The following Sunday I put the issue to the St Peter’s congregation and 55 people signed a statement protesting at the imprisonment. The statement said the action was ‘symbolic of the repressive measures the South African government is willing to take against those, both black and white, who work for racial justice’.

The following week a few of us approached Bishop Edward and proposed that he convey our concerns to the South African government. The bishop said he would speak with the South African consul-general and later reported back that the consul-general had assured him that everything had been done in accordance with the law and hence there was no need for us to be concerned or to take any further action. It was disappointing to hear trust in the law placed ahead of support for a priest fighting to overcome apartheid. We decided to take unilateral action and conveyed our concerns directly to the consul-general, as well as affirming our support for David Russell via the Archbishop of Cape Town, Bill Burnett.

As the apartheid debate heated up during the 1980s I proposed a motion one year calling on the diocesan synod to endorse the call of the Commonwealth Gleneagles agreement to avoid all sporting contacts with South Africa. The synod debate had two main thrusts. Many believed such matters were political and not proper topics for the church to debate. And many also believed strongly that ‘bridge-building’ through sporting relationships brought South Africa in touch with concepts of racial equality in New Zealand.

The debate ran all afternoon with much energy and heat. As mover of the motion I had only a few minutes to respond to some of the key points but was greatly relieved when the motion went through. Synods in the 1980s were more leisurely and allowed time for detailed debate. Today synods are crammed into a shorter space of time and debates on key issues can be desultory and truncated. We also miss some of the vigorous and colourful characters of earlier years who added a cutting edge to issues of the day.

A major debate in the media broke out in 1989 following a statement by 94 clergy and laity around New Zealand opposing a government proposal to purchase four new naval frigates. The statement was my initiative and, having released it to the media, I was contacted by national television to see if I would be preaching on the topic that Sunday. As it happened I was, but only by way of illustration of wider biblical principles of peace and justice. A television crew came to cover the service and the news that night predictably carried a highly edited extract from my sermon, specifically the section about the frigates.

The report sparked off a wide correspondence in the pages of Wellington’s morning paper The Dominion. First up was J S McBeath, a veteran correspondent to the newspaper, who wrote that the pulpit was not a soapbox for the vicar to expound on his own pet hobbyhorse to a captive audience. Were the 94 who signed the statement experts in matters of defence? And by what authority did they speak for the Anglican Church? She pointed out that Bishop Norman had always been in favour of the defence of New Zealand, and lamented how times had changed.

But R O Hare of Lower Hutt wrote saying that I did not forfeit my right to speak on moral and economic issues because I was an archdeacon. He doubted that Christ the Prince of Peace would advocate spending money on warships instead of on health, housing and education. Marion Blackbourn, a member of St Peter’s, wrote that she did not feel part of a captive audience because the congregation always had the opportunity to debate issues.

I also wrote to the paper pointing out that a sermon that does not relate to contemporary concerns runs the risk of being irrelevant. I pointed out that the frigates statement was clearly the view of the 94 signatories only, and noted that church services were regularly broadcast on radio and television without any conclusion being drawn that the preacher was speaking for the church at large. A final letter from J S McBeath said she was glad I had acknowledged there was no claim to be speaking officially for the Anglican Church, but since that was clear from the outset I wondered why she bothered to write in the first place.

Over the years I have heard countless times that ‘the Church should keep out of politics’, usually from those who disagree with what is being said. There is no fuss if church leaders speak in favour of helping the poor, marriage and family life, or love and forgiveness. But having a view on issues such as defence, economics or social justice always generates hot debate. Yet it is precisely these issues that determine for good or ill the extent of poverty, or the wellbeing of families.

Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, known as the bishop of the poor, was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating Mass. Among his many words are these:  ‘A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth—beware!—is not the true church of Jesus Christ.’ “If I feed the poor, they call me a saint. If I ask why some are poor and hungry, they call me a communist.”

Too often the Church is silent on these issues. Arising especially from our two years in New York City, I have held the view that a silent church is a church that has become preoccupied with its own life and has lost sight of its mission to be a channel of compassion and a voice for justice. Both church and society are poorer for that. In speaking and acting I have always sought to be well informed on matters of faith as well as on topical issues. I also seek to consult with others before framing a viewpoint. Having done that I have taken a stand and prepared myself for whatever responses might come.

Growing poverty in the community prompted one of our parishioners, Janet Bromley (now Janet Brown), to set up a foodbank at the railway station over Easter weekend 1983.  This generated much media publicity and all weekend train passengers and others were dropping off large quantities of canned and packaged food, as well as cash donations.

Janet had originally thought the foodbank would be a one-off action to assist people to set up for the winter. ‘But,’ she said, ‘once I’d turned the tap on, it wouldn’t turn off.’ Other churches joined in and church members set up collection points in the Ombudsman’s office and other workplaces. Supermarkets and shops assisted with surplus food or discounted products.

Much of the food was distributed via ICM’s community worker in the Aro Valley, Pam Whittington. Over many years Pam had become known to countless individuals and families whom she assisted with daily concerns about food, budgeting, children, health care and general advice. Janet would pack to order on the basis of Pam’s requests for different family needs and then work with Pam to distribute the parcels around the Aro Valley. Pam also had a link to the Women’s Refuge, and a large box of groceries went there each week as well.

Janet commented that the need for food was often only temporary, and that recipients sometimes became donors later on. One woman said: ‘Your foodbank saved us when we needed it, and I promised myself that when I could I would pay it back to help others’. She had driven all the way from Wainuiomata to Wellington to hand Janet $100 worth of groceries.

That was 30 years ago and St Peter’s has had a regular food collection at Sunday services ever since. The same is true of many other churches throughout New Zealand, so that the ‘parish foodbank’ has become an established institution. Statistics show there has been no lessening of the need for supplementary food supplies for households and individuals, a sad commentary on an affluent but unequal nation.

St Peter’s had an ancient wooden parish hall, now demolished, which was used by various community groups. WUWU, the Wellington Unemployed Workers’ Union, occupied it for a period, providing a drop-in centre and free lunches for all comers. At another time it was used as a training centre for young Maori women to equip them in a cultural context with both life skills and job training for employment in the city.  After Waitangi Day one year around 30 homeless people occupied the hall for several weeks, finding temporary shelter while looking for a more permanent home.

Vincents Art Workshop also found a home in the St Peter’s hall in the late 1980s. Vincents welcomes people with disabilities, people moving into the community out of institutional settings and many on the margins of society. It provides an art space with materials to enable people in arts and craft activities as part of a therapeutic community. The parish saw  the use of its hall as a  base for all these activities as a central part of its mission.

I had got to know a visiting rabbi, Murray Blackman, at Temple Sinai, the liberal Jewish congregation nearby. Together we arranged a programme to build understanding between two faiths with a common heritage. I was invited to preach at Temple Sinai, and on another occasion Rabbi Blackman, preached at St Peter’s. Two reciprocal evenings were held with the titles ‘Everything Christians should know about Jews’, and ‘Everything Jews should know about Christians’. I had first experienced Christian-Jewish dialogue in New York and found much enrichment from these inter-faith exchanges. 

Bishop Edward retired in 1985, having been knighted in 1984. No doubt his filing cabinet would have contained a thick file of correspondence between us. I wrote a farewell letter to thank him for his time as bishop noting that, while there were many things on which we had different views, nonetheless I affirmed his faith and care as bishop. Some weeks later I received a reply saying he had kept my letter to answer until last, as he wanted to take some time in doing so. He acknowledged that we had indeed disagreed on various things but he had always appreciated the reasoned and respectful way in which I had set things out. This, he said, was as things should be if there was to be healthy dialogue within the church. Bishop Edward was a humble man who did not exercise authority in a heavy-handed manner. I thought it sad that excessive deference to a bishop precluded many from talking openly with him.

The retirement of a bishop triggers an electoral synod to find a successor. Clergy and laity gather in solemn conclave, numbering as many as 200 depending on the size of the diocese. The electoral process works on a single transferable vote (STV) system. But, unlike a public election where voters number the candidates in order of priority and a computer spits out the result, an electoral synod has sequential ballots, with lower-polling candidates dropping out each time. Between ballots synod members make speeches about the merits or demerits of one candidate or another until a final ballot produces a result.

Sometimes there is a standout candidate and a clear result is quickly arrived at. At other times several ballots and rounds of speeches are required to choose someone. Some synods can be very unedifying when partisan groups campaign not just to promote their own candidate but also to undermine someone else’s. Misrepresentation, misinformation, unsubstantiated allegations and words taken out of context can all be part of the process. Too often presiding bishops and diocesan chancellors take a laissez faire approach that allows such misrepresentation to go unchecked. Subsequent appeals to higher church authorities fall on deaf ears.

A major scandal surrounded the election of a new bishop for Wellington following Bishop Edward’s retirement. No less than three synods were required in late 1985 and early 1986 to get a result. The first synod lasted for three days, in the end electing a very saintly scholar who declined the position feeling it was not vocationally right for him. There was doubt as to whether his availability for the post had been checked in advance.

A second synod took place over two days and after a fairly harmonious process elected Canon Paul Oestreicher. Paul grew up in New Zealand, the son of a German part-Jewish refugee family who fled from Hitler just before the outbreak of World War ll. Studying at Otago and Victoria universities, he wrote his MA thesis on the Second World War history of New Zealand’s conscientious objectors. Paul trained for the priesthood in England and later headed a parish team ministry in Blackheath, South London. Known for his spirituality and as a preacher, Paul was also greatly committed to issues of peace and justice as central to the Gospel. A pioneer of women’s ordination and gay rights, he also worked with the British Council of Churches to help break down the barriers between East and West in Europe. As chair of Amnesty International UK he was particularly engaged in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. He did several lecture tours through New Zealand’s universities and never ceased seeing New Zealand as his home.

However, Paul’s election by the Wellington synod was only the first part of the process. Confirmation by the rest of the Church is also required, and this has two parts. First, the bishops have a chance to raise any questions but not to veto an elected candidate. On this occasion news came to the bishops meeting on Waiheke Island near Auckland. One or more raised questions about whether he could be relied on doctrinally as an Anglican, because while working as a parish priest in Blackheath he had become a member of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. Paul had joined with the public support of his bishop as a sign of ecumenical openness, appreciating the silent worship of the Quakers as well as their principled rejection of war. But there was never any question of doctrinal conflict because Quakers do not express their Christian faith by way of a creed.

The second part of the confirmation process (in the 1980s) involved majority approval from each of the diocesan standing committees in New Zealand and Polynesia. Those committees would have been aware of the question raised by some of the bishops, but were also in receipt of information circulated by the senior bishop to provide background on Canon Oestreicher. Much of that information might more accurately be described as misinformation.

It included comments from a leading British Quaker, Gerald Priestland, who described the Quakers as ‘heretics with no priests, creeds or rituals’. Doubtless it was the ‘heretic’ tag that stuck, but the remark was entirely out of context. Gerald Priestland was affirming the importance of all churches in providing vision and values in an increasingly secular and technological age. He described the Quakers as being a lay order within the worldwide Church, and then said in jocular spirit: ‘of course, some might regard us as heretics because we have no priests, creeds or rituals’. He affirmed those features of other churches as part of the Christian heritage Quakers valued.

Such misinformation doubtless contributed to the rejection of Canon Oestreicher’s nomination by all the diocesan committees. Two of us from Wellington lodged an appeal with the Church’s judicial committee on the basis of the misinformation. The committee turned the appeal down, unbelievably saying that ‘the senior bishop does not have a responsibility to ensure a fair and unprejudiced consideration of the issue by the standing committees’. Natural justice flew out the window.

Were there other reasons for the rejection of Canon Oestreicher? In the absence of any reason of substance my own view is that he was the victim of the ‘tall poppy’ syndrome – someone who would bring a challenge to the New Zealand Church on things it did not wish to be challenged on. This view seemed to be confirmed by a comment a few months later. A New Zealand bishop visiting England called on Canon Oestreicher. Returning home he rationalised that Oestreicher was probably better off in England as New Zealand would have been too small for him. I thought it the saddest of comments on the bishop’s circumscribed vision.[6]

A third electoral synod in Wellington in April 1986 led to the selection of Brian Davis, Bishop of Waikato, who had just been elected Archbishop of New Zealand. Canon Oestreicher went on to become Director of the Centre for International Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. In 1995 he was awarded the Lambeth degree of Doctor of Divinity by the Archbishop of Canterbury for his life-long work for peace and justice.

In 1988 I received an unexpected invitation to act as a staff member at the upcoming Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. My role was as secretary of the Christianity and the Social Order section of the conference and probably arose from my membership of the global Anglican Peace and Justice network. Lambeth conferences are called every ten years by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The first, held at Lambeth Palace in London, was called by Archbishop C T Longley in 1867 and attended by 76 bishops from Great Britain, America and the colonies.

By 1920 that number of bishops had grown to 252. These days the conferences are attended by 800 bishops and their spouses and have moved to the Canterbury campus of the University of Kent. The composition has changed markedly from a largely British-dominated membership to one where there is an even balance between western and non-western churches, a majority of the latter being from Africa.

Gatherings of bishops are still grand occasions, but they lack the grandeur of 1974 when bishops were invited to Canterbury for the installation of Donald Coggan as the new archbishop. The (English) Church Times printed a story by ‘PG’ of a special train laid on for the occasion:

At Victoria Station came the announcement, ‘Would passengers please note that the train standing at platform 8 is the special 11.46 to Canterbury. This is a private train for the Archbishop’s enthronement. Ordinary people are reminded that the next train for Canterbury is the 12.10 on platform 1.’

‘At Platform 8,’ says PG, ‘stood a train consisting entirely of restaurant cars, with men in blue hurriedly loading crates of wine and boxes of hors d’oeuvres. From all around very important people were arriving. Dominating the crowd were constant specks of purple as bishops by the hundreds prepared to depart to Canterbury. A whiff of smoked salmon pervaded the air and, to the sound of corks being extracted from bottles, the train slowly left the station.

‘But then, from the Underground exit, appeared a slight figure dressed in monastic black, clutching his sandwiches in one hand and his cheap day return ticket in the other. The man was none other than the Abbot of Nashdom[7]. Gracefully and unobtrusively he made his way to platform 1 and joined the train with the “ordinary people”’. The writer concludes that for Benedict there would have been no question which train he would have travelled on. ‘If choice there be, the Benedictine will always choose to travel with the “ordinary people.”’

Lambeth Conferences take place over three weeks, during which bishops and spouses worship together, engage in daily bible studies, hear keynote addresses, and attend daily working sessions in one of four topic areas. Bishops choose which topic area they wish to join, Christianity and the Social Order being one of the choices in 1988. Chaired by John Habgood, Archbishop of York, with Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Cape Town, as deputy, I sat alongside recording proceedings as we prepared resolutions on key topics for the final conference plenary session. John Habgood did an excellent job guiding and controlling a quarter of the world’s bishops. I worked hard distributing papers and making notes, while Desmond Tutu encouraged members with witty insights while sharing his chewing-gum at the top table.

Every Lambeth Conference has its ‘London Day’. A convoy of buses sets out early with all conference members and spouses on board. In 1988 the day began with a service of worship in St Paul’s Cathedral, followed by a summer lunch in marquees in the grounds of Lambeth Palace, and then on to Buckingham Palace for afternoon tea. The Duke of Edinburgh had sent a challenging letter on environmental matters to our section of the conference, and I took the opportunity to thank him for it. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe what Isaiah wrote about the wolf lying down with the lamb. Nature is red in tooth and claw, and we have to live with reality.’

At the 1998 conference a fleet of barges took members down the Thames, with four bishops throwing their mitres into the river as a protest against hierarchy. Some saw this as a token gesture, however, when it transpired the mitres were made out of cardboard for the occasion. A more meaningful action took place at the 2008 Conference when the bishops marched through the streets of London to witness against growing levels of poverty worldwide.

For me the 1988 Lambeth Conference was a high water moment. Key issues of belief and mission became clear in a compelling way. Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie in his opening address painted a biblical picture linking the creation story of Genesis with the closing picture of a new heaven and earth in Revelation. Each picture, he said, shared a common vision of a world that lived at one under God and called God’s followers to the task of making such unity real. It was a theology I had first learnt 20 years earlier in New York but now saw with greater clarity.

By far the wittiest and most compelling speaker at the conference was Elizabeth Templeton, a theologian from the Church of Scotland. Addressing the question of ecumenical dialogue, she said attempts to find theological agreement between the churches had to be more than a search for the lowest common denominator. True ecumenism, she said, involved going on a journey together, travelling with God and with each other seeking some greater truth beyond any current position. But an essential pre-requisite of such a journey lay in acknowledging that any current position was merely provisional, and open to change in the light of new insights.

Elizabeth had proposed this approach at an ecumenical dialogue in London attended by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI. The Cardinal responded that magisterial encyclicals could not be described as merely provisional ‘approximations to the truth’ and argued that ‘if God had not disclosed himself and his truth in absolute, determinate propositions, then salvation was at risk’.[8]

Elizabeth responded that ‘many a good Calvinist would agree with him, but I do not’. She added that the underlying polarity in theological discussion was between those who believe that the invincibility of God’s love is disclosed in some kind of ‘absolute, safeguarded articulation’, and those who believe that God’s love is disclosed in ‘the relativity and risk of all doctrine, exegesis, ethics, piety and ecclesiastical structure’. In simple terms, are church doctrines fixed unchangeably for all time, or can they move to encompass fresh understandings of God’s action in the world?

A related theme came across in a delightful BBC television dialogue during the conference. Richard Holloway[9], well-known internationally as a writer and speaker, was chairing a debate between five bishops on whether the Church should debate theology publicly. David Jenkins, then Bishop of Durham, said absolutely it should. His approach was that when he had a question about some matter of faith he would ask it publicly. The media and the public immediately joined the debate, so much so that his clergy could not go out safely on the street without being approached by people clamouring to know what their bishop was saying.[10] David said he listened carefully to everything being said and then decided whether or not he wished to modify his position. ‘Dialogue enlarges our understanding,’ he said.

This approach, however, was seen as dangerous by Robin Eames, then Archbishop of Ireland, and Brian Davis, Archbishop of New Zealand at the time. Their view was that in an age of uncertainty and doubt people were looking to the Church for clear answers to reassure them. This provoked a response from John Spong, then Bishop of Newark, who said: ‘Look, I have a daughter who’s 26, has a PhD in Physics and says to me: “Dad, the answers theologians are giving today are to questions people aren’t even asking anymore”. Now we’ve got to hear that’.

At Lambeth 1988 I was mid-point in my 43 years as a priest. I came away from the conference with a feeling of exhilaration and a clear sense that a church that did not engage with the world in matters of faith, ethics and justice was a church preoccupied only with itself. It was a church that failed to comprehend that the whole of the world was God’s mission field, and that ecclesiastical self-absorption was an abandonment of the field.

---

[1] Now known as the Downtown Community Ministry.

[2] The planet Venus crosses the face of the sun twice in eight years, with an interval of over 100 years until the next twin crossings. The transits that Stock observed were the immediate predecessors of the recent transits in 2004 and 2012. Captain James Cook observed a previous transit from Tahiti in 1769.

[3] Further outlined in Chapter 4.

[4] Ephesians 5. 22-24.

[5] Esther, chapters 1 & 2.

[6] There is a complete file on ‘The Oestreicher Affair’ in the Church’s provincial archives at St John’s College in Auckland.

[7] An Anglican Benedictine Monastery.

[8] As quoted by Elizabeth Templeton.

[9] Bishop of Edinburgh, 1986-2000.

[10] Some, he joked, were demanding overtime because of this extra work.

We flew out of New York on Icelandic Air, stopped over in Reykjavik, then on to Luxembourg where we met up with my cousin John. Together we toured through the Netherlands and Germany to Scandinavia. Completing our journey in Norway, Jackie and I took ship from Bergen across the North Sea to Newcastle-on-Tyne.

I was keen to spend a year in England working in a ministry team with an innovative and community-facing edge. Whilst still in the USA I had contacted the rector of Leamington Spa who thanked me for my letter but said he was looking for a more workaday curate. Another option was in Stockton-on-Tees, so disembarking in Newcastle we took a train south to be met by Bill Wright, senior chaplain of the Teesside Industrial Mission (TIM). Bill was an enthusiast, immediately urging us to spend our year there. He offered to explore options while we visited two other contacts we had.

A central London parish was looking for a curate. The accommodation was on the top floor of the vicarage in a small attic, accessible only through the vicarage living quarters, and with a kitchen sink that discharged its waste over roof tiles into the guttering. A better provision, perhaps, than a manger, yet it seemed unsuitable for the care of an infant.

Back in the North-East, the Bishop of Jarrow offered a sole charge locum in a parish by the Wearside docks in Sunderland, one of the places where my great-great-grandfather had been stationed as a Wesleyan minister in the 1850s. We would be the sole occupants of a huge three-storeyed vicarage in an abandoned part of the docks.  The ground floor was padlocked off with windows boarded up on account of vandalism. The isolation again made it unsuitable for a baby, but more than that there would be no team from which I might learn.

So it was back to Teesside where Bill Wright had arranged a curacy and house in the parish of Egglescliffe. The rector, Leslie Nelson, was the most gracious of priests and happy for me to spend two days a week with TIM. The unfurnished house was on a nearby new housing estate and the call went out to local parishes for surplus bits of furniture. A community of young families made our year one of warm friendships and support when our first daughter, Rebecca, was born amidst the winter snows of 1971.

On Christmas Eve Leslie Nelson was unwell and unable to officiate at the midnight Christmas communion service. I was asked to stand in and felt part of a Christmas card scene as I walked in gently falling snow through the 11^th century parish churchyard.

Industrial mission in England began in Sheffield where Ted Wickham (later Bishop of Middleton) had conducted major research on 19^th century Sheffield.[1]  Wickham documented the minimal presence of the Church of England in the most heavily industrialised parts of the city and noted the estrangement of the working classes.[2] In feudal times squire and peasant lived in close proximity and worshiped together in the village church. But large scale industrialisation and urbanisation had driven a geographical wedge between social classes so that, as Abraham said to the rich man: ‘between us and you a great gulf is fixed.’[3]

Wickham illustrates this separation in his outline of the 19^th century seating plan in the Sheffield parish church. The church accommodated 1500 people in ground floor and gallery seating. Pews with several seats in each were available for freehold purchase or annual rent, with 100 seats available free. Of the free seats ‘there were a few in the gallery behind pillars, and the rest were downstairs, behind the three-decker pulpit, and mostly behind pillars. In two of them the stoves were placed’.[4]  Of an adjacent church in Sheffield it was noted that the few free seats were thinly occupied.

The annual rent of a pew cost up to two weeks of a labourer’s wage, the amount varying according to the quality and location of the pew. The finest pews were owned freehold and were part of a person’s assets. Such pews were publicly advertised and sold at auction like a piece of real estate. The Sheffield Telegraph reported that ‘Pew No 69 was sold in 1817 for 105 pounds, and again in 1819 for 115 pounds…It was one of the finest placed in the church, seating six persons’.

In terms of attracting people to Sunday worship, clearly this great gulf was unlikely to be bridged. What would a cloth cap say to a top hat? And if the church saw its mission as one of advocacy for the poor, would the wealthy pew-owners who supported the church financially welcome a challenge from the pulpit about wages and conditions in their ‘dark satanic mills’?

A concept of mission focused solely on attracting people to church is quite inadequate. It is often only by venturing out that a bridge between life and faith can be built:

Often the missionary task is envisaged as the landing of a fish out of the sea on to the saving rock of the Church, as though the Church had escaped the pollutions and the colourations of the historical process; whereas the Church is also part of the world, called to be immersed in the deepest waters.

Too often the Gospel is preached wide outside the context of (human) life in this world, thrown from outside like a lifebuoy (or a brick) inscribed with a soteriological[5] text that is meaningless to the secular mind and indifferent to the social context in which (people)  are rooted.[6]

Ted Wickham was writing about 19^th century Sheffield, but another hundred years went by with little changed in terms of the Church’s link with the lives and conditions of workers. Concerned about the gap, the Bishop of Sheffield, Leslie Hunter, invited Wickham in 1944 to establish an outreach to factory-workers. This move was well received and led to the formation of the Sheffield Industrial Mission. Wickham made it clear that the mission not a ‘fishing expedition’ to recruit new members to fill the pews. It was rather an ’incarnational’ approach, seeking to get alongside the thousands of human beings who worked night and day under grinding conditions on often mindless and soul-less tasks.

Industrial mission is based on the belief that God is not restricted within church walls but is alive and active in all areas of life. The local congregation is largely focused on residential life with an emphasis on home and family, but residential life is only one part of a person’s total experience. From home people go out to work, education and leisure activities. Chaplaincies engage with these other sectors, but overwhelmingly the Church focuses its resources on the residential congregation, ignoring almost completely the powerful forces that shape people’s lives most of their waking hours.

Industrial mission sought to understand the daily human experience in the workplace, to know the poverty not only of body but also of mind and soul in lives dominated by activity often devoid of purpose and fulfillment. The mission explored leadership issues with managers and promoted consultation with unions to build cohesive relationships. Wickham writes:

Mr Graham Hutton, in his analysis of the post-war Anglo-American productivity reports (We Too can Prosper, 1953), makes the point that productivity and efficiency must be the basis of any modern viable society, but are not ends in themselves. They can be the basis of the bad society as well as the Good Society, and our task is to ensure they do assist in the achievement of ‘non-material ends, ethical, social and even spiritual ends.’ Christianity is precisely concerned with such ends, and with a critique of means, as the end illuminates them.[7]

Around 1950 the Teesside Industrial Mission (TIM) was established with similar objectives. Bill Wright was senior chaplain, and the team of seven included Margaret Kane, a theologian. Both had worked on the Sheffield team prior to coming to Teesside, halfway between York and Newcastle, where the river Tees flows through Egglescliffe, Stockton and Middlesbrough into the North Sea.

Teesside was in a state of decline. On my second day I went with Bill to the Furness Shipyards at Haverton Hill to see the launching of one of the last large ships to be built on Teesside. The construction of smaller ships continued for a few years, but the days of major ship-building were coming to an end.

Later, I went down a coalmine in County Durham, the recent Pike River disaster in New Zealand graphically illustrating the risks of mining below ground. In the short days of winter miners would start and finish work in the dark, not experiencing natural daylight for days on end. In 1970 coalmines in County Durham were starting to close. Since much of the coal had been shipped out through Teesport, mine closures were another factor in rising unemployment.

The steel industry’s change to new technology was also causing redundancies on a massive scale. The decline in all these major industries led to unemployment rates of around 30 per cent on Teesside. Particularly affected were school-leavers, and older workers forced into early retirement around 55 years of age. TIM was not short of issues to address.

As an industrial chaplain I visited weekly ICI’s Butakon plant which manufactured synthetic rubber. The plant was scheduled to be closed down but, in an enlightened approach to factory closures, ICI had made an announcement two years in advance to allow its 150 staff time to make new arrangements. Staff were free to leave at any time they chose, and ICI undertook to find work for everyone who wanted it in other ICI plants on Teesside. Sudden changes in circumstances mean it is not always possible to plan closures far in advance, but the recent rash of closures in NZ, often with very short notice, raises questions as to how much thought businesses give to the wellbeing of their workers.

As chaplains became known and trusted in the workplace, TIM helped to develop strategies for other plant closures. And concerned about prospects for school-leavers, TIM set up regular meetings between employers, high school principals and vocational guidance staff to make better links between school and work. Education and training at school became more closely aligned with the skills needed in the workplace, so that young people had a better chance of finding a job.

TIM also initiated the five-day residential workshops in a hotel at Sandsend, a seaside village near Whitby. As described by Bruce Gilberd[8], about 30 people from both unions and management attended each workshop, the cost met by their companies. TIM chaplains were part of a staff of six, the workshops aiming to increase understanding of how people work in groups, and how groups affect one another. Shared leadership, exercise of power, personal autonomy, authority and accountability were among issues discussed. Some sessions included group exercises focusing on skills in listening, sensitivity to other members of the group and consensus decision-making.

The Sandsend workshops helped build better relationships and negotiating skills between unions and management.  They expressed the wisdom of the fridge sticker: ‘None of us is as smart as all of us’. The truth of that lies not only in the insights that come from consultation but, as a bonus, in the enhanced commitment to the success of a project by those who have had a hand in shaping it. The workshops were later taken over by the University of Durham’s extra-mural department.

For those who imagine theology is only to do with arcane discussions on topics such as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, a theological study group for managers and union members might seem off the radar. Yet TIM set up such a group led by John Cumpsty, a theologian from St John’s College, Durham. Theology has a concern for the common good, for human dignity and fulfillment in work, for a living wage and economic justice, for co-operative rather than adversarial teamwork, for sustainable production and good stewardship of resources, and delivering quality goods and services that meet human need. The agenda was set by those who attended and there was a lively interest.

Such questions and more gave group members the opportunity to reflect on workplace issues, and to consider wider objectives such as purpose, values and ethics, and the impact of their industry on its stakeholders. A narrow purpose of delivering a profit to shareholders is not ethical if it is achieved at the expense of other stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers and the environment. A company attending to the needs of all its stakeholders enhances both its reputation and its profitability.

Teesside was a place where smoke-stacks, concrete and steel were everywhere in evidence. Today, 40 years later, most of that has gone.  In place of the old industries, new and smaller enterprises have sprung up. Unemployment is still a big issue, but the rate is lower than the 30 per cent of the 1970s. Parts of England’s North-East remain depressed but tourism has brought a growing number of visitors to the Yorkshire moors and dales, York Minster, the great cathedral at Durham , and down the Esk Valley to Whitby,[9] a delightful fishing village whence Captain Cook, himself a Teessider, set sail on his voyages to the South Pacific. At Whitby the ruins remain of Hilda’s abbey, venue of the historic synod of Whitby in 664 where England opted for a Catholic approach to church life rather than the indigenous Celtic.

Our village church at Egglescliffe was in the diocese of Durham, and Jackie and I loved visiting Durham cathedral. On New Year’s Day 1971, with a visitor from New York, we joined the small congregation in the choir stalls at mid-week Evensong sung by the cathedral choir. We sat in the canons’ stalls in the back row but were soon approached by the verger who asked Jackie and our friend to move forward. The canons were all male, he explained, so only males could sit in those stalls. We all moved to a front row, but after the service approached a young cleric to register our concern about such a discriminatory practice. He was not at all sympathetic: ‘Next thing you’ll be wanting women priests,’ he said. Not surprisingly, this moved Jackie to write a letter of complaint to the bishop who replied with an assurance that the practice would cease.

In recent years industrial mission has declined in Britain. At its height in the 1970s, 300 or more chaplains, some part-time, were deployed from all denominations. Cuts in church funding has been one factor, the shift from large industrial complexes to smaller enterprises another. In Sheffield a bishop with a narrow church-focused view of mission closed the industrial mission, but it remains the case that the lives of whole populations are shaped by economic, commercial and employment realities. The Church does little to work alongside those who wrestle with the key ethical issues underlying such realities. The overwhelming emphasis is on programmes to equip church members for roles within the local church, not for the challenges they face at work and in the community.

Our year on Teesside was filled with new insights, warm friendships that have lasted over 40 years, and marked, of course, by the birth of Rebecca. Two of us left Auckland in 1968. We returned three years later as a threesome. Our lives had been changed for ever by our time in New York and North-East England. The vocational crisis of my curacy days in Papakura had slowly resolved in the face of my experiences of poverty and race, justice and peace, and the world of work. My understanding of the task of the Church had shifted beyond parochial boundaries to become world-focused.

To set off overseas for three years, with two of those years open-ended, seems foolhardy in retrospect, especially with a child in prospect. To then come home and expect to find a permanent ministry which dove-tailed with overseas insights was probably even more of a folly. But unbeknown to us, and reinforcing my belief in the reality of grace, plans had been under way to establish a base for industrial mission in Auckland.

Industrial chaplains were not unknown in New Zealand. In the 1960s the National Council of Churches appointed a Methodist minister, Owen Kitchingman, to be full-time chaplain on the Manapouri Power Project. Conditions for workers on the project were arduous through dark and damp winters, separated from families and friends in an isolated part of the country. Owen established himself well as a friend, pastor and sounding-board for people at all levels.

Some years earlier an Anglican priest, Ted Buckle[10], had worked as chaplain on the Snowy Mountains Scheme in Australia. Now based in Auckland, Ted became one of the leaders in furthering industrial mission in New Zealand. Just five months before our return, a national conference had been held in Lower Hutt. Assisted by the Rev’d Lawrie Styles, director of the Inter-Church Trade and Industry Mission (ITIM) in Melbourne, and with much energy from the late Norris Collins, an Anglican and railway union leader,  the large numbers present agreed to set up a national ITIM structure for New Zealand.

That same year church leaders agreed to establish ITIM in the Auckland region. The Rev’d Bruce Moore, its first chairman, gained support from the diocesan synod and a little later I was appointed as the first full-time director. On the ITIM Board were representatives from trade unions, management and various churches – a tripartite approach to address the complex issues in business and industry that impact on human life.

Three Presbyterian ministers were already acting as industrial chaplains as an outreach from their churches to local industry. In Parnell, Gordon Chambers visited each week Heards confectionery factory, a ministry continued by his successor, Bruce Paterson. Across the isthmus in Onehunga, Frank Winton made regular visits to the waterside workers at the Manukau Harbour docks.[11]

Industrial mission in New Zealand developed in a very different manner from its British counterpart. In the United Kingdom national church funding meant full-time chaplains could be appointed to focus on the structural, relational and ethical issues of the workplace. But in New Zealand, apart from initial funding for myself as director, churches could not provide ongoing funding, and chaplaincy work was undertaken voluntarily by local parish clergy (and later by lay people). Companies paid a few hundred dollars annually to ITIM which, as the work expanded, enabled the funding of the organisation and my role as director.  In return chaplains provided counselling and support services following the pattern in Australia. Parish clergy enjoyed this outreach into industry and were greatly stimulated by contact with people in the workplace.

In the 1970s many business leaders were ex-World War II men who had a high regard for the padres who had served with them. They welcomed the appointment of chaplains, as did union representatives who were always part of the appointment process. The independence of a chaplain, and of ITIM, was a cornerstone policy.

I was chaplain at Plastic Industries in Onehunga, and Consolidated Plastics and AHI Glass in Penrose. For a few hours weekly I would tour the various departments, meeting shop-floor and management workers. In offices, cafeterias or on the shop-floor I listened and discussed all sorts of personal or family concerns, as well as people’s feelings about their work. In some industries chaplains had to wear hard hats and earmuffs – not a good sign for someone supposed to be there to listen, as one wag commented.  But in all kinds of informal settings I was granted trusted access to many of the personal and work-related issues that dominate people’s lives.

Until 1975 New Zealand had not only full employment but a marked shortage of labour. The Penrose plastics factory leafleted suburban letterboxes with a proposal that two housewives team up, work half-time each and joint babysit the other half, an invitation many took up. The 1970s were also a time when efficiency drives were beefed up as a sharp reduction in import tariffs drove local industries to lift their game. At the plastics factory in one department 20 per cent of the product was sub-standard and had to be ground up and re-worked, the cost of the waste being simply passed on to consumers.

The demand for workers had led to the Government turning a blind eye to Pacific Islanders illegally overstaying their immigration visas. Their presence in the workforce was essential to production in a time of labour shortage but, as unemployment grew from the mid-1970s, the Government hypocritically rounded them up in the infamous dawn raids and sent them home. I raised the issue with immigration officials but to no avail.

Changes were also afoot in work practices. As a student I had earned two pounds a day on a summer holiday job in the Tip Top ice-cream factory. At nights I would often find work as a ‘seagull’ – temporary worker – on the waterfront. The evening shift was from 6-9pm, but no work was ever done before 6.30pm. The permanent watersiders worked from 6.30–7.30pm and then went home. We seagulls worked the next hour to 8.30pm and I could usually catch the 8.40pm ferry to Devonport. The hour working had plenty of breaks as we waited in the ship’s bowels for another load of frozen carcasses. We were paid for three hours’ work at time and a half, plus meal money and a customary ‘efficiency’ bonus. That came to two pounds per shift, the same as I received for a whole day at Tip Top. Reform was in the wind but no change made in waterfront work practices until the 1980s.

Having trained in the British model of industrial mission I was clear that our work involved more than personal counselling. I was very much aware of the same industrial and ethical issues faced in the workplace by British chaplains. I wrestled with this dilemma. How could a focus on industrial issues be developed alongside a human support service for individuals?  Part-time parish clergy did not have the time to develop the expertise of their British counterparts. I worried that industrial mission might be limited to personal and pastoral support, ignoring more deep-seated structural issues.

To ensure the big picture was not lost, I gathered the chaplains regularly to discuss workplace concerns such as cross-cultural  issues in a multi-racial workforce, ethical questions,  fears of job changes and restructuring, unfulfilling work (for both management and shop-floor), or frustration over work practices that were inefficient or failed to take notice of employee ideas and concerns.

Underlying many problems was a corporate failure to consult with those who were close to day-to-day operations, and whose experience could add much to the company’s output. Worse, the feeling of being ignored or undervalued led to a loss of morale and unwillingness to go the extra mile when a special effort was needed.

Teamwork between management and staff can bear much fruit if managers have the skills and make the time for it to happen. There are some excellent examples of companies and organisations where enlightened leadership draws on the experience of employees. The process leads to better outcomes and builds a sense of stake-holding and commitment on the part of staff. Sadly there are still too many organisations where leaders have the attitude that ‘I’m the boss and I tell people what to do’. The loss in terms of corporate output, job commitment and human fulfillment is incalculable.[12]

ITIM took up a variety of issues. For example, many of the Pacific Island employees in Auckland’s industries knew little English, yet most safety and other notices were only in English. ITIM proposed multi-lingual notices which duly appeared and helped Pacific workers feel valued.

In November 1974, I organised a weekend for managers and unionists on the Te Tira Hou marae in Panmure. Over 100 people showed up with sleeping bags ready for two days and nights on the marae. The aim was to help industry leaders gain a better understanding of Maori cultures and backgrounds in the workforce. The Hon Matiu Rata, Minister of Maori Affairs, said in his keynote address:

Change is an unsettling process to many people. It brings people face to face with different attitudes, different ways of behaving and different reactions. It shatters a few stereotypes and a shattered stereotype is a difficult thing to replace because it involves a bit of hard thinking in an area of life where many New Zealanders have until recently not felt the need to do much thinking because they took their attitudes for granted.[13]

It was a weekend of new insights, one of the Tuhoe hosts saying: ‘For the first time Pakeha has come to us.’

On another occasion Bruce Gilberd[14] and I led a weekend training event for senior managers of Gough, Gough and Hamer on leadership, teamwork and conflict resolution. In Auckland I organised regular forums on issues in the workplace, and published a study on industrial relations, emphasising the value of negotiated outcomes rather than adversarial ones.

When I was chaplain at AHI Glass, a major change in glass manufacturing was envisaged using a well-established Swedish process. The factory employed around 700 staff, working with molten glass in an atmosphere of continuous noise and heat. The unions were well organised and known for taking a hard line on work issues. Any major change could be expected to trigger an extensive industrial dispute. AHI had an enlightened approach and sent a team of managers and union leaders on a fact-finding mission to Sweden. The group studied the process, met with local management and unions, and worked out how the process could be adapted for the Auckland situation. Many negotiating points still remained, but a major operational change was achieved without industrial confrontation.

The value of consultation was also evident in a major industrial dispute in December 1973. The hydrofoil Manu Wai  had been recently purchased by Leo Dromgoole to run as a fast ferry between Auckland and Waiheke. Dromgoole was a well-known North Shore identity who, after the opening of the Auckland Harbour Bridge in 1959, purchased the few remaining harbour ferries and North Shore buses. It was a struggling business, and Leo could be found at times clipping tickets on the Devonport wharf.

After buying Manu Wai, he proposed to cut the size of the crew, believing the traditional number was too large for a comparatively small harbour ferry. This led to a dispute with the Seamen’s Union which soon developed into a strike. The strike was joined by the Drivers’ Union, led by Bill Andersen[15], who refused to deliver fuel oil to Dromgoole’s ferries. This led in turn to a court injunction requiring the fuel ban to be lifted. Bill Andersen refused, was arrested and locked up in Mount Eden prison.

Once news of his imprisonment had spread, a national day of strike action was planned. In line with ITIM’s belief that disputes should be resolved by negotiation, I issued a media release saying that Bill should be released from jail and negotiations commence to resolve the planned strike. The Government asked the President of the Federation of Labour, Tom Skinner, to meet Bill overnight in prison. Next day a settlement was negotiated, Bill was released from jail and the strike averted.

I do not for a moment suggest a media release from ITIM was of any great significance in avoiding national strike action, but the move was noticed. To broaden my understanding of industrial matters, I attended each month the Auckland Trades Council meeting, chaired by Bill Andersen. Following the strike issue he would always welcome me as ‘our comrade who stood by us in our hour of need’.

By the time I left ITIM Auckland in 1978, about 60 industrial chaplains were visiting workplaces as far South as the Waikato and Bay of Plenty, and ITIM was working all over New Zealand. Changes since then have seen the emergence of Vitae and related organisations which offer programmes  including on-site visitation, off-site counselling, trauma services, conflict resolution and work around issues of corporate ethics.

---

[1] E R Wickham, Church and People in an Industrial City, Lutterworth, 1957.

[2] It should be noted, however, that the Methodists and other religious bodies successfully established new churches in working class areas, a move the Church of England also followed later.

[3] Luke 16.26.

[4] Op. cit., p.43.

[5] ‘of salvation’.

[6] Ibid, pp. 227/8.

[7] Ibid. p.249.

[8] Bruce, with his wife, Pat, and family came from Auckland to Teesside in 1971 after we left. On his return to New Zealand in 1973, he took over the leadership of industrial mission in Wellington, and was later Bishop of Auckland.

[9] For rail enthusiasts, the Middlesbrough-Whitby train trundles gently down the valley. At Grosmont it connects with the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, one of the largest preservation railways in the UK, which offers regular rail service between Whitby and Pickering across the Yorkshire Moors, using classical steam and diesel engines.

[10] Ted was a pioneer in many forms of new ministries, and was later Assistant Bishop of Auckland.

[11] One Saturday Frank was sick and rang to ask me to take his Sunday service. It was a communion service and, not having conducted a Presbyterian service before, I was somewhat nervous at the prospect. Upon my arrival the church elders thrust a big black book in my hand, opened the vestry door and pointed me up steep stairs to a large central pulpit. Standing ‘ten feet above contradiction’, faced with a large packed church, and having little clue as to how things should proceed, it was one of the most unnerving liturgical experiences of my life.

[12] One of my favourite book titles is David P Campbell’s If I’m in charge here, why is everybody laughing?  1980. The general theme is that work can be an enjoyable and productive activity with the right leadership.

[13] Auckland Star, 16 November 1974.

[14] Bruce had returned from Teesside in 1973 and was now Director of ITIM in Wellington.

[15] Bill Andersen was a leading trade unionist, and also leader of the communist Socialist Union Party (SUP). He would routinely stand as a candidate for Parliament in the blue-ribbon seat of Tamaki, gaining a handful of votes against the landslide wins of the National Party MP, and later Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon.

In January 2007 Bishop Richard said that if proof of the existence of God depended on scientific evidence he would have to declare himself an agnostic

‘Atheists are getting bad press’ was the lament of an Auckland academic, calling for more respect for non-believers in an article in the New Zealand Herald in January 2007. Here was a new twist in religious debate. It is usually Christians who lament bad press while non-believers and other faith communities go scot-free. I felt immediately sympathetic with the author and penned a reply for the Herald a few days later. I expressed the hope that people might be defined by what they believe, rather than by what they do not, and suggested that ‘humanist’ was a better word for those committed to human wellbeing from a non-religious base.

I wrote that in my experience the ‘god’ atheists did not believe in was not one many Christians believed in either. Such a god was very often an image left over from Sunday School days, or the product of populist caricatures purveyed by crusading atheists like Richard Dawkins. I agreed with Dawkins that the existence of God cannot be proved by science, and said that if my faith in God was dependent upon scientific proof I would have to declare myself an agnostic. Science cannot prove it one way or the other.

The conjunction of the words ‘agnostic’ and ‘bishop’ in the same article was too much for the Herald to resist and a reporter, Patrick Gower, was dispatched to conduct an extended interview. The media delights in sniffing out whiffs of heresy among church leaders and the Herald clearly thought it was on to a winner here.

Patrick and I had a lengthy interview. He listened carefully, asked good questions and went away with what I judged to be an intelligent understanding of contemporary theology. But knowing how easy it is for reporters to get religious issues wrong, I sent him a two-page email next day, setting out with crystal clarity a summary of my views on key issues. I emphasised the need to look for the deeper meaning of a story rather than to take the story literally. Many might put the story about Jonah and the Whale, for example, in the same childhood category as Jack and the Beanstalk. But this is a story of God’s love for all: Jonah wanted to avoid preaching the word of God in Nineveh, the Sin City of the day, but was redirected courtesy of the ‘whale’.

However, I was not greatly surprised when the Herald ran a major article entitled I’m no wishy-washy believer which made scant reference to the substantive points I was making. Whether it was Patrick or an editor who had slanted the story, I could not tell. The article said I did not believe in Adam and Eve, nor in the Virgin Birth. What it did not say was that I believed both stories conveyed deep truths in symbolic form, Adam and Eve being generic figures as part of a drama showing the unity of all creation, while the Virgin Birth story pointed to the unity of human and divine natures in Christ.

Reaction to the article was extensive. Prime Minister Helen Clark rang to congratulate me on having the courage to raise contemporary issues of faith in public. But the Herald was not finished. Weekly columnist Garth George took up the cudgels. Garth, who could always be counted on for a robust traditional opinion on any matter social or religious, referred to the Oxford Dictionary definition of an agnostic as ‘a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known about the existence and nature of God’. This customary definition of ‘agnostic’ was totally disconnected from my use of the word ‘agnostic’. I was talking strictly about scientific proof of God’s existence, not other ways of knowing God. I have yet to meet any church leader or member who believes God can be proved by science.

Garth George further wrote that ‘once a parson reaches a certain level of authority in the (Anglican) church it is well-nigh impossible to dislodge him’. This too is totally untrue. Bishops and clergy are all subject to judicial processes if they breach doctrinal or moral guidelines. I emailed Garth asking him to correct these two major errors, but he declined. Instead he published his views again in the evangelical Challenge Weekly which he was editing at the time. This time he published a letter I wrote in response.

I was grateful for the support of my fellow bishops a week later who, meeting in Nelson, issued this statement:

As bishops of this church we regret the way in which the media and talkback hosts have caricatured Bishop Randerson as agnostic and unbeliever. We know, firsthand, that his faithful ministry over 42 years as vicar, social justice commissioner, bishop and dean has consistently reflected the conviction that the nature of God is revealed in Jesus Christ, whom we call Son of God. Bishop Randerson has spoken clearly and personally about the reality of the resurrected Christ.

Garth had the grace to include the bishops’ statement in his next Herald column.

Reactions to the Herald article fell into three groups. There were letters of concern to the bishop, one demanding that I recant or resign. Another wanted me to affirm my faith in God as a ‘Supreme Personal Being as stated in the creeds’. This gave me pause for thought. Had I been reciting the creeds all my life and missed this reference? I consulted the Anglican prayer book and found no mention of God as a supreme personal being. I wondered about the level of teaching from our pulpits. To one of the clergy I wrote:

As an orthodox believer my own convictions stand clearly within the historic creeds affirmed by the Anglican Church. It is important that clergy themselves are well informed on such matters and able to interpret them accurately to parishioners. It is also important that the Church be able to communicate effectively a contemporary understanding of its beliefs to a huge constituency which includes both its own members as well as many in the wider community. The appreciation from large numbers of people has been astonishing.

As the bishop was away it fell to me to reply to these letters and in every case I offered to meet with the parish concerned. Only one parish accepted the invitation and twelve of us sat round over lunch. I was looking forward to a good dialogue but it was all rather strange as no one seemed to want to say anything.

I also received a few emails from avowed atheists. For different reasons than the concerned clergy they were equally adamant that religious imagery should not be changed. I could almost hear an anguished wail from my computer: ‘You’re not allowed to change anything’. I felt the atheists had well-polished arguments for demolishing traditional religious images but were left without a target when faith was interpreted in a 21^st century context.

But the largest number of responses was from people inside and outside the Church who identified strongly with what I said. Some were folk who had abandoned the Church long since, others were interested bystanders, and some were people still in the Church but hanging on by their fingernails. Comments from the many letters and emails I received included:

I really appreciated your article and interview with the Herald. For many years I kept my struggle over the dissonance between my views and the words we say in church to myself. I also imagined I was probably the only person who felt like that. In retrospect I am astonished I thought that. The reason probably is that it is rare for such views to be discussed in church, whereas each week we repeat the same words from the prayer book, and there is no indication they are not being accepted literally by everyone.

Your description of your faith experience – in touch with something other – and the impact of the awareness of mystery and the paradox of it being personal and yet unable to say clearly what is ‘on the other side of that’, resonates so much with where I find myself to be.

You have been instrumental in my return to Anglicanism after 35 years. I admire your courage and integrity and have felt supported and encouraged in my faith journey these last two years.

My first encounter with Richard Dawkins[1] was in an interview with Kim Hill on National Radio in December 2006. I listened as she first interviewed Dawkins by telephone from Oxford, UK, on his book The God Delusion[2].  For the next half-hour Kim and I discussed the book and the author’s arguments.

I said to Kim I thought the book the most dishonest I had ever read because Dawkins’ attack on religion was based entirely on caricatures and fundamentalist viewpoints. Totally absent from the book was any reference to contemporary religious scholars such as Rowan Williams, Karen Armstrong, Marcus Borg, Tom Wright or Walter Wink. Academic integrity requires an impartial overview of a topic, not a narrowly selected set of extreme views to support a pre-determined conclusion.

Dawkins is well aware of alternative views and worked closely on a public education issue with the then Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries. Together they wrote a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair protesting at a proposal to introduce the doctrine of creationism into a state school science curriculum. The letter was signed by eight bishops and nine senior scientists, and Dawkins notes that the letter was drafted by the Bishop of Oxford. Church and Science lined up to oppose religious fundamentalism, but Dawkins nonetheless ignores intelligent religious thinking, presumably because it would undermine his atheistic crusade.

But lop-sided as his arguments are, Richard Dawkins has a large global following among the growing numbers today who know next to nothing about the historic Christian faith. Gone are the days when most might have some awareness of the basics of Christianity, even at a Sunday School level. ‘What’s Easter?’ a teenager asked me once. And there’s the reported comment from a young modern at a Christmas parade: ‘Isn’t it outrageous that now even the churches are trying to jump on the Christmas band-wagon?’

Caricatures abound in the popular mind. Speculative theories are advanced that Jesus didn’t die on the Cross but was revived from a death-like coma, married Mary Magdalene and they both lived happily ever after by the Dead Sea. A religiously uninformed population is unable to critique the theories of Dawkins and others, and hence take their theories as authentic. There is also a genre of journalists who delight in stream-of-consciousness, caricature-based polemics against the Church. Like Dawkins, they exclude any objective or intelligent assessment. The global outrage over the Danish cartoon mocking Islam some years back deters any journalist from a similar attempt today, but it is open season for attacks on Christianity.

Dawkins has a legitimate target in religious fundamentalism. Belief by some churches in the imminent end of the world leads to conclusions like ‘don’t bother working for peace or justice, to help the poor or save the environment: the world will soon end and all those problems will be forgotten’. Mainstream religion is at one with Dawkins in attacking such gross theological and ethical distortions.

Richard Dawkins directs much of his energy to showing the irrational nature of belief in God. But what would constitute a contemporary understanding of God in the 21st century? And when we talk of ‘God’, what sort of image is in our mind? The traditional image of God as a supernatural being is well-established and has been a source of strength for many both past and present. But if, as I experience, God is mystery, can there be different images of a mystery which human words and images cannot adequately express?

American theologian Marcus Borg suggests there are two very different understandings of ‘God’ in the Christian tradition.[3] One is of ‘God as a Being’, the other of ‘God as Sacred Presence’. The two are not mutually exclusive, one expressing the transcendence of God, the other the immanence, or presence, of God. Karen Armstrong[4] offers a similar, but slightly different, distinction between ‘God as a Being’ and ‘God as Being’, a distinction that resonates strongly with my own experience.

There is no irrefutable argument to prove the existence of God; in fact the whole question is wrongly construed. When someone asks: ‘do you believe in the existence of God?’ the question is usually understood as ‘do you believe in “God as a Being”, a supernatural person who created the universe, governs the affairs of the world and can intervene for good or ill’? In popular thinking, how you answer that question defines you as an atheist, agnostic or believer.

This is where Dawkins gets off on the wrong track to start with. Assuming that the faith question is about belief in the existence of a supernatural being, he cites Bertrand Russell’s analogy of a celestial teapot.[5] Russell hypothesises that a china teapot is in orbit between Earth and Mars. The teapot is too small to be observable, so no one can prove it doesn’t exist, but who in their right mind would believe it actually does? So it is with the existence of God, says Russell, and Dawkins agrees. The proposal cannot be disproved but anyone with an ounce of common sense would regard it as ridiculous.

With this argumentum ad absurdum, Dawkins dismisses any rational basis for belief in ‘God as a Being’, but perhaps we should be grateful to him. For in demonstrating one absurdity, he unwittingly demonstrates an even greater absurdity, and that is trying to address the question of faith within this kind of framework. I want to suggest that the question of faith is not one of intellectual assent to the existence of ‘God as a Being’ but arises out of our experience of ‘God as Being’, a reality at the heart of human life. Nothing can be proved or disproved, but there are experiences that may be shared of a mystery that people interpret in different ways. I see ‘God as a Being’ as a traditional image of ‘God as Being’, but not the only image.

What are some of those experiences? I was once asked by a man dying of cancer in his 60s to conduct his funeral. He was not a religious person, but wanted a funeral that respected the integrity of his non-religious beliefs. I have conducted many such funerals over the years and was happy to accede to his request. When I asked him how he viewed life and death, he said: ‘I don’t believe in God, but I have a feeling of being part of something bigger than myself.’ I was amazed because his words are the same ones I would use to describe my core experience of God. I feel part of something bigger than myself, something that transcends all human life and creation and links me to every person and part of creation.

Other people express such feelings in other ways. In a personal reflection Tim Murray, a retired Australian headmaster who spent his teaching life in church schools, writes that he ‘attended chapels and churches regularly for 50 years, received communion, read lessons, even preached an occasional “sermon”, sang in choirs, read religious poetry, directed religious plays and festivals… so that the language and atmosphere of religious activity…was absorbed through the pores of the skin’. ‘But’, he asks, ‘now that I am “free”, where am I?’ And pushing beyond all the religious words and images to something deeper, he pens these words:

Somewhere deep in our destiny
there’s a dimension
no microscope has power to penetrate,
no telescope has strength to see –
a dimension without which
we are unimaginable.
No sense can make it tangible;
nothing tangible can make it sense.
It is the still point around which
we revolve and
have our being.
It is utterly and infinitely central.
Some might call it conscience,
the essence of self,
the whisper of the soul,
depth, destiny,
purpose, meaning,
mystery.
Some might call it God.
Why try to find a label?
Why try to tie it down?
By definition it is beyond our grasp because
it is beyond our reach – but it has to be there.
Without it our world would not turn.

Many will know the words of Dag Hammarskjold, second Secretary-General of the United Nations:

I don’t know who or what put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone, or Something, and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.[6]

Hammarskjold records an experience of otherness, of mystery, something that cannot be put into words, but from which arose his vocation to serve others. This sense of vocation came strongly to Moses as he tended his father-in-law Jethro’s sheep on Mount Horeb. It was doubtless a slow day when Moses turned aside to see a bush alive with fire. From the bush he heard a voice that spoke of the suffering of his people Israel, and called him to the risky task of confronting Egypt’s Pharaoh and leading Israel out of Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land. When Moses enquired as to the name of the One who was calling him, the enigmatic reply he received was ‘I am who I am’.[7] The name conveys the sense of being, or essence, consistent with the image of ‘God as Being’.

Other people express their sense of ‘something bigger than themselves’ in other ways. I asked a church study group once what they felt God meant to them – forget words, creeds, pictures, just quite simply their bottom-line lived experience. There was a long silence but at length a woman in her 40s, a hospital nurse and mother, said: ‘Well I guess for me it’s a feeling that whatever happens to me in life, I am never alone.’

I have often quoted the words of Cathy Benland who, in 1987, made a submission to a New Zealand Royal Commission on Social Policy on The S-Factor, where S stood for Spirit. ‘What would be the common elements,’ she asked, ‘of a spirituality most New Zealanders might identify with?’ Among the elements she listed ‘a sense of awe in the face of the mystery of existence’. Many would identify with her words when we stop to ponder the miracle of our universe.

Kate Brignall, an English doctor in Wellington for a year’s sabbatical in 2012, offers another perspective on God in this sense of ‘mysterious other’. Kate and I spent extended sessions in Bellagio’s coffee shop in Hataitai exploring our understanding of God. Shortly before returning home Kate wrote:

The true human identity is God
that which is unifying, beyond, ethereal
within us and yet perceived beyond us
that which gives meaning and purpose
Calling the selfish self to the selfless self
that which is truth of being
touching, reaching, communicating
that which binds all things in the universe together
stars, sky, sea, earth and every living thing
that which tends, nurtures, is life-giving
a reflection of ultimate goodness
that which resonates deep within the soul
this is what I call God.

Think also of events which bring tears to one’s eyes. Tears are a sign of being touched at the core of our being by things that are profoundly real. Typically they catch us when we experience great grief over the loss of a loved one, or when we see others experiencing such loss. Or contrariwise in the experience of great joy, when people who had been lost to one another are re-united, or when some amazing and totally unexpected outcome happens for a family experiencing natural disaster such as a flood or house fire. Or when people act with unrestricted compassion and generosity to assist complete strangers facing urgent need, be it at home or abroad.

Or again when people have the capacity to transcend a massive loss and act with greatness of spirit. One such example moved the nation a few years ago when a young Christchurch mother, Emma Woods, spoke of the death of her four-year old son, Nayan, who was tragically killed by a car that spun out of control. Emma said of little Nayan: ‘We had a perfect day at Playcentre, played lots of games together, and had a good time at the mall. I have no regrets about that day – we had fun together.’

And of the young driver of the car: ‘We are pretty clear we don’t want this to be the defining moment of his life. He is young, only 17. He has got his whole life ahead of him and we hope he will use it to do good things, to be good with people, and maybe eventually to be a good father.’ I know nothing of Emma’s spirituality, but her words are an astonishing statement of wisdom and generosity in the face of unimaginable grief. She has drawn on the deepest resources of spirit, while acknowledging the extent of the loss and pain she will feel through long years ahead.

I offer these experiences and reflections as examples of ‘God as Being’ rather than ‘God as a Being’. ‘God as Being’ is like the air we breathe, or the water in which fish swim. It is the life-giving milieu in which we exist. It is that which lifts us beyond ourselves to some larger vision and love. The faith question is no longer ‘do you believe in the existence of a supernatural being?’, but ‘what do you experience at the heart of life?’ People name or describe these experiences in many different ways, religious and non-religious. It is not about proving the existence of anyone or anything – simply how we interpret basic human experience.

Such experience is universal through time. Both Moses and Dag Hammarskjold found their vocation arose from an encounter with mystery. And when we are moved by a reconciliation between two people who had been lost to one another, we find an ancient parallel in the story of the Prodigal Son[8], a young man who took his share of his father’s inheritance and blew it all in riotous living. Broke and friendless he heads for home, his mind rehearsing speeches of abject humility and apology. But his father sees him coming, dashes out to meet him and, waving all speeches aside, welcomes his lost son home and throws a party. The dynamics of human life and relationships do not change.

Many might identify with these experiences without putting them in a religious framework. As I said, nothing can be proved. People find a framework to express their experiences and choose to live within it. For the Church, ‘God as a Being’ or ‘God as Being’ is at the heart of these central experiences in life. Words and images express the nature of God through stories, music, paintings and icons which form a rich and evocative heritage. But interpreted in a literal manner the heritage can become a barrier to understanding. Much of the heritage is symbolic, pointing to powerful truths lying beyond and beneath what appears on the surface. Faith is not in the heritage, but in the deeper truths to which the heritage points. To attempt to shoehorn such richness into the straitjacket of facts or rational proof is a singularly blinkered endeavour.

‘God as a Being’ has been a central part of the heritage and points to a supernatural person who acts with wisdom, love and care for all God’s people. The image works powerfully for many in encountering God, and hence is to be honoured. But increasingly in the 21^st century it is an image that has become a barrier for many, for several reasons.

First, it is an image that comes from the traditional religious framework of a three-decker universe of heaven, earth and hell, a universe peopled by gods, demons, angels and spirits. There can be symbolic meaning to these concepts, but for many today such symbolism is unreal, and the whole framework rejected.

Second, there is a tendency towards anthropomorphism, to construct God in our own human image. A well-attended address by Lloyd Geering[9] , entitled How Humans Made God, discussed this theme. As I shall show later, I disagree with Geering’s conclusion, but he lucidly set out the dangers of anthropomorphism. Awareness of this danger dates back 2,500 years to the classical Greek era when a philosopher, Xenophanes, satirised this tendency thus:

But if cattle and horses and lions had hands or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do, horses like horses and cattle like cattle, (they) would depict the gods’ shapes and make their bodies of such a sort as the form they themselves have.

In other words, if the horses wanted a god they would choose a horse. It could not, of course, be any old nag that whinnied and wheezed, grew old and died. It would have to be a horse characterised by the finest of qualities – power, wisdom, eternal youth, leadership and protection of all the equine race. The danger of having an image of God as a supernatural being is that we append to a human image such qualities as all-loving, all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal and pre-existent.

The concept of a pre-existing Being leads into the third problem, that of the ongoing, sterile debate with science about cosmic origins. A pre-existing being, it is argued, must have had a hand in the formation of the physical universe. But since time and causation did not exist until the universe was formed, concepts of pre-existence and first cause have no meaning outside the existing cosmos. In truth, neither theologian nor scientist has an exact answer about cosmic origins. Endless debate leads nowhere. Science and religion are complementary. Concepts of evolution and the Big Bang add much to our knowledge of the physical workings of the world. Religion offers wisdom about how we live within that world, our sense of connectedness to all people and the earth, our sense of care for all that is.

By contrast the ‘God as Being’ framework avoids fruitless debate with scientists about the beginnings of the universe, yet I have never heard a public debate between theologian and scientist based on anything other than ‘God as a Being’. I once debated the question of cosmic creation with a scientist in Auckland and took the ‘God as Being’ approach. Such an approach bypasses the customary sterile arguments and opens the way to a fruitful discussion on how religion and science can work together on key ethical issues such as in medicine and technology.

The problem of evil is a fourth major issue with ‘God as a Being’. It cropped up with the Asian tsunami in 2004, or with the more recent Christchurch earthquakes, or at the personal level when someone we love is dying, or has been killed in a road accident. Did God send such disasters? Or why didn’t God intervene to prevent or remove such human tragedy? The concept of a supernatural being who intervenes, or doesn’t but should, is a product of anthropomorphic thinking, a problem avoided by other images of God.

For myself in recent years I have felt increasingly comfortable with the reality of God as mystery. I do not need to have answers to all the ‘Why?’ questions about life and the universe. Like the man I quoted at the outset, I have a sense of being part of something bigger than myself. I have a sense of being cared for. I understand God as love or spirit. In prayer I feel I open myself to such love and spirit which provides a sense of spiritual well-being. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, describes his experience of prayer: ‘I feel I am being attended to.’ It is an experience which is intensely personal without necessarily feeling there is literally a Person on the other side. One could describe the mystery as trans-personal. It is an experience which clarifies vision, re-sets directions, reminds one of one’s calling and values, and helps one reach out with compassion to all in need.

The language the Church uses in worship is almost entirely based on the traditional concept of ‘God as a Being’. It is a language that assumes God is a Person to whom we pray, who hears our prayers and responds. For those whose experience God as Being rather than a Being, the language requires a more symbolic interpretation. Impersonal language is not the answer since, whichever image one feels most at home with, the experience of God is the same, and the experience is intensely personal.

The experience of ‘God as Being’, a mystery of love and spirit, is the reality that I find makes better sense than the image of ‘God as a Being’. It is the God image that works for me, while I acknowledge other images, or no image, work better for others. It is the same reality that drives our work of caring, justice, peace-making, reconciliation and environmental stewardship. The test is what image and framework works for us in experiencing and living by the deepest realities of human existence.

And here is where I disagree with Geering’s conclusion in How Humans Made God. He concluded his lecture with a quote from the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72):

We must replace the love of God by the love of man as the only true religion. The fate of mankind depends not on a being outside it and above it but on mankind itself…My wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of this world.

To which Geering added:

In the evolving world of human thought the idea of God has now done its work and a great work it was. It is over to us, as humanity come of age, to shoulder responsibilities we once expected the heavenly parent to do for us.

What Richard Dawkins and Lloyd Geering have in common is a simplistic choice between God as a supernatural being or humanism. The choice might be described as a theological bipolar disorder. Each limits his view of God to one exclusive, albeit traditional, image of God as a supernatural being. Each demolishes that image, Geering in a more sophisticated and erudite fashion than Dawkins. Each concludes the only alternative is humanism. Each ignores the whole concept and experience of God as mystery, or ‘God as Being’. And sadly, the bulk of their hearers lack sufficient theological awareness to critique this fundamentalist dualism.

In what sense is God ‘real’? God as a supernatural being has a sense of reality even if one cannot prove the existence of such a being. But God as mystery may seem vague and unreal. In either case reality lies in the life experiences out of which any concept of God grows. The best analogy is that of love. No one would deny the reality of love. It is one of life’s most powerful forces, and hopefully there is no one who has not experienced that reality, however remote love might be in some of life’s sad situations. Where does love come from? Is it from some outside source, some reservoir of love on which we can draw, perhaps like one of Plato’s forms? Or is it something that springs into a relationship spontaneously whenever two people act lovingly to one another? Whatever one’s view, the reality of love is the same.

CK Stead’s prize-winning novel My Name was Judas (2006) stirred another important element in public debate in New Zealand. The novel is a well-researched book, and a good read, and I had a stimulating cup of coffee with the author to discuss it. The book raises questions about why we call Jesus the Son of God. Is it because he worked miracles? Or is it something else? Jesus once asked his disciples who they thought he was. Peter replied: ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’[10] It is the same question people ask today, and many different answers are offered.

From the outset Christians came to see in Jesus the revelation of the divine mystery. Talk of God as mystery can be somewhat vague and not much help to ordinary folk wanting clues on how to respond to the many complexities of daily life. If one speaks of God as love, then in Jesus the fullness of that love is clearly seen. Jesus disregarded all boundaries and conventions that stood in the way of reaching out to the broken-hearted, the poor and despised. His words and actions brought hope to those on the margins of life while challenging the comfortable perceptions of the rich and powerful.

To call Jesus ‘Son of God’ expresses the belief that in Jesus the true nature of God was fully revealed. The late English Bishop John Robinson described him as a ‘window into God’, and in common parlance one might say he was a ‘chip off the old block’. There are two important things to note here. First, for those who have dismissed the idea of God, Jesus cannot be Son of God for there is no God to be son of. For them, Jesus may be a revered prophet, sage or source of moral wisdom, along with others throughout history.

Second, there can be no proof that Jesus is the Son of God. One cannot prove the existence of God, and neither can one prove that Jesus was the Son of God. It is a question of discernment and choice, the interpretation each person makes of life’s central experiences, and the values and commitments one chooses in consequence.

Nonetheless, many attempts have been made to prove that Jesus was the Son of God. In the popular mind the Church’s teaching that Christ was born of Mary the Virgin with no human father is seen as such an attempt. With a human mother and a divine father Jesus’ humanity and divinity are neatly demonstrated. The trouble is that most people today don’t believe virgin births are possible. Many hence dismiss this idea out of hand. If belief in a virgin birth, along with sundry other miracles, is seen as essential to faith, then many turn back before they have even started.

The difference between literalism and symbolism is key to resolving this dilemma. As long ago as 1922, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York appointed a commission of bishops and theologians to examine key Christian doctrines.[11] It took 16 years for the commission to report, and on the Virgin Birth some members believed there had been a literal virgin birth, while others saw the birth story as symbolic. What they all agreed was that the essential truth of the story was that in Jesus both divine and human natures were completely at one. The literal truth or otherwise of the birth narrative was not essential to faith, but the perception of Jesus as Son of God was.

A 75-year-old church member once asked me if I believed in the Virgin Birth. He had been an Anglican all his life, holding significant church positions. I said I most certainly did believe in the Virgin Birth, but in a symbolic manner as just outlined. He replied that in all his years in the Church no vicar had ever explained that to him. I was appalled. Here was a key article of faith which a doctrinal commission had lucidly addressed 75 years ago, but no one had ever spelled it out to this life-long Anglican. Again, it made me wonder what level of theology goes out from the pulpit.

C K Stead assumes that Jesus’ status as Son of God depends upon his miracle-working capacity, an idea he then proceeds to debunk. His novel is written as a reflection by Judas 40 years after the death of Jesus. Judas writes of a childhood upbringing as a friend of Jesus – their homes, play, education, conversations. As they become adults, Judas observes Jesus taking on more of a leadership and preacher role and gathering crowds around him. Talk of Jesus as a Messiah alarms Judas, who thinks the people are getting carried away.

Judas explains how many of Jesus’ so-called miracles were really no more than ordinary human events exaggerated into miraculous divine acts by incredulous supporters. Thus a man with an evil spirit was cured not by divine power, but by Jesus’ calm manner: Jesus had a way of talking to people that helped them into a peaceful frame of mind. And the story of Jesus raising a man from the dead was likewise an exaggeration by his followers: the man was only close to death. The disciples’ various accounts of resurrection appearances are no more than the kinds of voices and visions bereaved people often experience in thinking of the dead, Stead suggests via Judas. On the assumption that Messiahship depends on the ability to work miracles, Stead dismisses any claims about Jesus as Messiah because there were really no miracles to support such a claim.

In reducing divine miracles to the status of exaggerated accounts of human events, Stead provides a useful counterpoint to a different kind of exaggeration – that which exalts the divinity of Jesus, portraying him as a godlike figure who descends from heaven, strides across Palestine subverting the laws of nature with amazing miracles and, after his death, is brought back to life and returns via a cloud to heaven. Such a picture denies the very point of the incarnation, namely that Jesus was fully human, identified with us as human beings and thus opens a new and fuller perspective on God.

The interplay between these two views captures precisely the theological dilemma that has occupied the minds of the Church’s scholars from earliest times: how can the divine and the human be found together in the person of Jesus? In rejecting the divine, Stead errs on one side of the dilemma, just as an emphasis on Jesus as divine miracle-worker errs on the other. Stead compounds his error by concluding his novel with the words: ‘Our friend was not the Messiah, nor will there ever be one.’

So what sense can we make of this? What does it mean to say that in Jesus the human and the divine were both at one? For me it does not depend on miracles and whether they are to be understood literally or symbolically. I see Jesus as Son of God because Jesus’ life and teachings reflect fully the love, truth and justice of God. Jesus’ followers regarded him as Son of God and Messiah on the same basis. The Messiah was the one long expected by the people of Israel who believed that his coming would usher in a new order in which the light and love of God was central, and a peaceable kingdom of universal justice and wellbeing would blossom. In Jesus the disciples saw this fulfilment, and committed themselves to his cause.

This awareness did not result from some miraculous suspension of the laws of nature. Nor did it arise from intellectual proof. Rather it was a truth forged through long days and nights on the road with Jesus, listening, thinking, watching, through days of euphoria to days of darkness when all seemed too hard. But slowly the dawning of the conviction summed up in Peter’s words: ‘Lord, to whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.’[12]

Stead’s novel is useful in immersing Jesus fully in the human condition. But his debunking of miracles does not undermine faith in Jesus as Son of God, because faith does not depend on miracles. Stead speculates in an interesting manner about miracles, but it is a peripheral debate. At the end of our coffee conversation I said I hoped my theological critique of his book was not offensive. ‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘I would have been upset if you had said the book was not well written.’

In this chapter I have sought to share how my own thinking about God and Jesus has developed over a lifetime. I am sure there is more still to understand. I have sought to emphasise that the existence of God is not something one can prove or disprove. Popular preoccupation with the question of the existence or otherwise of a supernatural being diverts us from the real question about God. That question is what we experience at the heart of life, something which, while being ultimately a mystery, nonetheless gives us a sense of connection to all life, people and creation, something experienced in the nature of love, something which changes our lives and calls us to be agents of change for the wellbeing of others and the earth that sustains us. 

I believe many are leaving the Church, and others not even considering joining it, because the Church is not making clear the symbolic nature of much of its teaching. There are clergy who interpret their faith literally, and so teach their congregations. There are others who, espousing full well the symbolic truth, do not query the literal dimensions of a story in case it upsets people. In so doing they may well create a sanctuary of doctrinal certainty for the gathered few, but at the huge cost of alienating many others. The Church does little to provide an intelligent and robust expression of its theology in the public arena, abandoning the field to atheists, humanists and others to peddle their own anti-religious messages to an undiscerning community.

---

[1] Richard Dawkins, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, is well known as a global crusader for atheism.

[2] Bantam Press, 2006.

[3] Speaking Christian, 2011, chapter 5.

[4] The Case for God, p.20.

[5] The God Delusion, pp 51-55.

[6] Markings, Faber & Faber, 1963.

[7] Exodus 3.14.

[8]  Luke 15. 11-32.

[9]  Lloyd Geering is a highly respected New Zealand theologian and former professor of religious studies, who over a lifetime has made a major contribution to the discussion of religion in society. As Principal of Knox Theological Hall in 1967 he was charged by the Presbyterian Church with ‘doctrinal error’ and ‘disturbing the peace and unity of the church’ over an article he wrote entitled What does the resurrection mean? He was acquitted of the charges.

[10] Matthew 16.16.

[11] Doctrine in the Church of England, SPCK, 1938

[12] John 6.68.

The election in 2003 of Gene Robinson, an openly gay American priest with partner, as Bishop of New Hampshire, opened a simmering cauldron of barely repressed divisions amongst Anglicans around the world. The debate continues unabated.

Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I cannot remember when I first heard homosexuality discussed. As a boy I recall some characters who lurked around bathing sheds, but these would be more accurately described as paedophiles. My only instinct was to flee.

Homosexuality was not discussed at school, nor over coffee at my university hostel. It was not part of any teaching or discussion at theological college. I certainly had no awareness that some people might be gay, or even how one might tell. Which all seems frightfully naïve in retrospect, but indicates the circumscribed thinking of the 1950s.

So in 1964 when I was ordained I knew little about a major issue on which most young people today would be well informed. My first exploration of the biblical, ethical and pastoral aspects of homosexuality came via a comprehensive report from the Diocese of Christchurch in 1979. A committee convened by the Rev’d Colin Brown had been working for two years, consulting with members of the gay community as well as with professionals in medicine, psychology, philosophy and law.

Some 35 years later I find the report as relevant today as it was then. It is a model of lucidity, good research, inclusiveness and fairness. It decries the ignorance and prejudice regarding gay and lesbian people. It calls for more education of clergy and those training for ordination. It examines the handful of biblical texts that refer to homosexual acts and points out that the Bible does not address the question of the ‘homosexual condition’ but only acts considered immoral in quite different contexts. Of various viewpoints current at the time, the committee was closest to the view that ‘both homosexual and heterosexual relationships are “natural” features of human life, hence positively good, and the gift of God’. The report aroused hostility in conservative quarters, but I believe it has much to contribute to the current debate.

The Christchurch report also called for the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adult males. This became an issue for me in 1985 when I was Vicar of St Peter’s in Wellington and Labour MP Fran Wilde introduced in Parliament a Homosexual Law Reform Bill aiming to achieve such decriminalisation.[1]  Several church leaders supported it publicly, but I did not feel ready for this, although support for decriminalisation does not necessarily mean giving moral approval to same-sex  relationships.  I was also anxious about what the congregation, or wider Church, might think, and hence kept silent. The Bill was passed by Parliament with a narrow majority in July 1986.

Seven years later the National Government’s Associate Minister of Health, Katherine O’Regan, introduced a Bill[2] to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. I was by now Anglican Social Responsibility Commissioner and issued a supporting media statement:

While there are New Zealanders who oppose homosexuality from the standpoint of morality, there can be no doubt that in terms of anti-discrimination this amendment should be promptly enacted…The unfortunate comments of the Police Minister linking homosexuality with paedophilia are not only prejudiced and emotive, but also illogical and wrong.

Again, one could support anti-discrimination without necessarily regarding homosexual acts as moral, but now, at age 53, I was clear on both issues, although it had been a long journey. What had brought me to such clarity? No doubt careful research and reasoning such as in the Christchurch Report were critical in weighing biblical insights with the contemporary context. This addressed the rational side of things, but something deeper was going on in the heart. For me the ‘something deeper’ was my knowledge over many years of gays and lesbians who had become friends.

I am sure that a loving and committed homosexual relationship is acceptable in the eyes of God. This conviction has not resulted primarily from study of the Bible, although I believe it is entirely consistent with Scripture. The point of conviction for me arises from the friendship and collegiality I have shared with gay and lesbian church members, lay and ordained, over many years and in many places. Their experience of Christ, and their commitment in the Christian way, is no different from mine.

To say they are not fully part of the Church is a terrifying judgment which is not ours to make. I could not bring myself to say to someone whom I know to be a committed Christian: ‘Sorry, mate, you’re a good friend but I cannot regard you as part of the Church because you are living in sin.’ Yet that is precisely the message many gay people have received, implicitly or explicitly, and have felt themselves excluded from the Body of Christ. Some churches have refused to give Holy Communion to known gays and lesbians. By contrast, the Church globally and locally has often affirmed their full membership of the Body of Christ.

All our three children have gay godfathers, two of them priests, the other a long-term Anglican church member. At the time we invited them to be godfathers, their sexual orientation was not known to us. But godparents are chosen for their Christian faith and commitment to care spiritually for a godchild, and it was clear each of our three friends met those criteria. Knowing their orientation would have made no difference to our choice. Awareness of someone’s faith and integrity arises out of a personal relationship. It is entirely different from having an intellectual theory about a principle, and applying that principle abstractly to people one does not know.

In 1994, soon after my appointment as assistant bishop in Canberra was announced, I went to Australia for preliminary discussions. Graham Downie, religion reporter for The Canberra Times, was keen to interview an incoming bishop, especially one from ‘across the ditch’. Graham had an instinct for stories with an edge and asked me for my views on same-sex relationships. This was tricky. Here was a Kiwi hardly anyone knew, coming to take on pastoral leadership, and having to give a view on a very divisive topic. I was cautious, but said I knew homosexual clergy who exercised faithful, acceptable and thoroughly pastoral ministries which were a great blessing to their parishioners. And that once parishioners experienced such ministry, any initial reservation they might have had was often overcome.

I said it was important that gay clergy and laity should be able to be up-front about their orientation and not to keep it suppressed as something shameful. The headline next day said ‘new bishop has liberal view of homosexuality’, and I found myself replying from New Zealand to a small flurry of protests from some Canberra clergy.  Over time I formed good friendships with some of these, although there were a couple of parishes where I was never invited to preach. At the time of our farewell I was especially moved by a letter I received from one of the clergy who had expressed concern at my appointment:

Thank you for your support and friendship over the last few years. Your visits and our personal encounters have been a great encouragement. Thank you for not allowing my alarm at that Canberra Times article to be a source of conflict or mistrust. We will miss your willingness to hear and understand. We will miss your gracious, supportive and practical responses to our needs.

I am not wanting to be self-congratulatory in quoting that, but the letter moved me because it showed that in an inclusive church people may have different views but yet still trust one another as fellow members of the Body of Christ.

The Lambeth Conference of bishops in 1998 was a watershed moment in the life of the Anglican Communion. Some 800 bishops from around the world were present, most with their spouses, and a decision on same-sex relationships loomed large on the agenda. Early in the conference the gay and lesbian movement sponsored a ‘meet and chat’ evening in a Canterbury pub. I went down for what turned out to be an open and friendly discussion. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, was also present.

But other voluntary evening events were rather sinister. One such was sponsored by a London parish that offered gays and lesbians an opportunity to become ‘straight’ by turning to Christ and ‘repenting of their sin’. The programme included biblical teaching, small group work, personal counselling and an act of repentance and re-commitment to ‘the Christian way of life’.

I was appalled. There may be some hovering on the cusp between gay and straight who might be tipped into a choice for straight by such a programme, but for many who are homosexual by nature, such programmes are an exercise in frustration, and far worse. They load participants, already suffering from the opprobrium of society, with a deep sense of guilt and sinfulness, and exclusion from the Church. In tragic cases this has led to suicide, all in the name of Christ.

Bishops at Lambeth took part in working groups of their choice, one of which discussed the ordination of those in same-sex relationships, and the blessing of same-sex unions. Groups worked up a report with recommendations to bring to the final plenary session for discussion and adoption. Resolution 1.10 was headed Human Sexuality with clause 1 affirming:

In view of the teaching of Scripture (this conference) upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union as following the teaching of scripture, and  believes  that abstinence is right for those not called to marriage.

Clause 2 recognised:

that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation….. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.

Clause 3 stated:

While rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, (we) call on all people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals.

And clause 4:

(We) cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same-sex unions nor ordaining those in same gender unions.

The opening words of clause 3 ‘rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture’ were added in plenary session from the floor, something almost unheard of.  With 800 bishops all used to airing their views on most topics, tight control from the Chair ensures there is little room for discussion or amendment of resolutions. Clearly, the amendment had been pre-arranged with the conference leadership.

Two thirds of the bishops supported the amendment, and the numbers are interesting. Of the 800 bishops half came from Western nations and half from the global South (Africa, Asia and South America). If one assumes the South mostly supported the amendment, and add one third from the West, a two thirds majority is achieved. But the majority of the West voted against the amendment, not, I believe, because they felt Scripture specifically supported homosexuality, but because they judged Scripture to be silent on the question of committed same-sex relationships.

When the motion was put as a whole, it was passed with an 83 per cent majority.  I was one of 45 who abstained because of conflicting clauses which affirmed marriage in clause 1 but rejected homosexuality in clause 3.

Following the final vote large whoops of victory echoed around the plenary marquee, in marked contrast with the minority of us who stood silently on a grassy knoll outside in solidarity with gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. The motion showed a growing divide between West and South, as well as within the West. This divide widened in the following decade. Many churches in Africa are experiencing rapid growth whereas many Western churches are in decline. Many from Africa link church growth with faithfulness to the Gospel and say the decline in Western churches is a consequence of liberalism and watered-down belief.

The reality, I believe, is quite different. Faithfulness to the Gospel is central to any church, but we live in a world of major cultural and demographic diversity.  Manhattan is quite different from Mombasa. Western churches today live and work in a post-modern and post-Christian milieu where the simple perpetuation of traditional expressions and practices fails to engage many younger people. Wrestling with issues such as homosexuality challenges traditional thinking, and requires openness in the light of contemporary insights and experience.

Dialogue at Lambeth was intense. An African bishop said there was nothing to dialogue about: ‘the Bible is clear. If you disagree you might as well start tearing pages out of the Bible’. Many African bishops saw a clear statement condemning homosexuality as essential to their pastoral and evangelistic task. But an American bishop said just as essential to her pastoral and evangelistic task was a statement of inclusiveness that committed the Church to dialogue.

Looking at Lambeth resolution 1.10 some 16 years later, I suspect the voting today might not be much different. I see a distinct parallel with the Church’s attitude to those who had remarried after divorce prior to 1970. On the one hand they were assured they were full members of the Church but in many places they were excluded from Holy Communion. Today we offer the same assurance to the gay and lesbian community but exclude them from the priesthood unless they are celibate.[3]

Returning to Canberra post-Lambeth 1998 I wrote the editorial for the diocesan newspaper, expressing my own perspectives while affirming the need to dialogue respectfully with those who conscientiously hold other views. There was some predictable protest but at a Sunday service a month later a woman came up to me over morning tea and said: ‘I am 75 years old, Bishop, and have been an Anglican and a lesbian all my life. This is the first time I have felt welcome in my own church.’

Bishop Gene Robinson retired from his post in New Hampshire in 2013, but his election ten years earlier forced Anglicans globally to acknowledge and manage the growing division. Of same-sex relationships the General Convention of the Episcopal Church[4] said in 2000: ‘We expect such relationships will be characterised by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God.’ Electoral synod members in New Hampshire who chose Gene Robinson as their bishop in 2003 would have doubtless satisfied themselves fully on such points.[5]

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, writes of ‘the body’s grace’[6]:

For my body to be the cause of joy, the end of homecoming, for me, it must be there for someone else, be perceived, accepted, nurtured; and that means being given over to the creation of joy in that other, because only as directed to the enjoyment, the happiness, of the other does it become unreservedly lovable.

In the same paper he suggests that sexual relationships cannot be limited to procreative heterosexuality:

…the absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous texts, or on a problematic and non-scriptural theory about natural complementarity, applied narrowly and crudely to physical differentiation without regard to psychological structures.

For myself I have come to the view that bonding between two people, with its essential ingredients of love and fidelity, lies at the heart of any life-giving sexual relationship. A relationship should be measured not by its outward form, nor by the orientation of the partners, but by its inner essence, and hence faithful and committed same-sex relationships are also acceptable in the eyes of God.

Nonetheless, Gene Robinson’s election as bishop ran against the recommendations of Lambeth resolution 1.10, and deep-felt distress was expressed from many parts of the Anglican Communion. In response, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams convened the Lambeth Commission in 2003. Chaired by Robin Eames, then Archbishop of Armagh, the commission was mandated to recommend steps to ‘maintain the highest degree of communion possible’ among Anglicans globally in the circumstances.

In its Windsor Report, the commission acknowledged the right of the American Church to act according to its own constitution, but regretted that it had acted without due regard to Lambeth 1.10. By acting contrary to the firmly held views of other churches in the Anglican family, it had damaged the ‘bonds of affection’. Calling on all to seek ways to reconcile and heal the divisions, it proposed the establishment of an Anglican Covenant to strengthen unity within the Anglican family worldwide.

The Covenant went through three drafts from 2005-2009 and was then circulated within the Anglican Communion for discussion.  Of its four principal sections, three set out the bonds which bind Anglicans together. These include the catholic and apostolic faith, the scriptures, the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion, the creeds, shared Anglican history and tradition and unity in mission.

The Covenant affirmed the constitutional autonomy of all Anglican churches, or provinces, while calling on the churches to have regard for the common good of the Communion in exercising their autonomy, and to engage openly and patiently in biblical debate and reflection.

The first three sections were an admirable and sufficient basis for global Anglican relationships, but Section 4 proposed a new advisory body to address controversial issues such as the ordination of a gay bishop. If such a body advised that an action was unacceptable, the proposing Church might then decide whether to defer the action or to proceed with it. If it chose the latter it might then find itself relegated to a restricted status and suspended from the Lambeth Conference[7], Anglican Consultative Council or the Primates’ Meeting.

Unfortunately, Archbishop Rowan Williams gave a hint as to which way a new advisory body might jump. With regard to same-sex unions, he wrote in July 2009[8]   that ‘the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last 2000 years’ in a way that does not support such unions, and that only ‘the most painstaking biblical exegesis’ leading to ‘a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding’ could support any change. Since such consensus was unlikely any time soon, the door to any change was firmly closed.

As the Covenant went round the Communion for discussion and adoption, it found good support in traditional circles who felt confident that Archbishop Williams’ statement would preserve the traditional position. But elsewhere support lagged, the Covenant being rejected in New Zealand as well as in the Church of England and other Western churches. Maori opposed it, feeling that any decision made on the other side of the world smacked of neo-colonialism. No more has been heard about the Covenant.

Its real failure was that it was seen by many as a very un-Anglican way of going about things. Here was an issue which, like the ordination of women 30 years earlier, had created heated divisions. Lambeth 1978 did not take a definitive position on the ordination question, but agreed that different provinces might make their own decisions. Many have ordained women while others, sadly, still have not chosen to do so.

On the women’s ordination issue, Anglicans agreed to live with diversity. The Windsor Report also called for diversity and dialogue on the ordination of homosexuals. But when the heat in the kitchen of dialogue seemed too much to contain, the Covenant provided for a decision-making process that would choose one side over the other. Wisely the Communion as a whole rejected such an approach.

In September 2003 I was invited by the Bishop of Auckland, John Paterson, to preach at the annual diocesan synod. Addressing the current debate on homosexuality, I sought not to promote my own well-known viewpoint, but rather to talk about the process of change. One of the biblical readings was from Acts 10 where Peter, firm in his conviction that Jews should not associate with Gentiles, came to accept via a vision from God that old boundaries had been transcended in favour of a new inclusiveness. I said:

This dynamic of relationship with God over-riding tradition was seen also in tonight’s reading from Acts 10. Peter had been requested by Cornelius, the Gentile centurion from Caesarea, to come to see him. Peter said to Cornelius that it was unlawful for a Jew to associate with a Gentile, but he had come without objection because the vision of the great white sheet with all manner of creatures in it had taught him he should not regard as profane any creature that God had made.

Peter went on to say (vv 34, 35) that he now understood that God showed no partiality, but that in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God. As Peter proclaimed the Gospel to Cornelius and his friends, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and they were baptised.

James Alison, an English Roman Catholic priest and theologian, commented on the same text:

In a very short space of time in Luke’s story-telling we have gone from something rather like ‘You are no part of our narrative’ through ‘You can be part of our narrative, but only on our terms’ to ‘Heavens, we are part of the same narrative, which isn’t the one either of us thought it was and it isn’t on the terms set by either of us’[9].

In November 2003 I was invited to be the guest on Kim Hill’s late night television show Face to Face. As we began a 25-minute conversation, Kim headed right into the gay debate. ‘How can you possibly support a gay bishop in the face of the vast weight of biblical evidence against it?’ she asked dramatically. I replied that the ‘vast weight of biblical evidence’ amounted to no more than a handful of texts, some more than 3000 years old, with quite unclear meaning, and coming from an age when there was no awareness of committed same-sex relationships, nor of contemporary scientific evidence about homosexuality as a natural condition for some.

I pointed out that St Paul’s injunction against women in church leadership roles was far more precise, yet there were many women church leaders today. The Church had recognised that Paul’s views were the product of the patriarchal ethos of his time.  Paul had also laid down other principles about gender equality and the different gifts of different members of the Body of Christ, and the Church’s judgment today was that these latter principles had the greater weight.

Kim was undeterred. There had been rumours at the time that Prince Charles may have had a secret relationship with his butler. ‘Do you regard that as acceptable behaviour in someone who might one day be the head of the Church of England? What might we expect next?’ she asked; ‘today his butler, tomorrow his horse?’ I said I gave no credence to rumours promulgated in the media, nor to speculation about further liaisons.

The synod sermon and the Kim Hill interview sparked unrest in some quarters. In December 2003, 19 of the clergy wrote a letter of concern to the Bishop of Auckland about my views. They felt that in the absence of any clear and public statement from the bishop about the diocesan standpoint, people might think my views expressed the diocese’s attitudes to gay bishops and same-sex relationships, and that such a perception was damaging to the Church’s mission and ministry.

I could understand their concern. I do not know what response the bishop sent, but the only answer that could be given was that the diocese encompassed a variety of views and that dialogue was the only way ahead. The episode raised the question as to whether bishops should express their views openly on divisive issues. I believe it is a failure in leadership if they do not.

I have always said my views are personal. As a bishop of the Church I accept the policies and decisions of the Church, and live by them. It is in order for a bishop to have a view on controversial matters, although in the present climate there is pressure on bishops not to express a view in case it alienates one section of the Church or another. Much safer to talk about prayer, dialogue and study than to risk putting one’s head above the parapet and be shot at.

No one can expect a bishop to have the same view on every subject as every member of the diocese. What one can expect is that a bishop will respect the convictions of every person, and ensure that all are included. I do. I lament the immaturity in the Church, or in any institution, if the leadership is prevented from speaking openly lest it cause offence. Leaders are called to lead, not merely to manage warring factions. And clergy and church members need to be mature enough to live with diversity rather than to operate from a mindset that it’s ‘my way or the highway’.

While I have received messages of opposition to my views, I have at the same time been greatly moved by many letters of support, at times from clergy who have carried for years the burden of having to conceal their orientation lest they be drummed out of office. Most moving have been the responses of church-going parents of gay or lesbian offspring who have felt the pain of the Church’s implicit exclusion of their children, and a feeling of guilt by association.

A country vicar wrote:

I am a newly ordained priest and was recently asked if I would officiate at a civil union ceremony between a school friend of my daughter and her female partner of long standing. I had to say that I was unable to do this as an Anglican priest. I was deeply saddened as I have known this person for the last ten years and know this is not a request she has made lightly.

I live with my questions of ‘is this what Jesus would have said? Is this the Gospel of love I represent? What does this speak of the church to the secular world seeking answers to life’s questions?’ I personally support and relate to what you have said with regard to God, spirit, love. I pray that I will have the courage in my ministry to walk this path, the true Gospel of love and inclusiveness – sometimes not a comfortable place to be, but it wasn’t comfortable for Jesus either.

‘A WORLD WITHOUT GAYS’ trumpeted the banner headlines of the Weekend Herald[10] at Queen’s Birthday weekend 2004. Newly installed as archbishop, the Most Rev’d Whakahuihui Vercoe, aged 75, stated this view as part of his vision of a new morality for a future society. Archbishop Vercoe had a long and distinguished ministry over 50 years, including as an army chaplain, and with commitments to indigenous rights, anti-apartheid, and issues of poverty and justice.

Known for conservative views in other areas, his words about homosexuality did not surprise, but nonetheless created much distress in both church and community. Radio NZ rang me mid-morning for a comment, putting me in the difficult situation of having to disagree with my own church leader. But it was important for something to be said to repair the damage done to the gay and lesbian community. I pointed out that there was a diversity of viewpoint among Anglicans and that the words of the archbishop, while carrying the weight of his office, were not those of the Anglican Church as a whole.

I added that the General Synod[11] which elected the archbishop had passed a motion which ‘acknowledges and honours the contribution that gay and lesbian Anglicans make to the life and ministry of the Church’. Agreed to by a large majority, the motion went some way in expressing a more positive view but did not address the main issue of homosexuality.

The issues are not resolved. Liz Lightfoot, in her book Outspoken[12], interviews a number of gay and lesbian Anglicans, some ordained, some lay, as to their experience of ‘coming out’ within the church. A lay-person, Liz had exercised a ministry in her own local church as a liturgist, leading the prayers and administering the chalice in Holy Communion. She asked what would be expected if she applied to be formally licensed for this role by the diocese:

Would I have to be either in a hetero-sexual marriage or celibate? If I were to enter into a same-sex relationship, would I have to relinquish my licence and my duties? The answer was that if I did enter a same-sex relationship, I would not be able to continue as a licensed liturgist. I could occasionally, at my vicar’s discretion, say some prayers or read a lesson, but I would not be able to administer the chalice (p.7).

In her interviews with other gay and lesbian Anglicans she found similar experiences. One person said she had been barred from administering the chalice but was still able to be on the morning tea roster. Not all Anglican parishes are like this. There are several, especially in the cities, which practise a policy of open inclusion and welcome. The Auckland Community Church is a worshipping community of gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgendered and straight people which meets every Sunday evening for Holy Communion in St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church. Two of the women interviewed by Liz spoke of the friendship and support they received there:

They were just incredible. I don’t think we would have made it without them. I honestly don’t think we would have, because they were Jesus to us in those first few years. We experienced amazing love from them.

Marriage equality became a topic for national debate in 2012 when the Government introduced the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. The introduction to the Bill noted that while the Marriage Act 1955 does not define marriage, and makes no reference to marriage being between a man and a woman, nonetheless ‘couples, other than a man and a woman, have not been able to obtain marriage licences under the act. This Bill will make it clear that a marriage is a union of two people regardless of their sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.’

Human rights were seen as the essential rationale for the Bill, with the introduction noting that ‘marriage, as a social institution, is a fundamental human right…and that the Bill would ensure equality for people…in accordance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993’.

I made a submission to the Select Committee stating that I believed the Bill was in line with Christian principle, and noting that the Anglican definition of marriage has changed over the years. In 1662, the Church of England Prayer Book said that marriage existed first, for the procreation of children; second, as a ‘remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication’; and third, ‘for the mutual society, help and comfort that one ought to have for the other, both in prosperity and adversity’. The woman had to promise to obey and serve her husband. The relationship was not one of equality, and the union of husband and wife was last of the three purposes.

Today, by contrast, the New Zealand Prayer Book states that marriage is a gift of God so that ‘husband and wife should be united in heart, body and soul…and in their union fulfil their love for one another’. And second, ‘marriage is given to provide the stability necessary for family life, so that children might be cared for lovingly and grow to full maturity’. The priority of purposes in marriage has been totally reordered, and the requirement that a woman obey her husband has disappeared.

I stated that just as the Church’s understanding of marriage has changed over the years, so I believed it could now be modified again to be inclusive of gay and lesbian couples, who may also be ‘united in heart, body and soul…and in their union fulfil their love for each other’. They may also ‘provide the stability necessary for family life, so that children might be cared for lovingly and grow to full maturity’. There are many same-sex couples in long-term committed relationships, and research shows children may be cared for equally well in same-sex families as in heterosexual ones.

I canvassed some of the biblical background, noting that while same-sex relationships appear to be condemned in passages such as Romans 1.26,27, the context is one of a variety of debauched behaviours that belong to people who ‘refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God’ (v.28)… ‘who have no conscience, and show no kindness or pity for others’ (v.31). Faithlessness, lack of kindness and debauchery are not the marks of many gay and lesbian couples.

I noted also that scripture needs to be interpreted in the light of current knowledge. Part of our current knowledge about sexual orientation is that homosexuality is not a sin or aberration, but is as natural for many as heterosexuality is for others. Study of contemporary biological, genetic, psychological and socio-cultural factors in sexual orientation is essential to biblical interpretation.

I appeared before the Select Committee on 14 November 2012.   Members were concerned about  statements from conservative clergy that they would choose to go to jail than marry a same-sex couple.   I reassured committee members that in my view the marriage equality proposal could not coerce clergy to marry a same-gender couple against their conscience. Such statements, I believed, arose from a completely erroneous understanding of the requirements of the Marriage Act. The authority given to clergy and marriage celebrants is permissive rather than prescriptive.

On 13 March 2013 the Bill passed its second reading in Parliament by 77 votes to 44. National MP Chris Auchinvole, a Presbyterian, said older people had baggage to carry from the days when homosexuality was labelled illegal and immoral. He had been a member of the select committee and had learned from listening to the submissions that

each homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual person appearing before us was not just to be seen as an individual, not just to be identified by gender preference, but in fact as a mother’s son or daughter, and a father’s daughter or son, a sibling to their brothers and sisters, grandchildren to their grandparents, nephews and nieces to their uncles and aunts, and uncles and aunts to their nieces and nephews, cousins to their cousins. They are all family along with their heterosexual friends and relations and are all an integral part of New Zealand, all part in my mind, my heart and my conscience, of God’s family. I now realise that this bill seeks to put first something critics have accused it of undermining – and that is the family.

In 2012, the Anglican Church established a commission to explore options for the Church regarding same-sex relationships. Headed by former governor-general Sir Anand Satyanand, a  Roman Catholic, the commission was charged to consult widely within the Church and bring a report to the 2014 General Synod. The Commission, known as Ma Whea? – Where to?, tabled ten options. These ranged from do nothing at one end of the spectrum to splitting the Church at the other. In the middle were several options that allowed for diversity of practice by different bishops or dioceses.

‘Permitted diversity’ was the option adopted by the bishops at the 1978 Lambeth Conference regarding the ordination of women, but many do not see this as an option for same-sex relationships. A significant section of the Church sees heterosexual marriage or celibacy as the only options, regarding this as a matter of core doctrine from which there can be no deviation. Dual-practice options would represent a departure from Christian truth and could drive individuals, parishes or dioceses from the Church. Equally ‘do nothing’ options could drive away those at the opposite end of the spectrum. Doubtless many in same-sex relationships, and those who identify with their cause, have already left, having no wish to be part of a Church with judgmental and exclusive policies.

The General Synod in Waitangi in May 2014, of which I was not a member, was thus presented with a very difficult situation. How could it preserve the unity of the Church in the face of deeply held doctrinal divisions? After three days of intense debate and work behind the scenes a proposal opening the way for diversity of practice was agreed to. The synod upheld the traditional doctrine of marriage but at the same time agreed to develop a structure allowing for the blessing of same-sex relationships. The position of those who could not in conscience engage in such a blessing would be protected. The proposal also called for the writing of an order of service for a same-sex blessing.

The decision was taken unanimously, showing that careful and prayerful dialogue had led to a consensus between deeply divided perspectives. The decision stated that ‘distinct identities were not collapsed, but rather surpassed and transformed by Jesus Christ’. It was also agreed to work on the questions of the theology of ordination and marriage.

The proposals will be presented at the 2016 General Synod before final agreement in 2018, with extensive consultation in between. There is no guarantee agreement will be reached:  the next General Synod meetings could reject the plan. But the fact that the synod agreed to the proposal has opened the door for diversity of practice: it was a watershed moment.

General Synod also offered this apology:

Over many years our Church has become increasingly aware of the pain of the LGBT[13] community. All too often our Church has been complicit in homophobic thinking and actions of society, and has failed to speak out against hatred and violence against those with same-gender attraction. We apologise unreservedly and commit ourselves to reconciliation and prophetic witness.

The struggle has been long with some distance still to run. Perhaps it was easier for Parliament, which did not need to consider the nature of marriage but could restrict itself to the issue of human rights. Nonetheless the thinking in the Anglican Church dates back at least to the 1979 Christchurch report, 35 years ago, and we have had more than enough time for progressive action. Change may mean some leave the Church, but in the end the values of justice, inclusiveness and truth outweigh a concern for unity at the price of silence.

In his 2003 book The Dignity of Difference, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes:

The test of faith is whether I can make room for difference. Can I recognise God in someone who is not my image? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his.

Both church and society are at their best when they encompass difference and are enriched by it.

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[1] There had never been any criminal sanction applying to females.

[2] The Human Rights Amendment Bill, 1993.

[3] There are, of course, many gay and lesbian clergy operating under a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ethos.

[4] Resolution DO39. Known then as the Episcopal Church of the USA (ECUSA), the American Church today is simply known as The Episcopal Church (TEC).

[5] In May 2003 an English priest, Canon Jeffrey John, was nominated to be Bishop of Reading in the Diocese of Oxford. Canon John had been in a same-sex partnership for 25 years with another Anglican priest, a partnership they each declared to be celibate. The announced appointment to Reading created such division within the Church of England that the Archbishop of Canterbury persuaded Canon John to withdraw from acceptance of the post. He is currently Dean of St Albans but is discussed from time to time as a future bishop.

[6] The Body’s Grace, an address to members of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, 1989.

[7] Bishop Gene Robinson was excluded from the Lambeth Conference of 2008 in an attempt to avoid division.

[8] Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future.

[9] On Being Liked, p.ix, 2004.

[10] 5-6 June.

[11] Held in Rotorua the previous month.

[12] Outspoken, Coming out in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2011. Liz is a freelance editor and writer in Hamilton, NZ, and daughter of Anglican priest Keith Lightfoot and his wife Jenny.

[13] Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.