Month: November 2022 (page 1 of 1)

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.

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[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.

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[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.