The Christian Right and the 2020 election

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:29 am, July 12th, 2020 - 90 comments
Categories: conservative party, election 2020, hone harawira, national, new conservatives, uncategorized - Tags: one party, vision new zealand

One thing I have never understood is why the religious right have not been able to get its act together and achieve a proper Parliamentary presence.

I know there was United Future in 2002 under Peter Dunne. But that was a marriage of convenience, a relationship with benefits of some pretty strange bedfellows. And it subsequently crashed and burned.

At the first MMP election in 1996 there was the Christian Coalition which went close, achieving 4.33% of the party vote. Its then leader, Graham Capill, was subsequently convicted of multiple sexual offences against girls under 12 years of age and sentenced to nine years imprisonment in 2005.

In 1999 the movement split. The Christian Heritage Party stood again and gained 2.38% of the vote. But also standing that election was the Future Party (1.12%), which subsequently gave United Future its christian beliefs, and the United Party which had Peter Dunne elected to Ohariu on a sweetheart deal with National.

In 2002 United Future peaked at 6.69%, thanks to a digital worm liking Dunne’s centrist bland utterances. Dunne subsequently employed the worm in the party’s advertising, thankfully without the same result. National’s implosion that year released a number of voters who found comfort in Dunne’s centrist musings. Christian Heritage scored just 1.35% of the party vote.

In 2005 United Future crashed to 2.67% of the vote. Other Christian parties standing that year included Christian Heritage (again) this time on 0.12% and Destiny Church which fared slightly better on 0.62%. The election campaign was dominated however by another group of Christians that paradoxically do not vote. The Exclusive Brethren ~~Seventh Day Adventist Church~~ were discovered to have paid huge amounts towards publicity for an anti Labour Green campaign and National leader Don Brash was publicly implicated, despited denials.

2008 was a bad year for christians. The New Zealand Pacific Party, formed by outed Labour MP Taito Phillip Field, failed miserably and scored 0.37% of the party vote. Even the Bill and Ben Party did better. Christian Heritage had succumbed to infighting and Capill’s conviction publicity and did not contest the election.

In 2011 a rebranded Conservative Party achieved 2.65% of the vote. Dunne’s United Future Party sank further to achieve 0.6% of the vote. Only National’s nod and wink in Ohariu saved him.

In 2014 funded by huge amounts of money from Colin Craig the Conservative Party scored 3.97% of the vote. Craig was subsequently accused of decidedly unconservative behaviour for a married man by his former press secretary Rachael MacGregor. For some bizarre reason the legal repercussions of that are still felt today.

And in 2017, no doubt burned by ongoing publicity relating to Craig, the Conservative Party achieved only 0.2% of the party vote.

Apologies for the length of this but the basic point that I am making is that if the Christian Conservative Block ever got its act together it could establish a presence in Parliament. Thankfully it has not.

How are things looking this year? Even more chaotic.

We have three, yes three conservative christian parties standing for Parliament.

There are the New Conservatives, the inheritors of the the parties managed by Graeme Capill and by Colin Craig. But they have descended into Trumpian American Republican let’s ban all face mask territory. And they are showing signs of being decidedly racist.

From Corazon Miller at Newshub:

The [New Conservative] party – which emerged from Colin Craig’s Conservatives – wants a full repeal of the post-Christchurch terror attack gun-laws. Its rhetoric has drawn comparisons to white nationalism.
Canterbury man Lee Williams has spoken out at rallies against what he sees as the infiltration of the West by people of colour.
“A New Zealand is going down the exact same path of importing in an alien culture that refuses to integrate,” he is heard at a recent free-speech rally.
He has given his full backing to the New Conservative Party in another video on his page.

Williams is not the only strange person involved. Leader Leighton Baker thinks that the Government is wanting to turn the country into North Korea. Deputy Elliott Ikilei wants to “get rid of anything that changes Māori to something special and high up”. Botany candidate Dieuwe de Boer is concerned that declining Western populations are being replenished by migrants. The Christchurch shooter thought the same.

One of their policy platforms is to ban single women with young children from having sleepovers. Maybe they should extend this to former Conservative Party leaders, just to be sure.

Other Christian Parties include Vision New Zealand, aka Destiny Church. They actually wish to acknowledge and respect the Treaty of Waitangi. There goes the chance of any meaningful relationship between them and the New Conservatives.

There is also the One Party. Its vision is “to stir the hearts of the nation to arise and pursue righteous change in Aotearoa New Zealand”.

And they have produced this, um, campaign video.

Co leader Stephanie Harawira is part of the Harawira clan.

The party has a weird combination of policies. For instance it wants the use of drugs decriminalised and treated as a health issue. Although it also advocates the use of boot camps for recidivist drug users.

I can’t say that I have seen any media attention paid to One Party. Perhaps because it has not done something overtly outlandish. So far.

Of course National has paid a great deal of attention to the Evangelical movement and has some pretty interesting candidates in safe seats. Its next leader may be a fundamentalist christian. National will hope that these movements crash and burn because they are probably taking conservative votes and nuking them.

For all christian conservatives can I offer to them one example of a New Zealand leader who implemented the concept of applied christianity, to make sure that all kiwis were looked after and the poor had sufficient to live with dignity.

90 comments on “The Christian Right and the 2020 election ”

Comments are now closed

JeffB 1

12 July 2020 at 11:39 am

Fairly sure it was Exclusive Brethren rather than Seven Day Adventist that got Brash in the poo.

[Right you are. Will amend. I knew I should have checked that! – MS]
Chris T 2

12 July 2020 at 11:54 am

Think they have failed historically mainly because NZ has become one of the most secular countries in the world.

That and they all come across as weirdos

Apart from Dunne who was quite successful really, but then he was kind of normal and an excellent local MP, apart from the bow tie thing.
- Robert Guyton 2.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 12:28 pm
  
  I was wondering earlier, what Peter Dunne might have to say now about his ol' mates from the National Party; lie down with dogs and all that.
  - Gabby 2.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 2:10 pm
    
    Dunger would say, 'direct credit will be fine.'
Dennis Frank 3

12 July 2020 at 11:54 am

The problem is created by the ongoing failure of Jesus to get reborn. Reincarnation is routine for most spirits so we can't really blame Jesus – his father must have put him into quarantine. Probably due to all those reinterpretations of god's will that Jesus told everyone to believe in. So clearly contradictory to the expressed instructions of the deity to his chosen people in the old testament that it could only be categorised as subversion.

Thus opinions differ amongst christians and the number of christians sects has multiplied thro the past couple of millennia, totalling over 4,000 according to the last count I saw reported online.

Such biodiversity indicates a healthy ecosystem, but representative democracy was invented to put everyone in a mental strait-jacket, in conformity to a single prescription. Political success requires all contenders to be on the same page for a party to get the numbers, yet the christians refuse to agree on the common ground to make their collective stand upon…
- bwaghorn 3.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 12:04 pm
  
  Oh come on now .
  
  Jesus is coming back .
  
  You just got to have faith!!
  - The Al1en 3.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 1:56 pm
    
    Jesus and his lawyer
    Are coming back
    - joe90 3.1.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 3:43 pm
      
      he's bound for New Orleans
- Chris T 3.2
  
  12 July 2020 at 12:10 pm
  
  Mmm. Which brings up the possibility that he has been reborn.
  
  Maybe he even posts on here and is waiting for his moment to do some cool magic stuff.
  
  Not saying I know who it is or anything
  
  (Nods head knowingly while walking to the South island from Wellington)
  - Anne 3.2.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 12:24 pm
    
    Did the water part for you Chris T? If it did… all hail to thee blithe spirit.
    - Draco T Bastard 3.2.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 3:04 pm
      
      Nah, the undead don't need to breath and so he just walked at the bottom of the ocean.
      
      😀
- Ad 3.3
  
  12 July 2020 at 12:17 pm
  
  You just have no idea what "born again" actually means.
  
  Do something useful and address the post, or shut your ignorant keyboard up.
  - Chris T 3.3.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 12:47 pm
    
    And if you are referring to the last paragraph of the post I didn't address it as it doesn't make sense.
    - Ad 3.3.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 12:51 pm
      
      The comment notation shows 3.3, which for you means I was responding to Dennis Frank. Not you.
      
      But I'm not surprised you didn't understand the posts' last paragraph.
      - Chris T 3.3.1.1.1
        
        12 July 2020 at 2:03 pm
        
        Apologies.
- Incognito 3.4
  
  12 July 2020 at 1:52 pm
  
  You’re in fine form again. Did you forget a couple of /sarc tags, by any chance?
- Kiwijoker 3.5
  
  13 July 2020 at 7:12 am
  
  But I am reborn and living in Waipu!
tc 4

12 July 2020 at 11:55 am

What do the new conservatives have to offer ? Aside from the odious colonial attitude as their billboards arose along State highways 23 and 3 (no doubt more places) in 2019 asking for problems to be solved.

That entitlement angle amuses me which BT has in spades so there is common ground out there. Pray for togetherness.
bwaghorn 5

12 July 2020 at 12:07 pm

The religious right has got it together, most of them are in the national party.
- Robert Guyton 5.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 12:30 pm
  
  The Scientologists are here too, fear-mongering about marry-joo-arna!
  - weka 5.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 12:57 pm
    
    I did the Scientology induction test in the 80s. Thing that struck me most, apart from the intellectual authoritarianism, was that they all smoked at work. Even back then that was weird. Drugs of choice, nicotine and mind control. Cannabis would be completely antithetical to what they are trying to achieve. Trying to control stoners, lol.
- Descendant Of Smith 5.2
  
  12 July 2020 at 3:06 pm
  
  Aye. I was going to say the same thing.
  
  Common bed-fellows church and capitalism – don't like paying taxes, don't like socialism, both prefer the cold heart of charity to welfare systems and both like profiting off the poor – it's why they need them.
  
  You saw this time and again with National – the sanctimonious moralising, the imposition of mutual obligations on the most vulnerable and the outsourcing of deliberate government created poverty to the religious – whether it be housing, parenting (how are those millions of dollars Youth For Christ parenting courses going?), drug and alcohol rehab and so on. Can't forget PEDA and the Exclusive Brethren nor the Saudi Sheep deal either.
  
  There is another more American style group in the Act Party.
  
  Maybe National has become too toxic this election.
  - greywarshark 5.2.1
    
    14 July 2020 at 1:44 pm
    
    DoS
RedLogix 6

12 July 2020 at 12:14 pm

The reason why these Christian parties don't succeed is simple, most kiwis understand that religion and politics …. while they can usefully inform each other … should be kept functionally separate.

And as most of the regulars here will have gleaned over the years, I'm in the pro-religion camp.
- Incognito 6.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 1:58 pm
  
  How do you achieve this functional separation?
  - RedLogix 6.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 2:06 pm
    
    By that I meant functional institutions of the state and religions should remain separate. Because in their current form they are fundamentally incompatible, it results in bad outcomes for both, when they do attempt an alliance.
    - Incognito 6.1.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 3:01 pm
      
      Ta
      
      You elaborated on it @ 7.1.1.1.1.1.
      
      🙂
Ad 7

12 July 2020 at 12:15 pm

If a conservative Christian party had been formed in the late 1960s after Billy Graham did his massive crusades through New Zealand, they would have had a shot. Maybe also in the early 1980s when the mega-churches were really rising.

Not anymore.

The Christians who want to form their own political party are tiny and declining at a rate that will make it impossible for them to gain the coherence they had in the mid-1990s.

One important new reason for their inevitable failure is Donald Trump. Those 37,000 New Zealanders who identified in the last census as "Born again" or "Fundamentalist" now have to contend with the results of the binding of Trump to the U.S. evangelical base. The U.S. evangelical role model is crucial to New Zealand Christianity. It's where they get their songs, their preaching and preacher training, some of their funding, and most of their policy emphasis.

This immediate problem accelerates the multi-decade framing Hollywood framing of conservative Christians as cruel, ignorant, greedy, and hypocritical.

It gets harder and harder every year for evangelicals who do good within their churches and still want to put their head above pew-level and engage politically, when their overwhelming cultural models from US evangelical Christianity have so ruined their political horizon.

In volleyball terms, Hollywood did the set, but Trump was the spike that drove it home.
- RedLogix 7.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 12:36 pm
  
  It gets harder and harder every year for evangelicals who do good within their churches and still want to put their head above pew-level and engage politically,
  
  The best test of any religious entity is to ask; does this bring diverse peoples together in unity, or does it tend to divide them? Which direction are they heading in?
  
  The problem for any religious leader who sincerely wishes to promote the values and means of faith based social cohesion and unity, is that engaging with our present political system immediately forces them in the opposite direction of divisiveness, polarisation and conflict. At present the two systems are incompatible with each other.
  - Ad 7.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 12:56 pm
    
    Regrettably there are plenty of religious leaders who became successful by sowing division. It's the purity+rage route.
    
    Thankfully there are alternatives. Those who stand for office and use their faith as a salt to their life rather than as a moral Glysophophosphate.
    
    Joe Biden, for example, is a practising Catholic, and that is pretty clear in many of his policy positions. I would expect that he will have a run at making capital punishment illegal in the United States – and he would have a good shot at it with this kind of Supreme Court.
    - RedLogix 7.1.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 1:06 pm
      
      Joe Biden, for example, is a practising Catholic, and that is pretty clear in many of his policy positions.
      
      Yes. I have no problem at all with faith informing and motivating individual political consciousness; it's the moment you start trying to organise into a power centre that all the problems begin.
      - Ad 7.1.1.1.1
        
        12 July 2020 at 2:03 pm
        
        I'd only agree with you on the Christian extremes.
        
        There's a pretty big and successful tradition of Christian Democrats.
        
        Germany, Austria, Ireland, Chile, Netherlands, and Switzerland come to mind.
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy
        
        Germany's christian Democrats after WW2 are to me the standout example.
        
        It can be done well. It hasn't been done well recently.
        
        RedLogix 7.1.1.1.1.1
        
        12 July 2020 at 2:46 pm
        
        That's an interesting response and makes a fair point. From your link:
        
        In practice, Christian democracy is often considered centre-right on cultural, social and moral issues, and is a supporter of social conservatism, but it is considered centre-left "with respect to economic and labor issues, civil rights, and foreign policy" as well as the environment. Specifically with regard to its fiscal stance, Christian democracy advocates a social market economy …
        
        Which describes my general view quite well, yet I would still see this as ideal driven by individual conscious than institutional alliance. Because when churches fund raise and campaign for specific parties, select candidates approved by the ecclesiastics, and form exclusive institutional links between church and state … I see more potential for harm than good.
        
        I accept that I probably tend toward the absolutist end of the 'separation of powers' end of the spectrum, but in the long run I also somewhat paradoxically understand that if both religion and politics were so transformed as to serve the entire human race, then maybe a new paradigm might emerge.
        
        Something that might constructively combine the values domain of faith, with the interests based negotiation of politics. But we aren't there yet.
- Anne 7.2
  
  12 July 2020 at 12:47 pm
  
  I went to one of those Billy Graham Rallies as a teenager. Maybe my cynical antennae was already activated at such an early age, but I was unimpressed. I walked out at the way he was playing with the emotions of the crowd. My then friends who were fully on board at the time were not happy with me.
  - weka 7.2.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 12:54 pm
    
    Same. Not Billy Graham but one of the ones with rock music in the 80s. Gave me the creeps. I had friends that went born again for a while. I went to one baptism service and again the whole emotional manipulation stuff set off major red flags. In my early 20s I went and did the Scientology level entry quiz (they were proselytising on the street and playing to a completely different audience (philosophy and intelligence rather than emotion) but same shit, different garb. Years later a friend became born again and it still blows my mind how a person can abandon whole belief and thought systems so quickly, in exchange for spiritual relief. Scary. Fortunately born again only lasts a few years for many.
    - Ad 7.2.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 12:58 pm
      
      It is depressing the number of my teenage years were spent being marinated in that stuff.
      
      Very few young people now buy in to it.
    - RedLogix 7.2.1.2
      
      12 July 2020 at 1:13 pm
      
      Years later a friend became born again and it still blows my mind how a person can abandon whole belief and thought systems so quickly, in exchange for spiritual relief.
      
      The impetus to seek the transcendent is universal. It may be latent at any point in time, but we all have the capacity for it.
      
      But it's also an aspect of human nature that is easily exploited.
      - Drowsy M. Kram 7.2.1.2.1
        
        12 July 2020 at 1:41 pm
        
        We all have the capacity for a great many things. For myself, no system of religious belief has made a convincing case for seeking 'the transcendent, and tbh I’m not looking. Whereas a focus on studying the natural world has been truly rewarding (challenging/frustrating/fun), and that’s all I need or want. "I'll do what I can, as long as I can."
        
        RedLogix 7.2.1.2.1.1
        
        12 July 2020 at 1:52 pm
        
        I carefully didn't specify that the only way to attempt to fulfill the desire for transcendence was through religion.
        
        But I will maintain the wish to belong, to connect with something meaningful beyond our own limited consciousness is universal.
        
        Drowsy M. Kram …
        
        12 July 2020 at 2:07 pm
        
        Maybe you know me better than I know myself, although you’d not be the first person to believe that
        
        Personally I’d prefer an evidence-based approach to determining the validity of opinions on the universality of particular human desires and wishes.
        
        RedLogix …
        
        12 July 2020 at 3:05 pm
        
        Maybe Anil Seth's take on it will be of interest to you.
        
        Drowsy M. Kram …
        
        12 July 2020 at 3:37 pm
        
        Thanks RL – consciousness is amazing, but it’s hardly rare. Even if nearly 8,000,000,000 of us were each hallucinating our individual conscious realities, I believe I'd prefer my own hallucinations to yours.
        
        Maybe I'm hallucinating a lack of personal "impetus to seek the transcedent", and that impetus really is (as you hallucinate) universal. Tbh, I don't understand why you believe it is universal ('transcedence transference' perhaps?), any more than I understand religious belief.
        
        So much of life remains a mystery. Time (another hallucination?) will tell, eh
        
        Andre …
        
        12 July 2020 at 2:08 pm
        
        … the wish to belong, to connect with something meaningful beyond our own limited consciousness is universal.
        
        Nope. Not feelin' it.
        
        I'm with what DMK said.
        
        RedLogix …
        
        12 July 2020 at 2:54 pm
        
        Fair enough. You'll take note that while asserting the universality of this capacity … at the same time I also insist on respecting your independence and agency about how and when, or even if, it manifests in your life.
        
        McFlock …
        
        12 July 2020 at 4:53 pm
        
        If some people don't "manifest" the wish, then it isn't universal.
        
        Incognito …
        
        12 July 2020 at 5:04 pm
        
        It depends: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/universal
        
        greywarshark 7.2.1.2.1.2
        
        14 July 2020 at 2:01 pm
        
        If we adopt a few simple mores from Jesus' words that would go a long way to inform a person and political party of the way to go.
        
        'Love one another as I have loved you' goes a long way to feeding one's own soul and interacting with those of others. But I don't see it leading to soppy sentimentality or forgiving others of bad crimes as a given, absolving them of bad behaviours or excusing the effect of nature and genes, or the lack of nurture.
        
        It basically would mean understanding others, and perhaps hating the vicious side of them but knowing that their childhood has taught them bad attitudes and given bad role models. So they may never be able to be trusted and locking them in jail, keeping them safe and others safe from them might be the fairest thing. So that is Trump and his phalanx of poxy politicians, profiteering pedlars and prissy preachers dealt with!
      - Descendant Of Smith 7.2.1.2.2
        
        12 July 2020 at 9:49 pm
        
        I tend to think we confuse the way we know now the brain functions with something of a mysterious spiritual event.
        
        I think Damasio has it pretty right when he says the sense of self developed in the modern part of the brain and that when you shut down this part of the brain (through, prayer, meditation, chanting, etc) you are left with the primitive part of the brain functioning which has no sense of self and makes you feel like you are at one with nature.
        
        It made sense once that it was mysterious – it doesn't now. It is addictive which is why people go searching for it – to lose oneself. Ultimately though it is chemical reactions. No more, no less.
        
        RedLogix 7.2.1.2.2.1
        
        12 July 2020 at 10:56 pm
        
        Interesting, but losing oneself in prayer, meditation, chanting …. trance states if you will, is something I'm quite familiar with and reasonably competent at. But I've never seen this as central to the act of faith, rather I've always treated it as a fundamentally rational, self-aware act.
        
        I have had a number of peak experiences such as you describe. Perhaps the most unexpected happened on Mt Luxmore near Te Anau. I had been on my own for a few days (this was long before it became the now very popular Kepler Track) and I'd spent an hour or so exploring the small limestone caves near the hut. When I emerged it was a typically windy day and I sheltered in a bed of tussocks, out of the cold and yet in the sun. And with no warning it happened for maybe 4 – 5 minutes, that expansive sense of connection and awareness that felt as if it encompassed the universal.
        
        From what I understand now it was fairly typical of such experiences, but it had nothing to do with any preparation or induced trance state. It was totally spontaneous and I was completely aware of myself at all times. And while I appreciated it, I've never seen it as proof of anything, nor relevant to faith in of itself.
        
        However there is now lots of good evidence that similar experiences (and there are a host of ways to induce them) can be a form of pre-conditioning that expand the capacity of the adult mind to connect to the non-material realities more efficiently. Writing off this now large body of evidence as just 'chemistry' may serve well to defend the materialist world view, but it's not very adventurous .
- swordfish 7.3
  
  12 July 2020 at 1:00 pm
  
  If a conservative Christian party had been formed in the late 1960s after Billy Graham did his massive crusades through New Zealand, they would have had a shot. Maybe also in the early 1980s when the mega-churches were really rising.
  
  Under FPP ? … I doubt it.
  - Ad 7.3.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 1:59 pm
    
    They could have taken out the electorate-equivalent area of the Owairaka/Mt Roskill seat in the late 1980s if they'd managed to get the sitting member to switch.
- Draco T Bastard 7.4
  
  12 July 2020 at 3:09 pm
  
  This immediate problem accelerates the multi-decade framing Hollywood framing of conservative Christians as cruel, ignorant, greedy, and hypocritical.
  
  I'm pretty sure that that doesn't require Hollywood framing.
  
  It gets harder and harder every year for evangelicals who do good within their churches and still want to put their head above pew-level and engage politically, when their overwhelming cultural models from US evangelical Christianity have so ruined their political horizon.
  
  Then, perhaps, they need to accept that their church has moved away from them.
Nic181 8

12 July 2020 at 12:28 pm

The religious right are in retreat. I went Pastafarian a few years ago All hail his noodley appendages!
- Draco T Bastard 8.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 3:14 pm
  
  Stir fry bacon and veges until cooked as you prefer them and then add:
  
  Pasta Sauce
  
  I prefer Carbonara but other pasta sauces also work.
millsy 9

12 July 2020 at 1:25 pm

The Christian Right — the *real* cancel culture.

As I commented in another post, JK Rowling was nowhere when they were pulling her books from school library shelves in 1990's/2000's, in some cases burning them. Now because everyone has a bee in their bonnet about a few transwomen, she signs a stupid letter.

We need to take the same sort of attudes to religion that the Russians did in the (19)20's, the Mexicans and Spanish in the 30's, the Soviets in the '50s and the Chinese in the 60's and 70's. Complete eradication.
- Incognito 9.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 2:17 pm
  
  Don’t let your judgement get in the way of your rant.
  - swordfish 9.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 2:28 pm
    
    We need to take the same sort of attudes to religion that the Russians did in the (19)20’s, the Mexicans and Spanish in the 30’s, the Soviets in the ’50s and the Chinese in the 60’s and 70’s. Complete eradication.
    
    Crucifixion perhaps ?
    
    Nail 'em up !!!, nail 'em up, I say !!!, Nail some sense into them !!!
    (Old Geezer hanging upside down in dungeon – Life of Brian)
- greywarshark 9.2
  
  14 July 2020 at 2:14 pm
  
  A few transwomen trying to deny women the right to their own gender, their own being and that's nothing and JK Rowling is condemned for speaking up? Her stories were about finding one's true strong self and knowing what friendship is and who to trust and putting oneself at risk for friends.
  
  Women in general, have been kind to men who wanted to change sex, but when it gets turned into a fashion with a willingness by males to swamp the spaces that women feel safe in, compete in sport against them, then it does become a matter of defining your own space and defending it. It is similarly seen in the invasion of footpaths with fast moving, mostly males, rushing heedlessly along – the entitlement machine is working overtime these days.
mary_a 10

12 July 2020 at 1:30 pm

What's with the raised finger of the ONE PARTY Aotearoa? Is it recommending some members of NZ society have a medical check?

Seems this coming election has attracted quite a coterie of right wing God botherers.
- UncookedSelachimorpha 10.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 9:51 pm
  
  ISIS use the same gesture. Weird.
swordfish 11

12 July 2020 at 2:11 pm

New Zealand has always been a relatively secular Country.

(despite claims by some commentators to the contrary … ie that we were highly religious up until the 1960s)

Regular Church-going, for instance, was always confined to a minority … it reached its apex toward the end of the 19C (when around 40% were regular attenders) then declined rapidly to less than 20% by the late 1920s (even lower in the larger cities, among men, among the working-classes & among people who were nominally Anglican or Presbyterian).

Not many people were outright Atheists (although certainly my grandparents – & quite a few other Socialists – were) but I'd say the majority of the population were certainly non-religious, essentially disinterested in religion albeit without overtly rejecting it … only turning up to Church for Weddings & Funerals … and remaining more than a little sceptical of the highly religious.

Women in rural, small town & provincial city areas were, to some extent, an exception … as were Roman Catholics & the dissenting Protestant denominations (but again only partial exceptions & still experiencing decline).
Draco T Bastard 12

12 July 2020 at 2:13 pm

One thing I have never understood is why the religious right have not been able to get its act together and achieve a proper Parliamentary presence.

Genetic memories of living in a theocracy?

The decades long right-wing attack on the state? After all, a religion can only be maintained through state force.

Or, maybe, its because people are becoming better educated and are starting to pick up on the BS that is religion?

Our so-called 'God's own' country is fast becoming anything but.

A century ago New Zealand was one of most religious places on the planet, with the great majority of Kiwis, Pākehā and Māori alike, believing in some form of Christianity.

Fast forward a few generations and not only Christianity, but belief in any form of religion, has dissipated to the point where almost half of all Kiwis don't associate with any religious belief at all.

With religion declining throughout the state its highly unlikely that any sort of religious party will ever get anywhere.
- Incognito 12.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 2:29 pm
  
  You may wish to elaborate on the education-religion dichotomy or is it just your belief that better education rules out or excludes religion? I detected a hint of bias in your comment; maybe you and Dennis should have a tête-à-tête.
  
  Similarly, the State-religion symbiosis seems to refer to organised religion rather than people’s individual religious beliefs.
  - Draco T Bastard 12.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 3:24 pm
    
    You may wish to elaborate on the education-religion dichotomy or is it just your belief that better education rules out or excludes religion?
    
    Better education tends to highlight the hypocrisy that is the basis of religious grouping.
    
    Similarly, the State-religion symbiosis seems to refer to organised religion rather than people’s individual religious beliefs.
    
    A religion is always organised – usually to put a few at the top and in control of the many. People's own spiritual beliefs are just that – their own and thus do not constitute the religious movement that would be required for a political party to form and gain power.
    - Incognito 12.1.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 10:15 pm
      
      Hypocrisy is the basis of religious grouping!? Makes no sense to me.
      
      As to religion, it is clear we’re talking about two different things here, or possibly three: a person’s individual religious beliefs – these may be poorly or not articulated at all, organised religion to congregate and worship together with other like-minded, and religious movements. The State has no role in the first, which was my point.
- Visubversa 12.2
  
  12 July 2020 at 4:43 pm
  
  Christians have never managed to agree with each other, let alone anyone else. Since the first Holy Roman Emperor" listened to his batty old mother who claimed to have found the "true cross", and declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 ACE it has been all downhill from there. 100 years later, Rome was in ruins and extremist Paulist Christianity ushered in the Dark and Dirty ages. The minute they got any secular power they started persecuting each other with gusto. The pages of history are littered with the charred corpses of the "wrong kind" of Christian. Excellent reasons for keeping their greasy fingers off any of the levers of government.
  - Drowsy M. Kram 12.2.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 4:51 pm
    
    Splitters!
  - Incognito 12.2.2
    
    12 July 2020 at 5:30 pm
    
    Christians have never managed to agree with each other, let alone anyone else.
    
    A distinctly human trait and not unique to Christians or religious people. Replace “Christians’ with “Lefties”, for example, and you have another truism.
Tiger Mountain 13

12 July 2020 at 2:18 pm

We have separation of church and state for very good reasons in New Zealand. Religious adherents have democratic rights of freedom of speech, assembly and association like the rest of us. I would prefer to keep them well away from Govt., particularly due to their propensity for oppressing women, and indoctrinating children before they are mature enough to have formed their own world view.

But religious nutters are persistent e.g. despite the option of integrated schools since Norm Kirk’s time, they do try and influence school curriculums from time to time. If they must stick their beaks into secular politics they will at least likely draw votes from National rather than Labour/Green.

I still recall the bloody Brethren, who advise their members not to vote, bankrolling a nationwide leaflet drop attempting to influence the outcome of a general election, Mr Brash got caught with his tweeds down again on that.
roblogic 14

12 July 2020 at 4:42 pm

Hi MickeySavage, another one recently popped up called the NZ Public Party.

https://nzpublicparty.org.nz/what-we-stand-for

[Link fixed]
- ianmac 14.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 5:44 pm
  
  Won't open roblogic.
  - Incognito 14.1.1
    
    12 July 2020 at 5:47 pm
    
    Link fixed.
    - ianmac 14.1.1.1
      
      12 July 2020 at 5:50 pm
      
      Thanks. But do we have a Constitution to rewrite?
      - Incognito 14.1.1.1.1
        
        12 July 2020 at 5:59 pm
        
        No, we don’t have to, they will do it for us. It’s a shitty job, but somebody’s got to do it and they obviously have the mandate, capacity, and capability to do it. Parliament can debate and vote on it, which is just a formality (AKA rubberstamping). It’ll be done by lunch time.
        
        Descendant Of Smith 14.1.1.1.1.1
        
        13 July 2020 at 4:47 pm
        
        Sigh!
        
        http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/local-news/20200708/global-plandemic/
        
        "Labour "communists" Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield are complicit in a global agenda of state control that involves construction of the coronavirus “plandemic”.
        
        New Zealand Public Party founder and lay minister Billy Te Kahika made that claim to a packed room at Waikanae Surf Life Saving Club on Saturday night.
        
        The New Zealand Public Party was launched only three weeks earlier in response to injustice and tyranny hurled upon the New Zealand people by the Labour/NZ First/Green government, according to the party's website.
        
        “Reclaim New Zealand for the people is the main goal and message.”
        
        Introduced at Saturday's meeting as the chosen leader for the people of Aotearoa, Mr Te Kahika presented a dystopian, deep-state vision of the future under Prime Minister Ardern's Government.
        
        He talked about the bio-weaponisation of coronavirus, the purpose of the conspiracy behind the pandemic, the hoax over its virulence, the web of conspirators and how World Health Organisation (WHO) players, 5G and GMO (genetically modified organisms) were part of the agenda to exercise state control over people/mankind.
        
        He connected passages from Revelations, the apocalyptic text in the New Testament, to the global plan to put everyone into a global unit, he said.
        
        “We know New Zealand is still enduring the greatest disaster to hit Aotearoa,” said Mr Te Kahika."
        
        Descendant Of Smith …
        
        13 July 2020 at 5:06 pm
        
        Though he won't be here much longer apparently.
        
        Hot off my spam filter:
        
        "A known international hitman has arrived in New Zealand, bypassed quarantine and flown to Christchurch to Billy's event. He, the hitman, has left Christchurch after being identified now and gone to that well known CIA base called Queenstown."
        
        After getting scared about being known about he has left NZ so now Billy is fundraising for a security team to protect himself and his family.
        
        I just really really dislike people taking advantage of vulnerable people. As someone who has family working with vulnerable people some are wanting to give money and go without. Had this problem with Destiny Church til the locals booted them out.
        
        It is so frustrating to work through this again with people who find it difficult to sort out truth from not-truth but balancing that with their right to believe what they wish.
        
        Anyway should be an exciting new bulletin tonight!
McFlock 15

12 July 2020 at 5:04 pm

It's a bit unfair conflating Christian parties with the religious right. I know lots of solid left, even far left, Christians. And I believe the Fabian Society has roots more in Christianity than Marxism.

These little parties are mostly driven by ego of an individual or two, at least one I believe is an outright fraudulent church (I don't believe the leader belives a single word that he preaches), and others are different melanges of the standard ultra-right paranoia – diversity is bad, social decay is inevitable unless X, punishment rather than rehabilitation.

The worry isn't that they'll learn to cooperate or unite. My worry is that one of them will get a leader who knows how to appear vaguely normal to the rest of the damned country.
ianmac 16

12 July 2020 at 5:48 pm

Peter Dunne writes a very ant Government anti Labour column for Newsroom. Sentences well written but it makes me ill to read his diatribes aimed at demolishing the Government.

And what did Dunne ever do for us? Do not try to answer that!
- Sabine 16.1
  
  12 July 2020 at 5:50 pm
  
  i guess he did very little other then get himself paid one nice pay cheque including perks an. And why would he have dunne so? He was never held to a higher standard by anyone.
- Incognito 16.2
  
  12 July 2020 at 5:51 pm
  
  Nah, just harmless reckons and common sense. He’s not a deep thinker that Dunne.
- Gabby 16.3
  
  12 July 2020 at 5:51 pm
  
  Daylight fucking Saving in the winter. Thanks heaps, Dunger.
- Just Is 16.4
  
  12 July 2020 at 8:36 pm
  
  Peter Dunne was like the fat boy in the rugby team, just making up numbers.
  - Phil 16.4.1
    
    13 July 2020 at 1:30 pm
    
    Clearly you've never played at Prop.
Sabine 17

12 July 2020 at 5:49 pm

there are billboards up in farming country here in middle nz by a party called 'new conservatives'.
DS 18

12 July 2020 at 6:50 pm

A hundred years ago, the Labour Party was accused of being extreme. Here's the response from Harry Holland, who preceded Savage as leader…

“What man,” asked Mr. Holland, “is worth while if he is not an extremist? Would Christ ever have gone to the Cross if He had not been an extremist? Would the primitive Christians, especially during the first three centuries of Christian history, ever have been called upon to endure what they endured if they had not been extremists? Would the Christians have made Christianity the power it eventually became if they had not been extremists? Who would object to a man being extremely honest?”

The roots of the New Zealand (and British) Labour Parties were drenched in Christian Socialism.
- greywarshark 18.1
  
  14 July 2020 at 2:55 pm
  
  I think that the sort of Christian expression that people are concerned about in our politics is that it attracts power hungry people who want to advance themselves and care little for ordinary citizens not connected with their belief. For instance a few years ago the Exclusive Brethren all had a happy prayer about the positive outcome of a tax case.
  
  Then there is the sort of religion that produces Hopeful Christian and his band of look-alike Amish cultists, and the way that he and others in such can't help themselves from being dominated by sexuality which is both enticing and subject to strong negative controls that only the leaders can review.
  
  Then there are the conservative Catholics who also have strong negative attitudes to sexuality and who are probably at the root of much nastiness at the social welfare level, 'You sleazy women with no morals etc'. Plus they believe in male dictatorship over families, so that single women parents have been made to cohabit or interact with the man who fertilised them during a brief sexual attraction. Which would be less immoral than that of Grace Mullane, whose behaviour was so risky, virtually a sex-tourist and became the subject of a sea of emotion and handbag sales as memorials even in banks for some reason.
  
  The Catholic attitude may go to extremes as shown in the true story film The Magdalene Sisters. https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2003/10-03/273351__magdalene_sisters__tells_sad__.html
  
  Then there are the Exclusive Brethren who hide their distaste and dislike of people outside their cult, and run successful businesses but are vengeful of anyone who crosses them. Their brazen leader suggested that a deserter from the group who had broken away from family and was depressed, should think about taking rat poison. People who were outsiders can be tolerated and cult members should interact and get what they wanted, and leave the rest.
  
  The Prosperity Churches are business enterprises that use morality and intimacy to form an efficient group of similar people with ambitious social mobility aims, which is practical and they can operate with little or no tax on any church enterprise.
  
  Then there are the Scientologists. People today are likely to be drawn to religious cults in opposition to the lack of humanity from a society drawn to machines and technology, no education in philosophy and little thought of the core of our minds and souls. And then the way that we who have replaced those with materialism and place humanity and its emotional needs as of no consequence as demonstrated by the Gang of Four (or Fish and Chip Brigade) with another sort of religious fervour.
  
  The Fish and Chip Brigade was a humorous name given to four leading members of the New Zealand Labour Party who became senior members in the Fourth Labour Government (1984–1990). The politicians in the brigade were future Prime Ministers David Lange and Mike Moore, future Minister of Finance Roger Douglas, and future Minister of Health and Local Government Dr. Michael Bassett. Future Minister for State Owned Enterprises Richard Prebble…
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_Chip_Brigade
sumsuch 19

12 July 2020 at 11:37 pm

Christians make a leap of faith as part of their theology. Good way of leading life from my cautious experience. But then the proof relies on the fruits 'by which you shall know it'. All the silly arse Christian parties and politicians are a complete disproval. The Cretans don't understand my way of understanding them so they carry on with their warm urine comfort despite all.
Brendan 20

13 July 2020 at 11:07 am

I am a Christian. And I'm not voting for any of these christian parties.

Am I any less christian because I don't vote for them – no. They don't own my vote. (PS Nor does Labour or National own my vote either).

In fact Christian politics puts me off them. I don't want anything to do with them.

However for those who support the christian parties, they actually help the left, because a good chunk of the 'christian vote' would vote National. but since they get under 5% the votes don't count.
Leighton 21

13 July 2020 at 1:35 pm

The motley crew comprising the New Conservatives make Colin Craig look normal.
observer 22

13 July 2020 at 2:28 pm

Co-ordinated and very tidy "vandalism" … hmmm.

Angry lefties don't tend to do things so neatly and carefully. More likely to add a moustache and spray some swear words. Plus, nobody knows or cares who this guy is anyway.

Still, useful headline for the New Conservatives, victims getting publicity. Top work by their undercover team!