Features

Or at least, the Evangelicals

New Zealand is not a country known for its religious piety, even within the increasingly secular Western world. Confirmed atheists and agnostics can happily occupy the role of prime minister, there has never been a ‘church of New Zealand’ and 1.5% of the population identified their religion as ‘Jedi’ in the 2001 census, suggesting this is not a question New Zealanders approach with the requisite weight and gravitas.
 
While Critic can’t cite the statistics to confirm it, it’s easy to assume that Otago is one of the more heathen spheres of our already secular society (in fact, Wikipedia, which also fails to cite its sources on this issue, claims that the majority of ‘Jedi’ responses originated in Dunedin). Many Otago students are fairly cynical towards the kind-hearted souls waiting to give them sausages in the early hours of the morning during O-Week and the traditional scarfie Saturday night pursuits aren’t well-suited to 10am Sunday church services.
 
But take some time to procrastinate on the Statistics New Zealand website, and you may come across some data that will undermine your atheist-leaning assumptions. Over half of all New Zealanders identify as Christian. Despite a 5% drop in the number of Christians between 2001 and 2006, certain churches are noticeably growing. Evangelical, Born Again and Fundamentalist religions (which are all lumped into the same group) rose 25.6% while Pentecostal religions increased by 17.8%. Incidentally, the Orthodox and Catholic churches also recorded growth, but much of this is attributed to immigration rather than conversion, with a similar pattern seen in the increase in Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims.
 
It’s a generalisation, as most discussion around religious groups tends to be, but the stats suggest that New Zealanders, born in New Zealand, are heading to the newer churches rather than the traditional Catholic and Protestant churches our grandparents went to. But what’s the difference? The first step is figuring out what we’re actually taking about. The term ‘evangelical’ is thrown about, often as a synonym for ‘radical’ and bringing to mind images of Jesus camps, purity rings and Americans with a vendetta against Harry Potter.
 
In reality, ‘evangelical’ is better used as a descriptive word, rather than to brand a set group of people, and evangelical elements can exist in a wide variety of Christian groups. “Scholarship sets out four factors in evangelism”, according to Dr Tim Cooper from Otago’s Theology department. “Firstly, they are intensely biblical in focus. Secondly, they are very concerned with the Cross of Christ, of Christ dying for our sins. Thirdly there is a sense of activism and the weeding out of sin in society. Finally, there is concern with spreading the gospel and wanting to convert people”. This last aspect is what makes Evangelical churches notable to the general public, but the people handing you flyers on the street do not necessarily make up a unified sect.“There are pockets of Evangelicalism within Anglican and Presbyterians, and that’s the type that’s growing,” says Tim Cooper.
 
Related to, but different from Evangelism, is Fundamentalism. “Fundamentalists are more leaning towards wanting to shut out the world, whereas the goal of Evangelicals is to engage [the world].” It all gets confusing when people talk about Evangelicals who are actually Fundamentalists, yet are also Pentecostals. Pentecostal churches are often the ones we hear about in documentaries such as Jesus Camp and Elim and Destiny Church both come under the Pentecostal umbrella.  Such churches can be equated with Evangelism, however, says Cooper, “Pentecostal churches are more marked by Fundamentalism.”
 
But for all the complications surrounding labelling, the people ticking the boxes on their census forms seem to have no trouble figuring out what group they belong to. Why are these groups growing? It is an “open question”, Cooper admits. In the case of Evangelicals, it could be the mere fact of their evangelizing. It is not hard to conclude that the best recruiters are those who actually go out and recruit. But there is not growth in all groups with Evangelical leanings, such as Baptists and Open Brethren, so there must be more to it. Rather than just shouting the word of God the loudest, the groups that do better are the ones that engage with the people they are trying to spread the word to.
 
Talking to Aaron Thomson from Student Life, a Christian movement aimed at promoting Christianity to university students, he points out that “church attendance in New Zealand has been in decline for decades and is at an all time low. It would seem not many people are interested in going to a religious building to hear a religious speaker speak on a religious topic. ‘Religion’ seems dull, traditional, boring. Religion is what people have done with God. It is rules, regulations, prescribed ways of connecting with God.” Student Life and many other modern Christian groups often create more flexible fora for worship. Surrounding this are a multitude of social events and a sense of community. At Student Life, says Thomson, “we run a huge number of events across the calendar year geared at providing opportunities for people to grow. This can be through meeting others, making friends in a small groups through our weekly meeting topics or through opportunities for students to serve others in the community.”
 
As an example of steps taken to proactively engage with students, Thomson showed me Student Life’s brochure, a very snazzy mini-magazine full of artistic photos and tongue-in-cheek diagrams, a far cry from the pastel coloured, lamb of God adorned leaflets so often distributed by unidentified Christians sweetly prophesising paradise if you join them and hellfire for eternity if you don’t.
 
I spoke to a student who used to attend a Pentecostal church. She is not religious herself but explains the appeal. “They’re fun. There’s always people to talk to and friends to make. There are events on and you’re always part of a group. One night they had a ball and the youth group leader ordered a limousine for us. They have board game nights, movie nights, bowling, swim events, camps, we did lots of singing and dancing, and just being ridiculous, and dressing up. And there’s always a lot of food.” For some Born-Again Christian friends, the commitment to the church provided them with more than just a social life. “It gives them stability, community, a sense of purpose. And a reason not to do bad shit. For people from some backgrounds, if you don’t believe in something then why not get involved in bad stuff, or sink into depression? It gave those people a safe, happy place, and a sense of joy in their lives.”
 
Jonathan Jong, an Otago PhD student who left a Pentecostal church for an Anglican one, sees this as the attraction of certain churches: “if we're talking about conservative Evangelicals, then I tend to think of people who want certainty, people who can't tolerate ambiguity are attracted to conservative religions generally. In an increasingly uncertain world, steeped in post-modernity (even if we do not have a firm grasp of what that means), people do seem to want a firm foundation of some sort. It is comforting, I'll admit, especially to be able to pin morality down.” He believes there are issues in the way some conservative Evangelical groups are run. “I don't think Evangelical groups are sufficiently democratic. In my own experience, at least, the leaders are charismatic, insular, and almost unassailable. There is little room for discussion, and less still for disagreement. This is especially problematic if the leaders in question are poorly theologically-trained. There is a lot of nonsense that comes across the pulpits that could be avoided by taking three years off to do a theology degree at Otago. Or, maybe better still, a philosophy degree. I'd like to see better trained leaders, and more room for criticism.”
 
This is a common criticism levelled at religious groups generally and Evangelical and Fundamentalist groups in particular. In reality, it probably has a lot more to do with the personalities of the leaders themselves rather than anything inherently religious. And some personalities are better at constructive dialogue than others. Aaron Thomson has certain views of the Bible that might not be popular with many students, however we were still able to happily hold a conversation, despite our widely varying viewpoints. He thinks there needs to be more dialogue between religious and non-religious groups and both Thomson and Jonathan Jong agree that the non-religious can be just as guilty of extremism or dogmatism as any Christian group. In the case of militant atheist Richard Dawkins, Jonathan Jong thinks “he's sort of a petulant adolescent of another kind. Belief (whether for or against religion) goes from uncertain to dogmatic, and there are dogmatic Christians and dogmatic atheists.”
 
It may be that the simultaneous growth in Evangelical churches and in atheism reflects a similarity that neither would like to admit. According to Jonathan Jong, “a way to see this is that people are getting more polarised. Atheism and agnosticism might be on the rise, but so is conservative religion. Both are surging. And I think it's best thought of as a run toward dogmatism, regardless of content. As I said earlier, the world is an increasingly uncertain place and certainty about existentially-significant issues is comforting, even if the certainty is in the direction of disbelief”.