Culture
Men of God
by Mike Grimshaw
Three books on New Zealand religious leaders remind us that religion and politics have always been a key part of New Zealand life.
The French philosopher Georges Bataille once stated that two things were problematic for modernity: public death and public religion. The three books under review – Wrestling with God, by Lloyd Geering; Ratana Revisited, by Keith Newman; and James Michael Liston: A Life, by Nicholas Reid – all signal the difficulties for public religion in a modern, primarily secular nation such as New Zealand.
All three present the retreat of religion and religious belief to the sectarian sidelines. They raise issues concerning how a religious identity may be expressed in the modern age. For, if we trace religion back to the Latin root religare (broadly: to bind together), then these three books show how religion binds together – and also separates off.
I began reading these books against a background debate of the role of religious education in schools. I finished reading them amid accusations and counter-accusations as to the role of a sectarian religious group, the Exclusive Brethren, in political funding, influence and “dirty tricks”. So these books provide a salutary reminder that religion and politics and the role of religion in education and public life have always been part of New Zealand life. In fact, they remind us of the strong links between religious groups and the Labour party.
In one of those interesting quirks, my wife drew my attention to a statement made by Nicholas Reid back in 1994 when he reviewed Lloyd Geering’s Tomorrow’s God for New Zealand Books. Reid’s statement, by necessity, frames all that I will subsequently say: “If you’re going to start commenting on matters of religious belief, you should be prepared to say where you stand yourself, and where you’re coming from. Otherwise, it’s better not to start commenting.”
This demand is, I believe, necessary when one is going to be critical about some aspects of religious books. But likewise, it is also necessary when one is going to praise. And I intend to do both – but for different reasons. Under review we have an autobiography by a Presbyterian, a biography of a Catholic bishop by a Catholic layman and the biography of a Maori prophet by what I would term a Pentecostal-inclined, non-conformist evangelical seeker. So, four religious positions will be under review. Where do I sit?
Perhaps it is easiest to state that Lloyd Geering has known me since I was an infant. He taught my father at Knox Theological Hall and I wrote my history honours long essay on the Geering controversy and the public media. I was brought up in the liberal wing of what I term the “Presbyterian mafia” and was once an ordinand. I did my doctorate in church history on the settler response to the role of the missionaries in the Land Wars and I now teach religious studies.
So I am an insider. I could probably be best described as a dissenting, non-practising Presbyterian – perhaps a type of secular theologian. In that, I mean I sit on the frontiers of Christian belief, a straddling position between Christianity and secularity, having moved through postmodernity into what I term a soft modern position. If it sounds confused, then in short I am a type of 21st-century secular Christian. The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo in After Christianity records that one of his old professors asked him if he still believed in God. To this Vattimo answered, “Well, I believe that I believe.” That is, belief held with a deep uncertainty of opinion – a paradoxical position perhaps best expressed by what I recently stated in some writing. I do not so much “believe” as “respond” – with uncertainty.
Yet, for me, the modern demand for self-reflexivity always includes the provisionality of doubt and dissent. Why the need for this twisted apologetic? It has to do with the texts under review. Each attempts to express what it means to believe in the modern age – and how that belief can be expressed. Each raises the issue of how that belief can be expressed in a public manner and what role religion and religious belief can hold in wider society.
It would be easy to state that under consideration are two prophets and a bishop – and yet this would reduce what I want to say. Geering and T W Ratana show two different ways of being a prophet.
Ratana is a prophet in the traditional expectation. He has visions, he sees angels, he undertakes faith healings, he creates a community of followers, and dissenters. Ratana comes from a nominally Presbyterian background and has the mystical experience that remakes him into a man of power and influence.
Geering comes from a nominally religious family and, from reading his book, never really has a conversion experience. Rather, it seems that an interest and need for community and what a “Christian life lived” offers facilitate his entry into the Christian church.
James Michael Liston is born into a Dunedin Irish Catholic family. (For readers familiar with Dunedin, their home seems to be above the Robbie Burns pub.) Nicholas Reid, Liston’s biographer, comes from a literary Catholic family. His book is an extension of his PhD thesis. The father of Keith Newman, Ratana’s biographer, was an Anglican pastor (a telling phrase) who encountered difficulties for his belief in faith healing and miracles. Newman is, among other things, an evangelist.
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