It’s now common knowledge, and has been for some time, that Christianity is on the decline in New Zealand. But why? In a recent article, Losing our religion: Kiwis losing the faith in record numbers, Professor Peter Lineham attributes the loss to a diminishing middle class society.
So what’s behind the decline?
Massey University professor Peter Lineham has studied religious history in New Zealand for decades, and says today’s society does not value religious commitment, as our free time and financial circumstances have changed.
“Historically, religion flourished among what we would call middle income people, the middle classes. Now today, that’s the area of tremendous decline in religiosity.”
This seems to imply that it is forces from outside of the church, our financial and leisure commitments, that have caused this lack of faith. Having just completed five years of religious education in this country, I propose an alternative theory. I propose that the rot has originated from within the Church, rather than from without. Here is why.
For four years I studied at the School of Theology based at University of Auckland. Lectures were provided by some of New Zealand’s most influential academics who were a mix of Catholic nuns and priests, Anglican priests, Presbyterian and Methodist ministers, and others including a self confessed “lapsed Catholic”. The staff were sourced from the Catholic Institute of Theology. The students included a range or laypeople and potential ministers from the various denominations, and were predominantly Anglican, including Eugene Sisneros.
This School of Theology was promoted, when I visited before I enrolled, as being “scientific” in the academic sense, and not into the hocus of former generations. What I expected from this description was that we would have access to the latest in archaeological discoveries, verifying, or not, the biblical text. After all, surely Christianity is based on historical fact. And that we would investigate each moral issue from every different perspective.
Different perspectives were presented, but not as I had anticipated, from each angle. It was in the presentation of these differing perspectives that I contend that Christianity is being stolen from New Zealanders. Biblical history and theology was presented from the Enlightenment perspective, that it was something created at a much later date because writing wasn’t known back then. With the Bible out of the way, the feminist theologians were trying to ban patriarchal structures such as the family and church so they can justify uninhibited sexual freedoms for women. We were descended from animals, it was only natural for women to be free sexually. God created us that way. Children grow up perfectly fine without fathers. The church was evil for it’s suppression of women. Men were evil. Men were not allowed to question in class. I wanted to point out that animals exist in a pure form of rape-culture. Homosexual theologians were trying to legitimise their sexual preferences and ordination, while suppressing the damage homosexuals have created within society and hiding the abuse. I could not question their logic or reasoning, I was straight. They had science on their side. The self termed queer theologians were likewise trying to legitimise their sexual escapades, because if it is good enough for everyone else to behave like they want, it is good enough for them also. Then there were the liberation theologians, non-whites who could blame white man Christianity on all of their woes, and join forces with the eco-theologians and were due large financial payouts so that they could travel the world promoting global warming.
And there was a category of theologians, who haven’t yet named themselves, drawn from all of the above categories, that I will name Paedo-Theologians.
Paedo-Theologians are those religious academics who promote the idea that children should be sexualised, by the state, in state run schools, at an early age, so that they can experiment and chose a gender, and be trained up, by the state, as to how that gender behaves.
And yes, we have them amongst New Zealand Christian academics. Children should be free to chose their sexuality, and the earlier they are identified the sooner they can be started on whatever medications/ drugs they need to help them transition. It’s wrong for men to try and tell their daughters how to behave. It’s natural for women to want to have sex early, men couldn’t possibly know what it’s like to be a woman. All of these statements, and more, came from our classes.
All of these Theologians had the common denominator of an Enlightenment view of Biblical history. There was no exodus, no David or Solomon, no literal virgin birth, no literal resurrection, no actual miracles. Jesus didn’t really say those things. Paul didn’t write that. All you need to do is love.
In the fourth year we learn Karl Marx was the way, the truth and the light. So that all that is necessary for the Church to do is preform Social Justice, and try and over throw the Patriarchy to make everyone in society totally equal and then life would be fair.
This is the way the truth and the life. All to be administered by the world-wide council of churches and enforced by the UN. All religion is the same anyway, so we are taught.
If you objected to any of this, you were intolerant, a bigot, a fascist misogynistic homophobe. All you need is love.
So this has been the training Anglican, and other, priests and laypeople for the last 15 years. Students graduating from this institution are now teaching Christianity throughout the Pacific.
This education is what I term cultural Marxism. I’ll define Marxism as pitting the economically poor (oppressed) against the wealthy elites (oppressors). After a revolution, everyone becomes equally poor. The only winners are those at the very top who manage the system. They get remembered in the hallowed halls of Academia. This is their glory, this is their fame. Cultural Marxism aims to achieve the same levelling with culture; family, race, religion, gender. Wives are the oppressed, husbands the oppressors, women are oppressed, men the oppressors, blacks are oppressed, whites the oppressors, homosexuals are the oppressed, heterosexuals are the oppressors. Islam is oppressed, Christianity is the oppressor. The Cultural Marxist utopia is one where true is relative, morals are irrelevant, drugs are plentiful and sex is commitment free, everyone is free to do as they please for we are all paid equally by the state.
Cultural Marxism has always aimed to take away the middle class. Marxists know that the middle classes were the reason their wars have failed. Trump represents the middle class.
And with so many Catholics tied up in sexual abuse, it is not surprise that their Academia are fighting for sexual freedoms!
So while Peter Lineham attributes the loss of religion to outside forces, I contend that it is predominantly forces inside the church that are turning people away. Lineham notes that people are still searching for spirituality. They are just not finding God at a Church any more. When people head to church, this Cultural Marxist teaching, based on Enlightenment history and Biblical studies, is often what they are presented with. This is why the church is in decline. God is not there. Academia has stolen him away.