Opinions differ on when God came to New Zealand. Perhaps he created it and then stood back and thought that he couldn't improve on perfection and retired to heaven for an extended builders holiday.
Some say he was here before the Maori arrived ministering to that secret race of people that nobody in New Zealand likes to talk about. It doesn't seem to suit the national psyche to suggest that the oppressed Maori people might one day have been oppressors themselves.
He was certainly here for the last one thousand years when the Maori arrived with a whole canoe load of Gods including Maui who apparently fished New Zealand from the clear waters of the Pacific.
The white man, of course, brought Christianity to the Southern shores and has been responsible for many atrocities ever since, such as large Tongans wearing outrageous shirts while murdering hymns on Sunday mornings.
Christ comes in as many flavours as Tip-Top ice-cream and the early settlers here would have come from the full cross section of Victorian life. Presbyterians from Scotland, Anglicans from England, Catholics from Ireland and Baptists and Methodists from up their own arses. It's a small place though and it doesn't make sense to have separate churches for each faith in every small town.
So the Kiwis have taken to sharing their places of worship. This also happens in Australia under the smörgåsbord of the Uniting Church. But this is only for Protestant faiths. Aussie Catholics like to think that they're a bit snobbier than that and they'll meet in a bicycle shed rather than share a space with Proddies.
New Zealand Catholics appear to be less squeamish and they have thrown their lot in with their fellow Christians to build community churches. I went to one in Pauanui for Christmas Midnight Mass. As it's a timeshare arrangement, similar to a villa in Spain, we had to be out before the Baptist Carol service at 9pm. This made it the earliest Midnight Mass I've ever been to, although having said that, I've never been to a Midnight Mass that started at midnight. Which makes me think that the Church should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act.
Community Churches by their nature are built around the lowest common denominator. The committee that builds them is tasked with being sensitive to the needs of each faith. So there could be no statues or stations of the cross less the dour Presbyterians be offended by false idolatry and no Union Jacks draped from the walls to remind third generation Irish Catholics of their shameful colonial past.
As I sat in the second row on Christmas Eve (no kneeler's less they hurt the tender knees of the Methodists) I looked around the little church to see who's influence was most at hand. The overhead projector that sat center stage on the altar seemed an incongruous addition and must have belonged to the Methodists as they see God in the ordinariness of daily life. The Anglicans had clearly added the ornate 19th Century hymn board and I'd like to think that the Catholics provided the light and colour.
The crib however was obviously Baptist as it screamed hallelujah and was more over the top than a Mardi Gras parade. For a moment I feared the heavy hand of commercial sponsorship as Barbie's owners seemed to have done a deal with the Baptists on merchandising rights and had supplied a job lot of the Barbie “Angel” series which displays the doll in all its feminine glory without any hint of Ken to upset the virginal balance.
The local clothing boutique had clearly been raided to provide the models for Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the three wise men as they stared out at the congregation with the dead eyes of shop window mannequins. Political correctness has obviously not come to Pauanui however as Baby Jesus and his parents were resolutely white while the three Kings of the Orient ranged from a Barack Obama look a like to a Possum bearded African Prince.
The animals in the crib suggested that Jesus was born on a commercial farm in Central Otago. The sheep were healthy and the chickens looked free range. The stuffed deer was a cute addition with his eyes capturing the moment when he realised he'd been shot.
I didn't expect much from the Sermon and I'm pleased to say that I wasn't disappointed. It did however cause me to ponder on what life was like back in zero BC. Judea seemed much more commercial than say Ireland or New Zealand back then. I'm guessing that we were focussed on spear improvement in those days in order to improve our chances of catching passing boars or to chuck at interlopers from the next village. The Judeans on the other hand were sufficiently developed to require a Census and commercial enough to need Inns, even if I suspect these did not come with mini bars and three to a room specials.
I guess the Romans were responsible for most of this development, as the Judean Popular Front were apt to point out in “The Life of Brian”. But it does highlight how some places were more developed than others two millennium ago. If Jesus had been born in Ireland for example, it's unlikely that any of the locals would have bothered to ask him how much his Dad charged for a kitchen installation. His miracle of turning water into wine however would have marked him down as a local hero and saved him from any risk of crucification.
Ireland today is a nation of carpenters intent on covering the whole country with decking while Government subsidised Hotels and Inns are more abundant than Churches. In Judea however, they are still chucking the modern equivalent of spears at each other. I wonder which country needs wise men now.
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