The Myth of a Secular New Zealand

New Zealand is often defined as a pre-eminently secular country: in Kendrich Smithyman's words, as “a land without presence”. We need to define much more precisely what we mean by this, and distinguish secularisation, the process, from secularism, the ideology. Parallel with the collapse of Christendom, after all, there is a new quest for “spirituality”, and a stubborn refusal of religion to die out. New Zealand's main-line historiographical tradition, as well as strong currents in media and politics, has tended to write religion out of the national story. This is partly due to a nationalist, or secularist bias, but it also reflects a real hermeneutical problem. In recent years a strong archival, bibliographical, microhistorical case has been built for the inter-penetration of the sacred and the secular in this country's bicultural life and history. Accordingly we need to review crude dichotomies of the sacred and the secular. The topography of discourse about religion requires re-charting, and attention should be paid to new manifestation of religion in the formation of national identity. The issue is far from an academic one; ecological issues, for example, point to the urgency of a fresh dialogue, historical and theological, about the relationship between the secular and the sacred.