Does NZ have an official or established religion?

Written by Administrator Tuesday, 30 November 1999 12:00

John Stenhouse is professor of History at Otago University. Given the controversy stirred up by the phrase in the National Statement on Religious Diversity that NZ has no "official or established religion", I asked Professor Stenhouse to comment.

"New Zealand has no legally established or official state religion. In that sense, New Zealand is more like the United States than England. But the meaning and significance of this fact can be, and sometimes is, distorted in contemporary debates over Christianity's place in New Zealand society, politics and history. Most historians would argue that the main reason this country separated church and state early on was not because most settlers were non-religious or anti-religious but more nearly the opposite. It was the variety and strength of the competing denominations, and their unwillingness to see any one church (e.g. the Church of England) become 'top dog' (and able to discriminate against other denominations) that largely explains why church and state went their separate ways here, at least in a legal sense. But that does not imply that that Christianity was marginal and never mattered, or that Christians did not step into and powerfully influence politics and culture in the public square in a whole range of ways" - [John Stenhouse, May 2007]

A Google search for "establishment church" produces the following information. Note the emphasis on "legal position" and also the comment that despite America having a rigidly secular government, it is one of the most religious societies in the western world:

" ... The Church of England is an Established Church. This is a technical term, meaning that the Church has a special legal position within the state and is not simply a voluntary society in the eyes of the law. The term will be familiar to Americans, as the First Amendment to the United States Constitution begins "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...", though this may mislead them as it has been interpreted by the American courts in modern times to require the state to be rigidly secular and completely exclude religion from all governmental business, schools etc. Most "secular states" are much less rigid. That is, in the United States "establishment of religion" has been interpreted to include almost any conceivable connection, real or apparent, between the state and religion, rather than the more specific connection usually understood in England. Paradoxically, although its government is rigidly secular, the United States is one of the most religious societies of the western world in terms of active church membership ..."