New Zealand

Voyagers from eastern Polynesia evidently settled in the South Pacific islands of New Zealand from the late 12th century onward. Their descendants, the Maori, developed a unique variant on Polynesian religion, identifying features of the natural world with their gods and heroes. The land itself was said to have been formed when the trickster Māui caught a great fish (the North Island) while standing in his canoe (the South Island). Despite a brief encounter with the Dutch in 1642, New Zealand was not reincorporated into the wider world until its rediscovery by the British in 1769. Protestant missionaries encouraged Maori chiefs to sign the Treaty of Waitangi (1840), which brought them under British rule and legitimated large-scale immigration of mostly Christians from the British Isles.

By then, ravaged by new diseases and intertribal musket warfare, Maori increasingly adopted the religion brought by Anglican (1814), Wesleyan (1822), and Catholic (1838) missionaries, initially valued more as conduits of European goods and skills than as preachers of the gospel. In an effort to restore lands and mana (status, ultimately spiritual in origin) lost through colonization, Maori prophets founded syncretistic religious movements, often identifying their people as Israelites. Most Maori, though, joined the increasing variety of imported denominations and sects, including the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), from 1881.

New Zealand religion has been characterized by a peculiar blend of conservatism and innovation—both usually following but occasionally leading international trends. Interest in esoteric and New Age religions has always been high by Western standards. The Women's Christian Temperance Union promoted female suffrage (achieved in 1893), and prohibition of alcohol was almost introduced in 1919. While the world's first female Anglican diocesan bishop was ordained in 1990, denominational priorities undermined the Council of Churches in Aotearoa, New Zealand, in 2005. Liberal Christians have applauded recent legislation decriminalizing [Page 918]prostitution (2003), recognizing heterosexual and homosexual civil unions (2004), and removing the right of parents to forcefully hit their children (2007), but conservatives have vociferously denounced such “attacks on the family.” The 1857 organization of the Anglican Church through a “voluntary compact” ruled by the laity, clergy, and bishops meeting in synods influenced Anglican constitutions overseas, but the 1992 establishment of parallel episcopates and synods for Maori, European, and Pacific peoples remains unique.

Despite intimations of a distinctively New Zealand spirituality, Christianity is waning, with only 52% of the country's 4 million inhabitants claiming to be Christian and 32.2% explicitly rejecting any religious affiliation. Anglicans (13.8%), Catholics (12.6%), Presbyterians (10.0%, including Congregational and Reformed), and Methodists (3.0%) form the largest churches. Their decline, slowed by immigration, especially from the Pacific Islands, is not compensated by the sometimes highprofile “Christians” (4.6%), Pentecostals (2.0%), or Baptists (1.4%). Changes in settlement criteria since 1987, moreover, have led to increased arrivals from Asia and the Middle East, accounting for rapidly growing percentages of Hindus (1.6%), Buddhists (1.3%), and Muslims (0.9%).