Category: Politics
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Free Speech And The NZ Church [2]
So there’s plenty to follow up after the anti-trans rally controversy over the weekend. Though it’s doubtful even the conservative Christian anti-trans lobbies knew she was coming or were associated with her, they have subsequently sought to champion her cause without looking really seriously at the extreme nature of the way this issue has played…
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Free Speech And The NZ Church [1]
Free speech is a topic that receives a lot of attention in society. The issue is perhaps best known worldwide because of the prominence it attracts in the United States of America. This has, throughout the history of New Zealand, led to a great deal of US influence upon our society and culture, including in…
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Questions about Jordan Peterson and Christian sexuality
Welcome to 2023 and a new year of blogging at CCNZ. Everyone must have heard of Jordan Peterson by now, as a psychologist, author and media commentator who is often quoted by evangelical Christians. At the same time, Peterson seems to court a great deal of public controversy, probably far more than any minister or…
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US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [3]
As outlined previously, the shift towards Dominionism / theocracy gained considerable momentum during the term of the Trump presidency and the lingering effects continue to the present day, not least because Trump is likely to seek a second term of office and has never ceased campaigning. Previous Republican presidents, however, saw the potential for the…
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US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [2]
Along with the previous post in this series expounding the many problems that the current direction of the SCOTUS is creating, it’s time to take a fresh look at the impetus for theocracy and the divisions between different groups of orthodox / conservative Christians along theological and political lines. This is mostly over dominionism/theocracy and…
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NZ Churches Seek Judicial Review of Government Covid Protection Framework (Traffic Lights) [2]
In the first part of this series we briefly examined the circumstances of the establishment of lodging court cases against the Government’s vaccine mandate policies by two separate groups of Christians. These groups are FreeToBeChurch, and the much more widely known Family First. The purpose of this part is to dig into some of the…
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NZ Churches Seek Judicial Review of Government Covid Protection Framework (Traffic Lights) [1]
The New Zealand Government in October 2021 announced the Covid-19 Protection Framework, otherwise known as “traffic lights”, for managing the impacts of Covid-19 in the community. The system was brought into effect on 2 December 2021 with most of NZ at the Orange level at that time. Nationwide pro-family lobby group Family First organised a…
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Theological Controversies Influencing US and NZ Churches [2]
An article in “The Atlantic” in October 2021 highlights huge division in US evangelical churches, which is a high price to pay for years of craven obeisance to conservative politics. The author lays the blame squarely at the feet of Donald Trump in the present term whilst also acknowledging that the issue has been steadily…
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Conservativism vs Humanitarianism In Church Theology [3] : Compromise vs Courage
Between 2016 and 2020, the US presidency of Donald Trump divided the Church like no president ever before. Trump proved to be more willing to step over an unconscionable line than any of his wiser Republican predecessors, all of whom (as well as all Democrats) professed at least a nominal level of adherence to the…