I spoke today to the Justice Select Committee on the Conversion Practices Bill. You can read St Matthew’s submission here You can watch the Committee at work here and feel for the MPs listening to endless 10 minute slots of people speaking all day on Zoom – they had a 10 minute break at lunchtime … More What is religious freedom?

Time to call our church leaders to account and to not accept unscientific hogwash dressed up as preaching. I am perplexed and worried by the number of church “leaders” who discourage their congregations from getting a covid vaccination and who participate in crazy conspiracy theories. Once upon a time clergy were seen as leaders by … More Churches and Conspiracy Theories

Sunday (23 May 2021) was Pentecost, which for Christians is an important celebration, up there with Easter and Christmas. It remembers the day when the Holy Spirit came to the first Christians and began their new life as a community. You can read the description of the strange events of that day in the Book … More Jerusalem

Way back in March 2020 just as we were descending into our first experience of lockdown Kirsty Johnson wrote this article in the NZ Herald recounting the extraordinary achievement of the woman we now know to be Jacinda Thompson. Ms Thompson did not give up on seeking justice for herself and change for those who … More Good Friday moments

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  These words are from the reading for this Sunday 30 August. They are so fitting for this week in Aotearoa as we have witnessed the sentencing of the Christchurch terrorist and murderer.  We have watched in awe the courage of the survivors as they … More Overcoming evil with good

We are all adjusting to our “new normal” of living with a world pandemic.  For me this last Sunday that meant throwing away the sermon I had written 2 days before and sharing instead some thoughts with the congregation.This is what I said: Yesterday we gathered to remember the anniversary of the Christchurch mosque shootings … More Drinking deeply at the well

This picture sure looks like the ordination of a bishop in the Anglican Church: There are some bishops in this photo who currently serve in dioceses of the Anglican Communion (as well as others who do not). But they are there in Christchurch, New Zealand without the permission of the bishop of Christchurch or Te … More When is a bishop not a bishop?

Yours Faithfully – now showing on TVNZ on demand  Making a TV series about faith in Aotearoa is a surprising and yet very helpful venture. Surprising because New Zealanders don’t talk about religion. It is seen as something private, not to be discussed in polite company. And helpful because we really need some education in … More Religion on the TV!

The church usually only gets a mention in the media if it’s being homophobic or being accused of abuse. After the Christchurch massacre we had the opportunity to see a faith community respond with love and care to the deepest sorrow that a community could imagine. For a while anyway it seemed that we had a … More The church, the LGBT community and “apologies”

  A couple of the recent conversations in my world: On Saturday 4 May I was interviewed by the indomitable Kim Hill. You can listen here And on Sunday 28 April we were privileged at St Matthew’s to celebrate the blessing of a marriage for 2 women parishioners who were to be married later in … More Conversations