Flag it!

The Change the Flag debate is fascinating. With many others, I am outraged at the $27m budget for the cost of discussing the flag. The flag may well be outdated and inappropriate but I suspect the allocation of that kind of money - not to mention the manipulative structure of the process - is just part of a ploy to exhaust us all with the possibilities so that nothing is eventually changed.

And I am whimsically touched that a throw-away remark from the Leader of the Opposition that we might just as well replace the NZ national anthem has launched a public discussion that has no budget but is already consuming more oxygen than the official flag debate.

I am absolutely with those who say that the anthem reflects a Victorian understanding of God and nation. But I am appalled that those critics seem to assume that all of today's Christians still promote that kind of thinking. Several times in this blog I have advocated junking the ridiculous anachronisms around the daily prayer in Parliament, saying grace on public occasions, a lot of Anzac Day liturgy, and, yes, absolutely, the national anthem.

Besides these real issues of our understanding of ourselves, and our capacity to express that understanding in appropriate and creative rituals, the flag debate is a bit of a sideshow.

The Red Beach School Bible

At a meeting yesterday we heard from the Chaplain-at-Large of the inner city that Auckland has over 250 distinct ethnicities, more than Sydney or London. That must reflect a huge number of different religions.

Which seems to give some point to the complaint of Jeff McLintock to the Human Rights Commission about the Values in Action programme at Red Beach School, just over the road from our home. It is clear that the Values in Action curriculum has moved a long way from what used to be called "Bible in Schools". And it certainly doesn't appear to engage in the disgraceful, fundamentalist kind of "evangelism" that led me to refuse to participate in religious instruction in schools fifty years ago.

But the two sample lessons on the VIA website are both coat-hangered on passages from the sacred writings of just one religion. This may be thought to be OK in somewhat monocultural Red Beach - though Jeff McLintock, from the perfectly legitimate perspective of one with no religion, obviously doesn't agree. The VIA religious emphasis would certainly be quite unacceptable for the inner city as we heard it described yesterday. And the discomfort for children of parents who "opt out" of any "voluntary" programme - as distinct from "opting in" to a programme of personal choice - must surely be a matter of concern.

The style of the VIA looks great. I recall having some really stimulating times with school children in Panmure in 1964, involving them in these kinds of discussions. But what other volunteers taught in those days discredited whatever values a few of us managed to convey. So I became a conscientious objector to religious education in schools.

While I remain unconvinced that that faith can be "taught" I am all in favour of encouraging children to explore "values" in the school setting. But tackling values through the faith of just one religious group says something a little negative about the values of those who do it.

“So help me, God”

I have spent most of the last two days in Liquor Licensing Hearings and I think that of all the witnesses who were sworn in I was the only one who declined to swear on the Bible.
I take the Bible much more seriously than as a tool to ensure that people tell the truth. I think it is little short of ridiculous to ask people, for whom the Bible means nothing, to take it in their hands and swear that the God of the Bible will help them to tell the truth.
It is not just ridiculous. As a Christian, I feel that my faith is demeaned when the central story on which it is based is used in this way. It is offensive. I reject the idea that God can apparently be invoked by the State to persuade people to “swear” to be truthful.
I resent the monocultural implication of automatically offering the Bible in official Courts of this land in which all religions are supposed to have equal places in the sun.
So, on both occasions I testified, I declined to pick up the Bible. And the State has an answer: there was a simple and unambiguous statement asking me to “declare” that I would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
And that I cheerfully declared. And went on to introduce myself and my occupation as a retired minister.

Nobody seemed to notice any possible irony.