Christian politics in New Zealand
This article discusses Christian politics in New Zealand.
Although Anglicanism is required to be the religion of the Monarch of New Zealand, the country itself, unlike the United Kingdom, has no established church, and freedom of religion has been protected since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Just under half of New Zealand's population belong, at least nominally, to Christian denominations but there are a range of views on the extent to which Christianity affects New Zealand politics.
During the nineteenth century, many church-oriented bodies sponsored and fostered several of the original European settlement-ventures in the period 1840–1850, notably the settlements of Otago (1848, Free Church of Scotland) and Canterbury (1850, Church of England) – and many evangelicals, fundamentalists and conservative Catholics see Christianity as underlying New Zealand's entire political system.
On the other hand, a notable politician of the late 19th century, Sir Robert Stout, had a considerable reputation as a freethinker and many dismiss the effects of Christianity, saying that New Zealand society has always had a largely secular character.
Christianity has never had an explicit role in the major contemporary[update]political parties, and the religious elements in these parties have taken varying forms, and cannot easily be classified as a single movement.
Māori Christianity, particularly the Ratana movement has often been of importance, with an historic alliance between it and the Labour Party signed in 1936, and many other parties now vying for their support, but this is generally regarded as a political rather than religious matter.
In the 1990s a series of Christian political parties such as Christian Heritage, the Christian Democrats, the Christian Coalition and Destiny New Zealand arose out of a Christian conservative strand in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in reaction to a decline of social standards; but none reached even 5% of the vote in any election.
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