TDB looked into Chris Luxon’s extreme evangelical faith in 2019. In an age of science leading policy, will NZ embrace an extreme religious politician?
Chosen To Rule? What Sort Of Christian Is Chris Luxon?
CHRIS LUXON has some explaining to do. He has been identified as an evangelical Christian, which, if you’ll pardon the religious cliché, covers a multitude of sins. That’s why I believe Chris Luxon owes New Zealanders a working definition of evangelical Christianity – and how he intends to practice it.
A private matter? Well, that might be true if Luxon was a person moving into private life. Clearly, however, that is not the case. Luxon has opted to become an even more public person than he was as Air New Zealand’s CEO. The core motivations of public persons are not matters to be evaded, they are matters to be explicated, elucidated and explained.
What, then, is generally understood by the term Christian evangelism? At its core, evangelism is about the active spreading of Christ’s teachings – especially among those who are ignorant of his message. For a politician to identify himself as an evangelical Christian is, therefore, a matter of considerable importance.
If such politicians are genuine in their self-characterisation, then they will take every opportunity their public office provides to proselytise on behalf of their faith. They will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices they believe to be evil. To do all they can to save the souls of those who are in the grip of sin. Christian evangelism is, above all else, faith in action.
It is, therefore, disingenuous (to say the least) for Luxon to present his evangelical convictions as having relevance only to himself and the congregation of the Upper Room Church to which he belongs. The very name of his faith community argues against this claim.
The “Upper Room” mentioned in the gospels is the room to which Jesus and his disciples repaired on the night of his arrest. In biblical tradition, it is the location of Christ’s last supper. The Upper Room thus represents the ignition-point of the chain of events that led to Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. It was Christianity’s first church: Ground Zero, if you like, for Jesus’s universal mission. In the Messiah’s own words:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Does that sound like a private matter? Was the Upper Room really nothing more than the venue for a catered meal for Jesus of Nazareth and a few close friends? Is that it?
Obviously, not. A non-denominational congregation of believers calling themselves The Upper Room Church clearly draw their inspiration from the conviction that, gathered in that celebrated biblical space, were a group of human-beings charged with securing nothing less than the salvation of the whole world. Equally clearly, however, at least some of the church’s members – including Luxon? – are expected to secure the obedience of the nations by using techniques very different from the open preaching of the disciples who left that original Upper Room at Jesus’s side more than 2,000 years ago.
It’s about this point that things begin to get murky. A swift consultation of Wikipedia’s entry on Evangelism reveals the following curious sentence:
Some Christian traditions consider evangelists to be in a leadership position; they may be found preaching to large meetings or in governance roles.
What in the name of all that is good and holy does that mean?
To answer that question it is necessary to go back to the time and place in which groups like The Upper Room came into existence – the United States of America in the 1930s.
It was a time of tremendous social and political upheaval, during which the traditional relationships between those at the summit of society, and those at its base, were challenged in ways that made the ruling elites, business leaders in particular, profoundly uneasy. The Upper Room was founded in 1935 with the objective of disseminating biblical verses highlighting the duty of Christians to obey “the powers that be” and eschew rebelliousness in all its forms.
The following year saw the formation of what came to be known as “The Family”. Established in response to the Seattle General Strike of 1936, The Family gathered together in “Christian fellowship” prominent and powerful politicians, state officials and businessmen, for the purposes of re-establishing the dominion of the godly throughout the USA – a mission which included the destruction of those unnatural instruments of Satan, the trade unions. The Family would grow in strength and power, extending its tendrils of influence through the US capital, drawing-in Congressmen, Senators – even Presidents – to its deeply heretical interpretation of the gospel.
This is what Chris Luxon needs to explain. Does he subscribe to Christ’s “preferential option for the poor”? And, is he committed spiritually to fulfilling Christ’s promise that “the meek shall inherit the earth”? Or, does The Upper Room, like The Family, preach a gospel of worldly wealth and power, in which the Mighty rule by God’s special favour, meaning that all his true servants are bound to do everything they can to further God’s plans for the men and institutions he raises above them?
More specifically, if Luxon should, at some future date, receive an invitation to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, staged annually in Washington DC by The Family, and attended by every President since Dwight Eisenhower (along with a mighty host of foreign potentates, corporate CEOs and lobbyists) will he accept and attend?
Or, has he already done so?
Has he?
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I read Luxon’s religion credentials on Wikipedia. Apparently he started life as a Catholic, where the ethos is very much Sermon on the Mount – Give all you have to the poor and come follow me- What you do for the least of my brethren, you do unto me. It looks as if Mr Luxon has abandoned traditional Catholicism, and engaged with other evangelical outfits instead. I think that this is quite unusual for Roman Catholics, who stick with Catholicism, or lapse, or just dump it altogether; constant changes of denominations may also suggest instability.
A disproportionate number of current and would-be MP’s seem to belong to non-mainstream churches, some probably ok.
Apols @ SW.
I’m using your pole position here to sell Mike Treen.
You guys MUST read Mike Treen’s Post here: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/11/29/why-we-are-creeping-towards-a-crisis-of-the-system/
It’s also just above and to the right a bit.
It’s brilliant. No. Really. It is brilliant.
While I have instincts about things, others, like Mike Breen, can back their instincts up with facts.
We, all of us, we’re being fucked over by a select few who know how to cook books and shamelessly tap out OUR government for THEIR rapacious and voracious wealth creation. But wait? There’s more! The harder they swindle, the more we suffer so the more they get to take. It’s truly a criminal genius.
How can they, the ‘Them’s ‘, say, drive past the homeless begging for change in the EFTPOS economy they created in, say, a $200K Bentley? I’ve lived in Auckland ! I’ve literally seen that at Three Lamps.
I know I keep banging on about farmers but they’re our primary industry so imagine the power the people of the urban-lands could wield over our abusers if we made friends with our primary industry farmers?
If city people, and I mean you and you, not the Remeurians or the Hernebayonettes but you normal, lovely, humans, each of you a miracle ( To paraphrase Russell Brand) and our farmers who feel unloved, unlovely, ugly, dumb and stupid who are not, of course, and who work harder than many of you can imagine. There’s no switch, yet, that can be flicked to turn your farm off while you go on holiday. Tell a lambing ewe with her dip shit lamb coming out tail first? “Sorry girlfriend. We’re off Skiing. ” Imagine if farmers were kindly approached by you and you and invited to a barbi on the beach. We could call it “The Town and Country Peace Makers Piss Up”. Or similar. Know any drug dealers? Pass around a few good and proper E, a little pot here and there for the older Dears who might explode at their sudden feelings of happiness and joy in finally understanding their connectedness to the greater cosmos…
Too far too soon? Ok then. But do you get my drift?
We’re all being artfully conned by crooks. We really, really need to begin to understand the implications.
We can easily see the consequences of that. And the looming horrors and hardships that’s about to run us down because Bentley and QT holiday mansion. ( Personally? I’d love both. Don’t get me wrong. )
Thanks Countryboy. Much of this is stuff which people like me half know, but cannot articulate as well as Mike Treen has here.
I thik you are wrong… Evangelical churches are full of lapsed Catholics who miss the pomp & ceremony of their former faith and want more than what the Catholic Corporation can give
Earle g. Good luck to them then.
From ‘ Dover Beach ‘ by Matthew Arnold. 1867. Note : 1867
………
“ The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
It’s melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a dark long plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
You, of course, will know Arnold as the more or less founder of rugby, and I sat on those cold pebbles of Dover Beach… Try the whole poem – poignant historical comment.
OR are they delusional belivers in sky pixies who really should be on meds
gandalf speaks to me—tie him down and break out the tranqs
god/jesus speaks to me—oh that’s all good
https://i.stuff.co.nz/opinion/114832270/jeff-bell-cartoons
Excellent questions Martyn. Can we hope Chris Luxon will answer them directly here?
Key will probably have to help him out!
Key is from a non NZ background as the offspring of people escaping from central Europe immediately postwar. He grew up in the leafy parts of Christchurch. There is a hierarchy of schools in Christchurch, it is mainly private and single sex and frankly Cashmere High is a bit of a joke. The sort of school serious schools play only in Soccer and Chess.
The highly blinkered John Key as a politician essentially played the useful idiot CEO role of David Lange. Don Brash the useful idiot selected to play the first part in the Trojan horse operation, was the cover to get Key and Collins into the house and advance the English faction of ultra conservative rural supporters into the National Leadership Bill English was a Catholic farmer, like Key a half trained accountant dabbling in Economics. When John Key brought the least talented National Government into power, he accepted the factional price of making Collins and English his key ministers and unlimited expansion of dairy conversions, surveillance and cameras everywhere. The police given full access to Five eyes, supposedly, etc, etc.
Key grew up in a state house in Christchurch.
Andrew. His father was an Englishman who married an apparently Austrian refugee back in the UK before being fortunate enough to emigrate to New Zealand .
Key’s ChCh state house was in Bryndwr, a thoroughly middle – class area, and he attended Burnside High School, a large co-ed secondary school which generally produces a more couth product than him. His verbal gymnastics may be something else altogether though – and his trying to change our flag was impudence.
He worships money and is happy to feed off tax payers hard work. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300266741/parliament-lets-mps-rent-property-from-themselves-at-the-taxpayers-expense
He has a right to claim this money so why would he not do so .I look at the waste of money occurring from ill thought out desicions made by this current government as far worse.
My worry is will his conservative Christianity drive him to try a change the gains over the last few years in acceptance of gay rights abortion end of life and advances in the treatment of women. He has proved his business acumen in make Air NZ profitable but little regard was made of the effects on the regions as he cut services.
Trevor
cutting regional services was an unpopular business decision that took balls and it had to be done. So hopefully if he’s PM he will cut the fucking overbloated bureaucracy in Wellington in half. Most the people working for the state only serve to make life hell for the rest us. Fucking woke clipboard warriors are holding back this country.
TK – from an Air NZ News release “but it is services through cities like New Plymouth and Hamilton that will first refuel growth. The airline expects to increase its domestic capacity to 110 per cent of pre-Covid levels by adding more routes, flight frequency and better connections in its network which has shown strong resilience during the pandemic.”
So tell me why did they have to be cut the services as you claim?
Air NZ management have always used the regional routes for their convenience – easy to show route profit/loss by apportioning costs to give required answer. Once third level operators have established a need, Air NZ swoop in and overwhelm the small operator with flasher services. Then when the higher cost structure of the airline makes the route unprofitable they disappear, leaving the region without a service. The world is full of ‘drifter’ CEOs and managers who do not understand the business they are supposedly in charge of. FACT: no one could hope to get to grips with understanding the airline industry in 7 years.
Yes another with the moniker ” silent Assassin ” Took balls to tell people they’ve lost their jobs in rural N.Z.
…’cutting regional services’…
And continuing on with the denuding of the rural sector at a time when we cannot import cheap labour from the Islands to pick our tomatoes and kiwifruit,…and herding yet more people into the city’s where there is no housing and creating a downwards pressure on wages via cheap labour,…
Instead of national prosperity, we have the medieval race to the bottom using a modern serf system between the haves and the have nots. I view those who hold those views as the sons and daughters of treason. In their guest for the global community, they sacrifice human potential for short term profits.
These are hostile to the concept of the sovereign national state and its regulatory restrictions on their excessive behaviors and seek to exchange it for a lawless ‘wild west’ exploitation system. Similar to the pirates of the 18th century and equally , though not as overtly, as vicious as them.
They have no place in the modern world and particularly in light of the U.N Bill of Human Rights to which we are signatory’s.
Bosses of our biggest companies earn up to 40 times more …https://www.stuff.co.nz › business › bosses-of-our-biggest…
The Kraut – you sound to me like if you were in Brazil, you would be screaming in frustration at bureaucrats telling you, “No, you can’t burn down the rain forest!”
“He has a right to claim this money so why would he not do so”
A right to be Greedy, my my – how do you sleep at night.
If I get invited to a function, and there’s seafood and roast lamb. Its mine. I’m not greedy, I just don’t want you getting the most of it. Bugger off! Its mine , its mine , – all mine !!! And I will sleep long and dream wonderful dreams !
T he narrative that Luxon is an everyday, garden variety, Catholic is the they want to…stick.
“ That sunny dome ! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
…
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”
Samuel T Coleridge Kubla Khan
That’s pretty good @ SW.
Rush did an excellent song version.
N Spur. Thank you. I didn’t know, but just watched the video on YouTube. Incredible music, and Coleridge’s dream sequences totally ethereal – which I don’t think can be said about Key’s bestie.
You’re welcome!
Thanks for raising these questions Martyn.
I hope MSM also grill Luxon about it too so we the people get a bit more insight on the guy.
Scary if Luxon turns out to be a zealot Nutter!
Just what NZ needs ….NOT!!!
Can they look a bit more into the ACT circus too?
I think you can take it for granted that he already is a zealot nutter if he belongs to The Upper Room religious group. Also, from my personal experience of evangelical Christians there is very little questioning of the status quo, to put it mildly. Group think rules and my way or hell way is the mantra. Not much room for acceptance of diversity or equality of any kind. He would be a bad and scary choice for National, and they may be wary because of the abject failure of the last loaf of white bread they chose as a safe pair of hands to steer the ‘good’ ship National.
And yet we parade around wanting ‘stability’ and the ‘familiar’. So long as it is fitting within our modern parameters. Lets not rock the boat, as long as it fits within our postmodern world viewpoint. The post modern viewpoint that shifts in values like the sands of the desert….
Martyn thanks for raising the important questions on Luxon.
Scary if Luxon is in command and implements nutty religious extreme ideas.
Not what NZ needs right now….Ever!
What with that bald head his tin foil hat must fit snugly.
I laughed out loud at my own joke until I remembered I was paying some of my taxes towards luxons $ix figure salary plus perks and entitlements while many people live in cars or on the streets and thousands of our kids live in poverty in our rich and beautiful AO/NZ. That’s the Natzo legacy for ya.
Clearly, there is no God or luxon would be a small pile of smouldering ashes.
If you dislike Keys legacy so much for increasing childhood poverty. You will hate this current government.
Why? We know Nationals legacy, creation of poverty, homelessness and great weath division, we will know Labours legacy when their time has finished.
What sort of Christian is he? At last count there were multiple thousands of religions listed throughout the world, all as delusional, in a rationalist/materialist philosophical analysis as the others, so tell someone who cares in one sense…but the problem is when these self righteous sky pilots start imposing their whackiness on other citizens.
The funny old thing is religious nutters that get involved in politics from ScoMo in Australia to the Brethren in NZ always seem to support the capitalist system and exploitation.
Women particularly, and kids usually cop it. Subjugation and oppression of women and indoctrination of children before they have formed an independent world view is the modus operandi for these fuckers. If Mr Luxon is “upper room” or something he is not going to be a friend of the working class is he?
So nail him up–metaphorically and figuratively–I say, if he ever gets close to being a Natzo leader. Similarly, Mark Mitchell is dodgy as with his “sell sword” mercenary history. The Nats deserve to go down in a shower of shit once and for all really.
+100
The worst of them do their best to look like Harcourts real estate agents too.
I’d love to know what the likes of Jim Bolger and Chris Finlayson REALLY think as well. (Check out Bolger on Q+A and Finlayson’s recent comments – I suspect both sanitised for the media)
It’s possible that the gNats going down in a shower of shit once and for all might be the only ways there might be any sort of meaningful change.
Harcourts…yes! They do seem to look a bit different don’t they!
A ‘White’ Bishop Eftapostle Brian Tamaki?
Let’s hope so!
You’re joking, right?
“Does he subscribe to Christ’s “preferential option for the poor”? And, is he committed spiritually to fulfilling Christ’s promise that “the meek shall inherit the earth”? Or, does The Upper Room, like The Family, preach a gospel of worldly wealth and power,…blah blah…”
Does he subscribe to this biblical tenet or does he subscribe to that?
Does it make any difference when they all come from the big book of multiple choice? The ultimate manual for justification of any behaviour. Isn’t the plain fact that they resort to such a manual the real concern?
I regard faithists as essentially identical in essence to QAnon and conspiracy freaks. That’s because of their ability to believe in fairies and make judgements in the absence of good evidence. Allowing them the power to make decisions that affects my life always fills me with unease.
I wouldn’t vote for Luxon. He has the foul stench of John Key around him and that would make him probably a John Key lapdog(much like Mike Hosking).
I was bought up in an American created cult that I would say treated females as third class citizens. That cult(yes I am referring to the Jehovah’s Witnesses) deemed that birthdays, Easter and celebrating Christmas was ‘unchristian’. The JWs even said that voting at an election was ‘unchristian’.
In the JW cult ONLY males could speak directly to the congregation. Females at say the Theocratic Ministry School couldn’t do that. Females, at the aforementioned event, were required to be speaking to another female as to convert the other female of how righteous and true the JW belief system is/was.
And ONLY males were allowed to wear trousers. Females had to wear skirts and dresses.
One elder, who I am glad to say is now deceased, had it in for our family. But both my sister and I would call him to this day a sexual deviant. My older sister once had to do a presentation at the Theocratic Ministry School. The elder said she did well but her dress, which was slightly above the knees, was too short. Another time my sister did another presentation and the same elder told her her skirt(which was a midi)was too long. At this point my sister thought ‘bugger this. I am damned if I do and I am damned if I don’t’. And so she got out of the cult.
Another time that elder turned up at our place uninvited and proceeded to tell our parents as to how to bring up the children. He said I should be put over a knee and given a good thrashing. My father said “How dare you come to OUR place and tell us how to bring up OUR children”. The elder later apologised but the damage had already been done. To this day I have no liking whatsoever for the JWs.
And so having what may as well be an extreme cult follower of a most likely American based cult as a leader of a political party just doesn’t give me much of an impression of National.
Luxon is just some white, bald and opportunistic self server. He will always be controlled by John Key because birds of a feather, like those two, flock together.
Whilst the mainstream NZ media gives the illusion Key was so good for NZ I think we all need to ask ourselves as to why John Key broke so many promises when it suited him and wasted so much of NZ taxpayers money on a piece of fabric just to massage his ego.
Whilst I don’t have much liking of Simon Bridges I feel he is the best candidate for interim leader of National until someone with more integrity, honest(if that truly exists in National)and vision is found.
Looking at the potential fall out of the Collins dumping I think there will be a few more National MPs jumping ship and especially those that are obviously sycophantic towards Collins for mostly self wants.
I know some JW’s. I also know them before they were pulled back into that cult, and every day I hear them go on about it, the more and more I hate them for taking my special friend from me and turning her into a total prude.
Thanks for this background Chris,. Chilling to say the least.
I sense woke judgmental identity political analysis. Come on Martyn, shall we start to erect a stake to burn him on before he’s even stepped up to the pulpit. This is like the media wanting an election result before the election. You lot won’t be electing him for leader if he happens to get that far. If he does you won’t be voting for him if you’re from the left. Don’t you think you should lighten up a little.
NV, it’s like this, if National want to attract me back or the many others who have deserted them they need to start listening to us and it seems to Jim Bolger and Chris Finlayson also; and not allow Key to further destroy the party by installing his puppet.
Peter it’s like this. Luxon is a puppet in your mind and most likely others but he’s a bright boy and I doubt whether he sees himself as a puppet. In my mind he may or may not make a good PM but I’m sure as hell aren’t going to condemn him before he opens his mouth. I’m sure Jacinda had plenty of support and encouragement before she decided to put her hat in the ring. Most who voted for her did so because she seemed like a nice person who made a lot of promises. Luxon if nothing else is capable of running a large corporation which Parliament is like and so has more credentials in my mind than anything JA offered. His religious beliefs didn’t seem to affect the way Air NZ was run and I can’t see why it would if he was PM.
…’His religious beliefs didn’t seem to affect the way Air NZ was run and I can’t see why it would if he was PM’…
Fair cop.
That is incredibly dumb logic.
um. wild katipou, have you actually flown air nz recently?
NV. Parliamentary politics and corporate management are very different; and corporate managers don’t make laws about society’s standards so in politics religious beliefs become very significant.
Mmmm. Peter, The laws that Jacindas government are pushing don’t do it for me. Her socially aware laws are also a bit divisive for me, He Puapua for example. Great if we wish to Pursue and can afford parallel social experiments. Luxon would be miles ahead on producing something that actually works. I don’t expect you to like Luxon but don’t right people off until you know what they’re capable of achieving. Whether it’s good or bad.
Doesn’t matter what brand of Christian he is. Luxon’s Faith is just superstitious belief without evidence and if he’s at all religious we don’t need superstitious logic running our secular country. Most politicians claim some sort of religiosity because it might give them more votes. Give me an honest atheist or agnostic any day.
Tell that to all the different faiths who have PHD’s in the anthropology, sociology, criminology, economics etc etc degrees. Your narrow minded and biases are free for all to see.
…’Give me an honest atheist or agnostic any day’…
And therein lies the motive. At least you were honest.
“Luxon would be miles ahead on producing something that actually works. I don’t expect you to like Luxon but don’t right people off until you know what they’re capable of achieving. Whether it’s good or bad.”
I’m not writing him off NV, however, there is a contradiction in your statement.
“Luxton would be miles ahead…but we don’t know what he’s capable of?”
“don’t right people off until you know what they’re capable of achieving” Could you apply that to Germany in 1933… your argument lost all credibility when you said running corporations and parliaments are the same… are you a Sky Faerie believer as well?
How do,you know?
Donald Trump!
Different skill set required; I’m not saying one can’t learn the other, but in Luxon’s own words “I still have a lot to learn”.
Peter
Luxon will be just fine. Or anyone else. Jacinda was anointed with no management skills whatsoever. None. Zero. Nada. Just a freindly face at the time with a Nike slogan and a lot of media hype. No significant policies. And she still has no management skills really, let’s face it. Nothing has changed. In fact, whenever it gets tricky or could be bad news, she runs for the hills and hands over to Roberston and co. She’s just good at those good news announcements, but that seems to be good enough for moronic voters these days. “I like her so I vote for her, doesn’t matter that I never willl own a house”. Lefties make it sound like Saint Jacinda is the only politician ever qualified enough to run the country. Well their standards are shamefully low.
Here’s a good example of low standards:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/sir-ian-taylor-nine-questions-for-the-prime-minister-about-covid-tests-in-nz/KZC73D23IUS5GGLBVEC6CWS54E/
TK, what National can’t afford is to elect Luxon now and for him to fail; he has been touted as their ‘chosen one’ for so long that his failure will certainly destroy any credibility they may still have.
National still have a small percentage of morons voting for them. So I’m sure they’ll do all right.
“Jacinda was anointed with no management skills whatsoever.” utter utter utter nonsense Sauerkraut… none so blind that will not see
lol, she could not win her seat, she was gifted Mt. Albert.
lol, she has no skills other then to put a nice face and some nice words to some utter bullshit, like we will fix the housing crisis, or we will fix child poverty, or we will fix adult and child hunger. She did non of this. And heck, in AKL some cops got shot today, because she is very very nice to gangs. Lol.
Priceless Sabine! LOL. How could I not list all those achievements? LOL.
Sabine “ Some cops got shot in Auckland today, because she is very very nice to gangs” is a very sick thing to say.” Who do you think you are ? Judge, jury, psychiatrist, sociologist, anthropologist or just clueless ?
There has been an agenda running in this country of the police being deliberately set up as the enemy of specific ethnic groups, and this being run by quite a small group of disaffected racists. I could name them, and Ardern has not, to my knowledge been one of them.
If you know otherwise then say so.
And if you think that the PM should not have received world wide respect for her response to the evil Muslim massacres, then I invite you to say why, now.
And if you do not know why the Maori gang culture has evolved in New Zealand then you are as ignorant as slugs in my vegetable plot.
Sabine. Housing, yes. Child poverty, yes. But blaming the PM for cops getting shot in Auckland is desperate and deranged.
Oh for goodness sake Sabine!! Getting a bit cray cray and drawing long bows into nutsvillle.
It is all very ironic, isn’t it, and one has to wonder exactly who she was before she entered into politics, the fact that she was gifted a seat, her immense popularity in her first term, etc. The country is sick of unkept promises. Or is it? Well, I for one am a traditional labour voter but I did not vote for Jacinda Ardern in 2017, I did not vote for Labour in 2020, and neither shall I vote for Labour under Ardern in 2023
Oh I don’t know how about what’s happening in Russia, or Poland. Or indeed the USA for that matter. Or India, maybe Indonesia. Or the Mac Daddy’s of a religious states gone completely nut bar – Israeli, Saudis Arabia, Quarter.
Religion and politics is messy. It’s worse when fundamentalism comes into play, and much worse when people lie about it. Like Scomo and his religious conviction that said he should export Australia’s criminals, which he portrayed as something completely else.
Don’t you think you should grow a pair you dumbass, as in two brains as one clearly isn’t enough in one lifetime for you.
This mean comment was directed at New view, just in case anyone was confused.
At least it isn’t Scott Morrisons’ Hillsong brand of happy-clappers
Pretty sure it’s similar though 🙁
Perhaps the Hillswrong church with unhappy clappers is more to your liking?
🙂
Thanks for that Martyn, I haven’t heard of the Upper Room, will look it up.
Just to say that there is a big difference between a Christian is an evangelist = one that preaches the word and calls for conversion… And an Evangelical Christian = a theological description of a more Conservative view that takes the Bible more literally than a Liberal Christian.
Not all Evangelicals are evangelistic
Correct N Parry. Although they have the same root word, being “evangelical” does not mean per se that you are an “evangelist”. I’d go a step further in your definition of “evangelical” insofar as the meaning has changed in recent decades. I grew up in what we self-described as a “evangelical” church, which was primarily a theological rather than political label. It’s true that my church tended towards a conservative view on moral issues, but we wanted nothing to do with politics and certainly didn’t see Parliament as an appropriate arena to advance conservative views. That’s a stark contrast to contemporary evangelicalism, which has embraced politics for the purposes of conservative Christian mission. Although the latter form has spread internationally, it is still mainly an American phenomenon. Thus, when a NZer (Chris Luxon for example) is described as “evangelical” it’s still most likely a theological descriptor and should not be confused with the kind of evangelicalism so prominent in American politics; the Republican Party in particular.
Where religion appears, any religion, misery follows…
Like humanism and the atrocity’s of the 20th century such as Stalinism, Pol Pot and all the other ‘non belief’ systems ( which actually are a belief system,…), in fact the 20th century has been called the ‘bloodiest century in human history) .Good luck with that. So what’s another religo thrown into the mix of NZ politics?,…. maybe we should wait and see rather than use broad brush generalizations.
Not sure if this is how Brian the Bish would experience it… and who wouldn’t fancy free hols in the Greek Isles anyway…?
Devils advocate: what if he were Muslim, Bahai, Buddhist or Shinto? At the the risk of sounding trite, lets see what he’s about before we play the faith card. However if he’s just another John Key type, vote him out.
I think your missing the point wild katipo, it’s not the faith card being played. It’s the theological card being played. Which we really, really do need to ask. As the whole Wealth Theology / Prosperity Doctrine – is a nasty piece of work.
I say nasty, when I should have said; bigoted, short-sighted and completely antithetical to what it means to be a Christian.
Don’t know about you, but as a Christian, I’m sick to death of these fundamentalist zealots perverting the Gospels. It all comes down to the justifying GREED. And in turn ripping off the poor, rather than as Chris so right suggests “to fulfilling Christ’s promise that “the meek shall inherit the earth””.
Yep,… the great American prosperity doctrine. Hey ! Look, I’ve had a child who died of cancer, a divorce because of the titanic stress it put upon us, a son that misses his older brother, lost all my wealth because of fatcats in America selling rotten debt far from NZ in the GFC, and now am broken ass poor. I know. I know. And I see it written across our land loud and clear. The American evangelical faith that has been described as a ‘mile wide and one inch deep’.
And it is sickening. But there are a lot of good Americans who keep the faith and who are not wealthy. They are the salt of the earth. Just like over here.
All I am saying,… ‘is give peace a chance’.
Well, I like the colour of your cloth Ignatius, even if not your profession of religion, which always smacks of some kind of clubism, these days.
I did laugh when reading Hollow Me, Don Brash asked what religion meant. Brash responded that religion was about love and peace. It was probably after that comment,National realised they had the wrong leader.
But in true National fashion then proceeded to start infighting among themselves ,…. Doh !
I have just tried a google search on “Upper Room”. Very little to find apart from their own website.
Either nobody has been talking about them, or somebody has done a very thorough clean of any reference to them in google.
Given that anybody with money can do this, I am suspicious.
Or you have failed to search correctly. https://upperroom.org.nz/
Yes I found that – their own website as I mentioned. There’s absolutely nothing else about them online.
Does anybody else find this suspicious? Or obviously nobody is talking about them at all, given that one of their congregation is likely to be the next National Party leader.
EZ,… There are many references to it. Here’s one:
The Significance of The Upper Room to The Early Churchhttp://upperroommedia.org › blog › 2019/07/16 › the-s…
Apostles Creed, didn’t he fight Rocky Balboa?
A tick to you!
Talk about judgmental – – may as well ask what kind of atheist Ardern is!
She’s not any brand of atheist (or religionist).
She once said she’s agnostic, and something to the effect that she doesn’t make judgements either way.
yeah, right. Tui.
No it’s quite right, without the Tui.
Adding to your list of idiotic comments.
Kheala. Yep. I gather that Jacinda Ardern grew up in a Mormon household, and when queried, indicated that she herself is not a Mormon. People trying to pigeonhole her on the basis of this, are being a bit silly.
As far as I know, Ardern has not been photographed kneeling at prayer in a church like saintly Judith Collins.
Clearly, the best kind.
Leigh
You might spend dome time reading up the thinking about the way that faith based leaders become fearsome when they also get political leadership, and the world’s opinion is belittled. The leader has the heavens on his or her side, and usually the army on the other side. And it can the common people, especially women, feel the result of so much power and self-righteousness being placed on the leader and his acolytes. Religion us in the eye of the beholder, and it is being brought into a capitalistic mould this century, churches use business methods to run their spiritual sphere.
Be kind, rewind.
He has already opened his mouth new view and what came out of it was not a new view but an old antiquated view/s not exactly new. Running an airline is not the same as running a country he will need to ditch some of his strongly held religious views and his privacy.
the thing is most evangelicals of all stripes whilst foregrounding jesus actually despise the hippy and embrace the old testament angry bearded grouch that JC was supposed to replace
….if you believe one word of their magical thinking that is..
Just what we need, politicians with the religious nuttery like the US.
You over-complicate matters by not understanding them. They are the heart of the anti-democratic Republican Party, and they are here with the same anti-democratic anti-rational views. Except thankfully only 5 % of us. For the moment. Social media spreads idiocy more than we can keep up with. Why? The mass of good people aren’t interested in big ideas or politics apart from their mortgage. Ripe for bad actors’ propaganda.
lol why does he have to answer to you about his beliefs?
Lol. Same reason as to why you get to ask your question of him, because he can.
I am no National voter ever but a clappy happy evangelical fundamentalist nutbar should never be able to be in a position to run this country. Successful businessman he may well be but his beliefs will underpin everything he does in his life. That’s why they are fundamentalist. It takes a hold on their life and it pervades their existence. Key also being his mentor just beggars belief. Collins has given him her vote therefore she will have to be rewarded with a position within the cabinet/shadow cabinet. When will we be forever ridden of this woman. Please let common sense prevail with this vote.
What a lot of pretentious horseshit, Martyn. I mean really, “…they are matters to be explicated, elucidated and explained”. Great that you can use a thesaurus, I guess…but for fuck’s sake, get a life.
It’s totally legit to question the backgrounds – religious or otherwise – of any political leader. But calling Luxon an extreme evangelical is baseless sensationalism, akin to John Key calling the Green Party communists. A quick look at his church’s website shows them to be far more prominently in support of social missions than converting people to Christianity or pushing a conservative moral agenda. Both the views of his church and what we know of his personal views certainly don’t paint an extreme picture, and whilst he may hold views that go against the grain of the majority of NZers, he’s openly said that these are his personal views not his political agenda. Keep an eye on the guy, for sure – all politicians need our constant scrutiny. But, when it comes to religion in politics I’d be far more worried about politicians that claim their personal faith is a part of their political agenda, not those that see it the other way round.
Born-agains are at the heart of the Republican party and their assault on democracy and reality. It’s worth caring about. They are here but only 5% but Facebook and Youtube’s algorithms are always trying to work up the numbers. This all from (terrible) family experience.
If he was Muslim would we be having this conversation?
If not. Why not ?
Christianity is about enthusiasms — new belief in nonsense. No prob with Anglicanism. Why it dies. But why I doubt ‘bright new’ christians. That an adult can believe crap.
our religious beliefs form our moral and ethical compass though Simon. We are what we preach so they intertwine no matter what
If you want to know more about the kind of Christian Luxon is you should have a look at not just the church he goes to, or the ‘style’ of that church, but who leads that church His name is Craig Heilman and many of his comments and sermons have been scrubbed from the internet since Luxon started to make his way up the leadership ladder. Luckily Russel Brown synopsized the sermon he found concerning as it’s no longer there https://twitter.com/publicaddress/status/1191501840489148416 and if you want to hear Heilmann taken apart have a listen to an interview that I became aware of a few weeks back, where a journalist, a fucking smiling assassin, took him apart and made him look foolish to a point he had to support female circumcision https://soundcloud.com/pat-brittenden/craig-heillman-on-jehovahs. This is the leadership, over the leader of the National Party. Scary.
I wonder if Luxon identified as a Muslim or an atheist if you would making the same demands? If he was an atheist would you demanding of him how he would seek to implement a belief system that entails moral relativism; the rejection of an objective notion of right and wrong? And the devaluing of human life as we are merely accidental collocations of atoms? Everybody has a worldview and everybody has a faith as no one can directly or empirically prove the assumptions their worldview is founded on. Be grateful Luxon actually has a worldview that demands of him honestly, integrity, the valuing of all human life, marriage, compassion, duty and hard work.
I wonder if Luxon identified as a Muslim or an atheist if you would making the same demands? If he was an atheist would you demanding of him how he would seek to implement a belief system that entails moral relativism; the rejection of an objective notion of right and wrong? And the devaluing of human life as we are merely accidental collocations of atoms? Everybody has a worldview and everybody has a faith as no one can directly or empirically prove the assumptions their worldview is founded on. Be grateful Luxon actually has a worldview that demands of him honestly, integrity, the valuing of all human life, marriage, compassion, duty and hard work.
Bla bla bla Re-read your National Anthem you bunch of hypocrits
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