Seeking a Turangawaewae: constructing a Baptist identity in New Zealand: among the indigenous people of New Zealand, the concept of turangawaewae is of great importance. A turangawaewae is, literally, "place to stand.".

For Maori their turangawaewae is their home, where they have a fight to be present, the anchor point for their sense of who they are and with whom they belong. For non-Maori or pakeha New Zealanders, the concept has grown in significance. Once securely settled in a colonial identity, drawn from their links to Britain, pakeha saw that apparent certainty slip away with the notion of empire. There are vestiges of it still--Queen Elizabeth II of England is Queen of New Zealand; the highest judicial court sits in London--but New Zealand faces the global future as a South Pacific nation, forced to define its own sense of place. The transition has been painful and confusing. It is incomplete.

The issues which faced New Zealanders as a whole through the twentieth century have been acutely experienced by Baptists. New Zealand Baptists have struggled to find a turangawaewae, a sense of identity, in a strange place. Successive attempts to build a new home have been abandoned, and Baptist people remain disconnected, spiritually scattered.

The vital statistics may be quickly summarized. Baptists have never been a large group. Those who identified themselves as Baptist in government census returns peaked as a proportion of the population in the 1880s but settled to a steady state of around 1.6-1.7 percent through most of the twentieth century. The early figures reflected a small population which amplified the effect of a single very large church. The twentieth-century rates have been remarkably constant, somewhat above equivalent figures for Australia and considerably above those in Britain. (1) The apparently aberrant figure of 1986 will be discussed below.

A significantly different picture emerges when figures of actual membership are plotted. On this basis (which, of course, excludes children), the denomination until 1990 enjoyed real growth of some 40 percent, a much higher proportion of the population. The growth was not consistent. Interestingly, New Zealand Baptists had a low rate of growth in the respective decades of the two World Wars. In the final decade a decline is evident.

With statistics, of course, we see only as if "through a glass, darkly." This article will trace the New Zealand Baptist search for identity and in the process, I hope, add living flesh to the dry bones of these figures.

Baptist Beginnings

Pakeha do not have a long history in New Zealand. The Baptist story is even shorter. The first individual declared himself in 1839.2 The first church was not formed until 1851. Crucially, there was no originating idea of being Baptist in the colony. Baptists did not arrive as missionaries as had Anglicans, Methodists, and Roman Catholics. Neither did they organize large-scale religious settlements. Instead, they drifted in, mostly from Great Britain, as anonymous individuals and families, scattered across the new landscape. Only slowly did Baptists come to recognize each other and seek regular communion.

This disordered beginning and the sometimes surprising nature of colonial life presented unanticipated challenges. Most of the early Baptist leaders arrived with a robust sense of who they were. They were British and they were Nonconformist. Culturally self-confident, they relished the role in that culture of the religious outsider, the sect, the community of contrast. The first generation imagined they were constructing a new Britain, a "Brighter Britain." (3)

This led to some quite positive outcomes. Apart from the brief "downgrade" anxiety mentioned below, few traditional doctrinal conflicts survived the journey to New Zealand with any force. There have been theological differences, but these have rarely proved to be determining factors. There is little history, for instance, of disagreement over Calvinist or Arminian views. The common twentieth-century tension between Modernism and Fundamentalism has surfaced at times but has only once driven a major development in denominational life.

Among the first generation, an almost naive confidence-fueled by the seemingly endless possibilities of life in a new land-inspired aggressive evangelistic endeavor. No greater symbol exists of this than the New Zealand career of Thomas Spurgeon, son of the famous Charles, who from 1881 had an outstandingly successful ministry in Auckland, eventually gathering the largest church in Australasia. The high level of Baptist adherence in that decade is arguably due almost entirely to this ministry.

When Spurgeon resigned the charge on health grounds in 1889, he was appointed Colonial Evangelist, holding revival meetings throughout the country until his return to Britain in 1891. Spurgeonic religion dominated New Zealand Baptist life through the 1880s. It both epitomized evangelistic success and served as a direct link to the concerns and controversies of Britain.

Charles Spurgeon's influence was personified in the son, spread by a regular influx of ministers trained at Spurgeon's Pastor's College, and further promulgated by the popularity of Charles's printed works. (4) When the "downgrade" fears of Charles became known, there was an immediate outcome in New Zealand. In 1888, the conditional immortalitist C. C. Brown was excluded from the Union after the threat of withdrawal by Thomas Spurgeon and his allies if he were allowed to remain. (5)

British structures were automatically adopted. A union was constituted in 1882, and in 1885 the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society was formed to take up opportunities in Bengal. Here the key figure was Alfred North, first of a family which has in different ways embodied the New Zealand Baptist story, North, a graduate of Rawdon, rather than Spurgeon's Pastor's College, was editor of the denominational newspaper and through 1885 conducted a fervid campaign to ensure a missionary society would emerge. Clearly, such a move would be a huge undertaking for the fledgling denomination. North, however, overrode any objections on the grounds of lack of resources or administrative capacity. He resisted, for instance, the proposal that New Zealand join a combined Australasian organization. New Zealand should stand confidently alone. After all, as he stressed, "the commencement of the English Baptist Missionary Society was by a few men.... At this conference we are more in number." (6) Moreover, the church was called to engage in the grand task of mission. There was nothing New Zealand Baptists could not do. If they were but faithful to that calling, all else would fall in place.

Yet, dreams were not to be so simply fulfilled. North's optimism notwithstanding, neither the union nor the missionary society worked well in their first years. The union was threatened by two potential splits within its first decade, and the missionary society, though able to send out a succession of committed young women to Bengal, faced scandal and near collapse on the field by 1899. Both had been formed prematurely; both were barely sustainable in the colony. New Zealand was not Britain. In the new environment, few of the old rules applied. In this skinny, mountainous country where communication was difficult, the dynamic of Baptist life was centrifugal, local. The needs of the two central organizations drew increasing energy and some resentment from the churches. Baptists' sense of themselves and their relationships with others would have to adapt. Mere transplantation of denominational forms was not going to be enough.

Concessions to this reality had already been made. The exigencies of the colonial environment forced a degree of pragmatic innovation. The traditional "gathered" church model did not suit the sparsely populated countryside. In response, an early form of church planting was attempted. Many local congregations were formed at the initiative of a few key large churches. Particularly active were the principal Auckland and Dunedin churches, Wellesley Street (later the Auckland Tabernacle), and Hanover Street. Each identified areas of likely settlement or population growth and secured sites, often more than a decade in advance of use. The new causes often remained closely dependent on the sponsoring congregation. (7) Sometimes the extension was managed regionally. A small but vigorous association was set up in Canterbury in 1873 specifically to employ an evangelist.

By 1900, the British influence was slipping. With the death of the father and the departure of the son, the Spurgeonic element waned. The shortcomings of the national organizations-first the missionary society, then the union--became obvious and increasingly pressing.

Most fundamentally, the sense of being Nonconformist was found to have little currency where no established church existed. Baptist colonists had arrived with a strong sectarian memory. This had its advantages. It was relatively easy to maintain some sense of identity while they were able to define themselves over and against someone else. But what did it mean to be such a contrast community in New Zealand? If Baptists were dissenters, from whom were they dissenting? The Church of England would not, could not play that old game, as the New Zealand state was self-consciously secular. Sectarian issues were, as a result, often distinguished from political questions. The range of causes that provoked Baptist response was correspondingly narrower than in Britain. There would, for instance, be no New Zealand parallel to the English Baptist activism over the Education Acts.

This had a profound impact on at least one prominent minister. J. K. Archer arrived in New Zealand in 1908 having spent half of his career in Britain, where he was influenced by the great John Clifford. He found a Baptist community little interested in the public issues which fired him. They were activists, but only on issues in which some sectarian sense might be maintained. Public protests were limited to questions of sexual morality, gambling, and prohibition. By 1918, Archer, dissatisfied with this narrow focus, had turned to secular politics as the only outlet for his radicalism. He stood for Parliament, became mayor of Christchurch for six years and was eventually appointed a member of the Legislative Council, New Zealand's upper house. He remained an active minister, but he found in denominational circles little platform for engagement with wider social issues. (8)

Developing a New Identity

A sectarian identity survived for a time, but it had to find a new focus. The second generation of Baptist ministers, especially those who, unlike Archer, were shaped and trained in the colonies, marked themselves out as different, not so much from Anglicans or Presbyterians but from Catholics. Indeed anti-Catholicism for a time threatened to define the New Zealand Baptist turangawaewae. Its manifestations could be extreme. During the First World War a Baptist minister--Harold Elliot, narrowly defeated for the presidency of the union in 1917-formed the radical Protestant Political Association with the express purpose of excluding Catholics from power. Elliot became so notorious for slanderous insinuations about pregnant nuns and Catholic conspiracies that the union had to issue a statement distancing itself from his activities. (9)

Elliott's case had been referred to the union executive by the church pastored by Alfred North's oldest son. John James (J. J.) North was an outstanding figure in New Zealand Baptist history. A hugely popular minister, he was long-term editor of the denominational newspaper and the key intellectual figure in Baptist life in the twentieth century. In 1924, he was appointed first principal of the new denominational theological college, combining wide learning with charismatic personality to shape a generation of ministers. Practitioner as well as intellectual, organizer as well as academic, it was J. J. North who challenged his father's domination of the missionary society at its turn-of-the-century crisis, and with others reconstructed it on much firmer footing.

Erudite, open to critical scholarship, appalled by Elliott's excesses, J. J. North was nonetheless himself relentlessly anti-Catholic. Through the pages of the New Zealand Baptist and in other publications, he maintained a steadfast opposition to Romanism. In 1919, he preached a twelve-week series on its evils. The apparent contradictions in this are lessened when it is recognized that North's fundamental objection to Catholicism was what he saw as its authoritarian control of its adherents' beliefs. "We are a free people and the perpetual menace to freedom is the church which claims lordship over thoughts and research and politics and life." (10) In private conversation, he would be just as scathing of the repressive structures of Plymouth Brethren. (11) To be Baptist, in North's eyes, was to stand firmly against any coercion of the mind. Baptists were for him a community of contrast, not by virtue of Nonconformity, but as radical Protestants. Nevertheless, he favored strong leadership and, in the decades of his ascendancy (1900-40), New Zealand Baptists began a marked shift to order and structure, away from a sectarian image.

J. J. North was not the only significant leader at this time. Since the departure of Thomas Spurgeon, doctrinal conservatives had temporarily been eclipsed. However, a prominent champion arrived in 1917. Joseph Kemp came (symbolically to Thomas Spurgeon's Church, the Auckland Tabernacle) from a notable ministry at Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh and a less successful period in New York. Greatly influenced by American Fundamentalism, Kemp was, like J. J. North, a charismatic, at times, domineering personality. Moral propriety was an essential of his creed--dancing and cinema-going were anathema. His greatest battle however was against Modernism. On the face of it, this might have put Kemp in direct conflict with North. Yet, when North came to Auckland in 1926 to head up the new denominational college, he joined Kemp's church and subsequently served for several years on his deacons' court. In the small world of New Zealand Baptist life, the importance of personalities is immense. Strong characters like North and Kemp might have split the denomination. That they didn't conflict is testimony to their tact and skill. It is salutary to reflect that their respective successors--Luke Jenkins as principal of the college, Alexander Hodge at the Tabernacle--were each at the center of controversies that did threaten the union. (12)

For the first forty years of the twentieth century, J. J. North's mana, or authority, was paramount in the denomination as a whole. Kemp's influence in Baptist affairs was greatest in Auckland, but he was also the key figure in transdenominational conservative Christianity. In 1922, he set up the Bible Training Institute, an interdenominational college that for decades provided a virtual rite of passage for young Fundamentalists, especially those interested in an overseas mission. This aproach's impact on the question of Baptist identity has been immense. Evangelism and biblical purity were the central themes of Kemp's preaching, and the Bible Training Institute's teaching. Traditional denominational distinctives were played down. It was thus possible for his followers to understand themselves as conservative evangelicals first and Baptists second.

Kemp's stream had little obvious institutional impact on denominational affairs. It was a subterranean movement that would surface periodically as issues demanded. North's approach--freedom of conscience in a strongly ordered structure--would hold sway to the 1970s. These different impacts are entirely explicable. Kemp's was a lay training institute; North trained the next generation of ministers. "North's men" were the leaders of organized Baptist life for the next fifty years, but Kemp left a massive legacy among conservative lay people.

The building of central structures became increasingly important from the 1920s onwards. A subtle change was taking place. J. J. North's vigorous championing of freedom of conscience was overtaken by a drive for order and respectability. As a third generation emerged, the sense of being a contrast community was relegated. A centripetal or center-seeking dynamic was taking over. Baptists would make a pitch for the mainstream, to join the Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists with a natural claim to a seat at the Protestant table. For such a tiny group, it was in many ways an absurd ambition, but it was attempted with energy and some success. Conservatives were occupied elsewhere; the sterner sectarian advocates for freedom were growing old. The way ahead seemed clear. In mid-century New Zealand Baptists must play, and look, their part in wider church life.

The signal for this new era of increased focus on organization and structure was the Baptist Union Incorporation Act of 1923. Primarily a means of safeguarding ownership of property, the Incorporation Act was the most public outcome of a drive to centralization that began in the '20s. The second full-time general secretary of the union, W. P. Lascelles, was a principal mover here. In the next decades, a raft of committees were set up to more efficiently manage the work of the denomination. There were committees on literature and committees to govern the Jubilee Fund, the college, and church extension. There was the broadcasting committee, the fire insurance committee, the home committee, the architectural committee, and so on. In 1915, the annum assembly had appointed six committees; in 1945, it appointed twenty-three. (13)

The effects of the new approach may be seen in the outcome of a minor controversy. In the 1920s, the executive power of the denomination was very firmly in men's hands. However, an active network of women's organizations existed, which at times proved a thorn in the flesh to the central authorities. The Baptist Women's Missionary Union (B.W.M.U.) is a case in point. Originally set up to provide prayer and practical support to overseas missionaries, in the 1920s the B.W.M.U. turned its attention to prospects for home evangelization. Through this decade it lobbied for the appointment of an itinerant woman missioner who could travel around the "back-blocks" areas of New Zealand spreading the gospel and providing contact for isolated women. No action was taken, even though various women's groups were undertaking to fund the work.

The women did not give up, and in 1929 brought up a more specific scheme. They suggested that two women might be commissioned to set up a mission among Maori along the then relatively remote Wanganui River. In 1930, a commission (of men) from the central executive somewhat grudgingly investigated, then rejected this proposal. Their reasons for not proceeding were indicative of the thinking at this time. First, the proposal needed money at a time of deepening depression. Such resources as were available needed to be preserved for existing structures, particularly as the union was in the process of setting up a superannuation fund. Second, there was already an Anglican mission among Maori in the area, and it was felt to be impolitic to appear to be competing. Any Maori work should only proceed by cooperation with (and preferably under the auspices of) another denomination. (14)

The fate of the Wanganui River proposal thus highlights a shift in priorities in the denominational leadership. For the B.W.M.U. women, the imperative to evangelism was obvious and paramount. For the men of the executive, order and church diplomacy suggested a more cautious approach. Not until the more affluent 1950s, with the introduction of deaconesses, would Baptist women gain formal recognition for home mission purposes and a Baptist Maori mission begin. (15)

As this incident suggests, the move to the mainstream had significant ramifications for relationships with other denominations. This would become a major theme in the '40s and '50s. In this context, we meet a third member of the North clan. L. A. North was a grandson of Alfred and nephew of J. J. He was a prodigy by New Zealand Baptist standards. Virtually without apprenticeship, he commenced his ministry in one of the four flag-ship, central-city churches. Also unusual for Baptists, L. A. North was one of the leaders of the ecumenical movement in New Zealand. In 1937, he was on the steering committee for the newly-formed National Council of Churches. When he moved to the capital the next year, Wellington continued this involvement and in addition gained access to many leading politicians and public servants. He was an accomplished singer, and during the war his rhetorical abilities were employed by the Government Broadcasting Service for radio news reports. North embodied the mid-century Baptist move to mainstream acceptance.

In 1955, L.A. North was appointed general secretary of the denomination. (16) Until his retirement in 1968, he held together a sometimes disparate group of churches and saw the denomination through a period of considerable growth and increasing change. His precise administrative skills established a modern pattern of leadership. On his retirement, his approach was encapsulated in the booklet Baptist Church Life and Administration (17) which became the standard manual for Baptist churches. Throughout his secretaryship, North was a figure of stature in the international community of Baptists, and his ongoing commitment to ecumenism saw him serving the National Council of Churches in a range of capacities, notably as president 1959-60. (18)

Order, efficiency, mainstreaming--L. A. North sought a profile for Baptists which kept them from being dismissed as fringe sectarians. In this, he only partially succeeded. Although he had influential allies in denominational leadership, a deep stream of Baptist life remained. Often this opposition was shaped at Kemp's Bible Training Institute and influenced by more conservative ministers, for whom biblical purity was paramount and who put a greater premium on heart religion than on mainstream acceptability. Though largely outside denominational structures, such Baptists had not been silent. A sustained campaign against ecumenical entanglement was waged; and in 1953, the conservatives effectively secured the resignation of Luke Jenkins as principal of the theological college.

The centripetal approach in this middle period of the century was a genuine, if unstated, attempt to construct a new Baptist identity in New Zealand. Baptists continued to champion evangelical enthusiasm and freedom of conscience, but it was hoped to achieve this in a way that did not alienate other denominations. Baptists, too, could be regarded as pillars of the Christian establishment. This aspiration was not unique--indeed, it mirrored aspects of the British story--but it was intentional, and it was remarkably successful.

The 1950s were a period of considerable growth. Membership increased by over 45 percent. Members as proportion of the population were also growing even though total adherents were stable. Though by no means conclusive, this closing of the gap between membership and adherence is interesting. We must be careful not to read too much into this. Nevertheless, the relative willingness of nominal Baptists to be committed to baptism and membership might be cited as an indicator of denominational loyalty and a crude guide to the strength of Baptist identity. If so, then the mainstreaming period did not apparently weaken the Baptists' sense of themselves. With leaders like L. A. North and others prominent in wider affairs, a sense of confidence seems to have accrued to denominational life. Was there a Baptist place to stand in the public square? Possibly, but this potential turangawaewae was soon to be abandoned.

Reaction and Restructuring

In his report of 1960, L. A. North was able to celebrate growth and the religious enthusiasm that lay behind it:

   The work has continued to develop.... This is inline with the forward
   movement that has been witnessed in recent years.... The spirit of
   evangelism has been fanned into flame again in many of the Churches, as has
   the desire for increased Bible knowledge through the All-age Sunday School
   movement.

Just as crucial, however, was stability:

   We are a united people and for this we give thanks.... From time to time we
   are conscious of external influences and pressures which, if heeded, would
   lead to suspicions and divisions. Such things are, unhappily, to be seen
   among our people in certain other lands. The spirit of our Denomination in
   New Zealand is against such things. We do not all think precisely alike,
   nor do we all express ourselves in exactly the same terms; but we serve the
   one Lord and we treasure the spirit of mutual respect and love among us.
   (19)

North was almost certainly referring here to aggressive Fundamentalism observed overseas and occasionally, as in the early 1950s over Luke Jenkins, entering the New Zealand debate. The peace, however, was to be challenged by another, unexpected, "external influence."

As L. A. North approached retirement a growing unease was evident. In 1964, North acknowledged "disturbing questions concerning the life of our Denomination, our objectives and the results being achieved." (20) At this time, the charismatic movement began its course. In New Zealand, unlike the situation in some other countries, the greatest effect of what was first termed "neo-pentecostalism" has been within existing denominational structures. Independent churches were formed and small pentecostal denominations emerged, but otherwise `mainstream' bodies have been greatly influenced by renewal. This is certainly the case among Baptists. However, through the sixties the fledgling charismatic movement was viewed with great suspicion by the leadership which regarded it as divisive. In another part of his 1964 report, North warned of

   cases in which a minority has refused to accept the leading given through
   the judgement and vote of the majority and has proceeded to disturb the
   life of the Church to the frustration of the work of the Holy Spirit. The
   claim that the majority must submit to the minority is a denial of true
   democracy and of our doctrine of the Church. (21)

This negative response to charismatic stirrings was hardly unusual from senior figures across the denominations. However, North highlighted a key issue in Baptist life, the locus of authority. For him, religious authority must rest with the informed individual conscience exercised within agreed structures. The "work of the Holy Spirit" was to be found primarily in the ordered democracy of the church meeting. The notion that the Spirit spoke exclusively to some was anathema.

For two decades, attempts were made to check the spread of charismatic styles and practices. In 1969, a report on the movement concluded that it could be tolerated within current structures but that leaders

   have a responsibility to graciously but firmly request any member,
   adherent, or group, who holds convictions differing from the main stream of
   doctrine and practice among Baptists to refrain from any form of
   propagation or influence of others. (22)

Any who sought to "propagate or influence" should leave the denomination. The movement was a challenge to order and, in the eyes of the leadership, threatened to relegate Baptists once more to the fringe.

Yet, the charismatic movement continued to make ground among New Zealand Baptists. The passion and emotional commitment of the charismatic movement fitted naturally with the sectarian enthusiasm of earlier groups. Indeed, among Baptists the renewal movement combined with the Spurgeon/Kemp stream of biblical conservatism to create a powerful new force which by the '80s had come to dominate Baptist life. There were inevitable consequences for denominational organization. By North's retirement, the dynamic of Baptist life was already swinging back to a centrifugal model. Society was changing rapidly, and Baptists, like many others, were beginning to feel threatened. In 1969, a committee was set up to address a sense of "statistical disappointment and financial crisis." In 1970, North's successor conceded the top-heavy nature of the administration and signalled a new mood:

   At the present time the organization is too large for the actual amount of
   productive work done for the local congregations. The original statement of
   the Research Committee that was reaffirmed at all levels was "It is the
   Committee's belief that the strength and growth of the Denomination is a
   spiritual matter related to the individual lives of our people and it will
   be the quality of their lives which in the ultimate will determine our
   effectiveness as a Denomination." (23)

The result was the first in a series of "restructurings" which would gather pace in the 1980s. In that decade, the whole of New Zealand society was caught up in the reforming zeal of the fourth Labour government. Small government, individual enterprise--these lay at the heart of administrative and economic reform. Baptists, too, proceeded to dismantle their central structures. In 1990, reviewing his period as general superintendent, Gerard Marks identified decentralization as a recurring theme. (24) Increasingly, it was argued that the focus should be shifted from the denomination to the local churches.

The more naturally sectarian charismatic influence grew. The sense of "contrast" returned. The contrast was vague, however, and the result was a retreat from engagement. The Public Questions Committee was done away with. When a new ecumenical body was formed in 1985, Baptists chose not to take part. In 1992, Marks's successor, Ian Brown, warned that "our sense of identity and our reason for existence as Baptist congregations--communities of faith--is in danger of disappearing." Nevertheless identity was to be found in being a "movement" rather than a "denomination." (25) The 1993 assembly was galvanized by the notion that "the age of the institutional church is over, and the day of the relational community has begun" (26)

Baptists were not alone. A general apathy with regard to denominational structures in New Zealand has led to numerous realignments and the demise of hitherto key bodies. Nevertheless, the effect on Baptists has been particularly profound. The charismatic emphasis has in places led to stunning evangelistic successes. Some very large churches by New Zealand standards have emerged-almost all associated at some point with the renewal movement. The proportion of members relative to adherents continued to grow.

However, a concomitant of charismatic stress on experience has been a suspicion of theology and a playing down of traditional Baptist distinctives. The impact on the denomination's sense of identity has been immense. Denominational mobility in New Zealand is high, and many within Baptist congregations are there for the style of the service and the generally evangelical approach rather than because of the historical principles espoused.

By the final years of the century, the effect of these changes was beginning to be measured. The 1996 census showed a startling 23.6 percent drop in those identifying themselves as Baptists. This was a return to normality from the aberrant figures of 1986 and 1991. The increase in those years and the drop in 1996 are almost entirely attributable to changes in the wording of the religious affiliation question. Before 1986, individuals were asked to nominate their affiliation by writing it in a blank box. In 1986 and 1991, a series of options were given, including Baptist, and the respondents had only to tick their preferred category. The Baptist figures immediately went up by 30 percent. In 1996, the religious affiliation question reverted to the earlier form, and the Baptist response declined correspondingly to earlier levels. (27) Yet, even if this is accepted as the full explanation for the fluctuations, a significant problem remains. When forced to nominate an affiliation, many Baptist adherents chose a nonspecific label. (28)

The weakness of a Baptist sense of identity was confirmed in an extensive interdenominational Church Life Survey conducted in over 1,200 New Zealand congregations in 1997. In response to a question on the importance of their denomination as a framework for faith, a mere 13 percent of Baptists rated it as a "Primary Framework." This was the lowest of all denominations participating and compared with 17 percent for Cooperating Parishes (generally Methodist/Presbyterian), 21 percent for the Pentecostal Elim churches, and an average of 27 percent overall. (29) By 1999, New Zealand Baptists were headed for their first-ever decadal decline in actual membership and a significant fall in membership as a proportion of the population.

What, then, of a turangawaewae? The 1997 Church Life Survey revealed that Baptists are committed to biblical truth and evangelism and most are open to the exercise of charismatic gifts. They maintain the ideal of adult baptism, although about half of the churches have open membership. They have not totally abandoned congregational government, although hierarchical models of leadership and governance are increasingly popular. They retain a healthy Baptist suspicion of outside authority, although periodically suggestions are made that the union should be able to close down causes deemed to be struggling. Few congregations are willing to defend, much less incorporate, a thoroughgoing freedom of conscience.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Baptists in New Zealand are evidently a shrinking group. In contrast to the Anglo-centric sectarianism of the nineteenth century, the vigorous anti-Catholicism of the early twentieth century and the confident mainstreaming of mid-century, they appear hesitant, unsure of their identity. Features of this story are unique to New Zealand, but the challenges Baptists face may just as much reflect a global denominational angst. Do Baptists anywhere reflect their history? Kiwi Baptists are not now like their Victorian English forebears, but who is? It is possible that historical Baptist distinctives, forged amid old-world repression, are of limited value in the new.

A turangawaewae may yet emerge. Perhaps the greatest barrier to that happening may lie in the reluctance of New Zealand Baptists truly to examine their own context. There is a sad irony in the title of this paper. Baptists have proven the least able of the traditional denominations to learn from Maori ways and thought forms. The forging of strong identity requires openness as well as commitment. It remains to be seen whether an authentic New Zealand response can be constructed as Spirit-led enthusiasm interacts with the tikanga or culture of two peoples and the world.

Table 1: New Zealand Baptist Adherents

Official Census Returns (figures rounded)

Year    Proportion of General Population

1881                 2.3 %
1886                 2.5 %
1896                 2.3 %
1906                 2.0 %
1921                 1.6 %
1936                 1.7 %
1945                 1.7 %
1956                 1.6 %
1966                 1.7 %
1976                 1.6 %
1986                 2.1 %
1996                 1.6 %

Table 2: New Zealand Baptist Membership

Baptist Union returns (figures rounded)

Year      Total        Percent    Members as Proportion
        membership    Increase    of General Population

1900       3,594         --              0.45%
1910       5,165       30.41             0.49%
1920       5,800       12.29             0.46%
1930       7,670       32.24             0.50%
1940       9,305       21.31             0.57%
1950      10,165        9.24             0.53%
1960      14,789       45.49             0.62%
1970      17,287       16.89             0.61%
1980      19,365       12.02             0.61%
1990      23,621       21.97             0.70%
1999      22,456       -4.93             0.59%

(1.) P. J. Hughes, The Baptists in Australia (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1996), 38-40.

(2.) Interestingly, an Anglican Church Missionary Society worker, W. R. Wade, who soon left the mission to take up a Baptist pastorate in Tasmania. See R. Glen, ed., Mission and Moko: The Church Missionary Society in New Zealand 1814-1882 (Christchurch: Latimer Fellowship, 1992), 209.

(3.) The title of a public lecture delivered by Thomas Spurgeon during a visit to Britain in 1884. For the thesis that from the 1880s there commenced a revisioning of the idea of New Zealand which amounted to "recolonisation," see James Belich, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century (Auckland: Penguin, 1996), 446-50.

(4.) See M.E Sutherland, "`Down-grade with a vengeance': New Light on a Tabernacle Controversy" New Zealand. Journal of Baptist Research 2 (October 1997): 79-96.

(5.) M. E Sutherland, "Downgrade Down Under: Conflict and Cohesion among New Zealand Baptists," Baptist Quarterly 37, no. 7 (July 1998): 351-63.

(6.) New Zealand Baptist, November. 1885.

(7.) For a study of one sponsored congregation, see M. P. Sutherland, "Cohesion and Conflict in 1880s Cambridge," New Zealand. Journal of Baptist Research 4 (October 1999): 3-21.

(8.) M. E Sutherland, "Pulpit or Podium? J. K. Archer and the Dilemma of Christian Politics in New Zealand," New Zealand Journal of Baptist Research 1 (October 1996): 26-46.

(9.) See the entry for H. L. Elliot in the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography, vol. 3 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1996); also G. T Beilby, A Handful of Grain: The, Centenary History of the Baptist Union of New Zealand, 1914-1945 (Wellington: New Zealand Baptist Historical Society, 1984), 3:96-98.

(10.) Cited by E. W. Batts and A. H. MacLeod, J. J. North: The Story of a Great New Zealander (Wellington: New Zealand Baptist Historical Society, 1965), 49. See also North, Protestant ... and Why (Wellington: Baptist Union of New Zealand, n.d.).

(11.) Statement by Royston Brown to Martin Sutherland January 1988, on J. J. North as teacher.

(12.) Hodge had a turbulent ministry that led to his censure by the union executive and the Auckland Tabernacle subsequently withdrawing from the union for a time in the 1940s. Jenkins survived only two terms as principal of the theological college before opposition from those suspicious of his theology forced his resignation in 1953.

(13.) Beilby, 30-32

(14.) See the New Zealand Baptist Handbook, 1930-1931 (Wellington: Baptist Union of New Zealand, 1930), 44, and the correspondence relating to the Wanganui proposal in the New Zealand Baptist Historical Society Archives.

(15.) A brief attempt had been made to establish a mission among Maori in the 1880s. On the formation of the twentieth-century work, see C. D. Jones, "The Long, Painful Birth of Baptist Maori Ministry," New Zealand Journal of Baptist Research 1 (October 1996): 47-65.

(16.) This was the second time he had been appointed to this role. The move to Wellington in 1938 had been to take up the secretaryship at the young age of thirty-four. North lasted less than a year, after which he accepted appointment to Boulcott Street, the central church in Wellington.

(17.) L. A. North, Baptist Church Life and Administration (Wellington: New Zealand Baptist Union and Missionary Society, 1968).

(18.) See entry for L. A. North in The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, vol. 5 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2000).

(19.) Year Book, Baptist Union, 1960-61, 19.

(20.) Year Book, Baptist Union, 1964-65, 17.

(21.) Year Book, Baptist Union, 1964-65, 28.

(22.) Year Book, Baptist Union, 1969-1970, 170-179, 178-79.

(23.) Year Book, Baptist Union, 1970-1971, 14.

(24.) Year Book, Baptist Union, 1990-1991, 33.

(25.) New Zealand Baptist, December 1992, 3.

(26.) Murray Robertson, reported in New Zealand Baptist, December 1993, 20.

(27.) The same pattern has been identified in the 1991 Australian census (Hughes, 39-40).

(28.) In 1991, the Baptist figure was 70,155 (2.1 percent of responses); in 1996, it had fallen to 53,613 (1.6 percent). Smaller declines were recorded for Anglicans (-13.7 percent), Catholics (-5.1 percent), Presbyterians (-15.3 percent) and Methodists (-12.8 percent). Source: New Zealand Official Yearbook (Wellington: GP Print, 1998), 121.

(29.) Interestingly, the other area in which Baptist results stood out was in the "most helpful style of music." "Contemporary Songs" were rated highest by 62 percent of Baptists, compared to 30 percent overall, leaving open the interpretation that the only distinctive of New Zealand Baptists now lay in what they sang.

Martin Sutherland is dean and lecturer in systematic theology, Carey Baptist College, Aukland, New Zealand.