Over the last year or so this Blog has become more overtly religious and less political. It’s also become less about the other things that happen in my life — in part because I do not want civilians harmed (one has respect privacy. Including within one’s family) and in part because focusing on the lectionary drives you to write about the matters of the spirit. This annoys Rodney Hide who wonders why religious people talk about this all the time. And as he notes, the public ceremonies now even occur in a special language.

And so what to make of the karakia row taking place at Kelston Intermediate, revealed in the Herald on Sunday? We would rightly object to a Catholic priest or an Anglican bishop or an Islamic mullah taking such a daily prayer. That’s because we have long concluded that state schools are best to teach our children to read and to write and to think critically. The religious instruction is better left to parents, church groups, temples and mosques and to those who choose a religious school for their children.

But somehow the karakia has popped up in our schools. Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples defends the karakia as a vital part of the Maori lifestyle and as making Kelston culturally safe, whatever that means.

But it’s not the traditional Maori prayer of pre-Christian times: it’s a Christian prayer in Maori. The early missionaries must be looking down from heaven and having a good chuckle. I stand there at Playcentre pretending to mumble the words. I try to be polite but I think it’s double bollocks: once for being hocus-pocus and twice for being in Maori that no one in the centre understands or appears to care about.

Over the years I’ve picked up enough Maori to know that half the time the preyer’s (Karakia) are to Tane Mahuta, not the LORD Almighty. My objection to all this is it elevates pagan idolatry to be part of civil and public religion in this place. Technically, New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy — or a monarchical republic. We do not have an established religion and clerics with political power, as the constitutional theocracy called England has.

I’m reformed. I do not consider any person is more holy than any other. We are all fallen. We can all turn to seek God’s mercy and we all need to do this daily. But the move to pagan worship is another sigh that we are falling, and that the time of the end is getting closer. For as the church becomes less influential, worse ideologies will take over.

Luke 21:29-36

²⁹Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; ³⁰as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. ³¹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³²Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. ³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³⁴“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, ³⁵like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

I find the warnings against drunkenness and dissipation astute. We will not fall because of what we believe, but because of our habits. And whenever I write this, I feel my words speak against me: the idea that I’m in some manner without sins or difficulties is laughable. But we have to chose what we do carefully.

Because Paganism is at the door. And the Pagans will enforce their idols, demand their public religion, the religion of the tribe, be it the resurrection of the animistic Maori system or the slightly less bloody tribal worship of that Arabian Idol in Mecca. We accede by being polite — and trust me, the use of Maori elders and prayers is now throughout the education system and the health system: we pay people to be elders because of their tribal links.

And this is wrong. Constitutionally, we are all equally subjects of the crown. Morally, we are all agents: we all have the ability to chose and know good from evil (and we protect those who cannot, because of youth, old age, or imbecility). And as we are all moral agents, we are responsible for the evil we have done, and we all need the Gospel.

And that, Rodney, is why we preach. For it is necessary that the power of the gospel is proclaimed, even by those who are fallen and imperfect. Moreover, that is why we need to smash the idols of this public religion, for they proclaim comfort, and give… none, but instead lead to perdition.