[00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome along to another episode of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again, and this week you're getting a little bit of a treat. An extra free to air episode today on Saturday. And the reason I'm doing this is because earlier this week I published a patrons only episode of the Dispatches podcast in response to the 440 or so christian leaders who have signed an opened letter and they were demanding that the New Zealand government shut down immediately the treaty principles bill. And so on Tuesday, I published a patrons only episode in response to that, and people, including patrons, have asked me if I could make that available free to air. So that's what I'm doing today. So you are able to listen to that podcast and share it, if you like, with your friends and family as well. If you enjoy this content and you'd like to hear more of it, then please go to patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show notes and become a five dollar monthly patron. If you do, you get exclusive access to a daily episode of commentary on the Dispatches podcast every single day of the week, Monday through Friday. A huge thank you to all of our patrons. It's thanks to you that were able to make episodes like this one available. Thanks for tuning in, folks, and I hope you enjoy this special free to air episode.
[00:01:18] Hi, my name is Brendan Malone and you're listening to the dispatches, the podcast that strives to cut through all the noise in order to challenge the popular narratives of the day with some good old fashioned contrarian thinking. You might not always agree, but at least you'll be taking a deeper look at the world around you.
[00:01:36] Hi everybody. Welcome along to the Tuesday edition of the Patrons only episode of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again in today's topic of conversation, the dangers of christian ministers politicising their pastoral vocation. Yesterday morning, the media lit up with stories about a brand new open letter that had just been published by a group called Common Grace Aotearoa. And this letter, in opposition to David Seymour's treaty principles bill, has been signed by over 400 christian leaders. Now, some people have highlighted that not everyone there is a bishop or a priest or a minister. And so, you know, they've claimed that maybe they're using the word christian leaders a little bit loosely. And also, some of the people are actually now in retirement, and I think that's not an unfair critique. However, I think you could argue that they have leadership roles, various leadership roles, all of them in some way or another. And this letter sparked a lot of media attention and also a lot of backlash from some quarters. And I want to talk about that letter today, and I want to talk about three aspects of this. Number one, I want to explore some of the specific claims that are made in the letter. Number two, I want to talk about the question of strategic prudence in taking the approach that has been taken here. And number three, most importantly of all, I want to talk about the pastoral harms that I see as very real potential outcomes in what has happened here. And that's the thing that I am most concerned by. But before I do any of that, three important caveats. Number one, some really good people, and I know some of these people personally, actually, some really good people have signed this letter. And I'm just not interested in any uncharitable character assassinations or slander. I'm not interested in wild eyed, screaming accusations of they're just a bunch of woke liberals, because I know some of the people who have signed this letter. They are good people and they have a heart for people and they definitely are people who are practising their faith. So I'm not really interested in that. And this actually isn't, for me, about the people who have signed the letter. It's actually about the substance and the impact of the claims that they have put their names to. That's what I want to talk about. Second caveat is last night I appeared on Family First's straight talk panel show, and I wrongly asserted that no catholic bishops had signed this letter because I had been provided with screenshots of all the signatories. And it seems that some of the names were actually missing from those screenshots. And as I browsed my way through the signatories list, I didn't actually see the names of some catholic bishops who have actually signed this letter. And so I made a bit of a mistake, I did a bit of a misinformation last night. So apologies for anybody who has tuned in and heard me say that when in actual fact some catholic bishops have signed this. So Archbishop Paul Martin signed it. He's from Wellington. Bishop Stephen Lowe from Auckland signed it and Bishop Michael Dooley signed it. He's a lovely man, by the way. I know him personally. In fact, I know all three of those bishops personally. Bishop Michael Dooley is a particularly lovely man and a very, very committed man when it comes to life issues as well. Very, very gentle soul, actually. Now, there were also a couple of retired people who have signed this letter. So Cardinal John Dewde, who is retired, obviously, and Bishop Owen Dolan, who is also retired, has signed his name to this. Now, the other New Zealand bishops have not signed it, unless I've missed something here, because I've had a look at the complete list now, and those other names like Bishop Richard Lawrenson from the Hamilton diocese has not signed it. Bishop John Adams from the Palmerston north diocese has not signed it. And of course, Bishop Michael Geelan, who's my bishop down here in Christchurch, has nothing signed this letter. So it's not signed by all of them. It's just a collection. Three of the current bishops have signed the letter. There are six in New Zealand in total. For those who aren't aware of that fact number three, I think it's actually good for christian leaders to engage actively and very loudly in the public square on essential issues of goodness, truth and human flourishing. So I'm not opposed at all in principle to what's happened here. I've heard some people saying they've got no right to be in the public square, separation of church and all that kind of stuff. Now, in actual fact, I think they not only have every right to be in the public square, I think our christian leaders have an obligation and they really should be doing it more often. So that's not at all an issue for me. Again, the issue is with the substance of what's gone on here, the reality of what the actual letter contains and the implications of that. Number four, and this is really important, what I'm about to say here today in this podcast is most definitely not, and I say most definitely not with big, bold capitals all underlined. This is most definitely not an endorsement of David Seymour or of his treaty principles bill. The simple fact is we don't actually know what's in the treaty principles Bill, at this stage because it has not been published yet. So we don't know what the content will be or what it will actually propose to enact in law in our country. So I'm not here endorsing the bill. This is about the letter itself that was published yesterday, and the content and implications of that in particular. So with all of that out of the way, let's jump into the three things I want to cover today in this episode. Number one, some of the specific claims that have been made in this open letter that was published yesterday. And I just want to highlight a couple of statements that have been made in this letter that really stuck out to me and which I think are worthy of discussion. The first one is we express our opposition to the proposed treaty principles Bill. The proposed bill is inconsistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi, in that it does not recognise the collective rights of iwi Mori or guarantee their relationship with the Crown. It would undermine what Te Tiriti guarantees and what decades of law, jurisprudence and policy have sought to recognise. And when I read that statement, my first and I think very obvious question is, how do you know this and how will it actually do this? Because the simple truth is, as I mentioned earlier, the bill has not been published yet. And I really struggle to understand why these kind of statements would be made of by christian leaders, because these are pretty serious claims. And here's the thing. I have not once heard anyone, least of all David Seymour, who is the actual architect of this bill, let alone supporters and promoters of this bill, claiming that this is what they want to do. In actual fact, what they have been saying is they plan to put forward a bill that will ratify and clarify exactly what the concrete, objective, tangible realities, limitations, frameworks, et cetera, are of the treaty. Like, where does the treaty start and where does it end? Because at the moment, what seems to be happening, and a lot of people throughout our nation have expressed concern about this, is that we often hear about the principles or the spirit of the treaty. And it seems that consistently, those types of claims are moving away from the actual letter of the law, what's actually in the treaty. And it seems like at times, it often becomes a nebulous sort of document that is utilised by various groups, depending on what their ideological preferences are. But a lot of what they say isn't necessarily supported by the actual tangible words in the original Treaty of Waitangi. And so that seems to be, if I'm understanding them correctly, what they are responding to and what they want to clarify and ratify into the law. There is no intent that I've seen anywhere to actually remove or fail to recognise the collective rights of iwi mori or to undermine or destroy their relationship with the Crown. I don't know how you could. If you've got a bill that actually wants to ratify the treaty so that it's gonna be keeping the treaty in its original form, I don't see how you would be destroying their relationship with the crown, because that's what the treaty is all about. That's exactly what the treaty is about. And I don't know how you could undermine what Te Tiriti actually guarantees as they're claiming here because they are saying we would be following the black ink letter of the law. So, yeah, it's not what they're claiming here, as far as I can tell. And more importantly, I don't know how you can actually make these claims when you can't verify. We don't have a bill, so there's no way of showing how this bill will actually do this when it hasn't even been published yet. They also go on to say the following. The treaty principles Bill may destabilise and harm Aotearoa New Zealand. We note with deep concern the harmful impacts the bill may cause to Aotearoa New Zealand's social cohesion. T Tiriti o Waitangi provides a basis for finding common ground, recognising and reconciling past wrongs and acts as a moral and equitable compass for our democracy. By contrast, we believe the treaty principles Bill will lead to division between the peoples of Aotearoa, New Zealand, cause the spread of disinformation and hinder efforts at healing and reconciliation. Again, these are some very serious claims that are being made here. This is not light stuff. So right at the very top, the treaty principles Bill may destabilize a tearoa New Zealand. To destabilize a nation is a very, very serious and harmful outcome. Like when you talk about a destabilized country or a destabilized people, that is very serious. And I can't help but wonder if they have simply gone for hyperbole here. They've utilized emotive terminology without stopping to consider whether this is actually the best use of words and descriptive terms and whether or not it really does accurately reflect what this bill will or will not result in. I think that words matter and we should be careful with words, particularly in the context of a public statement from religious leaders, you definitely need to be careful. And what they've said here is very, very threatening and concerning. Like, if this was true, this would be very, very serious stuff. What they are proposing, this bill will do. But what's interesting is they've also couched this by saying things like, this bill may destabilize and harm. This bill may cause aot Roe New Zealand, like, harm to our social cohesion. And so part of me goes, well, then why are you making this bold, declarative statement? But in actual fact, the statement's not guaranteeing at all. Like, there's no guarantee that any of these harmful outcomes will happen. They also claim that the treaty acts as a. And I'm quoting here, a moral and equitable compass for our democracy. Well, I would challenge that assertion because I don't think that's true at all. I do not believe, because this is not what the document is, that the Treaty of Waitangi acts as a moral compass for our democracy. Our moral philosophy does not come from any treaty or governance documents. Our moral compass must come from outside of any of those. It must come from objective natural law truth, which are then applied to those documents and the writing of and the interpretation and the outworking of those documents. But the documents themselves, and particularly the Treaty of Waitangi, you can go and read it for yourself online. It's a very short document. It does not mention anything about morality and the context of how morality should be played out in our democracy. So again, I think there's some wording in this that has not been carefully and properly and prudently considered in the construction of this particular letter. This document is saying things that in actual fact don't appear to be true. Now, unless they've got some of the meaning behind these words that I'm just not getting here, I don't think you can make some of these claims. Now, in return to say that, well, we believe the treaty principles bill will lead to division between the peoples of Aotearoa, New Zealand, cause the spread of disinformation and hinder efforts at healing and reconciliation. I've got to say that, to be honest with you, when it comes to things like division, first of all, it depends what the level of division is, because there is always division in any society. People are always divided in one way or another. We're not totally in agreement about everything all of the time. That's just not how the world works anywhere. Even in the most beautiful and humane of christian church groups, for example, there will be divisions. The question is, are those divisions majority? Are the divisions extreme and serious and grave or not? And so that's the first thing I think is worth highlighting in all this. And secondly, this may cause the spread of disinformation. Well, surely that risk, particularly in the current era, is true of anything. Doesn't matter what the bill is, doesn't matter what the issue at hand is. There is always the risk of disinformation, people getting the wrong end of the stick and then throwing ideas around on social media that aren't correct. That's a constant issue. Everyone's grappling with that all the time. So I'm a little unsure as to why they would sort of highlight some of these things in this way, I guess, is what I'm saying. They go on to say this. We affirm the church is ongoing. That's the christian church. Obviously, the church's ongoing, special and historic relationship with te Tiriti o Waitangi, which is fair to say, is this is actually correct, this first bit. The christian church does have a special and historic relationship with the Treaty of Waitangi. Now, some churches more directly than others. So, for example, the anglican communion is actually the official church that is the state religion of the english crown. And so they have a much more direct relationship in all of this than, say, for example, the Catholic Church, which was not a signatory to the treaty. However, catholic missionaries worked with Mori and were involved in this process in other ways, as were missionaries from other denominations. So it is true, there is a special and historic relationship that the christian church has in relation to the treaty. However, the next bit, the very next bit of this exact same sentence is where I think there is a serious problem. So let me read this again from the beginning. We affirm the church's ongoing, special and historic relationship with te Tiriti o Waitangi, which. And this is the problem, but many christians view as a sacred covenant. And that, I think, at absolute best, and I really mean this outside extreme, absolute best, I think that claim is, at absolute best, questionable. In actual fact, though, in reality, I think that claim is not true at all. There is just no basis for claiming that the Treaty of Waitangi should be considered as a sacred covenant within Christendom. That is just not what this document is. This document was a land and governance treaty between the Mori people, the tribes of New Zealand, and the english crown, the english monarchy. That's what this document is. Now, if you're going to call it sacred, and I think you're probably using that word in a particularly loose way, that isn't necessarily helpful here. But if you're gonna then elevate it even further and call it a sacred covenant, I think you're really stepping on thin ice. And that's at best, because I think, in actual fact, you are well off the ice now. You're actually underwater. I think at this point, there's something important within Christendom that we've always understood. There are different realms, if you like. I think this is probably the most simplistic way of explaining this. And there is a sacred realm, and then there is a profane realm. Now, profane doesn't mean blasphemous or evil or anything like that. That word often gets misused today by people who don't actually understand the proper meaning of it. It just means that things that are profane are things that are not sacred. So the things outside of the sacred realm, like farming, is not a sacred thing in the way that the christian scriptures are a sacred thing. It's like brushing your teeth is not a sacred thing in the way that christian sacred worship and liturgy is a sacred thing. And so some things belong in the realm of the profane, that is, outside of the sacred. And some things are rightly in the realm of the sacred in the christian version of reality. And the Treaty of Waitangi is definitely not something that is, in the christian version of reality, a christian sacred covenant. I don't think it's at all appropriate to be describing it in that way. And I'll tell you why. Because what it does is it wrongly implies that the treaty has a God ordained nature and a divine character that is binding on the conscience of all christian peoples. And if that was the case, it would not get much more serious than that. All of a sudden, this completely changes the nature of what the treaty of Waitangi actually is and what our obligations to it actually are. I don't think this is a justified position to adopt at all, even if some Christians might have wrongly adopted this view of the covenant. Now, I think it could be fair to say that for some Mori people, they see this as a sacred thing. But within Christendom, the Treaty of Waitangi is not a sacred covenant. And I think that it's very troubling that they're using that kind of language again. It creates a sense in which the treaty is being elevated right up there into the highest echelons of the christian hierarchy of the ordering of the world, what things are and where they should be, and the reverence that is due to them. And I think this is extremely troubling. Not just that, but even if you do hold that view, again, the treaty principles bill, as far as I understand it, is not seeking to abolish the Treaty of Waitangi. What it's looking to do is to have a clear and objective boundary around how it can be interpreted and applied so that it's not being misappropriated and applied beyond the actual legitimate boundaries of how a land and governance treaty should be applied to. The last statement that really stuck out to me was this one. We call on all members of parliament to do everything in their power to not take this bill to select committee. Now, as others have pointed out, what we have here is a little bit of an odd situation where a group of christian leaders have publicly had their say on the proposed bill, but the public, including members of their own congregations, are not allowed to have their say publicly on the proposed bill according to what they are asking for here. Because if it doesn't go to a select committee, so it doesn't actually pass the first reading and go on to a select committee process, then the public will never be able to have a public say on this proposed bill. But as I said, others have pointed out the irony in this because that's exactly what they have done in this particular letter. Not only do I think this is wildly overstepping the mark, this particular statement, because there is no moral justification for such an action due to the fact that there is no intrinsic evil involved at all in this debate. If there was an intrinsic evil at stake that was being proposed here, then of course we'd have an obligation to push back against that and ask that our politicians be people of goodwill and do not bring forward bills that involve intrinsic evils being enacted or carried out within our society, within our nation. But it's not just that factor. I think there's also the problem that this is a serious strategic mistake that they've made here. Which brings me to point number two. The prudence of the approach that has been taken, we don't know yet. As I've said already, the substance of the bill. We don't know what's actually going to be in the treaty principles bill. What if the final bill actually has merita or is not actually as extreme or doesn't contain any of the things that they are saying are real threats that will come from this particular bill. They've claimed that the bill will. Here's just three examples. Not recognise the collective rights of iwi Mori. It will not guarantee their relationship with the crown. It will undermine what the treaty guarantees. These are very serious things that they are claiming that this bill will do. But here's the thing. What if this bill doesn't do any of those things?
[00:23:31] They will at that point have jeopardized their own public credibility by doing this, even if they don't change their mind. So let's say the bill turns out to be really meritorious and some of these leaders say, well, in actual fact, I'm supporting this bill now because I think there's a lot of good stuff in this, even if that doesn't happen. So even if they don't change their mind, and the bill is just proven to contain none of the things that they have said at will, they will look either ignorant, so they were people who just fired off their guns without even identifying whether or not they were shooting at an enemy, they just started wildly firing in all directions, or even worse, they will look like they have been dishonest. This will not be a good thing either way for the christian church. Either outcome is not a good one for the christian church. Ministers need to be viewed with credibility in the public square. I really believe this. And ministers need to recognise that they represent the body of Christ in such public engagements and so they need to conduct themselves accordingly. If they lose credibility in the public square, the whole body of Christ is marred by that loss of credibility. So you do need to be very careful. They've also unwittingly handed a major strategic advantage to David Seymour here because by publicly exposing all of the cards in their deck and accusing the bill of being all of these things before it's even been published, Seymour now has the ability to reconstruct his bill. So let's say there were problematic aspects to the bill. David Seymour can now reconstruct the bill in such a way that it won't actually look anything like they are claiming, and then he can turn around and accuse them of being liars, of stoking the fires of fear unnecessarily, et cetera, et cetera. This is actually not a good situation that they've put themselves, and again, the whole body of Christ into. I think by taking this particular approach, like I said earlier, they could have still made a public statement. I just think they needed to be more careful about the substance of what they've said in this particular public statement. Secondly, this could actually end up undermining other more serious issues that are facing New Zealand right now. David Seymour is already drawing unfair comparisons with what's happened with this open letter yesterday and his euthanasia bill, because the christian minister, some of them on this list, also publicly resisted the very dangerous and immoral euthanasia bill. And so what he's saying now, already very quickly, is, look, they did the same thing on euthanasia. And what that means is right now the euthanasia review which is currently taking place, may actually be undermined by this letter. This open letter yesterday may actually cause harmful downstream effects on any attempts that people are making to try and limit the expansion of euthanasia in New Zealand, because now everything else that ministers may have commented on or publicly resisted could end up getting drawn into all of this. And that's not good either. Thirdly, it's also evident to me that this letter is being manipulated by various players already. I think these church leaders are well meaning in what they have done. But there's no doubt in my mind that the media have given this statement such a high level of attention because they are more than happy to utilise the christian church when it suits their own political ends. But there's no way that they will be giving church leaders this sort of same very fair and open minded and very widespread. And, you know, the depth and breadth of the promotion of this has been quite something to behold. They won't be doing this on other more important issues. And I already see Chris Hopkins has jumped on the bandwagon here and he is using the churches for his own agenda and claiming that this gives them, the labor party, some high moral ground. None of this is good, because the simple truth is that Chris Hopkins and his labor party did not want a bar of the churches and the church leaders when it came to issues like euthanasia or abortion. It's the exact opposite. In fact, they're more than happy to utilise them. So I think, again, this is why it is vitally important to be strategically savvy before you step into the river of politics. There are a lot of sharks swimming around in there and so you've just got to be very careful about all of this. And I don't think that there has been an appropriate level of prudence and care that's been shown here. Which brings me, lastly, to the point that strategically, this could actually prove to be a serious blunder that gives life and empowerment to the toxic efforts that are currently underway to strip all New Zealand churches of charitable status. It's not the fact that they've engaged. I think that's a good thing. It's about the substance of that engagement. That's what's created the problem here. I think a more prudent approach would have been to remove any of the unprovable claims. So don't talk about the substance of a bill when we don't actually have a bill. So any of the unprovable claims should have been removed and so should any statements about the content of the bill. And I also would have changed the final declaration in this letter, which reads, currently like this, we call on all members of parliament to do everything in their power to not take this bill to select committee, because that reads like a very authoritarian and closed and opposed to open public debate. It sounds very anti democratic, I guess, is what I'm saying, and very anti and open and proper governance process and instead of saying that that statement, I think should have been changed entirely, to read something more like this, we call on all members of parliament, the media and the people of New Zealand to carefully consider the implications of this bill. And by doing that, first of all, what you're doing is you're actually inviting them into a dialogue and you're inviting them to consider for themselves. You're not talking down to them, you're not pontificating, you're encouraging them to think. And for any dialogue about these matters to be conducted with charity, civility and most especially a renewed commitment to goodness and truth. If we cannot agree to disagree without hostility and animus, then our nation truly will be harmed by this bill regardless of the political outcome. So let me read to you my version of the statement again in full, which is where I think they should have landed. We call on all members of parliament, the media and the people of New Zealand to carefully consider the implications of this bill and for any dialogue about these matters to be conducted with charity, civility and most especially a renewed commitment to goodness and truth. If we cannot agree to disagree without hostility and animus, then our nation truly will be harmed by this bill regardless of the political outcome. And I think that that is a more prudent and appropriate way to express yourself in response to an issue like this. Because not only do I think my proposed version of their statement would be more strategic and more prudent, but I think it would also be much more pastorally prudent. Which brings me to my third and final point today, the pastoral harms in this these christian leaders have rushed into a non essential political matter in their official vocational capacity as christian shepherds.
[00:31:22] This has significant and direct impacts upon their first and most important responsibility to shepherd the souls that have been placed under their care. And this is really important. And I think what's happened here is politics has usurped that first and most important responsibility in a way here that's not good. Saint Augustine once said this inessentials unity in non essentials, liberty in all things charity. So in other words, those high order, fundamental christian commands, moral principles, doctrines, etcetera, that are essential for our salvation and must be followed in essentials. We must have unity. We must be together in being faithful to goodness and truth. When it comes to non essentials, however, we have liberty. We have the liberty to actually disagree and take differing positions on these issues. But in all things, of course, this must be done with absolute charity. Now here's the key point here. There is no essential christian moral principle or doctrine involved in this matter. Yet the way this open letter is presented, it makes it sound like there is a what this means in reality, because there is no christian moral principle or doctrine involved in this particular matter. Christians are actually quite free to disagree with one another over this bill. Even I as a Catholic, I'm free to disagree with my catholic leaders who might disagree with me on this issue. Christians are free to disagree with one another over this bill, and they will not be jeopardizing their salvation or abandoning Christ and his teachings by adopting differing positions on this bill because this is a non essential issue. Christians are free to disagree with one another over this bill. But what these leaders have done is open up the possibility, I think, of spiritual abuse, by the way they've gone about this, and I don't think that's good. And that's the thing that really troubles me most. I guess they've now elevated a non essential matter into a level where it shouldn't be. This is an issue, as I said, where christians are free to disagree and where people can legitimately come to differing prudential judgments about supporting or rejecting this bill, or maybe supporting parts of it and not others. There are multiple different approaches that people could take to this question. But what they've done is they've elevated that non essential question to the level of it now potentially involving a violation of a quote unquote sacred covenant. They have spiritualized the political in a way that absolutely isn't justified here, I don't think. And this raises a very important question. What are the implications for members of their own flocks who disagree with them on this matter?
[00:34:22] Are those members of their flock betraying Christ?
[00:34:25] Are they failing as christian disciples? Are they failing to respect the God given authority of their leaders by thinking differently to them on this non essential matter? And is there a not so subtle but very powerful pressure that has now been applied to the congregants and the members of those churches to fall lock, step in behind their leaders and abandon their own reason and surrender it over to their leaders in the political space? Will this now actually lead to very unhealthy and politicized divisions that are totally unnecessary and could have been completely avoided within different christian congregations around the country as other members of these congregations shepherded by these people who have signed this document take a completely different stance on the issue? This feels like the wrong kind of thing to be doing. Instead of having the church entering into the world of politics, to speak boldly, that which is true and that which is good we now have politics and all of its toxicity forcing its way into the life of the church. And that's not a good thing to have at all. Again, the problem here is the substance of that letter. It's loaded with very serious claims that are not actually commensurate with the matter at hand. And I think that's where the problem lies. And I really wish in this case that our christian leaders who have signed this had been a little bit more prudent and a little bit more cautious about what they had actually written, what they'd put their names to before wading into this in the public square. And I really wish that our christian leaders were this vocal and this passionate about the essential matters like abortion, euthanasia, threats to marriage and family life, critiques of liberalism and its economic and social frameworks. But what about the COVID crisis? Because some of the very same christian leaders whose names are on this list remained silent when the labor government banned priests from administering the last rites to dying people in our nation. They actually just went along with it. They also remained silent when the government outlawed funerals and marriages. Other essential things.
[00:36:55] They just went along with it. And yet here they are, speaking stridently and very publicly about a non essential issue, while something that is far more essential, the last rites final spiritual comfort, being provided to a dying person by their christian minister. They were silent while that was denied to people, and they went along with it when they should have spoken up because that actually was a very serious, essential issue. As the poet might say, reading this letter doth vex me greatly. But here's the thing, just to wrap this all up, we now have a choice. And so what that means is we can actually make the choice, like I'm going to do, to refuse to join any public pylon.
[00:37:46] I might disagree with these leaders, and I might think there's a lack of prudence here and a lack of proper pastoral discernment about the way this is all unfolded. But still, I refuse to join any public pylon. They are fellow believers in Christ and the devil would really love if this got turned into yet another point of serious division within the New Zealand church. But here's the thing. At the same time, while I refuse to join any public pylon, I will continue to disagree charitably and civilly with what's gone on here. I do think that there needs to be some serious soul searching in the New Zealand church about the manner of its public engagement and exactly who or what is guiding that, because what's happened here I don't think is a good thing. And when you contrast it with other recent events over the last couple of years, there doesn't seem to be a principled consistency in what's going on here. But the way to resolve that problem and explore that question more deeply is not to participate in toxic public polemics, but it is to enter into civil, charitable dialogues and discourses, which is what, hopefully, I have managed to do here today. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the dispatches.
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