I confess I get a little irritated on hearing again the tired and erroneous argument that politicians trot out when an ecclesiastical leader has the audacity to disagree with them. When politicians, on being criticised by Church leaders, don’t engage with the rights and wrongs of the pressing argument but instead tell Church members it’s none of their business.

So it was this week that New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister, David Seymour, berated churches who were running educational workshops for their members on the vexed issue of Māori wards. The Hon Seymour being on one side of this issue, and most of the mainline church leadership being on the other.

Seymour is reported as saying to the churches, “Stay in your lane,” and “Get back to God.” In other words this is not your business, and it's not God’s either. One of Seymour’s supporters added, “Religion suffers because it gets dragged into the dirt of partisan fights, losing its moral authority.”

The phrase “stay in your lane” has a history. It became prominent in the USA in 2018 when the National Rifle Association (NRA) criticised emergency room doctors for their comments on America’s crisis in gun violence, telling them to stay in their lane in a tweet that implied that their remarks on gun control did not fall under the doctors’ umbrella of expertise. Doctors responded to the criticism by sharing their stories of traumatic gun-related injuries and deaths witnessed under their care, collecting them under the hashtag #ThisIsOurLane.

Similarly, the Judaeo-Christian religion has long taught, to quote the 13th century teacher Meister Eckhart, “Whatever happens to another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to me.” God, best known as compassion, is through all and in all. There is nowhere where God is not. So, God is not divorced from politics, even dirty partisan politics. God is always seeking what is good, and just, and loving. And so too the followers of such a God. This is our lane!

Of course the Deputy Prime Minister is being disingenuous. Farmers, business leaders, trade unions, women’s groups, and many other associations have long lobbied politicians or gone to the press with their concerns on a variety of issues. They aren’t told to ‘stay in their lane.’ They aren’t told to get back to the farm, or the shop, or whatever is their chief endeavour. Indeed if such groups held educational workshops for their membership they might well be applauded.

And similarly the Deputy Prime Minister and his supporters are being disingenuous in linking the long-term numerical decline in church membership to the occasional statement critical of his party’s positioning. Right across the voluntary sector formal membership and volunteer leadership are decreasing, and this trend is influenced by a combination of factors, including changing societal values and increased demands on individuals' time. The political alignment of a church – whether vocal or not, conservative or not, educating or not – doesn’t in the long-term seem to affect these membership numbers.

And of course it does not take a genius to realise that the Christian churches have always been political simply because we’ve always cared about people. Caring is what we do. And caring means we are interested in economic policy, business policy, housing policy, education policy, foreign policy, child policies, etc. We are interested too, not least because of the hand we had in its formation, in how the covenant relationship, the partnership, between Pākehā and Māori continues to develop and grow for the betterment of all.

We care about people. We care about justice. We care about the Common Good. This is our lane!

Glynn

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