At secondary school I was often mesmerized by those glorious
sweeping and irrefutable statements that spill unreservedly from the vocal
chords of adolescents. Growing up on a cluster of isolated islands at the outer
edge of a forgotten continent in the far-flung nothingnesses of an empty universe
these claims were all the more irrefutable and thus all the more majestic.
“New Zealand breeds the best race horses in the world.” It sounded
an innocuous enough statement, and certainly I had never seen a horse from any
other nation win at our local track, so clearly the stament was definitive. From
the krakatoa-esque eruption at my maths teacher’s desk it appeared he saw the
world through a different set of lenses. There was a seismic shock centred on
my town that day, and I quiver still at the memory of it. “It is,” Peter Irvine
roared, “that sort of nonsense that that means you will never be a
mathematician.” As it happens I had not made the statement, and the wrath that
descended on the perpetrator of the misinformation struck me only on the
ricochet: the entire class was treated to an oratory display worthy of Demosthenes.
Statistically the claim was errant nonsense, and for the next several minutes
the now long-forgotten oratorical misadventurer was subjected to a blast of mathematical
demonstration that I doubt he would ever forget.
The glorious claim of a (now, in a global-village economy, faux-) kiwi soft drink manufacturer “world
famous in New Zealand” has a more delightfully self-deprecatory tone to it. On
occasions, visiting New Zealand or finding the drink in question in a specialist
retail outlet on far-flung soils, the phrase would wring from me a rueful smile.
The gradual eclipse of antipodean horses in that litmus taste of relative
greatness, the Melbourne Cup, would demonstrate that, while New Zealand bred
some pretty good thoroughbreds, so too did one or two other equestrian states
around the world. Come to think about it, the long absence of the All Blacks
from the coveted (in some circles) Webb Ellis Trophy would suggest that even
the most seemingly safe of claims, that of All Black supremacy on the face of
world rugby (which matters in some nations), was open to considerable debate,
at least in those interminable years between David Kirk’s and Richie McCaw’s
elevation of the trophy above the heads of an awe-struck crowd.
My humour then is stretched a little thin, then, when I hear stated
or insinuated claims that New Zealand leads the world in any field. I am as proud
of any kiwi of our little tin pot nation at the bottom of the world, and indeed
my inability ever to escape its subtle siren call to come home suggests that I have demonstrated as a choice
rather than mere obligation in taking up my option to live on its shaky soils. But,
while it has its moments on the world stage, and sometimes even punches above
its weight, its glorious supremacy in most fields remains a quixotic narrative
of its own imagining.
When I hear those claims being made for the life and attributes of
the Anglican Church I fear there are even greater degrees of possibility of
delusion. “Church” is not exactly a buzz word on either the world or the New
Zealand scene, and, again, while the somewhat fringe dwelling Anglican
community in Aotearoa may have many strengths, I suspect neither the world nor
the ecclesiastical world trembles in awe or gasps in untrammelled admiration.
The three-tikanga structure of New
Zealand Anglican ecclesiology is admirable, but it is nor the Reign of God, nor
even the apotheosis of pre-eschaton ecclesiology. It has strengths. It has
weaknesses. To that extent it is a wonderful receptacle and vehicle of God’s
grace. I am no expert on Icelandic Lutheranism or Tahitian Pentecostalism but I
suspect they too have magnificent moments in which they reveal themselves as
prolepsis of the reign of God, and I praise God for that.
Like many, I admire the 1989 New
Zealand Anglican Prayer Book / He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa (not least
for its partially inclusive title), but amongst its jewels (compline and the
house blessing services I would count as gems) it has many flaws (which may
explain why it has become an optional extra or mildly formative reference in
myriad New Zealand Anglican faith communities), and it is not necessarily the zenith
of gathered (or “common”) prayer. At the risk of generating an ecclesiastical riot
I suggest that some of the eucharistic prayers are wordily didactic, some of the
congregational responses a little abstruse, the order of the Daily Office
borders on bland, and the punctuation gives the impression, at times, of a
communal experiment with a salt and pepper shaker.
Yet somehow I fear a variety of hubris
has rooted itself in the psyche of this ecclesiastical community. The best race
horses in the world? I recently heard a claim that one ministry unit was a shining
example of collaboration that would infiltrate the consciousness and
revolutionize the praxis of that unit’s region, its diocese, the national church
and indeed the world. Whether the world that was about to be revolutionised by
this ministry unit’s praxis was merely the Global North (or are we South in
this downward spiralling edge of the eastern hemisphere?) or merely the
ecclesiastical world I was unsure. I’m sure it was not merely the Anglican ecclesiastical
world, for such a claim would hardly be worth making, and would set its sights
far below the expectations and self-understandings of the orator. We breed,
after all the best race horses in the world.
I tremble, for in my imaginings even posting these thoughts will
generate such a storm of rage that the entire world will quake, and emperors
and presidents alike will take sides on the finer details of eccentricity o Aotearoa. Alternatively, of course,
the storm may merely spill over the edge of a teacup – or perhaps not even
generate the beat of a butterfly’s wing and leave the tea unmoved. But when we
become the summation and subject of our own adulation we do at times
catastrophize. The new Aotearoa Anglican ecclesiastical praxis that was so lionized
will, I suspect, remain a legend in its own lunch time, and Secretariat will
remain the finest racehorse the world has ever known, even if not particularly world
famous in New Zealand.
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