Maori to NY: Let our People Sleep the Sweet Slumber
Pressure will be mounting on the American Museum of Natural History in New York to return sacred Maori remains to New Zealand after USA Today gave prominence to the issue of toi moko (tattooed…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Festive Season Realities
A billboard outside Auckland’s Anglican St Matthew’s in the City of the Virgin Mary gasping as she examines a pregnancy testing kit has sparked fiery debate. Defending the poster, the vicar, the Rev Glynn…
Controversy in the Hay
Auckland’s St Matthew-in-the-City church has ignited controversy with a billboard depicting Mary and Joseph lying partially nude beneath the sheets. In an unorthodox take on the Christmas tale, the billboard depicts a forlorn Joseph…
East Mends West
Victoria University professor of philosophy Kolkata-born Jayshankar Lal Shaw says philosophy helps individuals with a “global perspective and a clear notion on how to alleviate pain from the world”, especially during times of unrest….
NZ Preacher Battles US Atheists
Christchurch-born evangelist Ray Comfort fronted a controversial debate over the existence of God on US TV this month. Comfort (pictured left) and his preaching partner, child actor Kirk Cameron, squared off against two members…
Rev Cardy on breaking the language barrier
The Rev Glynn Cardy of Auckland’s progressive Anglican church, St Matthew-in-the-City, recommends an overhaul of traditional liturgy in an opinion piece for the Guardian. Cardy believes that the gendered language and sometimes archaic metaphors…
To Err is Human, to Forgive Divine
NZ-raised canon emeritus of Coventry Cathedral and Quaker chaplain to the University of Sussex, Paul Oestreicher, writes about guilt and forgiveness in the Guardian, using both WW2 and the modern day ‘War on Terror’…
Year of Tibet
2006 is officially the Year of Tibet in NZ and Australia. The Dalai Lama launched the year-long festivities at the Woodford Festival in Queensland on January 1. “On behalf of Tibetans, both in and…
A Task of Biblical Proportions
David Norton, associate professor at Wellington’s Victoria University, recently completed the decade-long task of re-editing the English speaking world’s most important religious text: the King James Bible. The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible is accompanied…
Mr. President
Dr George Barton QC of Wellington was elected President of the United Bible Societies (UBS) at its World Assembly in Newport, Wales. Barton led the NZ Bible Society from 1966 to 1998, and was vice-president of…
Kiwi Buddha
SunSpot profiled the Venerable Pong Re Sung Rap Tulku Rinpoche – AKA “Kiwi Buddha” – on his return to his native NZ. Three years ago, the ten-year-old was identified as the reincarnation of a…
Awards of Merit
Controversial clergyman and academic Lloyd Geering carried off the highest honour in the New Years’ list, Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Colin “Pinetree” Meads, All Black 1957-71 and all-time greatest…
Sister Joyce
James Joyce was the pre-eminent modernist prose stylist; his sister was a devout Catholic nun who spent her life praying for his soul and “witnessing at the ends of the earth” – New Zealand.
Return of the Jedi – More Cenus/Senseless Fun
The New Zealand spawned Jedi-email just keeps going and going.
Force to Be Reckoned With
The Jedi email, begun in honour of the New Zealand census, manifests itself as “other” in the UK and costs $500 a pop in Australia.
I’m Looking for a Holy Man: Green, Short, Talks Kinda Funny?
The full force of the law is against them: despite attempts to have Jedi registered as an official religion on this year’s census form, it won’t happen unless adherents can produce solid evidence the religion exists. …
Use the Force
The force of email is being tested by a New Zealand group attempting to get Jedi recognised as an official religion.
Divine Edge
“It’s not often you are greeted at the door of the Coliseum by a bleach-blond New Zealand Benedictine monk, but this was merely the prelude to a slightly surreal tour of Frank Matcham’s venerable old building…”
Spiritual Edge
Colonel Margaret Hay of the Salvation Army accepted The Times Preacher of the Year award with humility: “It just goes to show that God does use the foolish and the weak to do his…
Millennial Change
Canon Paul Oestreicher “embodies the Church of the 2th century and its struggles”. Converted during his schooldays in New Zealand, Canon Oestreicher held controversial views on pacifism, Marxism and the ordination of women.
Holy Boy! From Nintendo to Nepal
A Kiwi kid is giving up his game-boy, chicken nuggets, cricket, pokemon, and other typical Kiwi 7year-old delights to study Buddhist philosophy and rituals at a monastry in India for the next 15 years….
The Hermit Next Door
As we enjoy the Easter weekend, James Owen meets the remarkable New Zealand born Brother Aidan – a devout Orthodox Christian and icon painter living in Shropshire – who proves the contemplative life is…
Bishop Raises Eyebrows
A New Zealand prelate yesterday urged young people who ignore the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that premarital sex is sinful to “contracept themselves to the eyebrows”.
