The Spiritual Transformation of New Zealand
Dr. Stuart Lange, the national director of the New Zealand Christian Network (NZCN), believes that only a divine intervention—through love, prayer, and evangelism—can reverse the steady decline in the number of New Zealanders identifying as Christians. While political protests, legal reforms, or government policies may bring about some positive changes, he argues that they cannot address the deeper spiritual crisis facing the nation.
In an email update to supporters on July 11, Lange highlighted that New Zealand has never been fully Christian in a formal sense. However, the current rise of secularism presents new challenges for Christian faith and values. He emphasized that lasting transformation will require a “significant turning of the spiritual tide” across all cultures, something only the Holy Spirit can accomplish.
“This can happen by the hand of God alone. The Spirit of God needs to sovereignly move in the hearts of many believers, and bring us to a deeper level of faith, prayerfulness, and discipleship. There needs to be more love, and more evangelism. The Spirit of God needs to call hundreds of thousands of unbelievers to himself, and to powerfully renew New Zealand churches and Christians.”
Christians in New Zealand generally recognize that they live in a free and diverse society, with freedom of religion. At the same time, many would love to see a growth in Christian faith among New Zealanders of all cultures, an increased number of committed Christians, a greater number of flourishing churches in New Zealand, and an expanding and more positive influence of the Kingdom of God in this nation.
Is New Zealand a Christian Nation?
The answer to whether New Zealand was ever a “Christian nation” is both “yes and no.” Up until the fairly recent past, the majority of the New Zealand population, both Māori and Pākeha, identified themselves as “Christian,” though with widely varying degrees of faith, understanding, and commitment. This is evidenced by about 80 percent of New Zealanders identifying with a form of Christianity in census figures from 1966. That dropped to 32.3 percent in 2023, with the latter census noting that 51.6 percent of citizens stated having “no religion” at all.
Lange explained that during the 1960s, New Zealanders acknowledged Christian ethics and morals, recognized continuity with the religious affiliations in Britain, and attended church at least sometimes. Many churches had strong ministries among children and youth. The prevailing identification with Christianity in that period meant the laws and customs of New Zealand society broadly reflected underlying Christian beliefs and values.
Examples of Christian culture back then included school assemblies, Bible in Schools, Anzac ceremonies, funerals and weddings, alongside the wording of the original parliamentary prayer, and later the popular national anthem “God defend New Zealand.” However, New Zealand has never been an exclusively Christian society. Some people in New Zealand have always been more nominally Christian, or not Christian at all.
Challenges Facing Christianity in New Zealand
Despite growth and encouragement in some churches, many churches appear to be struggling, and fewer young people and children are found in many churches, according to Lange. It is often publicly claimed that New Zealand is now “post-Christian” and “secular.” Many newer laws and policies permit or promote things that are contrary to biblical values. Christian beliefs and values can often be misrepresented or disparaged in public and social media. Very understandably, most Christians are concerned that New Zealand appears to be gradually becoming less Christian than it used to be.
Church attendance in the country has never been as strong in New Zealand compared to other countries. Peak attendance was 30 percent in 1896. The exception has been among Māori, in the 1840s and 1850s. The influence of Christianity, Lange noted, has still been felt in the structure of society in the country, in its politics and cultural diversity.
“There are certainly enduring spiritual elements in the way the Crown is constituted in British common law and understanding, as an expression of Romans 13:1, and this was understood by many Māori chiefs at Waitangi, and beyond. The Treaty of Waitangi has strong Christian roots, as recognized by many Māori.”
Freedom of Religion in New Zealand
Even so, Christianity has never been fully recognized as the country’s official or only religion, Lange cautioned. Instead, an emphasis on freedom of religion has been a hallmark throughout. New Zealand law has never explicitly recognized Christianity as the country’s “official” or only religion. From the beginning, in 1840, there was freedom of religion, and no official State church or religion, even though the majority of both Māori and Pākeha identified as Christian.
The 1990 Bill of Rights confirmed New Zealanders’ freedoms of religion, thought, and expression. Such freedoms are consistent with New Zealand’s Christian foundations.
