Council of Elders’ Report

The Council of Elders, Rev Tovia Aumua, Viv Whimster (Tauiwi) and Hoana Flay and Roslyn Wilkie, (Te Taha Maori), assist the Church in its bicultural journey by seeking to model the equal partnership prefigured in the Treaty of Waitangi. They monitor recommendations and reflect on the style, work and priorities of committees and boards, making recommendations for further consideration of any report or decisions that may hinder the church from its bi-cultural journey. On Friday afternoon they jointly presented a report they prepared in collaboration.

Rev Tovia began by commending and acknowledging the inclusion of Te Reo Maori by the Presidential Team, the chaplains and the speakers in the Opening of Conference Whakatau, Powhiri, Tributes to the Deceased and the Opening Service.

Tovia quoted the late Nelson Mandela who said, “If you speak to a man in a language he understands, you speak to his head. If you speak to him in his own language, you speak to his heart.”

Elders noted that the technology used throughout Conference “captured the essential parts of this important gathering point” and that the general behaviour and conversation throughout Conference was very respectful.

Discussion around the importance of the land stories was commendable, and having the resources provided to explore them at the local level was also commendable.

Areas that require addressing include consistency in consultation with Te Taha Māori across all boards. The involvement and inclusion of rangatahi/young people more fully in leadership roles and committees was an ongoing theme. In urging Te Hāhi to make sure that rangatahi voices are heard, elders suggested a rangatahi presence in a third Elder being added by each partner.

There should be a review of the Law Book in the light of its colonial background. That review needs to re-vision how Te Hāhi is structured.

Elders urged Te Hāhi to adopt the many points raised from the Bicultural Church discussion groups, e.g. around providing new resources on the history of the bicultural journey in our bicentennial year, holding cultural diversity within the Treaty framework, and seeing power-sharing partnerships in practice.

Hoana said in closing, “The bicultural partnership is not only about understanding each other, but learning to appreciate each other, a wairua, a tinana, a hinengaro, in life-giving relationships. Allowing us to function wholeheartedly in our own space of identity and inclusion. Our whanau from Te Moana Nui A Kiwa, our youth, our elders are part of this wairua ethos demonstrating their own strength values and beliefs in their own cultural uniqueness.”

Wesley Historical Society Lecture

The Day Conference Made a Brave Man Cry

Rev Ian Faulkner, President Wesley Historical Society

This was the very evocative title to the Annual Wesley Historical Society (NZ) Lecture that revisited and evaluated the decision of the 1942 Wellington Conference to dismiss the Rev Ormond Burton: decorated WW1 war hero and foundation member of the New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society (NZCPS). He was convicted of disturbing the peace and other misdemeanours prior to this decision being made. Commentator on this decision was Dr Kevin Clements, who will be acknowledged as the recipient of the International Studies Association’s 2022 Distinguished Scholar Award. Dr Clements, the son of a Methodist Probationer denied ordination for his pacifist views, told a very human, personal story that recounted disturbing moments of his own experience of being the child of a ‘conchie’ minister in post-war New Zealand.

My response after listening to the events of that time, the questions asked of the speaker, the replies and other comments made in response, was to express the wish that the Methodist Church of New Zealand – Te Haahi Weteriana o Aotearoa has processes that allow those within the family to listen to, debate and resolve differences. As described in the lecture, in 1942 a challenge to the discipline of the Church was resolved by flexing bureaucratic power and resorting to what was termed an ecclesiastical injustice.

The saga that was laid before us is fully described in Ernest Crane’s biography of Rev Burton, ­I Can Do No Other, published in 1986. It is not the detail that is recalled from the lecture that is memorable, it’s the signals given about the mood of wartime New Zealand, the Methodist Church in wartime, the relationship between the factions within the church separated by attitudes related to supporting the war effort or otherwise, and the various attempts to find the middle ground in the debate.

In 1936 Ormond Burton was a founding member of the NZCPS, along with its first President, Rev Jonathan Haslam, the then President-elect of Conference and Mr Arch. Barrington, who was Vice-President of Conference in 1974. Prior to this, several pacifist groups were part of the fabric of protest movements in New Zealand. What characterised the NZCPS was that it was exclusively Christian. The story that unfolded showed that Christian Pacifism was not a singular movement that opposed war.

There were those described as militants, who would not take any action, however small, that might support the war effort, and those who simply advocated non-violence and refused to bear arms. Rev Burton too could not be described as fitting what might have been described as the typical Methodist Minister. He was described as an Anglo-Catholic-Methodist imbued with a holy stubbornness. An example of this was the central place that he gave to the cross at the front of the Webb Street Church in Wellington, at a time when Methodist Churches did not display a cross in such a prominent place, and his habit of genuflecting to show his high regard for what the cross symbolised.

It cannot be said that expressions of pacifism were minor influences on the Methodist Church. Indeed, many who were opposed to the actions of the institutional church in 1942 became leaders of the Church in the 1960s and 1970s. Their influence was marked.

This Annual Lecture achieved what the WHS hoped for: a renewed understanding of those events that shook the Church in 1942, leading to the opportunity to view Church processes at that time, and to perhaps understand why the decisions made were arrived at.

The fact that the resolution to dismiss Ormond Burton from the Methodist Ministry was carried by a vote of 75 in favour to 45 against, with 100 delegates recording their abstentions speaks volumes: a decision that in fellow-traveller A.C. Barrington’s words “made a brave man cry”. It took some years before moves to restore him to full connexion were achieved.

Towards the end of the discussion following the lecture a question was asked about pacifism now; and perhaps the hearers were left wondering whether a debate on Christian Pacificism would be as divisive for the Church in 2021. A measure of the effectiveness of a lecture is that it both provides information and raises more questions to ponder on. Thank you to Dr Kevin Clements for creating such an opportunity. This lecture will be regarded as a gem in the memory of those seeking to understand our past and inform our future.