The Anglican Covenant

Today I shared a reflection at Holy Trinity Church Stratford on the proposed Anglican covenant in relation to today’s readings.  As one of the church’s 2 synod representatives, I recently participated in the the Waikato Anglican synod debate on the covenant, where a motion affirming the covenant was passed by a slim majority.  With the other synod representative, I was invited to speak to today’s service.  In my reflection, which I have published below, I explain the purpose of the covenant, compare it with Joshua’s covenant with the Hebrews at Shechem, and illustrate its pertinence in relation to the doctrine of Jesus’ return as King and Judge.

READINGS:
Joshua 24: 1 – 4, 14 – 26
1 Thessalonians 4: 13 – 18
Matthew 25: 1 – 13

Today Jane and I have been asked to report from the 2011 Waikato Diocese Anglican Synod, where I think many would say the most significant matter was the passing of a resolution affirming the proposed Anglican Covenant.  Other important motions were also discussed, addressing issues such as abortion, homosexuals and the length of terms in lay leadership.

In our Old Testament reading for today we encounter Joshua’s famous address to the Hebrews at Shechem, long after they have settled in the Promised Land and the Lord has given them victory over their enemies.  But though the Hebrews through God were powerful, the Gods of their pagan enemies still held appeal to them.

So Joshua reminds them of God’s delivery of Israel from slavery in Egypt with great signs and wonders, and the Hebrews respond “We will serve the Lord.”  And we find that on that day Joshua makes a covenant with this people, reaffirming God’s laws and decrees and setting up a monument to remind them.

Israel at the time of Joshua were not like other nations.  They had no king, but were a confederation of 13 tribes.  The only authority that bound them together was the revelation of God’s law which Moses had received at Mt Sinai.  That and the Levite tribe which served as priests for them.

The Anglican Church is a bit the same.  Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the autonomy and power of our church lies in Dioceses, Synods & Bishops, not with a Pope.  We are bound by God’s revelation in the form of the bible, the creeds, the 39 articles and the prayer book.  And we are bound by the Anglican order of Bishops, priests and deacons who serve us.

But this makes it difficult when Dioceses, Synods and Bishops in the communion start to do things that other Anglicans consider as contrary to Anglicanism.  The most well-known examples are the ordination of homosexuals, and the ordination of priests by one Bishop to work in a Diocese that belongs to another bishop.  These examples have caused such great offence and consternation within the church that at the last big meeting of Bishops, the Lambeth conference, 3 bishops were not invited and a great number of bishops didn’t even attend.  And there are many other matters that get Anglicans hot and bothered from time to time.

Nobody wants to see broken relationships and such disunity in our church.  Indeed, unity is one of Anglicanism’s greatest hallmarks.  Not unity to the very last detail like most other churches, but certainly unity in relation to the very basics of the life of our church – like affirmation of the creeds, of scripture as authoritative, and of the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury and our various church councils.  Anglicanism is enriched by the diversity of views that can be held on the authority of these traditions – a diversity which can be happily tolerated.  But what do we do when that diversity becomes too wide and causes serious dissension in our church?

Like Joshua with the Israelites, many bishops and lay leaders in the church have deemed that our shared revelation and priesthood aren’t enough – they too have drawn up a covenant that they hope the various dioceses and provinces can sign up to, as a means of pledging our commitment to this unity, so we have accountability for our actions.  And so we have the Anglican Covenant.  This covenant affirms the creeds, the scripture as authoritative, and the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury and our various church councils.  And it is hoped by many to bring unity and accountability as the Anglican Church addresses those issues of offence and consternation rife in our communion.

It is important to note this is not just about gays.  It is not just about African priests running amuck in North America.  It is about those important truths and traditions which unite us as a church, and our willingness to allow this to steer us in our day-to-day judgments.

Our 2 New Testament readings today remind us to be ready for Jesus’ return as King, when he comes to bring justice to the whole world.  The reading from 1 Thessalonians illustrates what this second coming will be like, in terms which seem fanciful to a world saturated by science & technology, and apparently devoid of the mystical and supernatural:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Yet this is a picture which resonates with testaments old and new, which continuously speak of the new heavens and the new earth into which the dead are raised.  This is a picture which resonates with the gospel of Christ’s resurrection and ascension in bodily form, and his evident ability to defy the laws of physics, which after all he created himself.

Perhaps, then, our gospel reading particularly applies to today’s generations, who have waited centuries for this wondrous return. The parable of the 10 virgins, 5 of whom underestimated how long they would need to keep their light burning.  Whose oil ran out and as a result weren’t recognized when the King came.

A lot of the theological conflict in our church in recent history has been between those who await our Lord’s coming and pray for it with our liturgy every Sunday, and those who a long time ago wrote off the idea.

When our oil runs out then the appeal of pagan Gods and their immediacy becomes all the more powerful.  Why hope for the return of a superJesus to make all things right when we could just believe that humanity will become divine and eventually solve all of the world’s problems on our own?  Why hope for salvation from sin and death if I can resign that I don’t know what comes after death, and that I’m a good person, – whatever happens I should be alright.

But we as a church, like Israel, are a people who have inherited a story.  Whether or not justice comes sooner rather than later, whether or not my merits mean anything to God in his judgment, the revelation we share is less about us and more about Jesus.  His Lordship over all creation is central to any biblical reference to Jesus.  This is what scripture affirms, what the creeds affirm, what the 39 articles and the book of common prayer affirm.

And so I give thanks for the proposed covenant, and that our diocese had the courage to affirm it.

Move into the country…

Gonna eat me a lot of peaches.

Yes, I was a teenager in the 90s, so I loved Presidents of the USA.  Or they just got stuck in my head and forced me to like them.  And so now if I string the words “move to the country” together, I go to the Presidents’ Peaches.  A song that’s not really about the country or about peaches at all.

What if I was going to talk about the joys of having a house in the country?  “Lives in a house, very big house in the country.” When Blur released Country House, in the 90s, it was my new favourite ever song.  It was my first ever favourite rock song, it must have coincided with my becoming a teenager.  I duly left behind MC Hammer and Do the Bartman.  But, like the Presidents’ Peaches, the song doesn’t do a lot for the cause of country living. For Blur, the country house is the abode of a burnt out city dweller “escaping the rat race,” watching afternoon repeats, taking prozac, with a fog in his chest, abstaining from drinking smoking, even laughing – and taking herbal baths.  Not exactly an image of dignity and prestige!

Nia and I at my graduation from Laidlaw College

When I became engaged to my wife, Nia, in April last year, I was flatting in Mt Eden and she was flatting in Grey Lynn.  I was studying philosophy, being on something of a sidetrack in my life plan to become a farmer on the family farm.  Nia was managing a Point Chevalier bead shop and looking for a new challenge. It was immediately clear to us that it was time to become farmers.  Our first home together would be our own home on the family farm.  Sure enough, when Nia and I returned from honeymooning in the South Island 6 months later, it was the threshold of our very own house in the country that I carried her across.

Our house is an absolute joy to us, as is life in the country.  I work for my father part-time, as well as leasing some of the farm for my own flock, and at the same time I am building up a planning & policy analysis business.  Nia continues to run The Bead Hold from her office in Tututawa.  We have planted an orchard, and lined our driveway with oaks, plane trees and maples.  We have beautiful views up and down the valley from our house, situated on a small hill in the middle of a paddock with no neighbours, with sun all day.  Kereru, kingfishers, fantails, hawks and falcons are in abundance.  Pukekos and paradise ducks inhabit the pond which can be seen from our living room, and a friendly pheasant is often seen roaming the paddocks.  Town (Stratford) is 20 minutes away, with a good range of shopping available, and New Plymouth – at 45 minutes – is still closer than Central Auckland can be to Mt Albert depending on the time of day.  The locals are friendly.  We go to church at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Stratford.  It might not have the buzz and glamour of a mega-church like Life Church or ARISE, and the number of young adults can be counted on two hands, but the congregation are reliably friendly, and the worship and preaching reliably solid.  Nia still visits Auckland once a month to attend to her business, and I often join her.  Auckland definitely is a great place.  To visit.

So how did we manage to realize the dream of having a house in the country so quickly?  Obviously, it isn’t hard to find spare houses for sale or rent in the country.  But to find a nice house, on a nice site – now that’s a much tougher challenge.  For us, being able to build on the family farm was obviously the biggest factor.  I was able to negotiate a piece of land which I considered to be the ideal site for building a house on the farm.  At the front of a flat paddock next to the road we subdivided a hectare running north from the building site down to a pond, with enough room for a small front paddock.  The subdivision process is a long process, so being able to rely on personal family arrangements meant we could work on the house before the subdivision process was complete.

Having the ability to build on the family farm was a huge blessing.  But a close second was finding a house in the yard of a house mover that matched what we were looking for perfectly.  Nia, being a true Grey Lynn girl, had a thing for beautiful old villas and bungalows with plaster-mold ceilings & polished rimu floorboards.  I was already the proud owner of an Art Deco specimen with beautiful ceilings and rimu doorways, and what I enjoyed most about that house was its excellent layout.  So I was looking for a house with a good strong entrance and hall, with bedrooms off one side of the hall and living rooms off the other side.  I was also very keen to find a house with a good old-fashioned front porch.  We browsed the Taranaki Building Removers website and found an old villa which looked a good match for what we were looking for.

The villa that wasn't to be

On our next trip to Taranaki we visited the Taranaki Building Removers yard in Bell Block and went to look at the house.  We found a huge but very run-down villa, which looked as though it had been sitting there for a good number of years.  This villa would clearly take us a whole lot of work if we were going to get it into the kind of condition that would befit Auckland’s Queen of beading!  So, rather dejectedly, we made our way back to the front of the yard, knowing that nothing else we’d seen on the website had appealed to us.

Our house - love at first sight!

But, behold!  There before us was a good-looking bungalow which had only just been put onto jacks, and still had the moving truck parked in front of it.  With a sense of excitement we climbed up into this house.  A good solid front verandah was propped against the house, and we entered into the nice, wide, long hallway.  We peered into the master bedroom, behind the porch window, to find beautiful ornate plaster ceilings.  We walked into the sitting room, with its lovely bay window, and looked up to see an even more ornate plaster ceiling.  A second bedroom was located off the hall behind the master bedroom, a living room off the hall behind the sitting room, with a kitchen and laundry off the back.  The bathroom was at the end of the hall.  It was obvious – this was our house!  At this point I should disclaim that I am a Christian, and that finding a house like this was something that Nia and I had prayed about.  So, yes, it did help that I had a father who was happy to subdivide off a hectare for us to build on.  But, of course, having a heavenly father looking after our interests was obviously much more important!  After having a builder and both of our sets of parents through the house, we made an offer and settled the sale and purchase of our first home together – and we’d only been engaged a month!

Our house arrives, 1/7/2010

At the end of the semester, in June, I moved home and lived with my parents until the wedding.  On July 1 our house arrived in 2 pieces.  A local farmer and friend, with his draindigger, teamed up with my father, with his Kubota tractor, and together they levelled the site, finishing 10 minutes before the house arrived!  After a June almost as wet as this one, we watched the house movers winch the two trucks up through a boggy paddock and onto the building platform.  They set to work putting the house on piles, putting the top of the roof back on, & stitching the house back together.  A week later they were gone.  There, sitting on the crest of the paddock, was our country house.

One house, delivered, on piles...

Over the following three months we hired builders, plumbers, electricians, a plasterer, a carpetlayer and a floorsander, as well as roping in a good number of friends, family and paintbrushes.  Being a country house, we had to buy a water tank, septic tank and fireplace, and have them plumbed up to the house, with the water tank being fed by roofwater.  When I carried Nia over the threshold in October, it was into a fully plumbed house with every internal wall, window frame and architrave painted, and every floor either polished or carpeted.  But it was still just a house on, literally, a piece of dirt, in the middle of a paddock.  The next few months was spent fencing, and sowing and watering lawn – a lawn which failed miserably as it was sown in the driest November and December on record, a lawn which is now a lawn of weeds and plantain.  But, it is a work in progress, and to take on a relocation project one has to be willing to live without things finished.  For us, its not just the lawn – the front porch is yet to be completed, skirting boards yet to be attached, and decks to be built.  And the outside of the house needs a good paint.

Our house

While we had a definite advantage in being able to build on the family farm, and have work available on the farm, I see no reason why country living couldn’t be a realistic ambition for anyone who desired it.  A hectare of land conducive to lifestyle settlement is typically valued at around $10,000 – $30,000 per hectare.  A quick glance at Trademe will show you that a 500 square metre section in a small New Zealand town would on average cost around $60,000 – $90,000, the same in a city would on average range from $150,000 – $450,000.  While the price of a new house of 150 square metres would typically start from around $100,000, houses for sale in relocation yards range from around $35,000 to $100,000, including delivery & setting on piles.  These yards typically have a lot of villas and bungalows which are old, but full of style.  To build something like one of these houses new would probably cost around $300,000.  But they are often in very good condition, and with new Gibbing, and ceiling and underfloor insulation, they can be heated easily and efficiently with a good free-standing fire.  And remember, rural living means ready access to firewood!  So, with the costs of subdivision, water tank, septic tank and plumbing included, you could find yourself in your very own country house for as little as $150,000 – the price of just a 500 square metre section in Johnsonville!  If a couple moved to the country and one partner struggled to find a job and had to try self-employment, it would not be such an issue because the cost of living is so much lower.

The beauty and peacefulness of the New Zealand countryside is good for the soul, and a wonderful respite from life in the concrete jungles of New Zealand’s cities.  A respite, but not an escape – thanks to our quality transportation and telecommunications networks, you can be rural and still be connected.  Wireless broadband is available in most parts of Taranaki, Satellite broadband available throughout, and the Telecom ultra-fast broadband rollout will reach most of the rural population before long.  The speed of these connections does a lot to reduce the sense of isolation that is the only real negative of country living.  In saying that, my experience in the urban centres I have lived – Palmerston North, Auckland, Wellington – is that it can feel more isolating in a city because, despite the huge number of people around, very few of them are people you know or people who have the time to stop and talk.  In the country, it is unusual for neighbours not to talk if they meet each other on the road.  The comparative price of land makes owning a Hectare – rather than 500 square metres – affordable, and gives the opportunity to have animals and livestock – chooks, pigs, sheep – which not only fill the fridge and freezer, but also entertain the children.  And then there’s space for orchards and vegetable gardens.

New Zealand’s rural areas experienced a sharp decline in population in the last 50 years.  While some people would say it is a good thing not to have too many people in the countryside, I think that, generally, New Zealand’s rural areas need more people.  The closure of a large number of schools in the last 10 years is evidence of this.  I hope that this post serves to inform and empower those thinking about making the move to the country.

Te Pouhere Sunday sermon

Spread out afar
The calm lake gleams
So smooth and fair and bright.
The stream flows strongly by,
Like Pakihi’s waters far away.
My heart throbs high with grief
For my beloved one.
My doom is fixed—
Death’s terrors chill my flesh,
My shrinking skin is stung
As by the ongaonga thorns.
Would that I could cross those heights,
To thee, O Harata,
Wife of my fond embrace.
My spirit shall return to thee,
Return to the tribe I love.

This song is a lament – the lament of a man about to face death at the hands of his enemies.  He mourns the fact that he won’t see his wife again.  But there is a mixture of peace but also of fear in his words.  The calm lake gleams, so smooth and fair and bright.  My doom is fixed – death’s terrors chill my flesh.

These are the words of Te Manihera,* a Maori missionary who lived at Waokena and Whareroa, near the site of the Fonterra Dairy Factory in Hawera, and who belonged to the Ngati Ruanui iwi.

When he was a young man he was captured by Waikato Maori during the musket wars, and taken away as a slave.  He was then captured a second time by a Nga Puhi raid, and found himself on a boat to Tonga.  But while on the boat, a Wesleyan missionary, Walter Lawry, paid for him to be free.  He made his way back home and had great success in converting members of his tribe to Christianity.  He travelled the hills of eastern Taranaki often to take the gospel to Maori in the Mangaehu district, and to Ngati Maru Maori in the Upper Waitara area.

The head of the Putiki Mission Station in Wanganui, the Rev Richard Taylor, said this of Te Manihera:

He was always conspicuous for piety and attention to his duties, and instead of his first love growing cold, his appeared to increase with time; indeed, his love of Christ was written upon his countenance.

At a prayer meeting at the mission station in December 1846, Te Manihera is said to have spoken of how they had received the Gospel and the Christian faith from English missionaries; if the missionaries could leave their homeland to go out to the world and preach the Gospel, then it was the duty of Maori missionaries to go among their own countrymen.  He observed the people of Taupo were still heathen, and he said he would go and endeavour to bring them out of darkness.  His friend Kereopa stood up and said when the apostles went out they went two by two, and he asked to accompany Te Manihera.

Ngati Tuwharetoa, of Taupo, had raided Ngati Ruanui at Waitotara several times in the previous five years. In 1840 two Ngati Tuwharetoa had been killed, and their deaths had not been avenged. Utu was still a powerful and important custom for Maori, and Te Manihera and Kereopa knew the danger they would face by going to Taupo.  Sure enough, on 12 March 1847, Te Manihera and Kereopa and a group of Christian Maori were ambushed near Tokaanu at Mt Tongariro.  Kereopa was killed outright by a musket ball which shattered his skull.  Te Manihera was slashed across the head by a tomahawk, and died within hours – but not before uttering that famous lament I began with – or, something like it.

Te Manihera and Kereopa didn’t get to teach the Christianity they loved so much, in Taupo.  But their deaths as Taranaki’s first known martyrs broke the cycle of utu between Ngati Ruanui and Ngati Tuwharetoa, and opened the way for the gospel to be preached to the Taupo Maori.  Instead of seeking revenge by their chiefs, Ngati Ruanui backed their missionary, Richard Taylor, to go to Ngati Tuwharetoa where he successfully made peace between the tribes.

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
and make the rough places smooth.

These verses from today’s Old Testament reading** echo through the words of Te Manihera.  He’d seen the light – he knew he was headed for “The calm gleaming lake, so smooth and fair and bright.”  When he stood up at that prayer meeting he said he was going to bring the heathen out of darkness.

The story of Te Manihera also echoes the New Testament reading for today.***

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men…For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Te Manihera and Kereopa knew the risks they were taking by going to the people of Taupo.  They knew that the cost of reaching those people with the gospel might be their own lives.  But they did it anyway.  Why?  Christ’s love compelled them.  They had been shown grace by God – missionaries had taught them the gospel, and they had been brought from darkness to light.  He said at that meeting, if the missionaries could leave their homeland to go out to the world and preach the Gospel, then it was the duty of Maori missionaries to go among their own countrymen.  1 John 4:19 says that we love because God first loved us.  Jesus said, “ greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.”  And this is how powerful God’s love is – it will compel us to take great risks to reach people with the gospel.

The gospel reading for today**** teaches us that everyone who hears Jesus’ words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. In a great storm, the house does not fall because it has its foundation on the rock. But whoever hears Jesus’ words and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. In the same great storm, the house built on sand falls with a great crash.

Te Manihera and Kereopa were prepared to give their lives for their faith because they had found a solid foundation for their lives – even their lives beyond death.  Rather than live by warfare and utu, they embraced the way of peace, and trusted in God’s judgment.  Rather than living in hate for their enemies, they learnt to forgive and to trust God, and to love even their own enemies.  The Spirit of Christ had so changed the lives of these men, that they were no longer bound up by the sinful desires of jealousy, vengeance, covetousness and lust.  Their sins had been forgiven and they had been given new lives.  And because they were converted themselves, they could look at everyone as potential converts to Jesus Christ, even their own enemies.

They could live with that same attitude Paul describes:

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Today, for the Anglican Church, is Te Pouhere Sunday, or Constitution Sunday.  It is a day to celebrate and recognize the different branches of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and the Pacific.  Up until 1992, all Anglican churches in New Zealand – Pakeha and Maori – and in the pacific were looked after by the same one Archbishop.  This all changed, and we ended up with three different branches of the New Zealand Church – Maori, Pakeha & Pacifica – each with their own Archbishop.  It was recognized that for the gospel to be preached and Christian life lived out in different cultures, then each culture needs to be able to teach, preach and sing the gospel in its own language and culture.

But in the midst of all of this the Anglican Church still affirms that we are all one in Christ – as the Bible says, Jew and Gentile, so it is that Maori, Pakeha and Pasifika are all one.  And so Te Pouhere Sunday is a time to remember that God is pouring his spirit out on every tribe and tongue as he promises in the Bible, and that we are all joined together in that great mission of making disciples of all nations.  And today’s bible readings are set to reflect this.

I’ve told you the story of Te Manihera and Kereopa, a story about Christian mission in the Tikanga Maori stream, about two men laying their lives down in an effort to spread the gospel and make disciples in this country.  Now I want to tell you about a story from our own stream, which relates to the origins of our church Holy Trinity.

Brookwood, Omata

In 1859 the Rev Henry Handley Brown was appointed archdeacon to minister to the rural area around New Plymouth.  He was based at Omata, and leased an estate which he called “Brookwood”.   He arrived in March 1859, and was only there a month before war broke out between Maori and the settlers, the beginning of the Taranaki Land Wars which lasted the better part of the next decade.  But, despite this, Brown had quickly earned the trust of local Maori, who regarded him as “their missionary.”  He quickly became a fluent Maori linguist, and an apt student of their customs and beliefs.  So while settlers all around him were raided and attacked, Henry Brown’s property was declared tapu.

A notice posted at his gate by rebel Maoris read:

“ Listen!  Listen!  All the tribe.  The road to our minister must not be trodden upon; also the road to his friends, James, who is from Kihi; to Emanuel, who is a Portuguese, to his wife and children, who are French.  Let the thought of these tribes be light to their farms, to their property; let it be light because the word has gone forth from Paratene, Hoani, and Kingi Parenga, to these people we must strictly preserve them.  Let there be no mistake; with us, the three tribes of Taranaki, Ngatiruanui, and Ngaraura.  Let it be light.  That is from – Paratene, Hoani, Kingi, Porikapa.”

Henry Brown became an important friend to Maori and Pakeha alike, travelling throughout Taranaki on his horse to minister to Anglicans in the fledgeling settlements of rural Taranaki.  He held the first ever Anglican service for Stratford at the railway station in 1878, and as an old man continued to serve rural Taranaki until his death at 79 years of age.

Henry Brown (1819 - 1889)

Like Te Manihera, Henry Brown also demonstrated a commitment to Christian mission that resembled what we see in the Bible.  Another man to do the same, for Stratford, was Cardiff Farmer William Johnson.  Johnson’s role as a lay reader complimented Brown’s visits as priest.  For most of the 1880s, Johnson took the responsibility on himself to gather people for church services, and his daughter served as Sunday School teacher.  He was also the founing headmaster of Stratford Primary School.  Like Te Manihera & Henry Brown, Johnson too demonstrated that same commitment to Christian mission.

So what does this all mean for us?  It is not as though there are any Maori tribes that haven’t yet heard of the gospel.  And there are churches all over the place.  But the fact is there are still people isolated from the gospel, and from church.  And I am encouraged by the group of people gathering here for these services, that we can reach out to these people.

Last week Ian challenged us to be prepared to share the gospel, to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within us.  I hope that these stories of Te Manihera, Henry Brown and William Johnson encourage us to get stuck in the same way.

* English translation of Te Manihera’s lament according to James Cowan in Hero Stories of New Zealand (1935)
**Isaiah 42:10 – 17
***2 Corinthians 5: 11 – 19
****Matthew 7: 24 – 29

Welcome to my blog

Rural life. Agriculture. Environment. Town Planning. Politics. Philosophy. History. Religion. Anglicanism.

If any of these subjects are of interest to you then I hope you will become a regular visitor to ChezBlog – the blog of Allan John Chesswas.

My lovely wife Nia and I

I work with my father on the family sheep and beef farm, where my wife Nia and I are enjoying setting up our home and anticipating the birth of our first child. It is an exciting yet challenging time to be a farmer. Meat and wool prices seem to be recovering, and the dairy payout continues to boom, showing that agriculture has the potential to really surge as the major source of growth for New Zealand. The proposed Emissions Trading Scheme promises its own rewards, but also its challenges, as farmers tackle the need to reduce pollutive emissions and enhance biodiversity. But perhaps the biggest challenge is to curb urban drift and encourage New Zealanders to embrace rural living, to meet the anticipated increased demand for an agricultural labour force. Hopefully this blog can be part of that – a window for Kiwis into the workings and promises of agriculture and rural living.

But I am not just a farmer. I also run a planning consultancy, with my main work being processing resource consents for territorial authorities under the Resource Management Act. Ecology, environmental management and town planning are very dynamic topics, always subject to political debate and social commentary. I expect ChezBlog will inevitably play host to such discussions.

I am also a paid-up card-carrying National Party man, and I will spend some time looking at National Party policy in relation to the upcoming election. I am something of an optimist, and like to take an honest and critical approach to politics, whatever party the policy is coming from. This comes from my firm conviction that history, philosophy and the social sciences can offer us the much-needed resources we need to create robust, consistent and practical policy, law and governance. And so you can also expect to find discussions about history, philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities on ChezBlog.

Lastly, but certainly not least, I am an Anglican. I love being an Anglican, and I find it a strange and serious challenge that most of my peers would only set foot in an Anglican Church for funerals and weddings. I can only assume it is because people don’t understand the richness, versatility and potential of the Anglican Church. And also, of course, that the Christian faith is a serious challenge to the kinds of lives we prefer to lead. But it is my firm conviction that, as it has for me, Christianity can bring hope and renewal to people, lift our eyes off our guilt and shame, and empower us in our shared life together as Christians to love our neighbour, to speak and act for justice, and to glorify our Creator God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Christian gospel will inevitably underpin all of my writing and I hope that, if nothing else, this blog will draw attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and bring understanding to the great wonder of our salvation.