I am growing to like the weekly writing of Rodney Hide, Herald columnist who is famous in NZ for being a colourful politician. He writes well, with lovely humour, clarity of thought and a well crafted final sentence.
But a Christian he is not. Here he is in full flight as NZ's Richard Dawkins!
What he does not seem to realise is that most Christians don't believe in the 'god' he doesn't believe in.
2 comments:
I think the difficulty with Hide is that he applies a blanket rejection of the supernatural to an issue which is more about biculturalism than anything else! We had a Facebook discussion about a week ago. Firstly, there are "non-religious" karakia that teachers can implement instead in the classroom. But perhaps more importantly, this separation of spiritual and material is a Western idiosyncrasy which is harmful to apply to something like Tikanga Māori which does not make such a distinction.
I stopped voting for ACT not long after Rodney was made leader. He was and is a likeable enough guy, but for many of us who had supported the organization before it was even a party it was clear that the founding principles were going to be out the door, and they were, bit by bit, despite some valiant efforts by great people like Muriel Newman. Stephen Franks should have been leader.
Still, he at least kept the small government cause, however compromised, alive and in Parliament for a few more elections. ACT post-Hide can only be described as a train wreck of epic, tragi-comedy proportions.
Sadly there is nothing yet on the horizon to replace ACT, unless the Libertarianz ditch their cultic devotion to Ayn Rand, broaden their base, and learn to run a national campaign. Not holding my breath.
I may end up sitting the next election out.
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