What a weekend just past: NZ won the America's Cup [yachting] - not unexpected; and our Silver Ferns [netball] team beat the Australian Diamonds [it does happen]. But the "blows me away" factor for the weekend are two amazing cricket victories, happily, one for our women and one for our men.
The White Ferns beat South Africa to win their first ever T20 World Cup competition - and all the more surprisingly because in the run up to the tournament the team had lost 10 matches in a row!
A mere 10 or so hours before this wonderful triumph, the Black Caps beat India, in India, their first victory over India in India for 36 years (and just third victory there ever). Again, a very unexpected result, not just because a long time coming, but because recently, elsewhere in the Asian region [cricket pitches generally being a bit different there to here, favouring spin bowlers], the Black Caps had just lost two tests to Sri Lanka (not world champions, unlike India).
So, lots to smile about, read about and generally delight in.
Perhaps not quite the same if we look at religion in Aotearoa New Zealand through a "win/loss" lens.
On Saturday our local paper, The Press published an article on the currently rapid decline in religious allegiance as declared through the census. (See also here.) We are now at more than 50% of the population declaring they are not religious. The first two sentences of the article put the state of affairs bluntly:
"The deep Christian roots of New Zealand are disappearing, new census results show.
Aotearoa is becoming a more secular country as more Kiwis abandon the church."
The churches have known this for some time since our own attendance figures show decline.
If religion were a sport, the churches are currently on the losing side.
There is some news, we might call it "good", that religion may be being "replaced" by spirituality, including a new civic spirituality.
But, for Christians, who love our Lord Jesus Christ, that is not the Good News - not the news of the love of God experienced through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
We are in a tough period in our history. Whether or not this is the toughest time to be a Christian (aside from actual persecution), this is a new era for Christians, the post Christian era in which Western society, but very noticeably our Kiwi society, is collectively saying about the Gospel, "Been there, done that, no longer interested or bothered about matters of eternal significance."
From a different part of Western society, I noticed this on X/Twitter over the weekend:
The background here (I assume, as the article by Ross Douthat is behind a paywall) is the new interest in belief in God a la Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, and co. Even as "religion" declines, there can be a longing for what is lost ("a vague nostalgia for belief") but that - the argument appears to be - is insufficient for reclaiming what has been lost. [UPDATE: thanks to a correspondent I can now offer a link to another media site where the article is carried, here. At this point in time I have no time to engage with a very well considered reflection by Douthat.]
Either way, whether I am second guessing what Douthat is on about or not, there is plenty to think about in this article by Luke Bretherton.
One thing to think about is to be committed, through thick and thin, to the basics of the Christian life, including basic worship action: turning up to church regularly, which, for clarity, I propose is "at least weekly."
I suggest a challenge, putting all articles linked to here together, is whether we see the future of the church as the church - as the body of Christ, as the people of God united by belief in Christ and commitment to follow Christ - or as something else (for example, as keepers of a certain past of our society, or as useful guides and helps on the way to a new spirituality emerging).
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