19 Jun, 2026 Pagan idolatry – and Matariki, Deepavali, Hari Raya and more
This is the first of two articles about pagan / polytheistic religions within New Zealand, and the Christian response. This is in reference not merely to Māori polytheism, but also to other religions that are growing due to immigration.
This first article is to establish a starting line. Participation in other religions is being coerced. Children are being required to pray prayers to created things in some schools. A context of this blog is awareness of Christian families struggling with this – even while not at all opposed to other people having their own beliefs.
As summary statements
- We don’t worship created things.
- No one should be forced or coerced to participate in the worship of something they don’t believe in
- We are unwise to participate in worship we don’t believe in just to be ‘politically correct’ or for the sake of avoiding tensions. We all lose freedoms when people don’t stand to sustain the Christian values our nation was founded on (from which our religious freedoms come). Sadly, schools are complicit. This is a difficult matter. There is a sidelining of Christianity going on in our culture. We are wise to be aware of this.
- We show respect toward all other religions and beliefs. This is in keeping with our nations (Christian) values.
- People from other faiths are WELCOME here, on the basis of our Christian values – even while our nation is wise to select immigrants who hold similar various to ourselves. (In noting this article promoted in a week within which Ps Brian Tamaki unwisely talked about a ‘tit for tat burning of’ other religions’ buildings because this is happening to churches in their countries… I highlight a great article by Ps Jonathan Dove, clarifying our tolerance and love as Christians found here.)
- There are concurrently ‘grey areas’, where an outsider might (for example with Matariki) perceive any reference to a possible ‘god’ as idolatry – where in reality, to those speaking, it is merely a personification – as is also found in the Bible with trees that sing, mountains that lift their voice, and rivers that clap their hands. Some learning can therefore be useful.
About Matariki – and who we thank for provision
This is a festival that we encourage Christian churches to lean in toward.
This article is about the spiritual component only – not Matariki.
Matariki is quintessentially a mid-winter harvest festival. Most cultures have had these – timed for mid-winter – at the natural gap between agricultural seasons.
Our wider cultural New Year (1st January) comes from the same tradition in the northern hemisphere.
The Bible had one too – called The Feast of Tabernacles / Sukkot (originally commemorating the Israelites coming out of Egypt, but it quintessentially became a Harvest Festival).
Religion then naturally connects to a harvest festival – because we naturally thank whatever God or gods we believe in for our provision.
It is therefore true that Matariki has a pagan worship element to it for some. Some of these are prominent people – advocating for this – connected to government, with plenty of media and education system bias supporting this voice.
Concurrently, the percentage of Māori who worship Māori Atua is at about 6.9% according to the 2023 census – one quarter of the percentage who follow the Christian faith (24%). There is every reason for Christians to simply and confidently thank the Creator himself at Matariki for his abundant provision in our lives!
It is also useful to know that not all talk that might be perceived as talking about Māori Atua from a distance actually is. Sometimes words are understood as mere personification. The ‘God of the forrest’ is the God of the universe.
Carvings on a marae are a similar example, where there can be confusion. Some carvings might be gods – and more-so in the past than the present, while most today would simply consider them the ” family photo album”. The carvings were a way of remembering history when you didn’t have pen, paper or a written language. They made offerings to created things for as long as they had limited knowledge of he who is our Creator – exactly as our European ancestors likewise did.
As an intriguing note, there are some would desire to turn New Zealanders to the worship of created things. Those with the same types of thinking in Europe are encouraging a similar return to the polytheism of the pre-Christian era (prior to 600 AD) there also. There is commonality in a desired removal of Christian beliefs, stories and values.
The intriguing bit is that this is principally – I believe – a move to remove Christianity from prominence and regard. It isn’t European culture that is being rejected in a promotion of praying to Māori Atua in schools; it is specifically Christianity – just like in Europe likewise.
The ‘scapegoating’ of Christianity for the betrayal of the Treaty is exactly the same trend. Those with a religious agenda are leveraging Colonial failings – to blame the faith they, for some reason, despise. (They equate colonisation with Christianisation of their own purposes – while those with limited knowledge don’t know enough to see the deception this is.)
The irony is that Christianity is the basis of our nations freedoms, prosperity, equality, freedom – and more, also enabled the Treaty of Waitangi itself, with missionaries as the primary defenders of it through the betrayal also – until they were so maligned their voice was gone (and then so old that they actually were gone)!
(A friend this past week noted to me how, in the 1990s, all knew the New Zealand Company were the culprits in our 1840s history. Today, many young people know little of the New Zealand Company, instead widely regarding the missionaries whose presence here and contemporaries in England who specifically enabled our amazing Treaty as the culprits.)
Our Christian cultural values – and how we relate to other religions in New Zealand
Clearly Christians and Christian cultures do not embrace the wider values of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.
We remain a Christian-based culture even while many of our people no longer understand the faith. History does tell this story of our shared values in clear form. This disconnect with history makes rational discussion about religion difficult.
Our entire culture is founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic. Even our most adamant atheists are ‘Christian’ – believing in human value and freedoms, equality, charity and other virtues coming from the Christian faith.
The danger is in our ignorance of our culture and its benefits. Consider Richard Dawkins, one of the world’s most adamant and entertaining atheists, who has now openly recognised that he is in fact a ‘cultural Christian’. Or consider the Scottish documentary-maker and now political commentator Neil Oliver, who, while still an atheist, recognises the unequalled benefits of Christianity to civilisation, and cautions against ignorance on this matter.
The Christian faith offers the highest of all ideals – based in a belief in a Creator God who is good. Other gods are not good like this. This is because the gods we create typically replicate we who have created them. We are a mixture of good and bad, and so therefore are our gods.
The challenge comes where our ‘freedom of religion’ has emerged from the Christian view – while losing awareness of the basis from which it was birthed. Trees don’t last without their roots.
Our religious freedoms came from the Christian faith, not the Enlightenment. Our greatest civilisational benefits result from the Christian belief in the value of the individual – ‘created in the image of God’ (Genesis 1:27). This provides a rational basis for belief in the freedom of the will, grounded in the reality of personhood. Notably, neither atheism nor the non-monotheistic religions can affirm the rationality of personhood, or therefore even the objectivity of human rationality itself.
The historian Tom Holland writes insightfully on this culture dynamic – which we assume to the point of losing awareness of it. He explains how and why even atheistic Communism in Russia was ‘Christian’ – as articulated by the atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who despised Russian Communism for this very reason. ‘They have foolishly presumed the value of life’, said Nietzsche. They wrongly assume actual morality [good and bad] exist, and from that believe that there is a standard of justice – through which lens they see the wealthy as the oppressors, to be pulled down in favour of the poor. The insight Nietzsche revealed was that so-called atheistic Communism actually reeked of Christian thinking, values and ideas. It represented the very opposite of Darwinism and atheism, which logically praises those who take power, not those who pull down the powerful. Where did these ideas of valuing the poor come from? ‘The weak Christian faith, which makes heroes of servants who love others – instead of the powerful who triumph over their adversaries, advancing their species via evolution’s survival of the fittest!’
The boundary for Christians is best defined in 1 Corinthians 8
Paul articulates that an idol is nothing, while a demon isn’t something a Christian needs to fear. For this reason, where meat is offered to idols, there is nothing wrong with a Christian eating it.
However, if others perceive the meat to be offered to an idol, and perceive this as a possible compromise for a Christian, then eating it becomes wrong.
The principle is about love for others. The lesson is that perception matters.
So, while the Christian need fear no contamination from a pagan ritual, to participate in a way that is perceived by others to be worshipful is wrong.
Regarding Matariki – as noted at the start of this article – Christians don’t worship idols. The only question is – what constitutes worship? I suggest there are some legitimate balancing considerations here. There are TWO views among our Christian Māori leaders. Some recognise that much talk of Māori Atua is just a personification. Those saying the words don’t believe they refer to a god. Within the wider perspective – God is the God of the forrest; God is the God of the sea. Those taking this view need discernment – because sometimes participation might be justifiable, because it really is just a personification. However, the clear danger of this approach is in what 1 Corinthians 8 says. There also still needs to be courage and an ability to discern when it actually is a prayer to an Atua – and to hold the line.
Others avoid any referencing of or participation with Māori Atua – even where they know what is being spoken of is nothing more than a personification. They don’t want to cause confusion – because the reality of spiritual things isn’t a trivial or fringe matter. An investigation of how and why we are here is arguably the most important pursuit of life!
There are Christians holding the two above views that are equally devoted in their evangelical faiths.
Multi-religious New Zealand – How do we respond?
Our environment is changing quickly. We are failing financially. The Welfare State is already unsustainable – propped up by a combination of money printing (inflation – ‘stealing’ value from the people) and immigration. Taxes will have to increase. The debt a prior government created was extravagant – requiring a 20-year fix, and that only if strict economic restraint is shown. Our economic future isn’t looking bright. Immigration will be a key to sustaining the economy – while putting a pressure on housing, holding prices high, disadvantaging New Zealanders.
In the process of this, we have to consider who we are as a nation – to preserve things that are most important.
I would suggest that our national values are among those most-important things.
How much immigration have we embraced? 23% of those living in NZ were not born here. We are increasingly cosmopolitan – Auckland even more so, at over 40%.
This is changing the religious landscape. How are we to respond?
It think it was foolish and even somewhat shameful to see our PM, Christopher Luxton, bowing in worship in a Hindu temple and an Islamic mosque. Was this done to win approval? Was this done to avoid a tense moment where there was an unhealthy expectation? Has he not understood the significance of religion to values, and who we areas a ‘Christian – multi-religious nation’? There is a big difference between showing love and tolerance and embracing beliefs and values that are in contrast to our own, if the matter of religion is studied.
We did not get our freedoms, prosperity, equality, charity and so much more by mistake – or because governments were smart. It is our values that did it – and ALL values stem from religious worldview!
Our Christian tolerance doesn’t mean we have to embrace their religions – even while we (as Christians) are primary protectors of individual free will when it comes to religion (this being true despite the failure of many individuals who have called themselves ‘Christian’).
It is of particular note that, while we accept everyone in NZ (because of our Christian values) the same charity is not afforded to Christians in other places. Christians are the most persecuted demographic on the planet. India is becoming chief among our persecutors. The Islamic world has long been the leaders in Christian persecution. (The second most persecuted demographic is muslims – their chief persecutors being other muslims.) Whether our ignorance or our cultural history and how religion works is chosen, just ignorance or from a bias I do not know. What is currently true is that many New Zealanders and Westerners do not understand religion. We live in a bubble, unaware that the very ‘air’ we breathe (culturally speaking) is in fact ‘Christian’.
Church leaders have a role to play
Three things are needed
- Some knowledge
- Discernment
- Courage
As I write elsewhere, regarding religion, New Zealand is a ‘Christian multi-religious nation’. Both are true – though only in this order.
It is only because we are ‘Christian’ that we are also ‘multi-religious’. If we lose the former, we will eventually lose the latter, devolving to the state our ancestors were once in. History tells this story. Our present world does also.
Church leaders need to discuss this
…to help members have some knowledge, as a basis for discernment and also speaking – because even in our workplaces and schools, compromises are taking place, with students coerced and pressured to pray to created gods.
It’s one thing to tolerate differences and show respect. It is another to participate in the worship of idols, forests, trees, seas and gods whose character, nature and values are not only different but often opposed to our own – were we to understand religion.
We do actually not have to understand these other religions.
We do not need to criticise them either. There is no threat in Christian tolerance.
There is, however, a great threat within our ignorance.
In summary: More wisdom is needed with regard to religion
Our environment is changing. Our public leaders – and a majority of the public – are uninformed about religion. They incorrectly believe all religions to ge essentially the same.
As a result, public leaders are going to compromise on important things, unaware of the longer-term consequences. They are not perceiving the connection between beliefs, values and behaviour. They will therefore create new prejudices, expecting a disregard of religious truth, creating new basis from which discrimination will – ironically – come against Christians!