RODNEY HIDE: New Zealand’s Rot Starts in Empty Pews
- Administrator
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
Christianity didn’t just arrive in New Zealand—it built the place. Missionaries planted the first permanent settlement in 1814, translated the Treaty, ran the early schools and hospitals, and gave us a moral framework of personal responsibility, stable families and covenantal duty. For a century and a half it was the cultural default. Then the 1960s secular wave hit. By the 2023 Census only 32.3 per cent called themselves Christian; 51.6 per cent claimed no religion. The collapse is not coincidence. It is the root of the social decay now choking the country.
Start with the family. Marriage rates have cratered from 45.5 per 1,000 in 1971 to a pathetic 8.0 in 2024. Half of all babies are now born outside marriage. Sole-parent households have ballooned; nearly one in five Kiwi kids grows up without both parents at home. The statistical fallout is brutal: children from broken homes are far more likely to drop out, offend, and end up on welfare. That is not “diversity.” It is the predictable result when the Christian ideal of lifelong covenant is swapped for no-fault individualism.
The kids suffer most. One in twenty New Zealand children is known to police for offending before age 14. Youth psychological distress sits at alarming levels. Poorly raised, fatherless boys become the ram-raiders and ram-raiders-in-waiting we see on nightly news. The state throws money at “programmes.” Results stay rotten because the moral formation once supplied free by the church—self-control, deferred gratification, respect for authority—is gone.
Schools accelerated the rot. Critical-theory poison now masquerades as “social justice” in the curriculum. Hedonistic sex education pushes consent-without-consequences and gender fluidity while sidelining marriage and fidelity. The result: functional illiteracy in basics, moral confusion, and a generation that thinks feelings trump facts.
Selfishness, greed and violence follow. Without a shared Christian ethic we get atomised consumers chasing dopamine, not citizens bound by duty. Trust evaporates. Community dissolves. Surveys show three in five Kiwis now believe society is “broken.” No wonder: when the transcendent is stripped out, the state steps in with bigger welfare, more regulation, and ever-higher taxes to bandage the wounds it helped create.
The fix is not parliamentary fiat or taxpayer-funded counsellors. The best thing for New Zealand families and New Zealand life is the oldest: a voluntary return to church. Strong congregations rebuild marriages, raise disciplined kids, restore community, and instil the work ethic and restraint that free markets and free people actually require. Christianity is not nostalgia. It is the operating system that once made this country work. Time to reinstall it—before the hard drive crashes for good.
Christianity is not just the best operating system for the building of free and prosperous nations. It has a virtue even beyond that: it is true.
Rodney Hide is a former minister and ACT Party leader
There are organisations in NZ that see Christianity as a threat to their own socialist/Marxist beliefs, hence the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the USA. He wasn't a physical threat but a moral one.
Hi Rodney. Don’t be dismayed or discouraged by the predominantly negative feedback. We know by now that many otherwise intelligent people on forums such as this, NZCPR, VFF, RCR, FSU, TPU, etc., go off their heads when Christianity is promoted or celebrated. The demons are out in force. Lack of knowledge of history and where our values come from contributes to this. While addressed to the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC, Hosea chapter 4 is relevant to the New Zealand of today (and the Israel of today, for that matter). Perhaps the most oft-quoted passage is from verse 6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”. This phrase highlights the critical importance of knowledge,…
Rodney, God has not lost control of New Zealand or the world. He knows exactly what He is doing. The great Christian revivals in this world have nearly always been preceded by a period of great spiritual darkness. I think things are not nearly bad enough yet, both in the Church and outside of it, for God to come roaring in with great light.
The truth is, the Church in NZ, generally speaking, is lost and broken.
The truth is, generally speaking in NZ, our country is lost and broken.
Both are sliding South, and have been for some time.
Only God knows where the tipping point will be when He steps into both realms with radical supernatural intervention.
The…
As Tom Holland has argued in his highly readable book "Dominion", we are all "swimming in Christian waters"; believers, agnostics and atheists. One has only to look at the profound impact that the 'Christ event' had on the progression of human history.. It is Christianity, and only Christianity, that over the tumultuous course of its 2000 year history has delivered universal human rights, the sanctity of the individual, universal suffrage, equality and common law. One does not have to accept the Bible as an historical document, nor accept its creedal doctrine to respect its moral message that laid the foundations of modern civil society. Groups of early Christians were the first to willingly take care of the poor, build hospital…
Andy Espersen comments,
Precisely, Rodney Hide - what a crucially important and wise article you have written. You write in the very beginning : For a century and a half it was the cultural default. Then the 1960s secular wave hit.
That was when postmodern philosophy first began to poison our Western nations. This evil way of looking at life has now infiltrated our institutions, our judiciary, universities, schools - etc..
We note that the motive for the latest assassination attempt on President Trump appears to be "anti-Christianity". In other words : Donald Trump is now seen to be a statesman who is is actively defending Christianity. Not many Western nations are! New Zealand is not.