Building God's Own Country: Historical Essays on Religions in New Zealand

Building God's Own Country: Historical Essays on Religions in New Zealand, ed. John Stenhouseand Jane Thomson (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2004)

Many features of a society and culture - racial and ethnic identities and interactions, gender roles and relations, family life, weekly rhythms of work and leisure, public debates over drink and Sunday observance - cannot be understood without looking at people's religious beliefs and values. The essays in this book offer insights into New Zealand's religious past, often through the prism of one southern region, Otago. By graduate students of the University of Otago, the book considers many aspects of the country's ever-changing religious landscape, including the bishop who declared himself an Irishman first, a Catholic second and a Christian third!

Contents

Acknowledgements 5
Introduction 9

Part 1: Southern Presbyterians
1. Scottish piety: the Free Church settlement of Otago, 1848-1853 21
R.R. McClean
2. The right mall for his time: D.M. Stuart D.D. 32
Margaret Morgan
3. A godly rhythm: keeping the sabbath in Otago, 1870-1890 46
Alison Clarke
4. The 'Whistling Kirk': music at Knox Church, 1860-1990 60
Jennifer M Andrewes

Part 2: Communities of Faith
5. Moray Place Congregational Church: a social history, 1862-1966 75
Keith Furniss
6. Chosen people: the Jewish Kehilah in nineteenth-century Dunedin 84
Maureen Kate Cooper
7. Good reading matter: the New Zealand Tablet, 1873-1895 96
B.D. McLeod
8. 'Onward Christian soldiers': the Salvation Anny in Milton, 1884-1894 113
Michael F Hay

Part 3: Missionary Encounters
9. Missionary printer: William Colenso at Paihia, 1834-52 127
GA. Phillipson
10. The trials of the Saints: Mormons in New Zealand, 1854-1940 139
J Henderson
11. 'Teacher' Don: the mission to the Chinese in Otago 153
Susan Irvine

Part 4: Gender
12. 'Be strong and show thyself a man': Christian masculinities in southern Dunedin, 1885-1925 169
Kieran O'Connell
13. This game of living: The YMCA in Dunedin, 1933-1938 185
Justine Smith
14. Patient and enduring love: the deaconess movement, 1900-1920 196
Karyn-Maree Piercy
15. An easy passage? an Anglican female priesthood in New Zealand 209
Angela Matthews

About the Authors 223
Notes 227
Index 271