Between a Hard Rock and Shifting Sands: Churches and the Issue of Homosexuality in New Zealand, 1960–86

This article explores the attitude of New Zealand churches to homosexuality from the 1960s to the 1980s and their varied stances regarding homosexual law reform in 1985–86. In the early 1960s church and society were in lockstep in publicly supporting traditional sexual morality. Major and wider attitudinal change in the later 1960s and into the 1970s led to changing attitudes in relation to homosexuality. At this time churches in New Zealand were weakening in numbers and in influence. One response was to embrace societal causes; another was to react against societal change. Marked “liberal” and “conservative” polarization led to a collapse of the “theological middle.” New Zealand churches were divided over homosexual law reform in 1985. Conservative Christians looked to biblical texts while liberal Christians focused on wider issues in society. The conservative Christian defeat in the decrimialization struggle was a defeat on a broader front.