KEY POINTS:
An 80-year-old Christian leader from Canada has come out of retirement to try to douse the flames of religious intolerance in New Zealand.
The Very Rev Dr Lois Wilson, who was president of the World Council of Churches from 1983 to 1990 and later a Canadian senator, will speak in a debate at Auckland's Holy Trinity Cathedral tonight on the issue, "Does religious diversity undermine Christian faith?"
The debate comes as conservative churches plan a protest march at an Asia-Pacific Interfaith Dialogue, to be chaired by Prime Minister Helen Clark, at Waitangi from May 29-31.
Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer are expected to attend the meeting.
Churches led by the Destiny Church and the Exclusive Brethren spoke out in February against a draft national statement of religious diversity, which said New Zealand had no state religion.
Pastor Brent Douglas of Avondale's Encounter Christian Centre said his church, along with Destiny, Browns Bay's City Impact Church and Wellington's Metro Global Church, were organising the Waitangi protest to affirm that New Zealand was still a Christian country.
"Our cultural identity and much of who we are as a nation was actually built around the Christian ethic, but here we have a Prime Minister affirming the fact that we are not a Christian nation and there is no state religion," he said. "That is a betrayal of the very roots of our nation."
This reaffirmation of Christianity is also a theme of a New Zealand tour planned for July by Australian Baptist Pastor Stuart Robinson, whose book Mosques and Miracles argues Christians need to respond to "the Islamic challenge" and recognise that, although Islam is officially a religion of peace, some Muslims believe the only way to guarantee eternal life is martyrdom.
The national director of the Vision Network of evangelical churches, Glyn Carpenter, said he and other organisers were not trying to present Islam as "bad".
"I happen to believe it's a wrong belief. I happen to believe atheism is a wrong belief. At the end of the day we are actually looking for what's best for New Zealand, and some beliefs are more conducive to that than others," he said.
Dr Wilson, who leads the World Federalist Movement from her home in Toronto, campaigned in 2005 against the Ontario provincial government's proposal to let Muslim communities settle family law matters under Sharia (Islamic) law.
"It was the Muslim women who turned it down," she said. "They said: 'We came to Canada to escape from Sharia law in Egypt and Sudan and we are not going to have it here."'
But she also condemns what she called "violent talk" about the evils of Islam from some organisers of the Mosques and Miracles tour.
"That is violent talk which brings forth more violent reactions, and pretty soon you have an escalation and the whole thing is out of control and you can't talk to each other any more," she said.
She called on churches to "engage" with other faiths at the Waitangi dialogue, rather than protesting outside it.
"Who of us knows much about Islam? How can you have the arrogance to condemn any faith when you don't know anything about it? There needs to be an opening of understanding to the other so that we begin to understand what Islam is about."
* Dr Wilson will debate with Glyn Carpenter, Bishop Richard Randerson, Dr Jenny Te Paa, Dr Laurie Guy and Geremy Hema at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, at 7.30pm tonight.
Web: www.visionnetwork.org.nz
