Churches, State and the New Zealand Wars: 1860-1872
Author(s)
Failinger, Marie; Keifert, Patrick
Abstract
Ever since the Enlightenment, scholars in a variety of disciplines have depicted the Western world as growing inexorably more secular. Modern, secular, and scientific modes of thought, they insist, have steadily driven religion out of the public square. Many have portrayed the secularization of the public sphere as not only inevitable but desirable- a Good Thing. In this article, a case study of the New Zealand wars of the 1860s, I question these assumptions. In Victorian New Zealand during this period, settlers and politicians ejected Christianity from the public square for dark and murky reasons. The Enlightenment grand narrative of secular light banishing religious darkness must be seen for what it is: a powerful modem myth whose historical inadequacies ought carefully to be exposed.’
