Sunday Best: How the church shaped New Zealand and New Zealand shaped the church

The early arrival of the missionaries in Aotearoa set the scene for a new ‘moral colony’ that would be founded on religious precepts and modern Christian beliefs. It did not take long for a combination of circumstances to confound the aspirations of the Church Missionary Society, the Church in Rome and all those who followed.

Historian Peter Lineham examines Christianity in New Zealand through the lens of cultural development, and asks: If the various denominations and faiths set out to shap...