This is the full version of the article printed in "The Anglican" (Advent 2009 edition).
Bishop John answered God's call at a young age with no idea of how his life might unfold.
“I made a very early faith commitment,” he says, describing his journey from growing up in Pukekohe to becoming a leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. He made his commitment at a Church Army altar call when he was 12, just before he was confirmed in his parish.
“But I kept it to myself.”
Or so he thought. In his last year at King's College, Geoffrey Greenbank, the headmaster, asked him one day what he intended to do next. Go to university and become a lawyer, he replied.
“Greenbank said: 'No you aren't. God wants you to be a priest. You should talk to the Bishop when he's here for a governor's meeting tomorrow. Discuss it with your parents tonight'. I went home and told Mum and she said 'I've know since you were six or seven'.”
The next day, still in his school uniform, the Bishop accepted him for ordination. This opened up for Bishop John an abundantly rich, challenging and fulfilling life in the church, at home and abroad, over more than four decades.
“Truly, it was the Holy Spirit at work. I wouldn't have been able to have guessed any of that happening.”
Yet, in retrospect seemingly small incidents turned out to have a profound influence on his life, steering him in unexpected directions. For example, it was a chance reference to Pukekohe that helped set him on the road to helping Maori first in their own parishes and then nationally through development of the three-tikanga constitution.
“I was shocked at King's in a school debate when someone called Pukekohe the Little Rock of New Zealand.” This sense of discrimination was reinforced at the Auckland University. He found he could fulfil the foreign language requirement of his arts degree by studying Maori.
The stage 1 paper “drew me in,” says Bishop John. This language and culture of the first people of New Zealand seemed “far more relevant to ministry than New Testament Greek.”
After university he studied theology at St John's, was ordained deacon in 1969 and priest in 1970. After a brief curacy in Whangarei, Bishop Gowing asked if he would accept a position in the Maori pastorate in Waimate North. Nationwide, the pastorate was very short of clergy so any priest with even a passing knowledge of Maori was valuable.
Having done only one university paper, “I couldn't speak Maori. But the people in Kaikohe acknowledged I was young and keen. They said 'we've got to train your ears before your tongue'. One elderly woman said I was not to go to any tangi without her. It was a huge privilege.
“Seven years later, when I came out of Kaikohe, I knew who I was as a priest. Even better, I knew who I was as a person. Kaikohe was so rich an experience, so much a gift.”
He returned to Auckland to serve under Kingi Ihaka, Auckland Maori Missioner. Soon after, he became chaplain of Queen Victoria School, further deepening his links with Maori. “I had many trips around the North Island taking a girl with a van load of friends to a tangi. Very sadly, though, I had a better understanding of the language than many of the girls.”
Queen Victoria's was also a source of great pain when some years later the difficult decision had to be made to close the school because it had become a major financial drain on the diocese. “It was horrible being Bishop. I was a great supporter of the school.”
Bishop John has maintained, however, a leading role in education. He only recently stepped down from his long tenure as founding chair of the trust board that supports 43 Anglican schools in the country. “We're influencing 40,000 young New Zealanders at any one time,” he says.
In 1982 Bishop Whakahuhui Vercoe asked him to become the secretary to the Bishopric of Aotearoa, the Maori Anglican Church. In 1986 be became secretary of a new bicultural commission to consider the Treaty. That led to another job as secretary of a bicultural commission to revise the constitution of the church. Later the same year he was appointed secretary to the whole church. “They saw me as something of a bridge between Maori and Pakeha.”
It was a time of very great change for the Anglican church. The two biggest developments -- the three-tikanga constitution, which took effect in 1992, and the creation of the New Zealand Prayer Book -- are having a profound effect on our relationships and worship, Bishop John says.
The prayer book “is our constant companion in the world. It has given us a great deal more confidence in worship and our corporate prayer life. Its language is so inclusive, its imagery so New Zealand and its spirituality so natural.
“The constitutional arrangements have led to a wonderful flowering of confidence in the Maori Church. Over the next 20 years the three tikanga will grow back together in a spirit of independence yet responsibility of being a partner. We see it sometimes now but not often enough. We don't work hard enough to change.”
And there have been many deeply emotional times on the journey. For example, the 1998 Hikoi of Hope “gave people a glimpse of what can happen when we walk, listen to people and hear how different their stories are.
“I'd come from spending my early years in ministry in the Maori church…and with their struggles with land, language, the treaty and their place in society. Fifteen years ago those were still big questions.”
Now there is abundant evidence of progress and redress such as the Maori Party and its parliamentary co-operation agreement with National and the emergence of Maori TV with its distinctive, moving coverage of Anzac Day and the funeral of Sir Howard Morrison.
Bishop John's deep engagement in these biggest changes to our church in decades won him wide support as successor to the Rt Rev Bruce Gilberd as Bishop of Auckland in 1995.
He knew the challenges he would face. “The Diocese of Auckland was looked on as a really difficult diocese to take on. A number of camps were lobbying theological grenades at each other. In Synod, lots of people were disengaged. And I was confronted by a small but controlling group of women who were seeking to get more women into every place in the diocese.”
In response, “I tried to maintain a level of discourse with those who were most concerned with the issues, especially Mainstream (the evangelical grouping). I've been very moderate in public, in the pulpit and synod so as not to polarise people.
“I reintroduced to synod a traditional sense with standing orders, bills and statutes, making it more business like.” This has contributed, Bishop John believes, to more discussion and more constructive debate. “Synod reps are now more willing to talk to each other,” he says.
And rather than follow the narrow agenda of the women's lobby group, “I wanted women to have a broader role in the life of the church.”
“Probably the greatest challenge for me as Bishop is doing the prophetic side of what a Bishop is called to do. I'm actually a bit of an introvert and I really hate it. At times I've had to do it especially in the six years I was primate. But I don't consider that prophetic role has been a success at all.”
Help was at hand, though, when Richard Randerson came back to the diocese as an assistant bishop. “We are good friends and colleagues, we trust one another. I encouraged Richard to take more of the prophet role, enabling me to take more of the role of unity in the diocese.”
Bishop John resumed a national leadership role when he was elected primate in 1998, serving until 2004. “I was elected for my strength – my Maori relationships - but it became my weakness. Maori dug their heels in and wanted Hui Vercoe as primate. After I was elected, he wouldn't have anything to do with me.”
His time as primate was made even more demanding by the great conflicts in the Anglican Communion worldwide. In quieter times, the primates met only once every three years. But Bishop John attended seven overseas primate meetings in six years.
And he had additional meetings abroad as a member of the Anglican Consultative Council from 1988, as vice-chair 1996-2002 and then chair 2002-2008. These primate and ACC duties often meant Bishop John had to go overseas up to five a year, a commitment to the worldwide church which he says he knows sometimes short-changed the diocese.
But he did so because he passionately believed in the task. As the leading, permanent forum in the worldwide church, the Council was working strenuously to try to heal the deep divisions in the communion.
“I want to see a church that's inclusive to the nth degree. But it is not an easy debate with people who profoundly hold views quite different from mine.”
The strength of feeling from Mainstream, with its evangelical, theological understanding of the issues, is as strong as ever. “But they realise I've been as good as my word not to do anything that would upset or violate their views.”
But, says Bishop John, unity has come at a price for some people, particularly gays and lesbians who have had to endure the long debate over their place in the church.
In addition to maintaining unity in the diocese, Bishop John considers the growth of local shared ministry as his other main legacy. “It is unleashing a creativity that's really healthy and enjoyable to be part of. There are now 20 of them in the diocese, which means churches have remained active in ministry and mission in many communities where the traditional model would no longer work. Auckland is now recognised internationally for the success for taking seriously the ministry of all the baptised.”
Another important part of a bishop's role is to recruit, train and ordain clergy. “Very soon after I was appointed bishop, the evangelism council presented me with data showing that many clergy would be retiring over the coming five to 10 years, meaning the diocese would suffer from some big gaps in age and experience of clergy. But what a difference now. At this year's synod we had some priests in the 20s.”
It is confirmations, though, that give Bishop John particular joy. “I'm now doing more confirmations than I was 15 years ago. They are always good occasions. I always ask clergy to encourage candidates to say why they want to be confirmed. Their words sometimes move parents and grandparents to tears. They say 'that's the first time we've heard our children using the language of faith'.”
- By Rod Oram