Christine Stride is Executive Assistant to the Baptist National Leader and works at the Baptist National Support Centre in Auckland. She is a member of Titirangi Baptist Church in Auckland.
A Baptist ministry leader’s recent protest in a Member of Parliament’s office resulted in his being trespassed by police. But there was no angry chanting of slogans, no pushing and shoving; the peaceful vigil involved prayer and song and was more a case of ‘beating swords into ploughs’ (Micah 4:3). We asked Caleb Haurua, who is part of an ORBIT intentional community in Auckland, and who is studying for a PhD in theology at NAIITS*, why he and his fellow protesters chose to protest in that way, what the experience was like and what they hoped to achieve.
ORBIT is a national Baptist movement via its affiliation with Arotahi (NZBMS).
What happened?
Caleb Haurua (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Rarotonga, Manihiki, Rakahanga, Aitutaki), fellow Baptist, pastor Dan Cuttriss, and Anglican Reverends Richard Bonifant and Wilson Chan entered Health Minister Simeon Brown’s Pakuranga office. The four stayed there holding signs that said, ‘sanction Israel now’, ‘love demands action’ and ‘sanctions speak louder than words’.
What sparked the idea? Talk us through your plans.
Prayer and grief sparked the idea.
I was watching the daily devastation in Gaza, and as a Christian, could no longer stay silent while our government refused to sanction Israel for what the world can clearly see is genocide. Silence, especially from followers of Jesus, easily becomes complicity. History shows us that. Our current reality shows us that too.
A small group of us decided to act. We wanted to offer a peaceful, prayerful presence in a place of political power. The plan was simple: to hold a vigil in an MP’s office, to pray for the people of Palestine, for Jewish whānau grieving violence, and for moral courage in our leaders.
We didn’t rush in blindly. We consulted with mana whenua, with Palestinian advocates, and with members of the Jewish community who share the call for justice and peace. It was a real collaborative effort. We wanted our action to be relationally grounded and respectful, an act that honoured all who call this land home while standing in solidarity with those suffering abroad.
We stood consciously in the long tradition of nonviolent direct action, from Jesus’ own disruption in the Temple, to Te Whiti and Tohu at Parihaka, to Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, to Mahatma Ghandi. Our peaceful protest was done in the name of the Prince of Peace. Our action was prayerful resistance: love refusing to be silent in the face of injustice.
What do you hope to achieve?
We didn’t go in expecting to change foreign policy overnight. What we hoped was that our small act might break through the moral numbness that so often grips both government and church when confronted with violence done to others. An apathy that our faith warns against.
Our hope was to stir people’s conscience, to remind political leaders that diplomacy without compassion is hollow, and to remind the Church that faith must be lived - not just believed. If it is faith not embodied in action then it is, as St. James said, nothing.
We wanted to embody a different kind of power: the power of presence, prayer, and moral clarity. By publicly praying in a government office, we were saying that faith cannot be confined to our pulpits and pews. It must enter the public square, especially when lives are on the line. When they gave us the trespass notices, and we still did not move, my response to the police was: “we came here to pray.” It was in that very moment that I, felt a sense of pride in publicly embodying my faith that I have never felt before.
Ultimately, we hoped our action would show that solidarity is not abstract but is embodied, relational, and costly. This was about actioning our faith, about turning our prayers for peace into a tangible act of love and resistance. Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu. It was a small act of resistance and revolution. I hope more people are inspired to do the same, offering what they have, no matter how big or small, to the call to the oppressed as Jesus declared so famously in Luke 4.
What did you expect would happen?
We went in expecting to be asked to leave and possibly trespassed. That is part of the history of nonviolent direct action: accepting consequences with peace in our hearts. We even spoke about getting arrested. We trusted the Holy Spirit for what happened next.
What did happen? What was the experience like?
What happened was both confronting and deeply moving. We prayed, we sang, we shared words of lament and hope. The space became sacred, not because of where we were, but because of the spirit in which we gathered. When police were called and we were trespassed, we remained calm and respectful. It was an act of spiritual defiance, grounded in love, not anger. It was disarming to them, and I am pretty sure the white collars on my mates’ necks probably helped in that regard! I can say hand-on-heart that the liturgy we prayed, the songs we sung, with the crosses given by friends of friends in Palestine equalled one of the most powerful and frankly scary times I have worshipped God.
The experience reminded me how faith and justice are intertwined. It was prayer as protest, theology as embodied practice. As a former youth pastor, lecturer and as a theologian who is Māori and Pasfika, I needed to embody my faith in a way that went beyond the Sunday sermon, or a nice convo over coffee. Action needed to get out of the sanctuary, out of the classroom, and into the street.
We left the office knowing we had done what conscience required of us.
When I think of Jesus, I think of someone who never separated worship from justice, or prayer from action. That is the tradition we stood in, and it’s one I hope the Church in Aotearoa will continue to reclaim. Because faith, when it’s alive, always moves toward the wounded places of the world.
* NAIITS is an Indigenous Learning Community (formerly the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies) based in Canada.
Photo credit: AI-generated image
