This occasional weekend column called ‘Pondering:…’ is where people from within the collective of 240 Baptist churches across the country can share issues they are thinking about in a way that opens up a topic from a particular perspective. Feel free to comment on these pieces via our Letters to the Editor. These opinion pieces are the views of individuals and need to be considered within the context of the diversity of our union of Baptist churches in New Zealand.
In this column, Dr Rachelle Martin, a member of Ilam Baptist Church in Ōtautahi Christchurch and of the Baptist Union of New Zealand National Council, reflects on how engagement with the Religious Diversity Statement for Aotearoa New Zealand has prompted deeper questions about Baptist identity, conscience, conviction, and how we live together faithfully across difference.
Lately, I have found myself reflecting again on what it means to belong to a movement shaped by freedom of conscience, voluntary faith, local discernment, and deep conviction. These reflections have deepened as I have contributed to the Race Relations Commissioner’s review of the recently updated Religious Diversity Statement for Aotearoa New Zealand. While that statement is directed toward our wider society, it has led me to consider what a similar statement for Baptists might need to say—not because we must write one, but because the thought experiment has clarified my own thinking.
At one level, much of the proposed national diversity statement is easy to affirm. It resonates with historic Baptist instincts: rejecting coercion, upholding the equal standing of all people before the law, pursuing peaceful coexistence, and protecting the freedom of individuals and communities to practise their faith. From early Baptist voices such as Thomas Helwys to Baptist World Alliance statements on “soul freedom,” Baptists have often defended religious liberty precisely because we have known what it means to emerge as a dissenting people. Our tradition has consistently insisted that authentic faith cannot be compelled by either church or state.
The broader social context also matters. In an increasingly diverse and often polarised society, it is understandable that people want to strengthen safety, neighbourliness, mutual understanding, and social cohesion. As Christians, we should be people who contribute to peace, uphold the dignity of every person, and seek the flourishing of our communities.
Recent inflammatory comments from Brian Tamaki directed at Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim communities have reminded us that these issues are not theoretical. They underscore why commitments to religious freedom, dignity, safety, and social cohesion matter, and why we must use language carefully to distinguish robust conviction from speech that dehumanises or threatens others.
However, reflecting on this statement has led me to consider deeper questions—not only about religious diversity in society, but also about the kind of Baptist movement we are called to be.
One key question is this: Are we seeking to protect diversity of identity, diversity of conviction, or both? These concerns are not identical, and they do not always carry the same weight or have the same consequences. But both need to be heard honestly if we are to speak truthfully about our shared life.
Protecting diversity of identity asks how we ensure that people and communities are safe, recognised, and not excluded because of who they are. Protecting diversity of conviction asks how we ensure that people and communities remain free to hold, practise, teach, and organise around deeply held beliefs, even where others disagree with them. A healthy society needs both. So does a healthy Baptist movement.
This matters because Baptist theology has historically centred strongly on conscience and conviction. We have emphasised the freedom to believe, to dissent, to interpret Scripture, to gather voluntarily, and to follow Christ without coercion. Baptists have not defended religious freedom because we believe all beliefs are equally true, but because we believe that faith must be freely chosen. Of course, Baptist freedom has never been simply the freedom to be left alone. At its best, it is freedom before God, exercised in humility, accountability, and love of neighbour.
That creates real tension in our current moment. Many Baptists will rightly affirm the need to protect people from discrimination, hatred, exclusion, or violence. At the same time, many will also want assurance that churches remain free to preach, teach, disciple, employ, and organise themselves according to their theological convictions, even when those convictions are contested.
We can see this tension across issues already alive within our movement. In conversations about gender and sexuality, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, co-governance, and international conflict, Baptists are asking different but important questions about dignity, safety, theological conviction, historical responsibility, political speech, and belonging. These issues are not the same, and they should not be collapsed into one another. Each carries its own history, power dynamics, and obligations. But together they reveal how difficult it can be to hold dignity, conviction, belonging, and freedom in faithful relationship.
Some are asking whether vulnerable people and communities experience genuine safety and dignity among us. Others are asking whether our churches remain free to hold and teach convictions that may be contested in wider society. These concerns are not identical, but they are both real.
Perhaps this is where our Baptist story has something important to offer.
Baptists have never assumed that all convictions will ultimately converge, nor have we believed that peace requires theological sameness. At our best, we have carried a more demanding vision: that people and communities with profound differences can still live together lawfully, peaceably, and respectfully because conscience remains free.
Of course, Baptists have not always lived up to this inheritance. We have sometimes defended conscience courageously, and at other times failed to recognise whose conscience, dignity, or freedom was being constrained.
That is why I wonder whether, at this point in our shared life, we need renewed language that distinguishes dignity from agreement. We can affirm the dignity of every person, because each one is made in the image of God. We can reject coercion, hatred, and violence. We can contribute to peace and neighbourliness. We can build constructive relationships across differences. We can seek the good of our wider society. And we can also gently insist that genuine pluralism must include robust protections for conscience and conviction, and for the freedom of religious communities to remain distinct.
For Baptists, the question is not only how we speak into a diverse society, but also how we live faithfully as a diverse movement. How do we honour local church discernment and decision-making while remaining meaningfully connected? How do we disagree without withdrawing from one another? How do we protect the vulnerable while recognising that conscience cannot be coerced—and while also accepting that our shared life requires accountable forms of speech, leadership, and conduct? How do we hold firm theological convictions without losing humility, charity, and love? These are not abstract questions. They sit at the heart of our shared life.
Perhaps social cohesion, both in society and within our own movement, is strengthened not by the absence of disagreement, but by the capacity to remain in relationship across disagreement. Perhaps our witness depends not on pretending our differences are small, but on learning to speak truthfully, listen carefully, and live peaceably while holding convictions that matter deeply.
Perhaps what we need is not a statement that smooths over our differences, but language that helps us speak honestly about them—with conscience, conviction, dignity, freedom, responsibility, and love. Distinguishing dignity from agreement does not mean offering politeness while ignoring harm. Dignity must be visible in how people are spoken about, welcomed, listened to, protected, and treated.
Such language would need to honour our history as a dissenting people while helping us navigate the complexity of the present moment. It would need to protect the vulnerable without coercing conscience. It would need to affirm dignity without requiring agreement. And it would need to call us back to the difficult but deeply Christian work of remaining in relationship across difference.
That feels like a conversation worth having—carefully, courageously, and graciously.
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For other ‘Pondering:..’ opinion pieces from people in New Zealand Baptist churches, click here.
Photo credit: Mike Crudge
