Australia and New Zealand Presbytery Resolution

RESOLUTION RE JOHNSON REPORT

Explanatory Note:

The Johnson report is a document prepared by a Government-appointed committee of which the chairman, Mr Garfield Johnson, a retired headmaster, was the chairman. The recommendations of the report envisage far-reaching changes in the New Zealand educational system. Legislation is to be introduced into Parliament’s next session to put the proposals into effect. The vast majority of the public are quite apathetic and fail to recognise the implications of the proposed legislation. A small minority, however, still appreciating the moral absolutes of the Christian heritage, voice their protest. The Presbytery passed the following resolution which was sent to the Minister of Education and the Prime Minister and is submitted to the magazine for the information of New Zealand readers.

The Australia and New Zealand Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, met on 20th October, 1978, and noted the unsatisfactory nature of the Johnson Report recommendations regarding spiritual values and sex education.

The report speaks of New Zealand society as pluralistic and recommends spiritual values teaching by teachers who “should give their own opinions”; yet a so-called non-sectarian spiritual dimension is indicated in terms of Paul Tillich’s and Lloyd Geering’s philosophies.

The Presbytery advise that the problems facing our society cannot be solved by further removing our young people from our Christian heritage. Any approach that fails to recognise the moral criteria as contained in the Scriptures, is doomed to failure. The following Christian viewpoints are submitted:—

1. The philosophies of Tillich and Geering are incompatible with the Christian gospel. The Johnson report therefore recommends a non-Christian sectarian position.
2. New Zealand still is, although only nominally so, a Christian society as indicated in the census statistics.
3. The standards that have characterized our society in the past and have elevated it above immoral and amoral heathenism, are the principles of Christianity.
4. The stability of our society as a democratic and Christian society is dependent on the principles of the moral law as contained in the ten commandments.
5. So few teachers are now in sympathy with this Christian code of ethics that no benefit can be expected from moral guidance that they will be required to give in terms of the report.
6. Sex education in a non-Christian context is wholly unacceptable to Christian parents. The removal of section 2(1)(b) from the Police Offences Amendment Act 1954 is therefore unacceptable.
7. Whilst in a Christian society it might have been expected that such problems would have been approached from a Christian viewpoint, it is deplorable that the moral values and sex education aspects of the report is completely devoid of Christian content.
8. The Presbytery advise that if New Zealand is to prosper spiritually and materially, a much more positive approach on the basis of Christian principles is indicated. Such an approach would include daily Bible reading sessions, in the present climate, without teachers’ comments.

“Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.”

(Owing to an oversight, for which we apologise, this Resolution was not published when it was sent. — Editor).