New Zealand: The Battle of the All Black Soul

November 18, 2016

The first 18 years of my life were spent in a small town in East Tennessee. In my hometown, nominal Christianity is very much in play—church is as much a social event as it is a religious one. Then, I found myself at Georgetown, a Jesuit school. Both of these places share the commonality of facilitating religious conversations, largely because many people enjoy discussing their beliefs. However, New Zealand is quite different; there is not the same level of dialogue surrounding religious and philosophical musings as what I have grown accustomed to.


There are a fair number of churches that you pass on the roads, but you don't see the large signs with quips like, “Without the bread of life, you’re toast,” that are common in the United States. Instead, the signs here in New Zealand point out the churches, which are often tucked away off the main street. New Zealand is an isolated country, and its attitude toward religion mirrors that. People who identify as Christian make up just under half of the population, and 42 percent of Kiwis do not identify with any particular religion.

I don’t see the obvious traces of religion here, like I do in America. However, that doesn't necessarily mean religion isn’t present. Church is much less of a social event here than it is in Tennessee, and perhaps that makes the people who attend more committed on average. Georgetown is probably somewhere in between. As a Jesuit school, some students go out of habit or out of obligation, but New Zealanders don’t experience the same pressures. No obvious external incentives exist from what I have been able to discern. For New Zealanders religion is a much more intimate area of their life, and it is not something that can be seen overtly, on a daily basis, or felt as an encroaching presence. The contrasts between these three locations can also be seen through the way people congregate. East Tennessee has the church, Georgetown has clubs (including religious groups), but what does New Zealand have that’s a social gathering place for many people? That, I would say, is the All Blacks. Rugby is absolutely massive in New Zealand, and the All Blacks are touted as the top team in the world. Just this year they set the record for consecutive test wins by a tier one nation. Needless to say, they are a pretty big attraction.

Now, it may seem irreverent to equate a sports team with religion, but the parallel is most certainly there. The All Blacks fill the social aspect of the religion perfectly. Want to make a friend? Talk about the All Blacks. While in Wellington, I tried to find a place to watch New Zealand's soccer team, the White Ferns, play. But I couldn’t. The game was around lunchtime, so I didn't expect how difficult it would be to find a spot that was streaming the game. Instead of showing the White Ferns, however, the bars were replaying the All Blacks victory over South Africa from the night before.

The entire nation gets behind the All Blacks in the biggest way, and this, again, is not something I have experienced in the United States. Perhaps, the closest comparison would be to the Tennessee Volunteers, but that example still isn't the same as having the entire country rooting for a single team. Playing for your national team is the greatest source of pride for many players across the world. As a “united” nation, the United States does not seriously support a single team. With a much larger population and more diverse demographic landscape than New Zealand, it may as well be impossible. However, you do find many Americans blindly cheering for the stars and stripes, having no knowledge of what they are watching. This isn't exactly the same unified support represented by the All Blacks. I think the difference in the two sports' cultures is mostly the result of vast differences in country size and composition.

So where does that put New Zealand? They seem to have a quiet adherence to their religion, if they are interested in it at all. It’s a sort of quiet strength that you find in Kiwis’ religion. The social fervor and norms I’ve experienced in religious settings in America is found in New Zealand through the All Blacks. That’s New Zealand for you. Quiet when it comes to religion and loud when it comes to rugby.
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