Christchurch Earthquake Memorial Service

By Helen Watson White in Articles

An ecumenical and multi-faith occasion

On March 18, exactly a week after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, an open-air memorial service was held for those who died in the Christchurch quake, when some of their bodies had not been recovered, let alone identified. Maybe that was too early for such a commemoration but it happened anyway, thousands of people gathering in Hagley Park on a Friday designated a holiday, and many more thousands watching the live link on TV or listening to radio. It was a funeral for some, a "time to reflect" for all; but it was also a celebration -- of togetherness, of unity and diversity, of our ability to give and receive help, of survival, and of the humanity we have in common with all nations across the globe. It was a "church service", but outside of any church. Those present who might be regular churchgoers were lost in a very large crowd.

Since February 22 there has been -- within and beyond Christchurch -- an important conversation going on about the nature of the Church, since many of the city's beautiful church buildings were trashed, leading their congregations -- small or large -- to worship elsewhere and in other ways, sometimes co-operatively. Christian and other social service organizations have constructed people-centres of all kinds to provide a focus for their work re-building community. Where there has been an emphasis on church buildings in relation to heritage, there is of course a huge sense of grief and loss; at the same time there has been a de-emphasis on historic buildings as the only definition or focus of Church.

Leadership of the memorial service seems to have gone (by default?) to the Anglicans -- which would be probably be expected in Christchurch, with the flagship Anglican Cathedral at its heart. The inclusion of representatives of other denominations and faiths (male and female standing together) was, however, a notable feature of the occasion, along with the significant part given to tikanga Maori and te reo.

The earthquake has been a great leveller. While there may have been a sense of formal hierarchy on the podium, everyone else -- apart, perhaps, from the USAR guys in their uniforms -- was there as an ordinary person, with no distinctions made. The Chaplain of Rangi Ruru Girls' School said she "loved just being there in the sun letting the service wash over me and sharing the time with colleagues." Does she wear a clergy collar? Are her colleagues at a church school necessarily Christian? It sounds as if, like many people these days -- and many, possibly, at the memorial -- they might consider themselves spiritual without being religious or specifically Christian. The many positive comments she heard valued the fact that leaders from other faiths shared their prayers: "Jew and Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu, Bahai and Christian stood together in the unity of praying for the dead and praying for peace and renewal in our city. Let us not underestimate how powerful that was."

Given that the "main" Cathedral choir in Christchurch is still men-and-boys, I probably would have been turned off the Memorial if it had been led only by a traditional all-male lineup of, say, Dean, Mayor, PM and Prince, but it wasn't; many women were involved. The representation of different groups on the podium was made clear by their names and affiliations written onscreen -- a process which, strangely, fell down later in the prayers, so that the term Presbyterian was never actually seen. It didn't matter finally, because the large number of different groups represented made more of an impression than the fact of who those groups were.

I was greatly helped by the TV service that day, having numbers of family in Christchurch and two more living in Tokyo with the threat of aftershocks, possible tsunamis and nuclear disaster as well. Several speakers, while concentrating on the local experience, also brought in the still-raw events in Sendai. There was special mention of the Japanese language students who died here, and video of the Japanese first-response team; the chanted Buddhist prayers seemed particularly apt because of these links with Japan.

I believe this "umbrella" occasion supported a theology of a much wider, more ecumenical church than we've previously considered possible: the idea that the body of God, active in the world, might include not just the members of all the Christian denominations, but people of all faiths and cultures, all ages and sexualities. If you wanted to sort out who was what in the crowd that day, to distinguish who had been baptized (or circumcised!), who was gay, straight or bisexual, Buddhist, Jehovah's Witness or New Age, you'd have an impossible job. Where would you find enough boxes to put people in?

It was significant, then, that Bishop Victoria addressed the crowd as individuals: each "person of faith, or no faith at present", remembered the experience that brought them there, when their "world fell apart." Each also was witness, however, to "something else" that happened in the aftermath: "a new spirit, with a strength beyond our imagining" that emerged from and for the people of a flattened city. "The spirit of God," she said, "was present, and God hasn't left."

So this was a pretty broad church she addressed. People who prayerfully, financially and physically helped others are part of it; some were so practically committed they couldn't be there. Out of all those people in Hagley Park, and those who took part remotely, many would have said they had no faith, but there they were. The irreligious weren't present to wave placards saying "there is no God, get over it!" or "Go, Richard Dawkins!" They were silently confirming for themselves that there is something pretty phenomenal about the human response to disaster in Christchurch and Japan.

I perceive a new kind of ecumenism here. When you look at those thousands seated on the grass, it's not only being driven from the top down, through decisions about representation on the podium. It's unforced and seemingly unlimited: it's ecumenism on the ground.

-- Helen Watson White

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish Weekly Bulletin, April 10, 2011.