Living On The Fault Line: Aotearoa New Zealand's Bicultural Future

(Paperback)

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This book is about unfinished business. Travelling around the country to launch his successful Becoming Pakeha: A journey between two cultures (HarperCollins 2022), he met many people who found the name Pakeha not fit for purpose and who were anxious about the future of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That anxiety has translated into turmoil with our new coalition government's policies on things Maori and a wider than ever ethnic divide.

Living on the Fault Line tries to address this crisis time that's triggering Maori anger and Pakeha silence. It explores what a Kiwi identity might look like that keeps faith with Te Tiriti and celebrates the shared culture that makes and breaks us in Aotearoa.

Pakeha themselves are divided between those who dream of a tiriti-based future, with shared language and entangled cultures and those who fear that future, branding it as unfair, unequal, imposed. John Bluck, speaking for and to Pakeha, makes what one early reviewer calls "an eloquent and impassioned plea for a Pakeha voice that is confident enough to join the debate about this country's future without being defensive about or disconnected from the history we have to own."

Author Bio

John Bluck has a master's degree in English from the University of Canterbury and a postgraduate degree in theology from the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was ordained in New Zealand in 1970, then served in parishes in Gisborne, Wellington and Auckland. He also taught journalism full time at Wellington Polytechnic and edited the Methodist national newspaper, New Citizen, as well as contributing to radio and TV programmes. From 1976 to 1986 he was director of communications for the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Back home again, he was appointed professor of practical theology and communications at Knox Theological College in Dunedin. In 1990 he became the dean of ChristChurch Cathedral, where he served until 2002, when he was elected bishop of Waiapu. Throughout those appointments he wrote and broadcast regularly, including weekly columns in the Otago Daily Times, the Press and the Dominion Post, and authored a number of books on Kiwi culture and spirituality. Since retiring, he has continued to write and broadcast. Now living in Pakiri with his wife Elizabeth, he maintains a large garden, plays the trumpet, is involved in the local church, keeps up with movies and enjoys time with family.