Marriage Decline and MMP

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink

Monday 20th July, 2020

Marriage Continues to Decline in NZ

According to Statistics NZ New Zealand residents registered 19,071 marriages and civil unions in the December 2019 year, down from 20,949 in 2018. This continues the general downwards trend in the number of marriages each year. The general marriage rate in 2019 was 9.8 per 1,000 people aged 16 years and over. This is less than one-quarter of the 1971 peak, when the rate was 45.5. Please pause for a moment. That is a massive drop.

Christianity Today published an excellent article titled, “Can The Church Save Marriage?”

Here are two quotes from this article (highlighting mine).

• Meanwhile, the portion of evangelicals who said they were cohabiting rose from 3.9 percent to 6.7 percent in the same span of time. Support for cohabitation sprouted from 16 percent of this population in 2014 to 27 percent by late 2018. Very few of the surveyed evangelicals believe that marriage is “outdated,” but a growing minority of them now perceive an alternative pathway to get there.
• Marriage, even in the minds of most Christians, is now perceived as a capstone that marks a successful young adult life, not the foundational hallmark of entry into adulthood. The nomenclature attests to this. A capstone is the finishing touch of a structure. It’s a moment in time. A foundation, however, is what a building rests upon. It is necessarily hard-wearing. In the foundational vision, being newly married and poor was common, expected, and difficult, but often temporary. In the capstone standard, being poor is a sign that you’re just not marriage material yet.

POV. Christians believe in the God ordained institution of marriage. The Bible teaches abstinence from sex until married. So on two fronts we hold to values that are increasingly counter-cultural. Can we as the church then, cast a compelling (and beautiful) vision for marriage as a ‘foundation’ to a shared and good life together as opposed to a capstone where marriage, usually much later in life, is the finishing piece of an already self-actualised life?

MMP Electoral System

MMP has been NZ’s Electoral system since 1996. So this year’s election is the 9th under this system. At each of the previous eight elections somewhere between 5% and 14% of the Party Votes went to minor parties. The last election in 2017 spelled the lowest representation for minor parties in Parliament since MMP was introduced in 1996. The Māori and United Future parties were eliminated and New Zealand's typically most prominent third party, the Greens, barely crossed the 5 per cent threshold.

POV. I do not want to debate the pro’s and con’s of our Electoral system here. That said, I suspect many of us would prefer another (better or fairer) system. What is important is that as in previous years at least 5% of the Party vote will be wasted and could be as high as 14%. A wasted vote is a Party Vote for a minor party that does not attain the 5% threshold needed to get seats in Parliament. Currently there are 15 Political Parties registered. Yes 15………this means 13 are minor parties of which three are purportedly Christian based parties.

As I have said before it is a shame that the so called ‘Christian vote’ will now be split even further. It’s a bit like taking what is already a very small piece of the cake called the VOTE NZ chocolate cake and dividing it up into even smaller pieces. It isn’t rocket science to see that this isn’t going to happen, especially given the chequered past of Christian parties in NZ. Besides, I think as things stand today we are in for a two horse race in this years election. And while I am at it let me add that for one wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Labour won’t be able to govern alone.

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Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.