Pilgrim: Multiculturalism, diversity and civil religion in New Zealand today - Paperback

by Bruce Logan (Author)

". . . a valuable and extended reflection upon many decades of cultural upheaval."

Rex Ahdar, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Otago

". . . elegantly plots the recent way-markers on the road to what could be the terminal decline of civilisation."

Simon Tomey, Business Consultant, UK

". . . weaves the strands of long experience, observation, and wide reading and learning to explain our broken relationship with our origins and the moral base that sustained us for so long."

Forrest Capie, Professor Emeritus, City University of London

". . . beautifully compiled and compelling narrative that avoids the trap of sentimentality or nostalgia, issuing a timely warning about the choices facing Western civilisation."

Rev. Dr. Michael Reid, Historian

"Logan's commentary is replete with allusions from a rich and bountiful canon of literature, theology, and philosophy,

and points to a culture that can recover and find its 'true north' . . ."

Desirée Williamson-Lay, Leadership and Communication Consultant

"Written with clarity, laced with irony and humour, a must-read for all who seek to understand the people and events that have shaped the days in which we live."

Brendan McNeill, Entrepreneur and Investor

"Bruce lays down a compelling challenge, a wero, a heartfelt call to rediscover the transcendent Truths that once anchored our young nation."

Peter Juriss, Educator

"Bruce's scholarship and wisdom both underscore the importance of examining where we've collectively been, to see where we're logically headed."

Liesl Johnstone, Journalist

All cultures are equal. That is the premise that has dominated our politics and social theory for decades. Consequently, many of us have not come to terms with the erosion of belief in objective value. We have forgotten that culture and the story that explains it are fashioned by religious beliefs, which determine a nation's understanding of its humanity, its character, and legislation.

Multicultural theory, with its avant-garde trinity of diversity, inclusion, and equity, sustained by cultural relativism, must deny the existence of objective value. Truth becomes little more than a matter of opinion.

Those rights that most New Zealanders take for granted, such as religious freedom, freedom of speech, tolerance, freedom of movement and assembly, and equality before the law, are not universal; they did not develop in a vacuum. Multicultural theory presumes the Christian declaration of human dignity, on which all those values are based, but denies that it does so. It spins its notion of equality, and then attempts to apply it to a secular culture that has no foundation for any belief in human dignity.

The consequence is the loss of freedom and the establishment of an authoritarian civil religion. This book attempts to explain how all this has come about and what we should do about it.