August: Springbok Tour of New Zealand
When it became clear that the Tour would proceed, we suspected that it would have to become a kind of nation-wide civil war of the
spirit. Opposing the tour became unavoidable. The Springbok Tour was like a disease travelling the length and breadth of New Zealand. Almost all of us at St John’s College were determined to make clear that we were opposing the Tour in the name of the crucified Jesus.
A simple life-sized wooden cross spoke theological volumes. It was a miracle that that
Cross made it onto the Hamilton playing field.
We were a large tight knot in the middle of the field. The Police Squads jogged menacingly out and surrounded us.
I detached myself from the tight knot and moved along the front of the police line urging them to see us as ordinary human beings not at all unlike themselves. My fear was that they might actually attack us.
But I had not reckoned on the situation as swiftly as had the police. They were likely more worried about the restless lubricated fringe of the increasingly frustrated crowd. Amidst the argument and violence of the event, the Cross turned out to be exactly the kind of “foolishness†that the Gospel speaks of.
As the Tour Protests continued, the Cross that we were carrying became an acute embarrassment, identifying us and our partisanship at once. Several times I found myself wishing we had built a cross that could be folded away into anonymity after the protesting multitude had made its point!
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