Moreover, she's willing to connect with people and invite them into open and honest discussions. That is important to her, she says.

So is the programme she hosts each week: Sunday Sanctuary - a small place of calm in a busy world.

Church on the radio

Bagust says when she was asked about doing a Sunday morning radio show, she said it should be a sacred, safe, spiritual place ... like church on the radio.

Sunday Sanctuary is based on the liturgy of a traditional church service, Bagust explains. Each element has been reinterpreted for commercial radio.

It begins with a welcome - the call to worship.

What follows is the examen - a meditative part of the show. Baguste guides listeners through some self-reflection. The homily becomes what they call "wananga" - where ideas meet over the table.

Bagust says she often invites guests to discuss the day's theme - like grief, gratitude or perfectionism.

The result is a show, rooted in traditional church liturgy, that resonates deeply with a wide audience of listeners.

So deeply, that when producer Today FM suddenly shut down, the Sunday Sanctuary team kept the show going as a fortnightly podcast.

Faith restored

"I think you have literally restored my faith in faith," a reviewer commented about Sunday Sanctuary.

"In Sunday Sanctuary, Bagust beckons the seekers, the questioners and the restless souls, and offers them a safe place to rekindle their connection with spirituality," another says.

"By and large my chaplaincy is expressed most in the podcast. Inviting people to come to themselves with compassion" Bagust explains.

Her method seems to be working.

"Your podcast is probably the most enriching and encouraging thing I've come across since actively leaving the church and travelling the deconstructed faith journey," a listener says.

Many people are deconstructing their faith. " I can understand why they've begun on that journey," Bagust says.

"My sorrow would be if the deconstructing was the end goal.

"Deconstruction" often talks about someone who's been disillusioned by church, faith or religion and is breaking down and analysing what they believe, or believed.

Deconstruction often paves the way for rebuilding, or "reconstruction", Bagust notes.

"It's the journey of the Psalms, isn't it?"

Some Psalms portray a world in harmony with a benevolent God, representing faith construction. Others question God's goodness in the face of suffering, marking the phase of faith deconstruction.

Some capture the struggle to reconcile doubts and disappointments with an enduring trust in God. They exemplify faith reconstruction, she continues.

They don't contradict each other - they hold tension and represent some of the mystery we find in the human experience in relationship with God.

"I think that I needed to be older to get there," Bagust says.

"I needed to make space in my life for lament and mystery, sorrow, tension and not having all the answers. And that stuff can live alongside my hope, and my faith, and my joy, and my enthusiasm.

Source

• Nelson Anglicans

"We will never be a fully multicultural society until we've fully adopted our bicultural foundations, and that's the struggle" says Devoy, a former race relations commissioner.

In an interview with Grey Areas host Petra Bagust, Devoy said racism is "an intractable problem".

It's always going to be there, it's never going to be eradicated.

Devoy said during her period as race relations commissioner between 2013 and 2018,75 percent of the complaints of racist behaviour she received "were all from the same demographic.

"They were old, not always men, but predominantly men, white - you couldn't call them Pakeha because that offended them as well - and threatened ...that something that was never theirs in the beginning was going to be taken away from them.

"I don't think any education in the world is going to change that attitude, and I think that attitude has been slightly empowered ... the minute they hear politicians using dog-whistle politics, they feel beholden in themselves to be able to say the things they only thought, but to say them out loud and to other people.

"Whatever I say is not going to change their point of view.

"The only thing that is going to change is that eventually they will pass away, and let's hope the next generation haven't inherited those beliefs that they have."

What would Jesus do?

Devoy then told Bagust of an incident where she was accused of "abolishing" Christmas after working with Belong Aotearoa.

That group - then known as the Auckland Regional Migrants Society - was set up to support refugees and new arrivals settling into New Zealand.

A Christmas lunch was being held for the collective.

As most of the migrants invited to the lunch weren't Christian and didn't relate to the festival, a more inclusive seasonal message replaced "Merry Christmas".

"Honestly, that escalated beyond actual belief - I got accused of wanting to ban Christmas and I got Christmas cards galore," Devoy told Bagust.

She said as she herself is a Christian, she thought the backlash "rather ironic" due to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

"Someone sent me a box of faeces that was wrapped up in beautiful Christmas paper.

"The box didn't offend me so much; it was the fact that someone had come down my driveway in the middle of the night and left it there," Devoy said.

"What would Jesus do?

"I think he would want us all to celebrate in the manner that we do, and this is where I can't quite understand the IQ of people sometimes."

Source

• Te Ao Maori News

TVNZ's Breakfast host Petra Bagust has once again shown her support for Media Prayer Day by being one of the faces fronting the campaign in the lead up to August 5.

Media Prayer Day is an initiative of Christian Broadcasting Association (CBA) which Bagust has been involved with for a number of years.

"CBA is very good at coming up with new ways of keeping people involved, and prayer is so simple, yet so powerful," she says.

Around 1700 churches have been invited to join in Media Prayer Day, which has been set up with the aim of encouraging churches to intercede for the spread of the Gospel through New Zealand's mass media.

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