The Neanderthal bickering that passes for “democracy” in New Zealand has become even more of a circus recently. Just a week out from the election, the teflon coating has worn off John Key who was the primary voting focus of the National TeaParty. This is the risk of following a “presidential-style” campaign – you need to know what to do if you loose your footing (cf. USA, USA, Aus).
Thankfully!!! Christians (I had not realised until now) have been provided with an alternative. The sample ballot paper revealed on http://www.elections.org.nz has a party I had not heard of:
I urge you to vote for the last party on this list: the TRANSUBSTANTIATION PARTY!
But voting that way would change everything
🙂
I know, Peter. It would really alter the substance of things! And whatever remained the same would be merely an accident.
I suppose an alternative theological party to vote for would be the Liberty Party. I think it was their manifesto that lay at the heart of Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
Then, Peter, there’s the Union Party, and the Freedom Party,… But, since I’m not aware of someone from the Transubstantiation Party standing in an electorate, under MMP they need 5% party vote to be at all effective. So I urge Christians, this being a Liturgy site, to put our votes to the Transubstantiation Party – rather than for Christians to spread our votes across other theologically appropriate parties. Blessings.
Ah yes, the Transubstantion Party. I’m an Issuing Officer on the Polling Day and I must say I was surprised to see this listed. The woman who was training as a Polling Place Manager had a great deal of trouble with the word: fortunately there were several Presbyterians there to help!
Do Presbyterians vote? Isn’t the result predestined?
Well it would be if the perfidious English would stop interfering in Scottish politics.
I was thinking about setting up an oposition party “the Contransubstatiation party” but I am not sure if it will have a “real presense”
You are right, Pete, there is a real absence of alternatives. I am not sure that this transignificates as much as we might think as we look for a new symbolic body which will consecrate our approach on a new patten. We certainly need fresh blood. Consubstantially, as we look for a majority which is more than wafer thin it is good that people like you are looking at alternatives beyond the dominical digits required by MMP. Meanwhile, for this election at least, let us not depart from the given orthodoxy and rely on some sort of hocus pocus. Succession, obviously, is more dependent on receptionism than many acknowledge.
At least the Transubstantiation Party brings about real change rather than merely something symbolic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hK0xt5Com0&feature=colike
Who is it in NZ who is so knowledgable as to determine what fruit is representative of which party? That seems to be a mystery to me.
Here’s hoping they’ll make a real presence on the NZ political scene!