NEW ZEALAND, March 30, 2002: As Christians celebrate Easter, latest census figures show there are fewer of them, but the diversity of faiths among New Zealanders is growing. Over a million people (27.5 per cent) described themselves as having no religion in the 2001 census compared with about 670,000 people a decade ago. New Zealand’s changing population is increasingly reflected in the variety of religions. The number of Hindus has more than doubled since 1991 to 38,769, and the number of Buddhists has more than tripled. At the same time, most of the major Christian denominations experienced drops in the tens of thousands. Peter Lineham, associate professor of history in the school of social and cultural studies at Massey University’s Albany campus, said that in the past half century the percentage of New Zealanders who described themselves as Christian had dropped by a third to just over 60 percent. The growth in “other world religions” had not made up for the decrease. “It’s not a collapse. What’s happened is there has been this massive decline in Christian support, but it is still the majority religion.” Other faiths, such as Hindu and Baha’i had grown from less than 0.5 per cent of the population in 1951 to 3.5 per cent today.
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