Introduction

who am I, and why am I writing this?

Ko Hannah tōku ingoa/My name is Hannah.

I’m a pākehā cis woman (she/her), raised in fundamentalist christianity. With twitter on shaky ground, I’ve started this substack in order to talk about extremism in christianity, and related topics involving current alt-right activity.

Most of you will probably be reading this after following my twitter for the last few months, but I’m going to introduce myself again anyway.

I was born here, in the Manawatū, which is in the lower half of Te Ika-a-Māui in Aotearoa, 31 years ago. My parents were caught up the charismatic revival of the 1980s, and subsequently joined the christian homeschooling community.

During my childhood years, I attended a variety of churches, including a network of homechurches. The majority of my community was also made up of christian homeschooling families.

My education was centered around an increasingly extreme form of christianity. My parents loved my sister and I very much, and were very sincere in their beliefs. Unfortunately, all the sincerity and good intentions in the world, cannot alter the fact that what we were taught, was also extremely harmful. Not just to us, but to wider society.

We were taught that you can’t trust scientists, and you can only partially trust doctors. Evolution was a lie, climate change was not real. The spirit world was real, and most leaders who were not christian were believed to be influenced by satan and possessed by demons. We were taught that there were only two genders, and that men were inherently more suited to lead. As a woman, I was taught it was my role to find a husband, submit to him, and have as many children as I could, as birth control was seen as perverting the will of god. Being queer in anyway, including being transgender, was seen as incompatible with being a christian.

I have compared my upbringing in many ways, to a decentralised Gloriavale. But while I am still very much concerned about the children still being raised like this, with no oversight, there is something else that concerns me more. The rise of disinformation, misinformation, and the alt right in Aotearoa has been increasingly visible since Covid19 changed our world forever. And it is in this rise, that I recognize much of the same harmful rhetoric that I grew up with, paired with an even more fervent and evident bigotry and hatred.

Not all those in the alt-right are christian. Not all those who are christian are in the alt right. I cannot possibly give a nuanced point of view on every single area or prominent personality that exists under that murky label. But what I can do, is give you candid snapshots from my childhood, via my diaries, which I kept, all 25 of them, as I was growing up.

In this substack, I plan to write posts that are more personal, and contain material from those diaries. I also plan to write posts about things that are happening right now in this country that make me concerned for its future, things like Family First NZ, spreading disinformation about sex-education, specifically around gender, and encouraging the harassing of schools, teachers, and school boards.

I am only one person, I work full-time, and have people in my life who I love and rely on me, so I cannot possible write even a fraction of what I feel needs to be said. But I can write something. I will be keeping content free, so if you followed me on twitter, please consider subscribing to this. I just want to be heard. Because unfortunately, my experience is not unique, and it feels increasingly relevant in the currently political climate.

Thank you for your time.

Hannah Joy Blake.