St Peter's Church

St Peter’s Church (Anglican) of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, was consecrated in late 1879. The church has a long history of community outreach work, that began with the provision of primary education and mission services in the nineteenth century. The growing commercialisation of the surrounding neighbourhood and the advent of public transport and the car changed the composition of the congregation, as residential inhabitants of inner city Te Aro moved out to the suburbs. By the 1970s St Peter’s had become ‘a city church with a small residential basis, a significant underprivileged transitory population and a large work-day community which hastened to its suburban retreat every evening and left the city virtually deserted at the weekends’. It had a new focus on social activism and was an early supporter of homosexual law reform and queer rights. In 1967 the vicar Godfrey Wilson delivered a ground-breaking sermon calling for the acceptance of homosexual people that was broadcast live on the National Programme (the predecessor of RNZ National). Today St Peter’s is an affirming church, meaning queer people are welcomed members of the congregation, staff, and clergy.