Niki Harré: heeding the call
2 March 2026
Academic’s new book explores what the secular world can learn from religion.
In 2021, University of Auckland psychology professor and atheist Niki Harré appointed herself as a ‘secular priest’.
“Some people thought I was playing with fire – like a child with no clue of what they’re doing – and I’m not saying they were wrong,” says Niki, who heads the School of Psychology.
She was exploring what’s lost when religion fades away, as in New Zealand, where most people profess no religion – a dramatic shift from last century.
Her account of the experiment is The Calling, a book that argues the secular world can learn much from religion.
Taking advantage of a year’s leave from the University, Niki plunged into Christianity, the religion most familiar to her. She attended services, immersed herself in Christian writing, and stepped back from busyness and consumerism. She devised vows for herself, constructed Sunday services, and launched a secular priest website to advertise her services, which included conducting ceremonies and personal conversations.
Under a vow of ‘simplicity’, she limited her clothing to a black and grey ‘uniform’.
In Sunday services, delivered to as few as three people and as many as 18, there was singing (Leonard Cohen’s 'Hallelujah', The Pretenders’ 'Hymn to Her'), shared food, small rituals and talks by Niki on topics such as service.
Some people thought I was playing with fire – like a child with no clue
of what they’re doing – and I’m not saying they were wrong.
She came to see that religion had a lot to offer – from engagement with the mysteries of life to community service.
The nonbeliever noticed a tolerance among liberal Christians seemingly absent from the secular world – especially notable to her when University colleagues were vilified and ostracised for stating beliefs about mātauranga Māori and science. And at some point, she experienced what she describes as “a strange new feeling of happiness”.
Following the experiment, Niki has kept returning to the interdenominational Rhythms of Grace church in Parnell. “I’m sitting there knowing that God is at one level a fabrication,” she says, “and yet such a human and beautiful and poetic fabrication.”
- Paul Panckhurst
The Calling will be launched at Maclaurin Chapel on 12 March by Auckland University Press ($35).
This article first appeared in the March 2026 issue of UniNews.