Taking a lead on religion
When you’re steeped in the spirit, it takes huge courage to do something else with your life.
Rob Yule, 74, was born into a family of ‘‘wall to wall’’ Presbyterian ministers yet, as he entered Auckland University, he was interested in the Forest Service instead.
But influences such as the Inter-varsity Fellowship changed his mind and, in 1963, he devoted his life to ministry. If he thought it would be pastoral, peaceful and Presbyterian, then he was in for a rude shock.
In his first year at Knox College in Dunedin he encountered controversial Old Testament Professor Lloyd Geering and, at a young age, challenged his theology. Despite receiving an A-plus from Geering for an essay on the geography of Israel, Yule wrote the earliest critique of his book, God In The New World.
Geering didn’t believe in the resurrection and claimed Jesus’ bones would eventually be found in Palestine. Yule disagreed and reaffirmed the church’s belief in the resurrection. His review, Myth In The New World, contended that Geering concocted a mythology for secularism.
‘‘Geering’s classroom was the gymnasium in which I became his sparring partner,’’ Yule said. ‘‘It strengthened my faith.’’
Geering became a religious atheist. Yule graduated with a bachelor of divinity.
After a brief spell earning money at Crown Lynn pottery, he set out for three years’ postgraduate study at New College in Edinburgh. With Chris, his new bride, he lived with a community of monks in Roslin, south of Edinburgh, and helped them respond to an invasion of hippies.
In 1973, Rob and Chris returned to New Zealand. He was appointed ecumenical chaplain at Victoria University and Wellington Teachers’ College. It was the heyday of the Jesus People Movement.
On one hand Yule confronted Marxist students, who fought to get rid of him from the student union building, while, on the other, he flourished in a season of ecumenical co-operation.
Three charismatic appointments followed, to Hornby in Christchurch, St Albans in Palmerston North and Greyfriars in Auckland, before they retired back in Manawatu¯ in 2010. In Hornby he experienced two schisms. One group split to form their own Pentecostal church around the corner while a conservative group headed in another direction. Yule was left to rebuild what is now Hope Presbyterian, New Zealand’s largest Presbyterian church.
In Palmerston North, he again built the church until there was no more room in a tiny, worn-out building.
‘‘Those first years were the nearest to a revival I’ve ever known,’’ he recalls. ‘‘From St Albans, arose an interest in global missions. Twenty-five adults went to different countries and served in Christian mission work.’’
His own ministry spread internationally and he was invited to teach in a Bible school in the Czech Republic.
‘‘It was a real privilege to establish the church two hours east of Prague and teach a new generation of young Christians who’d emerged after the fall of communism,’’ he said.
The building where Harvest International Ministries was based was the mansion where Reinhard Heydrich once kept his mistress during World War II.
A highlight of Yule’s ministry came when he was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s the Presbyterian equivalent of an archbishop. Yule was its pastoral leader and public spokesman. His appointment was challenged by people sympathetic to the gay community and proponents of gay marriage.
Now in retirement, Yule lectures at Emmaus College in
Palmerston North and writes books on subjects ‘‘dear to my heart’’. Among them are Restoring the Fortunes of Zion
and A Terrifying Grace , on sexuality, romance and marriage in Christian history.
Yule’s other interests include family – five children and 16 grandchildren – his enduring marriage, and athletics.
He won the Auckland Grammar Mile and was an Auckland middle-distance runner. He recalls a huge crowd encouraging him in a 10,000-metre cross-country event, only to find they were cheering for Peter Snell, recovering from the flu, who caught up and passed him near the finish.
Yule says he would like to be remembered as ‘‘a faithful servant of God in a culture that does its best to avoid God’’.