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Leaked documents reveal the New Zealand Defence Force used fictional Evangelical Christian “insurrectionists” in war games, sparking debate over ideology, military training, and narrative warfare.

The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has confirmed that Evangelical Christians were fictional targets in recent war games.

Responding to leaked material made public by independent journalist Penny Marie, the NZDF said that, although Christians were targeted, no harm or offence was intended.

Categorising a group as a threat for the use in training was not about warring “against any particular religion or ideology”, wrote NZDF chief of staff, Brigadier Grant Motley, in a letter dated 5 February 2026.

“The characterisation of various groups and forces as allied or opposing forces may change from scenario to scenario,” Motley explained.

In other words, no harm, no foul.

Fictional Christians as Combatants

Notwithstanding Motley’s reassurances, the fictional scenario involves the NZDF fighting what are essentially Christian nationalists.

The Visayan Peoples Front (VPF) are Christians depicted as armed terrorists, who can be hunted down.

VPF are, Motley said, “a predominantly Christian group with separatist aims to establish a new fictional Visayan state broadly modelled on Christian values.”

A US Department of War’s narrative for VPF states that their quest for independence expanded into a war on Islamification.

VPF, so the war game backstory goes, “wants to deport all Muslims and create a Christian nation.”

Implying national socialism, the fictional Evangelical Christian “insurrectionists” are additionally designated “quasi-socialists.”

Imported Scenarios from the United States

Both America and Australia have used the wargame hypothetical to train their warfighters.

As Motley confirmed, the NZDF used the Christian-Nationalists-are-terrorists scenario four times throughout 2025.

First for a “Junior NCO course, then for Exercise Urban Warrior, Exercise Cassino, and Exercise Belesia Stability.”

Motley added that New Zealand adopted the US-based Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE) AI scenario-building tool in 2021.

DATE helps, he said, “simplify and reduce the need for New Zealand to develop and maintain its own unique training environment.”

This, Motley added, “enables interoperability with international partners, and to support detailed live, virtual, and constructive training in a modern operating environment.”

The DATE system, his letter further explained, is “managed by the US Army Training and Transformation Command.”

“They create fictional narratives and, as required, overlay additional information to meet specific training needs.”

Culture War Parallels

Alarmed by the leaked material, Penny Marie said the scenario “explicitly mirrors Maori-Christian history and present-day rural/urban political divides.”

These broader concerns are justified.

Motley’s description of VPF isn’t all that dissimilar to Destiny Church’s pro-New Zealand First movement, led by Brian Tamaki.

Tamaki has also led protests against Hinduisation of New Zealand and counter-protested Pride parades.

As Marie observed, “the wargame script reads like a cut-and-paste of today’s culture war,”

It “treats conservative or Christian worldviews as a security problem, which it is not.”

Such an approach to military training looks a lot like “fifth‑generation warfare,” she said.

This utilises “narrative, language and training materials to dehumanise, destabilise and push populations toward crisis so a pre-baked “solution” can be imposed.”

Ideology or Neutral Training?

Marie then connected the wargame scenario to NZDF’s $46,000 plus commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), Pride pledges, and compulsory LGBTQI+ sensitivity training.

“Christians are extremists” implications underpin such training.

Therefore, this is “public money underwriting an ideological programme, not just neutral ‘inclusion’”, she concluded.

The same should be asserted about DATE’s wargame scenarios being used to seemingly prepare soldiers for slaughtering Christians.

Especially those who want to preserve national and cultural identity by rejecting multiculturalism and Islamification.

In an open letter dated December 2025, Marie and colleague Rachel Scott slammed the basis of the wargame, stating,

“Trans rights activists label ordinary citizens who reject trans ideology as ‘extreme right-wing Christians’, which is untrue.”

This dangerously translates into the NZDF “grooming a mindset in which ordinary New Zealanders of certain beliefs can be mentally placed on the other side of the gun.”