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ОглавлениеConversion and Renewal in Fiji
The first attempts to establish Christianity in Fiji must be credited to Tahitian missionaries in 1830.1 However, effective mission did not commence until the arrival of two English Wesleyan missionaries, William Cross and David Cargill, who were sent from Tonga to the Tui Nayau, the chief of Lau in Eastern Fiji, in 1835. They established the pattern of approaching the chiefs, which determined the course of the mission in the future, because the Fijian church became a church of the chiefs and the people.
According to the ethnologist Arthur M. Hocart, the pre-Christian religion of the Fijians involved service to the chiefs who, as personified gods, guaranteed that the circle of agricultural fertility and prosperity continued.2 The chiefs were regarded as representatives of the gods and thus caretakers for the lives of their people. Resistance against the chiefs would inevitably provoke the wrath of the gods. Linked to the chiefs, the ancestors served as guardian spirits for each family. Various objects were charged with the power of spirits (mana).
The Methodist strategy of targeting the chiefs and establishing mission stations with their permission paved the way for their acceptance. The people would not convert in big numbers without the permission of their chiefs. The chiefs, however, became interested in the presence of the European missionaries to enhance their own power by accessing European knowledge and skills. They were also careful to avoid the possible wrath of the European god, who had proven to be powerful.
The missionaries were convinced that their lives were in God’s hands and that God had sent them to convert the “heathen.” They were appalled by Fijian customs such as cannibalism; the abandonment, strangling, or burying alive of the sick and dying; the strangling of a chief’s widows when he died; rape of women as a mode of punishment; and the killing of strangers.3 These customs made them believe that the Fijians were depraved and lost in sin unless they would convert to the God of the Ten Commandments and the gospel of love. Missionary John Hunt wrote from his mission station Somosomo in 1839: “Man is the vilest of the vile, the master piece of the creation of God presents in his moral character the very counterpart of the island which he inhabits. In him all is chaos and confusion and death” (referring to the killing of the wives of a chief during his burial).4 Against the idea of a natural revelation of God to all humans, Hunt reckoned that
God here is so new, the people so little instructed in the nature of religion and so unacquainted with even the most common principles of the government of the true God that we were afraid if he (their servant) died it might for a long time at least hinder the people from embracing Christianity. . . . They had no idea whatsoever of the existence, perfections and claims of God, of his love in the gift of his son or of the nature of that Gospel which teaches repentance, faith and holiness. It is hard to conceive how unprepared the human mind is to receive this glorious truth in its entirely uncultivated state.5
Hunt did not perceive the Fijian customs in their own right but judged them by the Ten Commandments and the gospel of love to one’s neighbor. He was convinced that the people would be lost unless they converted to the God of the Bible. However, the missionaries did not choose the way of outright condemnation and threatening with hell, but the way of preaching the love of God and the path of conversion to attain salvation. They respected the social structure and the authority of the chief and they did not question the whole cultural system, when they tried saving some of the victims who were put to death according to custom because of age, sickness, or idleness. Thus they gained respect from the people for their peaceful and humble attitude.
The rapid success of the Methodist mission can be attributed to a combination of several factors: the favorable political situation by which the support of the already converted Tongan king incited the conversion of Fijian chiefs; the general impact of European arrival; the tiredness of the people and chiefs with ever more brutal wars through the introduction of European firearms; the aspiration for European goods; and delivery from sickness and death. All these factors aided the mission efforts. Traders had begun to exploit the Fijians in exporting sandalwood from 1812 onward. The missionaries could prove that they did not want to exploit the people.
The conversion of the chiefs was a decisive step, because they were followed by their vassals, though this was not the only determinative factor in the conversion of the Fijians. For instance, 1,300 people followed the High Chief Cakobau during the 2 months after his conversion in 1854.6 On the other hand, some Fijians remained in their traditional religion after their chief converted.7 And some Christian villages faced bloody persecutions from their unconverted high chiefs but remained steadfast in their new faith, indicating that their conversion was not superficial. The mission proceeded quickly along the coastal areas. Even before the conversion of the first high chief (Tui Nayau in 1849) there were already 60 churches and preaching places, 4,000 people under instruction and a considerable number of local catechists (38), teachers (117), and preachers (68).8
I agree with Alan Tippett that the “Methodist struggle for Fiji was fought and won on a spiritual plane”9 by the first generation of missionaries and native preachers. John Hunt, posted on the small island of Viwa from 1842 to 1848, was the most impressive. Viwa is a small island close to Bau, which is the island of the high chief. Not only did Hunt translate the New Testament into Fijian: he also left behind an invaluable journal which provides firsthand information and comments about these early days of mission. The island of Viwa became the headquarters of the mission, with a school, printing press, and training classes for evangelists.10
Similar to the Lutheran Church in New Guinea, the success of the mission work was due to the native evangelists or teacher-preachers. In the beginning they came from Tonga and were therefore familiar with Fijian customs. Many of them showed great perseverance and sincerity in their work and succeeded in parts of Fiji—for instance in Kadavu, where white missionaries arrived much later—while others suffered persecution and death. These native evangelists had a strong conviction of being the instruments of God.
The background of the Wesleyan missionaries was the evangelical awakening and the Methodist theology of sanctification. For the Methodists, salvation meant deliverance and preservation from the wrath of God, healing from sin, and preservation from evil to eternal life.11 They were convinced that the customs of the Fijians had enraged the wrath of God and that there was no salvation for them unless they would convert. This was not a racist or colonial position, because they applied a similar stance to the Europeans living in Fiji who risked their salvation through their unacceptable behavior.12 This implied a dualistic worldview of Satan sending his raging armies against man. Hell preaching occurred as a warning to change sides,13 but it seems not to have been central in this early time.
It is important to understand that the conversion from sin to salvation was taught according to the Methodist pattern. “Unless God has received you and made you his children, you are yet in a far country. If you die in it you will go to one still further from God, to one from which you cannot return to him.”14 Conversion, repentance, and regeneration were the steps to salvation which could be experienced as the peace and rest of the soul, the overcoming of sin and eternal life.15
Conversion in the Methodist understanding consisted of two necessary steps. The first step was leaving the old gods (heathenism) and attending Christian worship. This conversion could happen for nonreligious reasons, as in the case of High Chief Cakobau who sought an alliance with the king of Tonga. Another reason was war: when the Christian party won against the pagan party and—unlike former times—the life of the defeated party was saved by the victorious Christian party.16 The defeat proved that the power of the victorious Christian God was greater than their gods.
This conversion meant giving up practices such as cannibalism, stopping warfare, and attending to instruction and church services. According to Tippett this did not involve “any serious culture clash, except that he was subjecting himself to a different set of tabus (taboos). . . . The only serious adjustment they had to make was to accept a greater value for human life.”17 The traditional religious values of agricultural prosperity and the people’s reverence for the chiefs were retained. Sickness and healings were attributed to the gods, be it the former Fijian deity, who had to be appeased or, if this did not help, the new Christian God. Missionaries like Hunt were critical of conversions which happened because of outward impressions such as healings, because this made proselytes instead of true converts.18 Nevertheless the healings made a great impression on people who were used to abandoning the sick.
Those who accepted Christianity did not necessarily have an inner conversion, and customs such as polygamy were continued. Nevertheless, they followed the instructions of the missionaries and local teachers, who aimed at awakening the spiritual changes of the second conversion. For the Methodist missionaries this second step was the conversion from sin to sanctification.19 Hunt wrote:
In most instances those who have renounced their former superstition have felt little of the power of Divine grace, until they have been a length of time under religious instruction. In these cases a twofold conversion has been necessary—the first from heathenism to Christianity as a system, and the second from the mere form of godliness to its power.20
Baptism with water was only the beginning, which had to be complemented by baptism of the spirit (rebirth).21 Although the link between the Old Testament and Fijian hero stories and a warrior God could have been exploited, the preaching centered on salvation and the need to be born again and become a new person in Christ. In a sermon from May 11, 1842 on John 3:3, Hunt preached that
renouncing the gods and practices of heathenism is not being born again, though this is necessary to it. Being baptized is not being born again, though baptism is a sign of it. . . . Meeting in class is not being born again, though an important means of grace. Nor is repentance the new birth, though many are much affected by it and much changed by it. Those who are born again truly repent of all sin, so as to abandon all sin. They truly believe in Christ so as to obtain the forgiveness of sin, and it is a consciousness of their acceptance with God given them by the witness of the Spirit which produces in them love to God in return. . . . This change is a change of soul . . . and a change from sin to holiness . . . seen and known by its fruits. We must have this change 1. In order to enjoy the blessings of the Kingdom of God in this world. 2. In order to enter heaven. It will avail nothing to be able to say at the bar of God, I have renounced idolatry, theft, adultery, fornication, murder etc. I have met in class, been baptized, have cried for my sins, read the bible, heard preaching etc. unless these means have led to a change of heart and mind.22
Hunt not only preached and practiced this, he also wrote a well-received book for the Methodist audience in England on Entire Sanctification.23 His fellow missionary James Calvert acknowledged in the preface that “entire salvation in experience and practice . . . was the moving cause behind all his thoughts and actions.”24 Renunciation of “heathen” practices and attending church services was not a sufficient sign of a Christian. The experience of rebirth required a deeper emotional commitment or change of heart by showing the fruits of the Spirit. In his work on Entire Sanctification Hunt explained: Christians have to purify others through their conduct and prayers. If you are afraid to put the standards too high you limit the divine grace. You should be more afraid of imperfection than perfection. What does it mean to become a Christian? First, it means repentance, the conviction of sin and the feeling of shame, sorrow as well as the fear of punishment resulting in the sense of inability to save ourselves; second, it means faith in Christ’s atonement, which implies trusting in him alone; third, it means the justification or pardon of sin as God’s work; fourth, the assurance that we are accepted by God in the Spirit; and fifth, the regeneration through the Spirit.25
Entire sanctification is attainable as entire purity of heart; maturity of Christian character; practical holiness; attending to every duty in the right spirit, with the right motives, and to the full extent of our capacity. This requires crucifying the flesh, resisting the remaining desires of the flesh, being delivered from pride, destructive envy, anger, love of the world; and loving God and others with full heart and mind so that a life without sin is possible.26
For the Fijian converts, entire sanctification was a remote aim. Conversion and renewal were an everyday challenge. One must question whether the rigorous pressure for holiness created a gap between expectation and reality, so that the goal was sacrificed to shortcuts and some experiences were singled out to prove the truth of sanctification. This happened in several emotional revivals.
In practice, the necessary change of heart was tested according to the moral standards of the church, and membership was granted only if this adherence was testified. In the Methodist system not everyone who attends church becomes a church member. Members are admitted only on proof of their pursuit of a Christian life. The admission of members was rather restrictive in the beginning. For instance in the circuit which saw mass conversions following Chief Cakobau’s conversion in 1854, only 17 percent or 2,744 of 15,461 people were admitted as church members in 1860.27 In addition, the missionaries often expelled members in order to cleanse Christianity from a syncretism with “Fijian mythology and heathen ethic.”28
Such expulsions concurred with the traditional Fijian religion, where loss of status was the consequence of lacking discipline. The traditional Fijian system was organized around the observation of taboos:
The classification of people into groups according to office and responsibility, and the statement of factors which might lead to promotion or demotion, to honour or disgrace, the service required and the taboos imposed . . . what is this description, the ancient Fijian social system, or the Fijian Church? It fits either perfectly.29
There were strong continuities between the old and the new systems, such as the importance of ethnicity; the place of hero worship; the composition of poems and chants in the Fijian manner of traditional sitting dance (meke) with biblical texts; the borrowing of pagan terminologies, for instance in describing biblical sacrifices; the differentiation between intense devotees and adherents; the way of presenting the annual offering to the community with public proclamation of the gift. Tippett concludes that the Wesleyan system of worship was “eminently suited for the evangelisation of Fiji,” and no clash of culture occurred. “It certainly cannot be said that they were deprived of their culture and lived in a white man’s culture.”30 The question then must be put how far the Methodist system was indigenized. If there were so many continuities, was one system of moral codes simply replaced by another?
The success of the Methodist mission was due to their adaptation and integration of the cultural system and at the same time the provision of religious development and growth which would transcend the old system step by step. The mission must be viewed as a gradual process of transformation rather than a radical breach between two worldviews. There were two main instruments provided in the Methodist tradition to achieve this growth. One was the ongoing instruction and mutual encouragement in class meetings and the second comprised emotional revivals. Hunt describes in his journal his own experience with the class or “band” meetings in England:
After we were all seated the leader gave out a hymn and prayed, and then gave an account of his experience; and after him another rose and spoke. I trembled exceedingly, expecting that as I had been admitted I must speak, and also more particularly with a desire to speak the state of my mind, and with fear and timidity. . . . The good people understood my case much better than I did and encouraged me much, inviting me to meet in class. . . . These meetings among the Methodists entirely altered my views of my own duty . . . as that I ought to give my heart to God.31
The classes provided for Hunt and for other Methodist missionaries the place of mutual comfort, encouragement, and reinforcement of their experimental religious experiences.32 This system was imported into Fiji and proved to be successful.33 The classes created opportunities for promotion as class leaders and evangelists. The Holy Communion was celebrated with seriousness and tickets submitted by the missionaries ensured that “no unworthy” would partake. Love feasts, prayer, and thanksgiving meetings of the converts provided opportunities to testify. A report by missionary A. J. Webb from a love feast in 1885 states:
They got up quickly, sometimes eight or ten at once and told how they were converted. . . . They often ascribe their conversion to texts of the scripture. . . . Others were converted while reading their Bible, or while on their canoes skimming over the waves some words seemed to leap out of the Bible and strike them, or, to use the expression I have heard used by them, “it hit me.” Many, again, have been converted during a storm at sea, or in a season of great peril and trial. God seemed at that time often to work by terror.34
The question may be posed whether God really worked by terror or whether these testimonies just linked the old and the new religion. The accounts of individual Fijians convey the conviction that God had revealed himself in their lives and that his providence guided them through all peril, such as shipwreck or shark attacks.35 Everything what happened to them was interpreted as the providence of God.
The Methodist Church was built on a system of qualifications which supported renewal and spiritual growth. The different positions such as class leader, local preacher, catechist, and native assistant missionaries expressed this growth of faith in increased responsibility. Fine Fijian evangelists and preachers were produced by Christian education begun by Hunt in Viwa in 1842 with a school and training for teacher-preachers, starting with three students. Already in 1855 the church had a clear scheme of promotion from local preacher to native assistant minister within six years.36
The second instrument to produce growth in faith was the emotional revival. Missionaries like John Hunt had experienced it themselves: “Immediately a most overwhelming influence came upon me, so that I cried aloud for mercy for the sake of Christ, while I was in a minute so completely bathed with tears and perspiration as if I had been thrown into a river.”37 Not only the missionaries but also the Fijians were familiar with emotional and ecstatic religious experiences.38 Religion was to them emotional seeking of divine power. This is acknowledged in Hunt’s translation of the catechism, where instead of giving a definition of repentance, he described the feelings of someone who repents.39
This emphasis on emotions resulted in some impressive revivals, such as the one at Viwa in October 1845. People “were praying all over the chapel with all their might”; they “cried in agonies of prayer for mercy”; some “would be seized all at once and thrown into the most extraordinary distress”; women fainted “overcome by the power of their emotions”; men became violent in sorrow and joy, they exhorted others about repentance “with amazing power”; “the Te Deum was chanted with amazing triumph” and “the name of Jesus has indeed a particular charm such as they never felt before.” Some had dreams, others visions; others got out of their mind and completely lost their self-control.40
These emotional experiences were evidence for Hunt that the people were saved, because it “appeared to us as the most consistent thing we had ever seen.” “True repentance consists in having a proper knowledge of our sins, and corresponding feelings.” The emotions were regarded as signs of the Spirit, to be expected when a murderer and cannibal was convinced of his “desperate wickedness,” and “the horrid deed they had committed.” These experiences destroyed arrogance and pride, which Hunt realized were obstacles to Fijians’ conversion.41
From a distance of 175 years, observers are more skeptical about this kind of evidence, which was certainly triggered by the expectations of the missionaries and the converts.42 Such emotions are not evidence in themselves. They occurred also in pre-Christian religion and continue to occur today in non-Christian cults as well as in Pentecostal revivals.43 Certainly, the people who had committed cannibalism and were exposed as horrible criminals needed to get rid of their feelings of guilt and shame. But such emotional outbreaks are open to various interpretations. The missionaries instigated them and the Fijians followed them in their own manner. In contrast, the Lutheran missionaries in Papua New Guinea (PNG) did not instigate such revivals and they happened only occasionally. For the Methodist missionaries the revivals provided evidence that Fijians having a similar experience to English Methodists were saved by God. Hunt claims that some of the converts had attained entire sanctification indicated in a “clear sense of acceptance with God,” “remarkable manifestations of the love of God to him,” and the entire destruction of sin.44 Many native missionaries and ministers came from these revivals.45 The desire for emotional experiences of God’s power has remained central to South Pacific Christianity. The Pentecostal revival reenacts the beginning of the Methodist mission.46
Which image of God was proclaimed by the early missionaries? Hunt viewed God as pure love pardoning sin and renewing Christians, and he tried to instill an affectionate love for God.47 He noticed however that some of the native preachers preferred legalistic exhortations: “But a plain statement of the plan of salvation seems to be far from their ideas of good preaching. . . . The result of their preaching is rather to make the people sour than affectionate, for they are always driving them to duty. . . . [There is] no active effort to bring others to experience the blessedness they feel.”48
After the primary aim of conversion was accomplished and Fiji had become a Methodist country, the zeal for spiritual conversion turned in a more puritanical direction. For Fijians who were born into a Christian society, the need for a second spiritual conversion was no longer obvious after the control of the mission had been transferred by the British Methodists to Australia in 1855. Church growth had been impressive. Before the measles epidemics which reduced the population by 25 percent in 1875 there were 10 missionaries, 56 Fijian ministers, 869 catechists, 804 local preachers, 2,866 class leaders, nearly 25,000 members, and 122,526 worshippers in Fiji.49 At the end of the nineteenth century almost 90 percent of Fijians attended church services. Strict Sabbath observance was protected by a taboo against any activity. Church life was community-oriented and meetings were conducted under the authority of the local chiefs.50
The historian Andrew Thornley describes Fijian Methodist worship as marked by the typical Fijian personal free prayers, Fijian hymns, the chanting of the Apostles’ Creed, the reciting of the Wesleyan Catechism, and long sermons with illustrative biblical preaching.51 The villages competed no longer in wars but in expensive church buildings, choir competitions, and displays of food.52 However, there were already warnings about the lack of individual growth in faith. Missionaries such as the long-serving Lorimer Fison noted the nominalism of many converts.53
The time of the great early revivals had passed and the church structure had developed.54 A report of a commission of the Methodist Church of Australasia from 1907 shows that there were monthly congregational meetings of native ministers, catechists, teachers, and local church workers.55 The pledge against the consumption of kava and tobacco was raised at this level. Quarterly meetings of the circuit led by the missionary, with native ministers and catechists, discussed appointments, education, building, and other practical matters. Quarterly meetings of preachers were concerned with church discipline and appointments of local preachers and students. Annual circuit meetings enquired into the character and work of the native ministers and recommended candidates for ministry. Finally, the District Synod was the ruling body of the church. Ministers or pastors were paid by the people of their congregation and the funds of the society (£8 to £18 according to years of service in 1907, comparable to a “middle class chief”). Village teachers and preachers relied on their people for support. At Davuilevu the commission also visited the mission of the Indian indentured laborers in Fiji who converted to Christianity and recommended the creation of a separate Indian Synod within the Methodist Church, which was established in 1922.
The church structures provided the means for developing local ministry and faith. In 1857 the first theological training institution for native ministers opened with twenty-eight students in the Rewa circuit, only twenty-two years after the beginnings of the mission.56 The strength of the native ministry was revealed when in 1875 all eighty-three students at Navuloa Theological College volunteered to become missionaries in the newly established Methodist mission in New Britain (PNG).57 The vision of an independent Fijian church was however rejected by the now Australian missionaries, who kept a strong and paternalistic hold of all important decisions.58 The District Synod of 1903 ruled against recommendations of the Australian Mission Board for lay representatives to participate in the Synod: it is “impossible to govern our native Church upon the same principles that are applicable to races which have advanced so much further in civilization” and explained that “the Fijian has little or no genius for financial administration.”59
Fiji had become a Methodist country and the missionaries had assumed powerful positions in the society. According to the Methodist tradition they tried to separate politics and church affairs, but this attitude strengthened the position of the chiefs in communal affairs. In consequence many conflicts occurred between ministers and chiefs. The chiefs were sanctified in their authority by the church. They claimed the right to determine the affairs of the people and, in continuity with pre-Christian tradition, they were not willing to differentiate between religious and nonreligious affairs, even if they had no deeper Christian experience themselves. Tippett speaks of a clash between a democratic fellowship provided in the Methodist representative synodal system and the chiefly authority.60 This served as an argument for the missionaries to resist the independence of the church, arguing that the chiefs would manipulate the native ministers.61 However, the missionaries did little to reform the chiefly system. Any newly appointed minister needed the permission of the chief to work in his village and had to be adopted in the chiefly family, a practice persisting until today.62
In many looming problems caused by the infringement of colonialism the missionaries intervened when Christian principles were openly broken. They voted in favor of the cession to the British government which was enacted in 1874, but they also criticized the indentured labor trade of Pacific Islanders and defended the land rights of the Fijians against European encroachments on land, which led finally to a guarantee of Fijian land ownership by the colonial government.63
The shift from a Christian minority into a powerful majority church and the social changes during the colonial period influenced the theological emphases. The second and third generations of missionaries did not keep the focus of Hunt, but turned sanctification more and more into moralism. After the decline of the population through measles epidemics and the establishment of the British colony in 1874 the missionaries became more paternalistic, rigid, and moralistic in their teachings.64 This attitude matched with the native taboo-oriented perception of religion. Sermons about eternal punishment increased. For instance, the measles epidemics were interpreted as divine punishment by Fijian preachers. “Fear of a wrathful Christian God dominated the minds of many Fijian converts.”65 Missionaries warned against the rising immorality and replied to it with hundreds of expulsions from membership.66
Sin, which according to Hunt was the feeling of total loss before God, became mainly connected to sexuality. Everything was done to suppress the “animal nature,” from the wearing of flowers to dancing, hair cutting, and swimming games.67 Sexual sins loomed in the mind of the missionaries because not long before, many Fijian men had lived in polygamy. Forced to send their wives away at conversion many kept contact nevertheless. Childbirth outside of marriage became a problem because the mothers lost their church membership. Some missionaries even refused to baptize these children.68 To many missionaries the fight against sexual sins seemed to be more important than confronting the ongoing belief in the old religion.
Following the abolitionist movement many missionaries spent a lot of their energy in fighting against kava and alcohol consumption as well as smoking. The campaign against kava proved to be difficult, because kava was and still is regarded as an important part of social custom.69 Disciplinary actions ranging from fines to suspension of membership for a certain period of time were so widespread that often half of the members were expelled. Class meetings were turned into checks of conformity to the moral standards rather than uplifting the spiritual development of the attendants.70 The results of all these campaigns were a drop of membership from 44 percent to 23 percent and of church attendance from 98 percent to 91 percent of native Fijians in 1910.71 According to critical observers these campaigns for sanctification through purification could only encourage hypocrisy.72
During the decades after World War II Fiji experienced many social changes. The greatest change had already begun in 1879 with the introduction of indentured laborers from India under the British government. By 1900 there were 60,500 Indians in Fiji, of which 60 percent remained in Fiji after their term of indenture was served. In the 1920s more Indians arrived as free settlers and became shopkeepers, tailors, or jewelers. At the end of World War II there were more Indians (130,000) than Fijians (119,000) in Fiji. Efforts to evangelize the Indian workers, who were Hindus and Muslims, began with Hannah Dudley in 1897, but only a small minority converted to Christianity.
Tensions between the Fijian and Indian populations increased. When the colonial rule came to its end, Fijian leaders expected that the control over the country would be theirs, while the Indians began to ask for their place in a future Fiji. The Fijian, Indian, and European Synods of the Methodist Church united in 1943. According to John Garrett, the two different concepts of a Fijian Methodist Church for Fijians or a United Methodist Church linked to worldwide Methodism existed within the church.73 After independence in 1964 the Indian Methodists formed a separate division within the Methodist Church, which was however very small compared to the Fijian divisions, because most Indo-Fijians did not convert to Christianity.
Furthermore, problems like the consumption of liquor, extensive kava drinking, and urban migration with its effects on unemployment and squatter settlements in the capital area changed the traditional society.74 One answer to these new developments was the upgrading of the educational facilities. In 1946 the Bible School and the Young People’s Department were established at the educational center in Davuilevu. The first aimed at raising the standard of catechists and preparing for ministry; the second shifted the focus to the young people under the leadership of Setareki Tuilovoni, who later became the first native president of the church. Finally, a Deaconess order was established in 1965 to tackle some of the social needs.75
At the time of independence in 1964 the Methodist Church in Fiji had 34,165 full members, 807 church buildings, 123 native, 3 Indian and 9 European ministers, 30 theological students, and 6,430 local preachers.76
In 1980 the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church commissioned a self-study report about the state of the church. At this time the church had declined to 25 percent of the population in Fiji and 64 percent of indigenous Fijians.77 Confirmed members (siga dina) were 5.39 percent of the population or 12.1 percent of the Fijians. Half of the constituents attended regular morning services in any one week, but only 9.82 percent attended prayer services. In total, 13.46 percent of the congregations had a men’s fellowship, around 50 percent a women’s and youth fellowship, but less than 8 percent had a community service project.
Though the church still had a strong stand in the Fijian rural community according to the number of baptized constituents and lay preachers, the gathering of believers in classes had dropped to small numbers, with the exception of the women’s and youth groups. Thornley highlighted the trend that at the beginning of the twentieth century membership had become unattractive.
According to the 1985 report, most small village congregations did not have their own minister. The circuit minister (talatala) oversees between three and fifty-four congregations and between three and fifteen catechists. Alfred S. Dale observed:
The primary function of the talatala is in fact administrator; manager of the circuit, with the secondary function to provide the priestly services of baptism, marriage, funerals and communion. . . . Preaching cannot be used to develop any continuity of ideas, thoughts, theologies, or doctrines about the church, one’s vocation, or the role of Christians in the world. It is also primarily lay preaching, mostly testimonial. The primary function of management and administration appears to be of little concern in training or evaluation of the competency of a talatala.78
If the minister is occupied with administrative and priestly work, the development of faith and the work of evangelism will decline. Though the Methodist Church has a proud tradition of lay preachers they are often little educated and cannot make up for the missing presence of the minister. Catechists received at least some training, but the lay preachers used to have very little training. The 1985 report included 3,000 opinion questionnaires. The following statements were made most often:79
• There is too much provincialism and too little democracy in the selection of church leaders (96.1%);
• Need for material for nurturing baptized members (94.7%);
• The need for follow-up for the newly confirmed (94.4%);
• Every church should have a worship committee (93.6%);
• The church should provide training for confirmation of full members (92.4%);
• There is an increasing need for trained lay leadership at every level of our church life (88.7%);
• Excessive yaqona (kava) drinking as incompatible with ministry (88.2%).
Even though it seems that the questionnaires suggested some criticism by their choice of questions, opportunity was given to free comments which confirm the criticism. Many of those comments80 complain about poor performance of pastors (talatalas) and lack of opportunity for growth in faith. Some of the comments expose problems in the leadership of the talatalas, who appear to be uneducated or indifferent, never visit their constituency (or only on Sunday), work only on Sunday, do not prepare sermons, do not provide a role model of Christian life, or do not teach members about their faith. Others said that the talatala only has time for the catechist and the elders, not for education, youth work, or the women. Many complained about the heavy kava drinking of ministers. There were also complaints about the quality of the sermons and the lack of youth work and Sunday schools. Many comments asked for better training of church leaders, including catechists and lay preachers, and more Christian education for all members.
In terms of faith building and evangelism it was complained that evangelism was confused with fund raising or that it was totally missing. Other comments requested follow-up classes for confirmed members; the strengthening of personal visits; the development of new forms of worship; the strengthening of family worship, devotions, and premarital counseling; assisting the chiefs to be good Christians; counseling and pastoral care as well as youth activities.
With regards to social relations, nearly 85 percent agreed that the church should remain close to the chiefly structure of traditional Fijian culture, but 95 percent supported the view that the church should lead in interracial relations and help members to live at peace with non-Christians. Almost 70 percent said that the church should be involved in social and political issues and 82.5 percent said that church land should be given to the poor. Several comments questioned the identity of church and vanua (people of the land), saying that the church should challenge the vanua to renew itself, and that the church is not just the chiefly way.81
This report revealed that the majority of the members wanted the Methodist Church to focus on evangelism and faith building. Evangelism, active participation in classes, and growth of faith were no longer seen as priorities by the leaders, contrary to the expectations of many members.
According to the government census of 1996, the Methodist Church had lost many members to other churches, especially the growing Pentecostal churches.82 At the same time the statistics of the church indicate that the number of confirmed members has risen sharply, from 23.5 percent in 1984 to nearly 50 percent in 2005 (105,423 out of 212,860),83 with 3,659 confirmation classes and 1,562 Bible study groups. This rise was the result of a policy in the time of the presidency of Manasa Lasaro in the early 1990s to introduce regular confirmation classes for twelve-year-old members.84 The rise in membership can be interpreted as an attempt to counter the impact of Pentecostal evangelism. The last available census in 2007 confirms the trend: the Methodist Church has decreased to 34.7 percent of the population (36.2% in 1996), while the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches have gained around 10 percent.85
Since the 1990s the Methodist Church has shown a mixed image. On one side there is the lively preaching, prayers, Fijian hymns, and meetings which continue the spirit of the mission days with its classes and love feasts. The annual conferences with their choir competitions and collections are attended by thousands from far and near.
On the other hand the leadership of the church has been dragged into political conflicts indicated by the coups d’etat since 1987. The steep increase of Pentecostal churches has led to a decrease in Methodist membership. Fiji is no longer a Methodist but a pluralist country, though the Methodist Church continues to be the strongest church in rural areas.
In 1975 the Methodist lay preacher Sakeasi Butadroka formed the Fijian Nationalist Party under the slogan “Fiji for the Fijians” and advocated the expulsion of Indians. The i-taukei movement of native landowners became a political force. Its close link to parts of the Methodist Church was expressed in the call for Fiji to be declared a Christian state. When the Methodist lay preacher Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka launched a military coup in April 1987 the tensions within the Methodist Church surfaced. The president of the church, Josetaki Koroi, who called for a return to the constitutional order was overthrown by other groups under the leadership of Manasa Lasaro, who was later elected church president. The support of many Methodists for both coups was achieved through the advocacy of the Sunday ban. Keeping the Sabbath was a legacy of the evangelical British Sabbatarianism of the early missionaries, who had preached that the blessings of God would return when the Sunday was kept holy.86
John Garrett concludes that “much critical analysis of what was done suggested the church had been in collusion with militarist and racist behaviour.”87 The call for a Christian state would make non-Christians citizens of second class. The ecumenically minded minority under leaders such as Paula Niukula or Sevati Tuwere persisted in their opposition. However, major parts of the Methodist Church continued to be associated with those who supported the “Fiji for Fijians” politics. While the 1997 constitution subscribed to principles of multiculturalism and sharing of power between Fijians and Indo-Fijians, the first government elected under this constitution was overthrown by the second coup in 2000. The Methodist Church supported the following government of Laisena Qarase, another lay preacher of the church. In 2001 the Assembly of Christian Churches in Fiji (ACCF) was formed, when the Pentecostal churches joined forces with the Methodist Church. In opposition to the ecumenical Fiji Council of Churches, the ACCF advocated for Fiji to become a Christian state and supported the government in the 2005 elections.
When the military under Commander Bainimarama overthrew the Qarase government in December 2006, the Methodist Church leadership took sides for the ousted government. The so-called People’s Charter, which was supported by Archbishop Mataca from the Roman Catholic Church—to rebuild Fiji into a nonracial, pluralist democracy—was rejected by the leadership of the Methodist Church. This positioned the Methodist Church at the side of the political opposition in a time when other political parties and the Great Council of Chiefs were suspended. This course created a lot of tensions with the government which reacted by suspending Methodist regional church gatherings, including their annual conferences. These conferences played an indispensable role in appointing ministers and strengthening Methodist unity and also their financial power. Recent figures indicate that the loss of membership continued, for instance in the year before the conference of 2012 a loss of 4,656 members or almost 5 percent was recorded, attributed mainly to the youth who were attracted by Pentecostal services.88 Whether this drop in membership is also the result of the tensions between the government and the church cannot be asserted, but it seems likely that this conflict and its negative repercussions had at least some impact on the membership.
Conversion in the Lutheran Mission in New Guinea
The Lutheran mission in PNG began with missionary Johann Flierl from the Bavarian town of Neuendettelsau. He landed in Simbang at the Huon Peninsula in 1886, while the United Rhenish Mission set up a station in Bogadjim (Astrolabe Bay) in the area of the colonial German New Guinea Company in 1887. The beginnings proved to be difficult because of tropical diseases and unrest against the colonial administration in the area of the Rhenish Mission. The missionaries were not prepared to understand the animistic religion and the society of the people they wished to convert.89 Their attitude was marked by the firm conviction that the “heathen” had to be saved through the proclamation of salvation and the slow advancement of civilization. The Lutheran missionaries shared the same belief as the Methodists about the “heathen” living in darkness or being like children who had to be reprimanded and educated, because they seemed to lack conscience and the sense of right and wrong. The missionaries were convinced that not force but only the love of Christ motivated conversion, and they were devoted to suffer whatever God would put on them in order to achieve this aim.
As an example for this approach we can take the Rhenish missionary Georg Kunze on Karkar (at that time Dampier) Islands on the north coast of New Guinea from 1890 to 1894. He reports in his German mission memorial about the many difficulties of the early mission. The point of contact with the locals was the exchange of goods (for instance fruits) and work for iron, pearls, and tobacco. Thefts were common and provided the opportunity for evangelism.
Kunze tried to instill two basic messages into the people. First, “Jesus” people are loved by Jesus and do not steal. Second, Jesus sees everything and writes everything into his book, even if no other human has seen it. When you die, you will meet Jesus and he will read from his book what you have done in your life. Many will perish in the fire, but the friends of Jesus will be saved.90 Other Rhenish missionaries confirmed this approach: the law is the preparation for the gospel. First, the conscience must be awakened, and then the gospel can offer forgiveness.
We told the people that Jesus will return and raise the dead. This is the point of departure for our proclamation of repentance. We have to tell the people that only the good ones will receive the resurrection to life, while the evil ones will suffer pain and punishment. Thus we have to explain to them the difference between good and evil, going over the commandments time and again. . . . Once they get to know their true being in this mirror of their heart, they will understand why Christ died.91
Due to lack of staff and resources, the unfavorable proximity to competing ways of “new life” in the Catholic Mission and land alienations through the commercial New Guinea Company, the Rhenish mission was less successful than the mission from Neuendettelsau further south. Neither mission succeeded in their early attempts of individual conversion for several reasons: the Christian way contradicted the Melanesian way of life. Individuals could not be convinced that they were sinners and needed to change their lives. They had no need to become friends of Jesus because they were satisfied with the religion of their ancestors. The Christian God had no status in the community.
Only the change advocated by the Neuendettelsau missionary Christian Keysser from 1903 onwards proved to be successful. Keysser learnt to know the customs, myths, and stories of the local Kate people very well. He went hunting with them and befriended the local chief or “big man,” Zake. Even sorcerers trusted him and introduced him to their secrets.
Keysser’s familiarity with the worldview of the tribe convinced him that mission should not begin with the preaching of salvation through Christ. The people had no sense for it. The stories about creation and the heroes of the Old Testament were much closer to them.92 God was already there before the missionaries arrived. Missionaries needed to have a thorough knowledge of the language and customs of the people. Two key elements of this knowledge were the community of the tribe and the dualism between good and evil powers from birth to death. Thus the mission had to confront the people in their own living conditions and not try to convert them to the Western civilization.
This mission method was approved by the Missionary Field Conference in 1915 under the leadership of inspector Steck, who declared that the form of the mission and church should be Melanesian, not European. Missionaries needed to rethink their mission methods, suiting them to the Melanesian situation.93 Keysser was the first to view the converts as part of the clan. Their actions and their conscience were formed by the tribe. Instead of seeking individual conversion, the whole tribe had to be converted. Due to his extraordinary familiarity with the local Kate customs, Keysser organized traditional feasts during which he confronted the clan with its sorcery and posed the alternative to continue with sorcery and payback killings or to accept Anutu, the Christian God, as new God of the clan by becoming His vassals. When the tribe decided to leave their gods and sorcery and seek the protection of the Christian God, Keysser knew well that the initial conversion needed continuous encouragement.
A congregation is not a single individual, therefore it can only be awakened through years and decades of care. . . . The NEW in itself cannot produce life, but it is apparent that it provides a favorable opportunity for the life. . . . The simple, preached Word usually takes too much for granted as far as our primitive New Guinean is concerned. . . . The acted out Word, however, was not only better understood but it captivated the will and provoked decisive action.94
The way to secure the victory of Anutu was to base it on a new order of life for the community. Preaching God’s grace too soon would quench the new seriousness of faith. Baptism should happen only after approval of the clan or as part of the clan’s baptism. Together with local elders Keysser developed a Christian tribal order replacing the traditional clan orders. It introduced a new settlement policy in villages and regulated community obligations, property and succession laws, marriage rules (prohibition of bride-price and prohibition of corporal punishment of wives), and judicial power. These reforms were inspired by Christian ethics, but Keysser safeguarded the continuity with the pre-Christian order, since the new order was protected by the ancestors.95 Everyone knew that if the laws are obeyed, the community will benefit in food and well-being; if not, the community will be punished.
This order for the Sattelberg congregation served as model for many others. New Christian taboos replaced traditional ones. Instruments of discipline included shame and punishment if the law was broken.96 The Christian tribe and its order coincided with the local church. Authority in the congregations was exercised by the elders, who served as spiritual and disciplinary leaders. The delegation of responsibility for worship to the local elders should prepare the congregations for independence.
Tribal conversion had to be followed by instruction in the new faith, namely baptismal instruction, confirmation instruction, and schooling. Of great importance was the common responsibility of the converted community for mission, by sending out young volunteers of the congregation to not-yet-converted tribes. This spreading of the gospel by local evangelists became a ground-breaking success. The evangelists were not supposed to start any formal preaching or worshipping, but they shared their life as witnesses of the gospel until the time was ripe that the whole tribe decided to convert to Christianity. These indigenous evangelists became the agents of conversion for many tribes of the mountains and Highlands. They had received only very basic training but, due to the lack of missionaries, they would often give baptismal instruction. Keysser advised that this instruction should be simple and short. Sending evangelists strengthened the reciprocal ties between parent and child congregations, united the congregation in support of their mission, and raised a generation of church leaders through mission. The congregations which had received the gospel reciprocated it by passing it on to others.97 This mission work continued until the late 1970s. Its end threw some congregations into decline.
There can be no doubt that Keysser’s method paved the way for a truly indigenous Melanesian church from the coast to the densely populated Highlands in the 1930s. Peace and unity were achieved among formerly hostile clans under one God. An old man from the Hube area, the mission field of Keysser’s congregation in Sattelberg, remembers:
We won friendship with others and with people from other places. We were free to go where we want. We aren’t afraid to go to places where once we were afraid to go to. There is peace and cooperation now. Every time we go to a new place, we say one name: God or Jesus Christ. The people in that place say the same name and we are happy to be together. The word has put a big impact on our daily lives with one another by sharing the same faith and confessing and proclaiming the name of the Triune God in unity.98
The words “God” and “Christ” became the passwords to new fellowship beyond the former tribal borders. The new Christian order shaped the form and organization of Christianity for the first two generations. It marked Christian life with a strict ethos and served in the formation of a new Christian character. It brought never-before-experienced liberation from fear. However, despite its success the method of Keysser also raised criticism, which I will briefly discuss.
The main theological objection is that this mission method was based on laws rather than on the gospel of forgiveness of sins through the cross of Christ. The order itself became the way to salvation.99 In order to evaluate this criticism we must first understand the Lutheran element in Keysser’s method. Lutheran theology has one center: salvation as justification by faith, grace, and Christ alone. The law can only lead us to the recognition of sin; it will never lead us to salvation. The ethical use of the law and the law as means of salvation or way to God need to be strictly separated. The grace of God comes through the proclamation of the word of God. The first aim of mission is to spread the word of God to those who are living without it.
Keysser was influenced by the Neo-Lutheran emphasis of the nineteenth century on the people as God’s way of creating a Christian community. Mission aims at converting not individuals but a community. This can also be regarded as an expression of the priesthood of all believers, which was rediscovered by the Reformation. Therefore the missionary had to understand and find the right access to the people and their culture. In comparison to other missions it is remarkable that a number of Lutheran missionaries wrote ethnological studies about the people whom they converted.100
These people’s churches followed the German model, which had its roots in the time of the conversion of the German tribes.101 The place of God’s action was seen not as the congregation of the elect but the community of the people. The instruments of mission were the word of God, the sacraments, and church discipline. The latter was the responsibility of the people themselves, not of a higher office or clergy. The ideal was a self-governing, self-disciplining congregation with some freedom to choose the forms of their spiritual life. However, practical necessity and respect made the missionary the spiritual father who had a lasting influence in all forms of church order.
Like the Methodist missionaries, Keysser acknowledged that at the beginning of conversion there was no point of contact with the gospel of the cross. The people declared that they were not sinners and did not need the cross.102 Keysser succeeded in impressing the victory of Christ over the Melanesian spirits. However, the new Christian goal to serve God and to gain eternal life could be underpinned with the traditional Melanesian goal to achieve well-being in this life. The new Christian way could be understood in terms of following a certain order to achieve this goal. This is asserted in a number of Cargo cults which merged Christian symbols with their mythological system of law and order in order to achieve material prosperity.
After his return to Germany, Keysser was confronted with such cults himself, when members of his former congregations wrote to him: “You missionaries brought us God’s message for our soul. We know the way to God. But you have not shared with us the message as to how we can reach material happiness, wealth and the possession of high cultural values. And so we beg you again: tell us quite clearly why you have been so reticent. What is the barrier that blocks our access to those abundant possessions that you have at your disposal?”103
The quest for the secret access to wealth and well-being indicates that Keysser’s new order of life was understood as providing the same effect as the order of the ancestors.104 Therefore Cargo cults could prosper in Lutheran (and also Catholic) areas. It appears that the converts grasped the law with the promise attached that it would bring “salvation” in the Melanesian understanding of well-being. The elders applied instruments of discipline and excommunication like in the pre-Christian community: “It is commonplace for the elders and the pastors to refuse to hear confession unless first of all the people have carried out some act of labor or have given them money.”105
The indigenous theologian Numuc Kemung praises Keysser for being a true Melanesian theologian. His mission was appropriate to the context because it affirmed the basic principle of reciprocity in the Melanesian community.106 Keysser could not have done otherwise, because there was no other capability to receive the gospel. Keysser offered the converts the empowerment to do something for God by adopting a new order of life. Kemung’s assessment is certainly true from the Melanesian point of view. We have, however, to differentiate between what was the best practical way of mission at the time and a theological evaluation of it in hindsight. Some of the later missionaries questioned the role of legalism, discipline, and theocracy in the community order.107
Georg Pilhofer’s mission manual from 1946 indicates that Keysser’s principles continued to guide the mission until after World War II.108 Pilhofer confirms the approach of a “pragmatic” mission working with the community and the Melanesian agricultural worldview. The aim of the mission is Volkwerdung (becoming Christian people) within a Christian order of creation. This term was used by the German Lutheran theology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and misused in the German Christian Church of the “Third Reich.” According to Pilhofer the theme of creation is more relevant than Christology, and salvation is to be linked to the orders of creation. The Old Testament is closer to converts than the New Testament. The gospel should be preached as commitment to the law.109 The Lutheran message of justification by grace and faith alone serves as a pretext for lukewarmness and weakness and has to be avoided. Against the continuing magical thinking, the missionary should emphasize sanctification and point out the eternal reward.
This interesting document provides evidence of how fundamental principles of the Lutheran theology of salvation were given up in the mission, based on a specific interpretation of the context. According to this assessment, the magical worldview, the lack of rational thinking, and the weakness of the converts did not allow the gospel to be presented except in the form of law. Therefore, Christianity was learned as a way to achieve salvation through following certain rules and orders in the community of believers. Salvation through the cross and death of Christ was certainly preached, but could this be understood as justification by grace alone when Christianity was experienced as new law?
The missionaries were certainly aware of the conflict between the proclamation of the gospel and the Melanesian religion. When in 1941 the German missionaries were detained at the internment camp at Tatura, Australia, they used the time to discuss the goals and methods of the mission.110 The missionaries agreed that the reason Papuans accepted Christianity was not because they were intellectually convinced of its truth. They accepted it rather in order to access the superior European material goods. In their magical worldview the creator God exists but is removed and distant from everyday life. This life is determined by the spirits, who distribute all kinds of material blessings. These spirits are to be feared, but they can also be manipulated because they live in a reciprocal relationship to humans. If you know the right way to access them, the right ritual which must be meticulously performed, the blessings will certainly come. Religion in this sense is similar to business.
When the Europeans arrived with superior material goods, the explanation could only be that their spirits were stronger than the Papuan spirits. There must have been guilt on the side of the Papuans which caused the life-giving spirits to side with the Europeans rather than with the Papuans, and the time had come to shift allegiance to the European gods in order to participate in the same material blessings. When the first missionaries used the name of the highest creator spirit—Anutu (in Jabem language) or Malengfung (in Kate language)—the Papuans tried to relate to him in the same manner as to the spirits. For instance, they tried to trick him, hiding their wrongdoings in their prayers and presenting mock offerings or deceptive piety to the missionaries.
How far should the mission pick up the thread of the search for material wealth? This became an urgent question, since under the Australian colonial government the Papuans began to realize that you could have those goods even if you did not follow the Christian religion. One party in Tatura—including W. Flierl, G. Pilhofer, W. Bergmann, and H. Strauss—proposed to carry on where the Papuan worldview is. For Papuans, material goods originate from the spirits or gods. Material goods have a fundamental function for the community. Success strengthens the community. Labor, social order, and religion are inseparable. Likewise in the Christian community, labor and the material goods are part of the miti, the Christian way of life.
This approach following Keysser was supported by experiences at plantations under the supervision of the mission. The mission had to ward off individualism and secularization. Economy must be part of religion, otherwise the Papuan will ask: “When the miti does not provide me with the material goods, why should I need it?” As a result he will return to his ancestor cults. The magical way of thinking is the fundamental basis of their worldview and must be accepted at this stage of the mission to be refocused on the Creator. Opposing the success-oriented thinking would result in putting God at a distance from their everyday life.
The means to emphasize God as origin of all goods are the rituals and feasts which celebrate God as the creator. The mission must proclaim the creator by linking to the pragmatic success-oriented worldview. Otherwise the community-oriented mission will never win the whole group. Christian customs should therefore relate to pre-Christian ones, for example, rituals at the time of harvesting and house and canoe building. Some missionaries went so far to claim that there was no alternative to an adaptation to the Papuan worldview, because it is unchangeable.
This position was opposed by another group of missionaries, who claimed that God did not promise a better material life, and that such an expectation puts a burden on the church. The mission changes souls and aims at conversion, but does not make material promises. The gospel is opposed to worldly success-oriented thinking. Otherwise the Papuans will leave the miti as soon as their material expectations are not met. The gospel must be proclaimed as something new and very different. The question of profit has no place in the church, since God gives freely and the sinner cannot demand reciprocity. Newly created rituals will be misused in terms of magic.
Evaluating this discussion, we recognize the two different concepts of mission that informed the parties. Both acknowledged the contextual confusion of Christianity with the Melanesian quest for material well-being and reciprocity, however they came to different conclusions. The first party claimed that material progress and well-being must be part of the Christian miti as much as the preaching of the gospel. If the magical and reciprocal way of thinking is rejected, the gospel will be rejected. This leads to the establishment of a theocratic society under the Christian law.
The other party followed the traditional model of discerning conversion from the well-being of the body. The task of the mission is defined by the preaching of the gospel, which may not be compromised with worldly promises. Though this position lacked attraction for those with a Melanesian worldview, it realized the dangers of the first position: if material promises fail, or if they can be fulfilled outside the church, the proclamation of salvation will be regarded as futile. The weakness of the position which argues for the separation of material promises and salvation is that it may fail to attract Melanesians altogether.
The question remains whether a third position may have been viable. This third position could have tried to form the “new person in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 4:22–24) by educating this new person that even though the conversion will have beneficial effects on social and economic relations (e.g., peace from tribal fighting, extension of trade beyond former borders, the creation as a gift to work with, and education in new sciences), the gospel itself does not promise material well-being and does not reward certain behavior. The gospel breaks through the reciprocal and magical thinking, liberating the Christian person from its domination. This is the freedom of the gospel against the law. The practical difficulties of such a proclamation should not be underestimated, what matters here is only the discussion of the goal and method of mission.
Already in the mission to the Central Highlands beginning in the 1930s and continuing after World War II, the successful method of the coastal areas was modified. Initially, the mission followed the same direction carried by the local evangelists from the coastal areas. However, soon it had to be adapted to new challenges. Hermann Strauss, missionary to the Mount Hagen people, described in a report from 1958 that the readiness of some tribal chiefs to convert did not result in the conversion of the whole tribe, as expected in the community-based method.111
Following the Keysser method by exposing the evil of the tribe and stirring up the conscience to adopt a new way of life was not possible. The reason was that the people had already learned to know different forms of life. “Change of heart really did no longer seem to be required since the old ways and practices of so many bossboys and big men were evidently accepted by the powerful white men (Australians), who had given them influential positions.”112
Strauss concluded that the mission therefore had to focus on giving personal witness to smaller family units, rather than aiming to convert the whole tribe at once. The new Christian ethos could not be instilled through a Christian tribal order, but only when a person realizes how the gospel affects his or her life. The missionary addresses people in their situation of life about human relationships, education, and discipline. This requires the training of local pastors with a sound theology.
The strength of the former mission was the untrained but enthusiastic evangelist who was sent to a distant tribe, shared their life, and opened the door to the gospel. In the Highlands, with their competing missions and the opportunities to obtain material goods in secular ways, the quest for trained pastors became an urgent one. The result was the establishment of theological seminaries in Oglbeng (Mount Hagen) and the English language Martin Luther Seminary in Lae in 1966.
The mission work in the Southern Highlands in the 1950s and 1960s could only be started after the Australian government had been there for a number of years.113 The break with the former life was marked by peace between former enemies. The new Christian life was confirmed at school and had its imminent repercussions on everyday life. An old man from the Jalibu district in the Southern Highlands reports his experience of conversion:
Before, fathers and ancestors fought with enemies and poisoned each other and they thought there was no God. Later the missionaries brought the Good News of Jesus Christ. We heard it and it was like a good story or news others sent to us, and our happiness was great. Day and night we didn’t sleep; we wanted to hear more of this talk. It was like a sweet medicine. We believed that Jesus is the Child of God. He said: If we leave all our evil ways, we will get a good life in Heaven. This talk stirred us and I was baptized at 12 years old with many other children. After I was baptized I went to a primary school of the Lutherans. The teachers told us the same story of the Good News of Jesus and this strengthened us. We went to school at our enemies’ place, but they didn’t hurt us. They cooperated with us and helped us with food, when we were short. This strengthened our belief.114
The war forced most missionaries to give up their work, but this did not result in a breakdown of the church. Shortly after the war, in 1946, the Australian anthropologist Ian Hobgin researched the Lutheran Mission in Busama (20 miles from Lae), which had been without a missionary or evangelist since 1941. His detailed report helps us to understand how deeply the Christian faith had put down roots:115
The conversion in the village had been entrusted to indigenous evangelists until the local elders took over. Christian teachers had set up a village school and Hobgin commends the Lutheran education system as superior to that of most other Pacific missions. Neither evangelist nor teacher received a salary besides the annual offering of the village. Despite the wartime destruction of school and church, daily prayers were conducted in the morning and evening by elders and the teacher. On Sunday all would walk to the circuit church and attendance was obligatory. Holy Communion was rare because of lack of pastors.
The Bible was the fundamental basis of faith; everyone read it, quoted it, and referred to it.116 The salvation of the people of Israel provided the master plan for understanding the present. The New Guinea people regarded themselves as part of the history of conflict between good and evil, God and Satan. They were descendants of the cursed Hem, Noah’s son, hence their economic inferiority. The blood of Christ at the cross has washed away all sins.
The Decalogue is the guide and norm; whoever keeps it will enter kingdom of heaven. The first part requires people to abandon the old deities, pay honor to God, and attend Sunday services. The second part defines the conduct of life in respect and care for parents and elder kin and respect of property. To some extent, the Decalogue confirms the traditional code of behavior, but the highest value is love as mutual regard of others outside the tribe.
The gravest sin is adultery and this temptation looms everywhere, so that the elders ban women from wearing flowers or dancing. Sin is an offence to God the creator and must be punished. If a sinner is not punished in order to change him, sin would bring him to hell. In that respect God resembles a village headman. He intervenes directly. Shame about sin leads to confession. It is important that the community is straight with God before any sacrament is received. “To attend without confession would be certain death.” Repentance may be followed by spectacular recovery, because confession removes the spell of sin. Hogbin notes that conscience is a Christian invention, different from the traditional feeling of shame which occurred when one was caught with disapproval of the action. Conscience is the same as being watched by the all-seeing eye of God under the risk of hell.117
God gave rules, and if Christians follow them, they will receive his blessings. It is their choice and responsibility. Believers are tempted by Satan, however, God gives them strength to resist. Hogbin did not notice any reference to the Holy Spirit in this regard. After death the soul passes to the spirit world and waits for the Day of Judgment.
Hobgin’s portrait of a Lutheran congregation confirms the changes and the continuities of second-generation Christians. The greatest change was the recognition of the universal righteous and holy God as creator, savior, and judge. Indigenous Christians had left the mythological worldview and become part of a universal history with a future judgment. On the practical level, however, there seems to be some continuity in the context of the communal definition of law, sins, and sanctions for transgressions. Even though the forgiveness of sins in the blood of Christ is known, a deeper understanding of it in terms of unconditional acceptance by God and the transformation of the sinner seems to be missing.
These observations are confirmed by Georg F. Vicedom, another leading missionary, in the Highlands from 1929 to 1939, and mission inspector in Neuendettelsau from 1946. He described the changes from the old to the new worldview in the religion of the Mount Hagen people.118 The earlier religious life was marked by veneration of the power over life and death. Death was the unsolved problem, and the purpose of the secret cults was to prolong and renew life in all its forms. Through a kind of fall, humans were separated from this power of life. In the cult and rites they tried to relate to it again, making up for the fall of the ancestors in order to escape death. This power of life originated from the high gods. They lived at remote distance and were only called at the time of feasts or important events. Their decisions over life could only be accepted. Once sacrifices or sorceries proved ineffective, only resignation remained.
Besides these transcendent gods there were the familiar spirits of the ancestors who reflected the social structure. People related to them in reciprocity, which is the fundamental principle of their social life: the exchange of gifts and assistance placed obligations on one another. The ancestor spirits could be influenced and also manipulated. They followed the same obligations as humans. Gifts and prayers were the means to ensure their support. Gifts reinforced prayers. Prayers persuaded, convinced, or even threatened the spirits to help: “Come, brothers and sisters. We have brought you a pig. Take it and lead its soul into the land of the dead where you can eat it. In return let the sick father recover!”
At night the soul of the sleepers conversed with the spirits and feasts confirmed the fellowship with them. Everything was caused by the spirits: sickness, good or bad harvest, good and bad luck. But sin and death remained unresolved problems. If death was caused by punishment of the gods, it must be accepted. If it was caused by another person, it must be avenged. A personal feeling of sin did not exist—only shame about breaking the rules of the community. There was no forgiveness, only penance and the retributive gift which removed the guilt.
According to Vicedom, Christianity totally changed this religious relationship. In eight points he described these changes:
1. The creator God encounters creation as a person. Everything and everyone on earth belongs to him and has to be treated with respect. All humans are brothers and sisters.
2. God claims his right even after the Fall; he has not retreated like the old gods. He acted as a caring Father by sending his Son for the salvation of sinners. This means that wrongdoings do not automatically result in evil fate, but require confession and seeking of redemption.
3. Relationship with God is dependent on relationship with others, while the old rules were given by the spirits to serve them. Many commandments were already present in the pre-Christian tribe; however the laws of God are universal and altruistic, while the old laws were confined to the tribe.
4. In contrast to the former aim to increase the power of life for one’s own family and tribe, the new goal of life is to serve God. God guides through good and bad days; the times where life is limited are also times of God.
5. The new life follows a universal ethos. The spirits were neither omnipresent nor omniscient, so that they could be betrayed, but God knows every action and thought. The converts believed that God sits on their forehead and watches everything they do.
6. God gives eternal life and salvation. This-worldly religion is replaced by an other-worldly orientation through the proclamation of the resurrection.
7. Pastoral care happens through church discipline. If the individual Christian is not willing to adhere to the rules, the community will discipline him or her.
8. The sacraments express the close encounter with the holy God, therefore confession is required before approaching the Holy.
We notice that Vicedom describes faith as relationship to the creator and savior God. Yet many hymns in the two church languages Kate and Jabem express a close relation to Jesus Christ: He is called my friend, brother, and also lord and redeemer. His cult is not secret, but open to all. Here, the message of the atonement holds a central place with sayings like “his blood became our ornament” and “his blood destroyed our sins.”
Distance from God is expressed in phrases like “we little, unfortunate, miserable, evil people: we live on this miserable earth, but it is no longer our home; we want to go to our Father in heaven.” The immanent religion has turned transcendent and the new village is in heaven where they can find the land of peace.
In another article119 Vicedom supports Keysser’s claim that the new congregation must be organized as theocracy, because the convert does not encounter God outside of his group. When the tribe becomes God’s people, the law of the group is the law of God, and Christ is the Lord of the tribe. Lutheran Christians had found their place in the history of salvation. They accepted the Bible as the book of God’s history with humans; they viewed faith as a communal affair, feared the punishment of God, prayed for His intervention, and fought against temptation. Disobedience to the law or failure to follow it resulted in condemnation and placed the transgressor in the realm of evil forces. Sickness was regarded as punishment for evil and recovery after confession was to be expected.
The policy of the mission had been based on indigenous evangelists and teachers. Many missionaries had reservations against an indigenous clergy because they were afraid of a clerical hierarchy in conflict with the traditional village leadership. While the Methodist mission in Fiji started to train clergy in seminaries twenty years after the beginning of the mission, the Lutheran mission in PNG took seventy years before establishing the first seminary for the training of clergy in 1957. In 1944 there were 60,000 baptized Lutherans with 800 evangelists and 400 teachers, but no ordained minister.120
Mission based on evangelists had its limitations.121 After baptism the work of the evangelist should have finished. They did not have the education to become teachers and felt disadvantaged in comparison with government teachers. Their preaching was often legalistic because their theological training was basic. The Christian way of life became a school of behavior. Holy Communion could be celebrated only by the missionary, and used to happen around four times a year. In the 1940s many congregations did not have Holy Communion for up to seven years.
When the church finally started to train pastors, their role was often confined to Sunday services, sacraments, and marriages, while the oversight and control of the spiritual and church life resided with the local elders. However, their authority was no longer unchallenged. Dissidents could leave the village community which once again broke up into family units.122 Students returning from cities introduced new ideas with which the elders could not cope.
The missionary to the Mount Hagen tribes, Hermann Strauss, reported at the Mission conference of 1953 how the New Guinea Christians understood repentance.123 According to his observations the religious life was “thoroughly legalistic.” Sin was “understood in a very external way” as acting against the rules of the group. Law was the way of life of the group, but not internalized as God’s guidance. Shame took the place of conscience and “being ashamed” the place of repentance. Wrongdoing could be rectified by submitting to the punishment of the congregation. Confession was often “the child of fear, fear of the consequence of sin regarding health and outward prosperity.” Forgiveness was obtained not through inner repentance and faith, but through submission to the penalties of the congregation. Repentance was regarded as a kind of offering which deserves to be rewarded.
Strauss recommended two ways to deepen the understanding of repentance: the preaching of the Old Testament prophets and insistence on God’s holiness can help to view sin in relation to God. Sinful man must “be hammered with the Law until their pride and stubbornness of heart is crushed, only then can it be right to preach to them forgiveness and grace.”
On the other hand, Strauss admonished the missionaries to accept the spiritual realities and not impose their theology. The New Guinea Christian did not distinguish between inner attitudes and outward expression; attitudes must become visible acts. Repentance needs an outward demonstration of doing penance. The importance of church discipline is to help restore the relation of the sinner to the community. The Western individualistic approach is not applicable to the communal understanding of life in New Guinea. Reconciliation in a Melanesian context extends to God and the fellow Christian.
Strauss was an excellent expert whose deep understanding of the highland people is revealed in his anthropological studies. Remarkably, in this account Strauss does not opt for an approach following the New Testament proclamation of the gospel of forgiveness and justification by faith and grace alone, but recommends a stronger preaching of the prophetic law exposing sin and a tight Christian social order.
The report of missionary Hannemann from 1962 confirms this understanding of sin and law among the Lutherans.124 Adultery is regarded as the most serious sin, while indifference against God’s word is considered a minor wrong. The law is outward and not inward. The necessity of God’s forgiveness is not accepted. Many confessions are quite selective, or without a feeling of remorse.
The Lutheran Church experienced a phenomenal growth from 100,000 members in 1950 to 1,001,000 in 2000. However, after declaring autonomy in 1976 under Bishop Zurewe, signs of a crisis became more visible. The church had difficulties coping with many social changes, though Bishop Zurewe introduced new missions and established new districts. Urban migration destroyed village communities and their traditional discipline. New values were introduced through Western lifestyle, films, and videos. The Lutheran schools became more secularized. In the late 1950s and 1960s the Australian government enforced English-speaking schools which were controlled by the government, while the church maintained the tok ples (local vernacular) schools.
The time of mass conversion was over, but the second step of individual growth of faith did not always follow. We can note these changes for instance in the use of sacraments and rituals. According to a report of missionary Hans Flierl from 1968,125 14 percent of the baptized adults (208,000 at that time) were not confirmed. Reasons included the return of “animistic heathendom” and growing secularism. He also identified a lack of educational material, an outdated pedagogy, and a lack of post-confirmation instruction. Holy Communion could not replace the significance of baptism, because it was rare, and often linked with magical beliefs. Personal confession before Holy Communion had lost its seriousness, because serious sins were hidden.
What was regarded as the fruit of the gospel—peace, the new social order, the roads which connected the congregations, schools, and hospitals—could now be accessed apart from the church. The fear of the missionaries at Tatura had become true.
Most congregations had stopped supporting evangelists and church workers. This was handled by the districts. Only the youth and the women started their own mission work. “As more and more emphasis is now being placed on church structure and clericalism, congregations are becoming mere ‘observers of the show.’”126 The structures of the church—with its circuits, districts, and the National Church headquarters in Lae—reflected a conflict between a Western organization and the Melanesian way of doing things. The structures were regarded as having magic power to provide all necessary means.127
The crisis was further highlighted in the 1977 fact finding survey (FFS), in which 160 evangelists, pastors, elders, students, and church leaders were interviewed using questionnaires about six topics: worship and congregational activities; the work of congregations in towns; community involvement of the church; church financing; cooperation between congregations, circuits, districts, and the national head office; and church leadership. Editor Theodor Ahrens summarized the findings as follows:128
1. Elders, pastors and missionaries are facing far-reaching problems of role insecurity. Their roles are not clear to themselves nor to others. Hence they often have difficulties responding to the expectations which people have towards them.
2. The information provided about congregations indicates a crisis of motivation and Christian identity . . . 80% . . . express a desire to change forms of worship. . . . This crisis expresses itself in attitudes towards Christian giving . . .
3. Particularly in urban areas as a focal point of social change the church and its workers often fail to meet people where they are and deal with their problems.
4. Circuits, districts and the national church . . . seem to have become an organizational purpose in themselves, without much relevant communication—in terms of an apostolic vision.
In all areas of the church, the survey revealed symptoms of crisis: in many congregations confirmation and youth work was regarded as either ineffective or absent (16); likewise pastoral visits (18). The churches in towns were unsuccessful in combating vices such as wasting money, fighting, drunkenness, and gambling (22–23), and they did not sufficiently unite the people (25); 40 percent appreciated the services and meetings of the church, but a majority thought that the church did not address the problems properly in its services and work so that the gospel was not relevant (58–60). Less than one-third of the people identified themselves with a Christian way of life (80). The Lutheran identity was unclear (81). Cargo cults were present in many areas, but nearly 70 percent did not know what to think of them (57, 77).
There was a major problem with church finance, in terms of a growing unwillingness to give offerings to the church, and lack of support for pastors and the higher administration (100). Thus there was a shortage of money at all levels, especially in the congregations and the payment of church workers (108). A majority complained that the church did not help those with economic problems (70).
Traditionally, the elders hold the leadership in the congregation (182–89). They are responsible for the attendance at services, counseling and problem solving, keeping the community together, organizing the offerings, and in some places also hearing confessions (182). However, few young people were among the elders, indicating the growing gap between the generations. The majority of elders did not receive any formal Christian education, so they were mainly trying to preserve the old ways though with little enthusiasm (184). There were often conflicts with the pastors about status in the congregation. The work of a pastor (190–200) was to administer the sacraments, preach, and counsel, in that order. Because of poor financial support, the majority of pastors were busy with other jobs (197).
The Lutheran Church established an elaborate structure following the model of the European church. The survey revealed that this structure failed to be efficient and created communication gaps. The circuits were created by the missionaries. Many complained about lack of finance, lack of support from local congregations, and lack of cooperation (115–28). The district should foster cooperation of circuits; develop, visit, assist, and supervise church workers in the circuit and congregation; and supervise district schools. Again, the majority expressed disappointment about the work of the district leader and poor financial support, while district leaders complained about the lack of support from the circuits (134–54). The national church headquarters in Lae were seen as being occupied with external affairs (overseas and government); their relationships with districts, circuits, and congregations were regarded as problematic (155–77).
This 1977 survey highlighted a crisis at different levels. Only a minority regarded the church as relevant to their life. The distance of many members was indicated by their lack of commitment and poor financial support. The church no longer united the community, and evangelism projects failed as a result of lack of manpower and congregational support. Allegations of misuse of money paralyzed the different levels of the hierarchy. Former mission inspector Gernot Fugmann summarized it as follows: “We see the church fully occupied with its organizational problems, constitutions, guidelines, finances and the issue of localization,” unconcerned with the “large number of nominal, uncommitted, baptized members” who lack a feeling of identity with the church. This makes Lutherans “an easy prey of fundamentalist and Pentecostal sects” and has prevented them from addressing the issues of a Melanesian-based theology in the church seminaries.129 Many Lutherans have joined new cults which merge Christian elements into the old Melanesian search for a better life here and now.
In 2005 Fugmann reviewed Keysser’s method from present experiences.130 He started from the observation that the understanding of Christ having won the victory over the spirits actually broke the power of the spirits in the retributive thinking of the traditional society. Thus the arrival of the mission was a great experience of disempowerment. However, many Lutheran Christians today are disappointed that the church has not fulfilled its promises of a better life. The “Jesus-talk” did not answer the Melanesian questions: How can we receive the same wealth and well-being that the Europeans have? Now the missionaries stand accused of driving out the spirits without bringing the new life in its fullness.131 Fugmann concludes that it was a mistake for the missionaries to assume that once the power of the spirits was broken, the old worldview would be replaced by a new worldview. Many Christians have returned to the old thinking and the spirits to initiate a new time of fullness. Spirits and the Christian God are used in manipulative ways in syncretistic cults.
In 1988 the 800,000 Lutherans were shepherded by 642 pastors, 900 evangelists, 50 women leaders, and 51 missionaries, a less favorable relation between believers and leaders than in the Methodist Church in Fiji. Statistics indicate a decrease of Lutheran membership in relation to the total population from 30 percent at the beginning of the 1980s to less than 20 percent in the first decade of the new century.132 This decrease of one-third is compensated by a sharp increase in the total population. The number of pastors in 2005 was 781 active and 340 inactive.133 This is a ratio of 1 pastor to 1,282 members, while the Methodist Church in Fiji has a ratio of 1:682. In comparison among the churches the Catholic Church has remained stable (around 25 percent of the population), while the United Church has lost 5 percent to around 10 percent of the population. The biggest growth has been achieved by Seventh Day Adventists and the Pentecostal churches.
Some argue that the success of the Pentecostal churches may be attributed to their closeness to the traditional worship of the spirits, though their proclamation is opposed to this.134 It also indicates that new forms of worship and religious practice need to be developed for a new generation growing up under the influence of Western media.
The Lutheran Church has experienced a number of splits. The charismatic renewal movement started in the 1980s and gained momentum in the 1990s, when the first charismatic congregations were established.135 Its origin lies in the sharp rise of young members in the 1980s, to which the Evangelical Lutheran Church of PNG (ELCPNG) reacted with a Youth Program called the “Five Stars Program.” This developed into a conflict between the young, educated generation and the traditional church leadership of elders. Unfortunately, opportunities for dialogue were lost when charismatic groups and several youth leaders (including the Lutheran missionary Johann van Bruggen) were expelled from the ELCPNG. Consequently, they established their own training center and their own congregations. It is estimated that their number is around one-fifth of the ELCPNG membership. In 2001 the Lutheran revival and renewal groups were ready to register as independent Lutheran churches, when Wesley Kigasung became bishop and changed the stance of the church by initiating a reconciliation process. The Dialogue Office visited many renewal congregations which had reorganized themselves but generally intended to remain Lutheran. This was confirmed during a conference at Martin Luther Seminary in Lae in October 2003. The Dialogue Office recommended the full reintegration of the charismatic groups in the Lutheran Church, opening theological seminars to them, tolerating different worship styles, combining traditional and charismatic ministers, and a proper representation of the movement in all decision-making bodies. However, at the 2004 Synod the ELCPNG leadership rejected the reconciliation proposal. Since then, more and more Lutheran charismatic congregations have become independent.
NOTES
1. John Garrett, To Live Among the Stars (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, 1982), 102.
2. Arthur M. Hocart, The Northern States of Fiji (London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Occasional Publication 11, 1952). Hocart did his field research in the Lau group of Fiji in the years before 1914. The religion of the chiefs is also mentioned in A. Harold Wood, Overseas Missions of the Australian Methodist Church. Volume II Fiji (Melbourne: Aldersgate Press, 1978), 4.
3. R. A. Derrick, A History of Fiji. Volume 1 (Suva: Government Press, 1946), 21–22.
4. Reverend John Hunt, Private Journal, January 7, 1839–January 25, 1848. Unpublished manuscript in the State Library New South Wales, Sydney. Signatures DLMS 206, DLMS 207, DLMS 208; here quoted according to the date of the entry: July 22, 1839.
5. Journal: “Report of the work of God in the Somosomo circuit for the year 1840.”
6. Alan R. Tippett, The Christian (1835–67) (Auckland: The Institute Printing and Publishing, 1954), 5.
7. Tippett, Christian, 4, 6–7. The size of the congregation increased considerably following the conversion of the chief, but not the membership. In the Methodist system, church attendance is not the same as membership.
8. Ibid., 3.
9. Ibid., 34.
10. Wood, Overseas Missions, 81.
11. Hunt, Journal, May 4, 1842.
12. For example, Hunt, Journal, October 21, 1842.
13. For example, Hunt, Journal, March 20, 1842. Tippett, Christian, twenty-four shows from the sources that the early native preachers were more fascinated by heaven and the desire for it, but he also acknowledged that hell preaching gained in the second generation of Christians.
14. Hunt, Journal, October 23, 1842.
15. Hunt, Journal, April 10, 1842.
16. See the victory of the Christian party at Kaba in 1855, Wood, Mission, 120.
17. Tippett, Christian, 12.
18. Hunt, Journal, November 20, 1842. On the other hand Hunt acknowledged that people came to lotu (worship) through healings and he prayed for healings also as signs for God’s power.
19. John Hunt in a letter from 1847 quoted by Tippett, Christian, 31.
20. Hunt, Journal, Annual Report, Viwa 1845.
21. After mass baptisms following the conversion of the chiefs, the missionaries urged that the baptism of the Spirit was not automatically given with the water but yet to come, Hunt, Journal, May 17, 1844.
22. Hunt, Journal, May 11, 1842.
23. John Hunt, Entire Sanctification: Its Nature, the Way of its Attainment, and Motives for its Pursuits in Letters to a Friend (London: Wesleyan Conference, no year, commenced 1842).
24. James Calvert in his preface to Hunt, Entire Sanctification, VII; cf. Hunt, Journal, October 19, 1844.
25. Entire Sanctification, 3–12.
26. Ibid., 32–42.
27. Tippett, Christian, 6. Cakobau was baptized in 1857 after giving up eighty wives.
28. Tippett, Christian, 13.
29. Ibid., 14.
30. Ibid., 15.
31. Hunt, Journal, “Review of the mercies of God and the effect they have had on my mind.”
32. Hunt, Journal, February 16, 1843 reports how the missionaries Watsford and Jaggar professed the blessing of Entire Holiness in the class meetings. “Our class meeting might well be called a meeting for seeking Entire Holiness. Oh that it may keep this character.”
33. In the early days the success of the classes was not unambiguous. Hunt reports in his journal that people “were saved from all sin” in the meetings, but “only one” knew that his sins are forgiven, “and that one is an old servant of ours.” Journal, August 10, 1844 and November 8, 1844.
34. “Fijian Wesleyan Mission” and “Notes by Natives in Fijian Collected by Reverend A. J. Webb, 1873. State Library of New South Wales, sign. A 474–A 475.
35. Some stories are reported by Tippett, Christian, 22–23.
36. Wood, Overseas Missions II, 145.
37. Hunt, Journal, undated.
38. Evidences given by Tippett, Christian, 15.
39. Hunt, Journal, December 25, 1842
40. Hunt, Journal, October 19, 1845.
41. Hunt quoted by Tippett, Christian, 30f.
42. Already in 1746 the American revivalist Jonathan Edwards cautioned against the self-evidence of emotional religious experiences even though he accepted them as operations of God’s Spirit in his A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/affections.html (accessed September 1, 2019).
43. The Fijian preachers in 1845 interpreted these revivals as fulfillment of Joel 2, a new Pentecost, Tippett, Christian, 29.
44. Hunt, Journal, June 3, 1844 referring to native accounts of their conversion. Cf. Tippett, Christian, 26.
45. Fijian Methodists became missionaries to New Britain, Papua, and the Solomon Islands.
46. An important role in attaining sanctification had the deathbed testimonies, quoted by Tippett, Christian, 24–25, when the dying Christian confessed that he will enter heaven as owner of this land and has seen the Lord who has come to take him to heaven, the land of rejoice.
47. Hunt, Journal, January 2, 1842.
48. Hunt, Journal, October 22, 1842.
49. Wood, Overseas Missions II, 143.
50. Andrew W. Thornley, Fijian Methodism, 1874–1945. The Emergence of a National Church (ANU Canberra: unpublished PhD Thesis, 1979), 101–105.
51. Thornley, Methodism, 107, 111–16.
52. A chiefly spokesman at Nakorotubu in 1885 quoted by Thornley, Methodism, 107.
53. Wood, Overseas Missions, 122.
54. Thornley, Methodism, 103.
55. Methodist Church of Australasia, The Fiji Mission. Report of Commission Appointed by the Board of Mission to Visit Fiji and Report upon Matters Connected Therewith (Sydney: Epworth Printing, 1907).
56. Wood, Overseas Missions, 146. After Kadavu (1861) and Navuloa (1873), Davuilevu has become the site of the Methodist Theological College since 1908.
57. Wood, Overseas Missions, 149.
58. Ibid., 228–30, 278.
59. Ibid., 279. Futile were also the attempts of Methodist mission chairman George Brown in 1907 to convert the mission into a Fijian church, Ibid., 282.
60. Tippett, Christian, 18.
61. Wood, Overseas Missions, 343.
62. Plant Today for Tomorrow. A Self Study Report of Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma as Commissioned by the 1980 Conference of the Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma, ed. I. Jovili Meo, Dorothy A. Dale (Suva: Lotu Pasifika, 1985), 153. Michael Press, Kokosnuss und Kreuz. Geschichten von Christen im Pazifik (Neuendettelsau: Erlanger Verlag für Mission und Ökumene, 2010), 152–55.
63. Missionary Lorimer Fison was at the front of these protests, see Wood, Overseas Missions, 186, 200, 212. There was also resentment between the mission and different British governors about power and money.
64. Wood, Overseas Missions, 142, 239, Thornley, Methodism, 121.
65. Thornley, Methodism, 105.
66. Wood, Overseas Missions, 244, Thornley, Methodism, 123.
67. Thornley, Methodism, 105, 122. The Fijian translation of sin as “bad habit” might have encouraged such interpretations though the missionaries complained about the weakness of this translation.
68. Thornley, Methodism, 122.
69. Wood, Overseas Missions, 241, 317.
70. Thornley, Methodism, 120–21.
71. Ibid., 134. Thornley attributes the decline in membership to the rules which made membership undesirable.
72. The Methodist chairman and experienced missionary George Brown criticized the harsh prohibitions especially on kava as the put undue burden on the members, see Wood, Overseas Missions, 243.
73. John Garrett, “Methodism in Fiji since 1964,” in Mai Kea ki Vei? Stories of Methodism in Fiji and Rotuma 1835–1995, ed. A. Thornley and T. Vulaono (Suva: Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma, 1996), 193.
74. Wood, Mission, 355.
75. Ibid., 356.
76. Ibid., 347.
77. Plant Today for Tomorrow, 44–45, 109.
78. Ibid., 154.
79. Ibid., 95–100.
80. Ibid., 56–64.
81. Ibid., 79.
82. Lynda Newland, “Fiji,” in Globalization and the Re-Shaping of Christianity in the Pacific Islands, ed. Manfred Ernst (Suva: Pacific Theological College, 2006), 337.
83. Methodist Church in Fiji, Minutes of the 42nd Annual Conference 2005, appendix B. The total membership seems to be a bit low, because this figure would indicate a sharp decline compared to the census of 1996 which counted 280,000 Methodists. Considering the population growth the decline would be even stronger.
84. Information of Rev. Ilimeki Susu, October 20, 2008.
85. Manfred Ernst, “Ecumenism in Fiji: Restless Winds and Shifting Sands,” in Navigating Troubled Waters: The Ecumenical Movement in the Pacific Islands Since the 1980s, ed. Manfred Ernst and Lydia Johnson (Suva: Pacific Theological College, 2017), 51–95. Thirty-five percent of the population are Hindus or Muslims.
86. Garrett, “Methodism in Fiji,” 198–200.
87. Ibid., 200.
88. “Membership Drop Concerns Methodists,” http://www.fijilive.com/news/2012/08/membership-drop-concerns-methodists/47238.Fijilive (accessed September 9, 2018).
89. The first baptisms occurred in 1899, then in 1903 for Bogadjim. All were exceptional cases of members of the missionary household.
90. G. Kunze, Im Dienste des Kreuzes auf ungebahnten Pfaden. Schwierige Missionsanfänge auf einsamer Südsee Insel (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1901), 54.
91. A. Hanke, Die Rheinische Mission im Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land (Barmen: Verlag des Missionshauses, 1908), 37 (own translation).
92. Christian Keysser, Bürger zweier Welten, ed. W. Fugmann (Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1985), 13.
93. The Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea: The First Hundred Years 1886–1986, ed. Herwig Wagner and Hermann Reiner (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1986), 74.
94. C. Keysser, A People Reborn (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1980), 7.
95. Keysser, A People Reborn, 214, 294. The establishment of this order was rejected by the first missionary Johann Flierl who regarded it as Keysser’s invention and not coming from the people, cf. Traugott Farnbacher, Gemeinde Verantworten. Anfänge. Entwicklungen und Perspektiven von Gemeinde und Ämtern der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Papua-Neuguinea (Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1999), 196–208.
96. The use of corporal punishment was controversial among missionaries and later prohibited by the Australian government, Farnbacher, Gemeinde, 203–204.
97. Numunc Kemung, Nareng Gareng. A Principle for Mission in Papua New Guinea (Erlangen: Verlag für Mission und Ökumene, 1998), 119.
98. Interview conducted by a student from Logaweng Theological Seminary in 2007.
99. Cf. Theodor Ahrens, “Die Aktualität Christian Keyssers. Eine Fallstudie protestantischer Mission.” Zeitschrift für Mission 14 (1988), 104.
100. A famous example from the highlands of Papua New Guinea is Hermann Strauss, Die Mi-Kultur der Hagenberg-Stämme im östlichen Zentral-Neuguinea (Hamburg: Komisssionsverlag Cram, de Gruyter, 1962).
101. See James C. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
102. Keysser, Bürger zweier Welten, 56, 60. Similar statements are recorded by the Rhenish missionary Hoffmann, quoted in H. Schütte, Der Ursprung der Messer und Beile. Gedanken zum zivilisatorischen Projekt rheinischer Missionare im frühkolonialen Neuguinea (Hamburg: Abera, 1995), 141.
103. Keysser, Bürger zweier Welten, 72.
104. Theodor Ahrens, Der neue Mensch im kolonialen Zwielicht. Studien zum religiösen Wandel in Ozeanien (Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1993).
105. Peter D. Koehne, “Justification, the Ministry and the Keysser Method.” Lutheran Theological Journal 17 (1983), 103–14. Koehne believes that sin must be eradicated through acts of contrition and penance rather than through absolution.
106. Kemung, Nareng Gareng, 123.
107. Ahrens, “Aktualität,” 100–106. The first criticism came from Senior Flierl and Stefan Lehner who offered an alternative concept with stricter separation between Christian and social leadership, cf. Farnbacher, Gemeinde, 201–202.
108. Pilhofer wrote a handbook for evangelists in which he laid out the biblical stories which they should use: forty Old Testament stories and only twenty from the New Testament. His mission handbook for the Neuendettelsau Mission: G. Pilhofer, Einführung in die missionarische Praxis unseres Missionsfeldes in Neuguinea, Neuendettelsau archive, sign. 5.178.
109. Pilhofer, Einführung, 54.
110. The minutes of the discussion are filed under the title “Missionare hinter Stacheldraht” at the Neuendettelsau archive signature 7.20. The following paragraphs summarize the arguments. See Michael Press, Kokosnuss und Kreuz. Geschichten von Christen im Pazifik (Neuendettelsau: Erlanger Verlag für Mission und Ökumene 2010), 80–82.
111. Hermann Strauss, “A Study of Mission Methods,” LMNG Conference paper 1959, 16.
112. Strauss, “Study,” 17
113. The Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea, 208.
114. Interviewed by students of Logaweng seminary in 2005.
115. Ian Hogbin, Transformation Scene. The Changing Culture of a New Guinea Village (London: Routledge, 1951).
116. Hogbin, Transformation Scene, 236–39.
117. Ibid., 260–66.
118. Georg F. Vicedom, “Das neue Gottesverhältnis,” “In wieweit ist das Christentum Eigenbesitz der Heidenchristen geworden?” and “Die Papua und das Schicksal,” unpublished essays in the Neuendettelsau Mission archive, sign. 5.261.
119. Georg F. Vicedom, “Die jungen Kirchen und ihre Umwelt,” unpublished essay in the Neuendettelsau Mission archive, sign. 5.261.
120. Koehne, “Justification,” 110. Kuehne argues that this emphasis on local elders and teachers supported a legalistic Christianity based on congregational discipline.
121. H. Lutschewitsch, “Von der Evangelistenmision zur Pfarrerkirche in Papua Neuguinea,” in Wok Misin—100 Jahre deutsche Mission in Papua Neuguinea. Dokumentation einer Tagung des Missionskolleg (Neuendettelsau: Missionskolleg, 1986), 23–31.
122. This movement started already in the 1920s, cf. Gernot Fugmann, The Birth of an Indigenous Church, Point Series 10 (Goroka: The Melanesian Institute, 1986), 78–79.
123. Hermann Strauss, “How to Lead the New Guinea Christians from Misconceptions to a True Understanding of the Scriptural Teaching of Repentance,” LMNG Conference paper, 1953, Neuendettelsau archive, sign. 7.181.
124. H. Hannemann, “Forgiveness,” unpublished manuscript, 1962. Neuendettelsau archive, sign. 7.181.
125. Hans Flierl, “Confirmation within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of New Guinea.” LMNG report, 1968. Neuendettelsau archive, sign. 7.181.
126. Kemung, Nareng Gareng , 136.
127. Cf. Ibid., 128.
128. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea. Report on a Fact Finding Survey, ed. Theodor Ahrens (Goroka: Melanesian Institute, 1977), 5–6. The page numbers in the text refer to this text.
129. G. Fugmann, “The Mission of the Lutheran Church in PNG,” quoted after John May, “Autonomous Church in Papua New Guinea,” in The Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea, 307–24. According to the survey of missionary Hermann Reiner, “The Challenge to the Ministry Today.” Point No 1, 1976, 44–45, the church has become “like a corpse without any joy. In the services there is no inspiration . . . the sermon is idle talk, and lets the audience fall asleep . . . the liturgy just follows the pattern of the hymn book and tires the congregation . . . there are villages where the gardens literally run to seed and grow wild, because the male population is gambling from morning to night.”
130. Gernot Fugmann, “Sie haben die Geister in Ketten gelegt. Ein Diskussionsbeirag zum missionarischen Problem der Entmächtigung im Finschhafen Gebiet Papua-Neuguineas,” in Gottesgabe. Festschrift fuer Theodor Ahrens, ed. Michael Biehl and Amele A. Ekue (Frankfurt: Otto Lembeck, 2005), 29–44.
131. This accusation is expressed in several legends about Keysser who had allegedly removed sacred and powerful objects such as a cross, see Fugmann, “Geister,” 41–42.
132. Franco Zocca, “Religious Affiliation in Papua New Guinea According to the 2000 Census.” Catalyst 34 (2004): 41–56 and Zocca, “Religious Affiliation in Papua New Guinea According to the 2011 Census.” Catalyst 44 (2014): 107–16. There are however inconsistencies in the statistics, for example, the list of other churches changed over the year.
133. Figures obtained from the ELCPNG headquarter in Ambo, Lae in 2005.
134. James Barr, “A Survey of Ecstatic Phenomena and ‘Holy Spirit Movements’ in Melanesia.” Oceania 54 (1983): 109–32.
135. The following is based on the Final Report of the Office for Dialogue with the Lutheran Renewal Movement, Lae 2005.
