The State and the Church, the State of the Church in Tonga
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Date
2007Author
Niumeitolu, Heneli T
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Abstract
This dissertation examines the impact of ‘Tongan culture’ as represented by those
with power in the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga (FWC). The word “free” in the
name of a church usually denotes the desire to be independent of the State or any
other outside control but in this context it was often the contrary. From the outset of
the Wesleyan Mission in 1826, the chiefs who embodied and controlled Tonga,
welcomed the early European explorers yet with the twin underlying aims of gaining
benefits while simultaneously maintaining their supremacy. The dissertation argues
that the outcome leaves the FWC in dire need of inculturation, with Gospel
challenging ‘Culture.’ Historical and anthropological approaches are used to
substantiate this claim. Encouraged by Captain Cook’s report the missionaries
arrived and were welcomed by the chiefs. The conversion of the powerful
Taufa‘ahau was pivotal to the spread of the Wesleyan Mission yet this marriage of
convenience came at a cost because Taufa‘ahau had his own agenda of what a church
should be. This study assesses Tongan demeanour prior to the arrival of Europeans
and in the early years of settlement, especially the response to Cook in 1773, 74, 77
which set the tone for later interaction. It then looks at how Tongan ways have
moulded the FWC since the beginning of the Wesleyan Mission in 1826 by relying
on data from archives, interviews, and journals of early explorers and missionaries.
This dissertation argues that what is widely accepted as the Tongan way of life,
which the FWC represents as the Gospel, is essentially the interest of the elite with
power and wealth. From the start the chiefs were not only interested in the Wesleyan
Mission for religious but also for political reasons; indeed they made and even still
make no such separation. Because of this collusion of the FWC and the state, the
FWC is recognized as the supporter of the status quo, its ministers being part of the
elite system of social and spiritual control. The ensuing confusion between the
church, Christ, and culture leads to a neglect of the poor and marginal and a failure to
speak prophetically to the elite.