Cover Story
A Religious Battle Looming
Now the old churches are fighting back
Satan hopes to set up business formally in Samoa. In September, Nivelli Macolo, an Australian who claims Samoan citizenship through a Samoan wife he divorced, wrote to the Samoa Observer newspaper declaring: “ I am a Satanist intending to equip Samoa with a Satan worshipping community and looking forward to worshipping the devil with you.”
It is not the thought of head-on competition from Satan that Samoa’s three main churches are alarmed by. It is the numbers of their flocks straying from them to join one of the mushrooming numbers of newly minted, modern and often strongly business-oriented evangelical and charismatic denominations.
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The Congregational Christian Church of Samoa, with Presbyterian origins dating back to the 1830s, claims 61,444 members, according to a 2001 census. The Methodist Church ranks next with 26,460, followed by the Catholic Church with 24,754, only a little ahead of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) with 22,535.
Some village councils are attempting to keep the new churches away from their locality by banning them. Some adherents of the new churches have been attacked and beaten by followers of old churches. They have been banished from their villages and had their houses destroyed.
In August, the president of the Lands and Titles Court, Lesatale Rapi Vaai, reminded Samoans that their constitution allows freedom of religion. He said the banishment of bible study group members from Salailua village was unconstitutional, as was the banning of new churches.
In another ruling, Samoa’s Supreme Court declared that it was illegal for village councils to forbid the entry of new religious groups to any village. Samoa’s old established church would like to see the opening of new denomination churches regulated.
The Reverend Oka Fau’olo, for more than 40 years a minister of the Congregational Church and presently chairman of the Samoa Council of Churches, confirmed the government had been approached about the matter. The council hadn’t gone so far as to press for a constitutional amendment to change freedom of religion law, he told Islands Business. But he felt it would be “good” to give the Prime Minister discretion with the advice of the national council to approve the registration of newcomers. Any new application would be “viewed seriously. I am wondering whether something like that can be done. People often overdo freedom of worship.”
Fau’olo regards some adherents of the new churches as “parasites trying to live on others. They make some sort of excuse and betray the interest of the people, especially when they promise so much”.
Fau’olo says he has no idea of how many new churches are operating. But he has no doubt that support for the Congregational Church, which in the 1940s was 53 percent of the population, has been severely eroded.
“The Methodists and Catholics don’t suffer as much. We suffer most because we are free. The basis of our faith is freedom to decide what to do. If you are a Roman Catholic, you face the cardinal who can have you ex-communicated from heaven.”
Fau’olo says there’s been no formal response from the government since the approach last year. “The Prime Minister says he can see the point and sympathises a bit. But the matter is a very serious one because it is an international matter, and not very easily enforced.”
