Pacific Magazine > Magazine > September 1, 2006

Religion

Pacific's Changing Christianity

New Book Tracks Growth Of Evangelical Churches

By Ricardo Morris, SUVA

A new 900-page book confirms what many of us already knew: religion in the Pacific, as elsewhere in the world, is undergoing profound change.

Young People participating in the recent Don Clowers Healings and Miracles rally in Albert Park, Suva, Fiji. In addition to personal worship, Christian youth of the new Fijian religious group, the All Nation Christian Fellowship, are encouraged to actively participate in church services by performing songs, dances and dramas. [All photos by Jocelyn Carlin]

Globalization and the Reshaping of Christianity in the Pacific Islands,  edited by Dr. Manfred Ernst, the director of research and projects at the Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, is a comprehensive study of the factors causing “mainline churches” such as the Methodists and Anglicans to lose their flocks to newer churches with more involved and upbeat understanding of Christianity.

A well-read and colorfully marked Bible on the lap of a woman for ready reference during the healing crusade in Albert Park, Suva.

Ernst, who first wrote about the Pacific’s shifting religious landscape in Winds of Change in 1994, says the transformation in the region started in the late 1970s and early 1980s, although it became apparent worldwide after World War II.
The four-year study by a team of seven—including some Roman Catholics and an Italian priest—set out to prove that “globalization processes” were
responsible for the upheavals in the region’s established churches.

The congregation sings a hymn during a Sunday church service in the Tovua District Methodist Church on the outskirts of Suva, Fiji.

Ernst says his initial findings in 1994 were not only confirmed by the “Globalization” study—they showed the extent of the shift in religious affiliations away from the Protestant mainline churches to Pentecostal-charismatic, evangelical and fundamentalist ones. One of the findings in the study indicates that about 20 percent of the Pacific’s population now belongs to one of these new religious groups, including some not-so-new ones such as the Assembly of God church.

Fijian ex-Methodist pastor Epeli Ratabacaca (left) of the All Nation Christian Fellowship translates the words of American preacher Don Clowers as he delivers “the word of God” to an estimated 3,000 people in Albert Park, Suva.

Also, says Ernst, some countries have been more affected than others. In Tonga, for example, about 15 percent of the population is Mormon. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints officials in Tonga claim a much higher figure of 30 percent, according to Ernst. But in any case, the kingdom has the highest percentage of Mormons in any independent state in the world. The Methodist Church is Tonga’s dominant religion.

“People are moving to new movements because they feel too much pressure (in the mainline churches) —financial, social,” Ernst tells Pacific Magazine.