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.
