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
