to get rid of their feelings of guilt and shame. But such emotional outbreaks are open to various interpretations. The missionaries instigated them and the Fijians followed them in their own manner. In contrast, the Lutheran missionaries in Papua New Guinea (PNG) did not instigate such revivals and they happened only occasionally. For the Methodist missionaries the revivals provided evidence that Fijians having a similar experience to English Methodists were saved by God. Hunt claims that some of the converts had attained entire sanctification indicated in a “clear sense of acceptance with God,” “remarkable manifestations of the love of God to him,” and the entire destruction of sin.44 Many native missionaries and ministers came from these revivals.45 The desire for emotional experiences of God’s power has remained central to South Pacific Christianity. The Pentecostal revival reenacts the beginning of the Methodist mission.46
Which image of God was proclaimed by the early missionaries? Hunt viewed God as pure love pardoning sin and renewing Christians, and he tried to instill an affectionate love for God.47 He noticed however that some of the native preachers preferred legalistic exhortations: “But a plain statement of the plan of salvation seems to be far from their ideas of good preaching. . . . The result of their preaching is rather to make the people sour than affectionate, for they are always driving them to duty. . . . [There is] no active effort to bring others to experience the blessedness they feel.”48
After the primary aim of conversion was accomplished and Fiji had become a Methodist country, the zeal for spiritual conversion turned in a more puritanical direction. For Fijians who were born into a Christian society, the need for a second spiritual conversion was no longer obvious after the control of the mission had been transferred by the British Methodists to Australia in 1855. Church growth had been impressive. Before the measles epidemics which reduced the population by 25 percent in 1875 there were 10 missionaries, 56 Fijian ministers, 869 catechists, 804 local preachers, 2,866 class leaders, nearly 25,000 members, and 122,526 worshippers in Fiji.49 At the end of the nineteenth century almost 90 percent of Fijians attended church services. Strict Sabbath observance was protected by a taboo against any activity. Church life was community-oriented and meetings were conducted under the authority of the local chiefs.50
The historian Andrew Thornley describes Fijian Methodist worship as marked by the typical Fijian personal free prayers, Fijian hymns, the chanting of the Apostles’ Creed, the reciting of the Wesleyan Catechism, and long sermons with illustrative biblical preaching.51 The villages competed no longer in wars but in expensive church buildings, choir competitions, and displays of food.52 However, there were already warnings about the lack of individual growth in faith. Missionaries such as the long-serving Lorimer Fison noted the nominalism of many converts.53
The time of the great early revivals had passed and the church structure had developed.54 A report of a commission of the Methodist Church of Australasia from 1907 shows that there were monthly congregational meetings of native ministers, catechists, teachers, and local church workers.55 The pledge against the consumption of kava and tobacco was raised at this level. Quarterly meetings of the circuit led by the missionary, with native ministers and catechists, discussed appointments, education, building, and other practical matters. Quarterly meetings of preachers were concerned with church discipline and appointments of local preachers and students. Annual circuit meetings enquired into the character and work of the native ministers and recommended candidates for ministry. Finally, the District Synod was the ruling body of the church. Ministers or pastors were paid by the people of their congregation and the funds of the society (£8 to £18 according to years of service in 1907, comparable to a “middle class chief”). Village teachers and preachers relied on their people for support. At Davuilevu the commission also visited the mission of the Indian indentured laborers in Fiji who converted to Christianity and recommended the creation of a separate Indian Synod within the Methodist Church, which was established in 1922.
The church structures provided the means for developing local ministry and faith. In 1857 the first theological training institution for native ministers opened with twenty-eight students in the Rewa circuit, only twenty-two years after the beginnings of the mission.56 The strength of the native ministry was revealed when in 1875 all eighty-three students at Navuloa Theological College volunteered to become missionaries in the newly established Methodist mission in New Britain (PNG).57 The vision of an independent Fijian church was however rejected by the now Australian missionaries, who kept a strong and paternalistic hold of all important decisions.58 The District Synod of 1903 ruled against recommendations of the Australian Mission Board for lay representatives to participate in the Synod: it is “impossible to govern our native Church upon the same principles that are applicable to races which have advanced so much further in civilization” and explained that “the Fijian has little or no genius for financial administration.”59
Fiji had become a Methodist country and the missionaries had assumed powerful positions in the society. According to the Methodist tradition they tried to separate politics and church affairs, but this attitude strengthened the position of the chiefs in communal affairs. In consequence many conflicts occurred between ministers and chiefs. The chiefs were sanctified in their authority by the church. They claimed the right to determine the affairs of the people and, in continuity with pre-Christian tradition, they were not willing to differentiate between religious and nonreligious affairs, even if they had no deeper Christian experience themselves. Tippett speaks of a clash between a democratic fellowship provided in the Methodist representative synodal system and the chiefly authority.60 This served as an argument for the missionaries to resist the independence of the church, arguing that the chiefs would manipulate the native ministers.61 However, the missionaries did little to reform the chiefly system. Any newly appointed minister needed the permission of the chief to work in his village and had to be adopted in the chiefly family, a practice persisting until today.62
In many looming problems caused by the infringement of colonialism the missionaries intervened when Christian principles were openly broken. They voted in favor of the cession to the British government which was enacted in 1874, but they also criticized the indentured labor trade of Pacific Islanders and defended the land rights of the Fijians against European encroachments on land, which led finally to a guarantee of Fijian land ownership by the colonial government.63
The shift from a Christian minority into a powerful majority church and the social changes during the colonial period influenced the theological emphases. The second and third generations of missionaries did not keep the focus of Hunt, but turned sanctification more and more into moralism. After the decline of the population through measles epidemics and the establishment of the British colony in 1874 the missionaries became more paternalistic, rigid, and moralistic in their teachings.64 This attitude matched with the native taboo-oriented perception of religion. Sermons about eternal punishment increased. For instance, the measles epidemics were interpreted as divine punishment by Fijian preachers. “Fear of a wrathful Christian God dominated the minds of many Fijian converts.”65 Missionaries warned against the rising immorality and replied to it with hundreds of expulsions from membership.66
Sin, which according to Hunt was the feeling of total loss before God, became mainly connected to sexuality. Everything was done to suppress the “animal nature,” from the wearing of flowers to dancing, hair cutting, and swimming games.67 Sexual sins loomed in the mind of the missionaries because not long before, many Fijian men had lived in polygamy. Forced to send their wives away at conversion many kept contact nevertheless. Childbirth outside of marriage became a problem because the mothers lost their church membership. Some missionaries even refused to baptize these children.68 To many missionaries the fight against sexual sins seemed to be more important than confronting the ongoing belief in the old religion.
Following the abolitionist movement many missionaries spent a lot of their energy in fighting against kava and alcohol consumption
