Methodist Church in Fiji History
The Methodist Church in Fiji's historyFiji's open and dauntless methodsists
Imprisoning Methodist leader in Fiji, given their resolve to continue their yearly church congress against the orders of the Bainimarama government, recalls a Papal State conflict in Germany in the 1930s, says John Harrison. It is always very difficult to draw an analogy between what is currently happening and Germany under Hitler.
On the one side there is the danger of historic misunderstandings and on the other side there is an overstatement. However, there is one facet of Germany's pre-war history that must be taken up again in view of the present state of affairs in Fiji and the joint efforts of the transitional system there to avoid the planned Methodist Conference in August.
The Methodist Fiji leadership was arrested for the second consecutive month at the moment of the letter (23 July), which is a clear effort to frighten them into canceling the conference. In 1934, the Barmen Declaration, written by theologian Karl Barth, was a declaration of the Confessing Church in Germany against the intervention of the Federal Republic of Germany in church matters.
She turned against the pro-Nazi âGerman Christiansâ, a group in the Hitlerist Church. I read the background of the Barmen Declaration as much as I read divinity, and perhaps most interesting from the point of view of Protestant itsology, a new testimony not so much of the division of church and state that is at the heart of politics in the United States, as some might interprete it, but a reaffirmation of the manifestation of God's dominion in Christ over all living â" inclusive of state.
Now, the Fiji problem is not so clear. The Methodist Church in Fiji was a fount of Fiji's ethnically distinct nationalist culture, while it is the dominating religion in a land that is extraordinary in its dedication to the Christians. She is carrying this luggage in the present conflict with the transitional administration, which is proclaiming a support for a multi-ethnic Fiji.
But, and this is perhaps the most interesting part of the parallels with pre-war Germany, a move known as the âNew Methodist Churchâ has emerged in Fiji since the Bainimarama-Tum. This new church has its origins in the Fiji policemen and the army â" currently not distinguishable in Fiji. Atu Vulaono, a former Air Pacific staff member and the younger sibling of Esala Teleni, Chief of the Army, established it.
Tedleni ordered a church procession of his policemen in their Suva military base in May 2009, where they were insulted by a New Methodist Church minister â" in Fijian. Vulaono and Teleni's activity is similar to that of the âGerman Christiansâ in an effort to create a smooth theological, regime-friendly Christian organization that can stand its ground against the main Church as the real Church.
Canberra' s best-known layman from Anglicania is wondering how the Methodist Wesley anthems are likely to be sung at full blast by the RFA.