Living in Fiji with its diverse faith communities is a rich and rewarding experience if you wish to live in harmony with your neighbours and explore the richness offered. In many countries now there seems to be a sad lack of interest in any religion, so it is good to appreciate the opportunities available here to learn more about the different faiths, share their festival joys with understanding, and learn about our differences with humility.
Christian State
Therefore, it was disappointing to read this week, that the idea of Fiji becoming a Christian State has again found its voice. This idea was heavily promoted mainly by the Methodist Church in the years after the 1987 coup. It gave rise to the already burgeoning organisation Interfaith Search Fiji that worked widely and tirelessly to build bridges of understanding between our different religious groups. The Prime Minister has assured us that this will never by legalised, but what of the future? Legalisation is not the way to solve this problem. It needs the careful building of understanding that was the aim of Interfaith Search Fiji. Sadly this once vibrant organisation has grown old and the remaining council members do not seem to have the capacity needed.
The problem
But let us not despair. These difficulties have always existed and needed understanding. Speaking as a Christian, there were problems of a similar kind at the time of Jesus. His work to bring a faithful understanding of God as the God of love and mercy flourished in the rural areas of Galilee, but met with vibrant opposition in the city of Jerusalem where the leaders of the Jewish faith and the Pharisees held power.
These people (men, in a masculine society) were sincere in their faith, but like all of Israel they lived in fear of the power of colonial Rome.
They had great hopes of their promised Messiah coming to save them with power and glory. Unfortunately their understanding of this Messiah had become misguided, partly because of the hopes of freedom from Rome. When Jesus came they could not recognise him as sent by God nor could they accept his message. The Pharisees were bound by their desire to please God by careful obedience to God’s laws dating from the early historic times and embedded in the scriptures. These laws had been defined and refined over long years of study and detailed definition, so that it required long years of very careful study and disciplined living of one’s everyday life to train oneself to the level of obedience that would reward you with acceptance by God. Jesus met with them and discussed his knowledge of the loving God that brought hope to the people and gave him the powers of healing that endeared him to the masses in Galilee. They failed to understand.
Today
Coincidently, a number of the Christian churches in Fiji and other parts of the world that share the same lectionary, will this Sunday, be reading in the Gospel of John of a description of one of the last times Jesus was in the temple precincts in Jerusalem, who surrounded him demanding a claim from him as to whether he was the expected Messiah or not. Jesus knew that their idea of the Messiah would blind them to the truth, but he spoke the truth by saying “the Father and I are one”. This angered them because they felt it was blasphemy and they were about to take him out and stone him to death. Jesus spoke again to try to get them to rethink and understand him. They accused him of blasphemy, of claiming to be God, so Jesus caught them out by quoting the scriptures where it says “you are all gods”. There are several places where these words occur in the Old Testament books, easily found in Psalm 82 and he slipped away from them and left the city.
The early church
The early Christian church suffered divisions as we can read in the letters of Paul to the Corinthians and the Christian church has been divided since very early days as it developed in the East and in the West without full common understanding. The Christian church in the West became very broken and divided at the time of the reformation in the Middle Ages and has continued to split into different groups. Here in Fiji we have seen many new Christian groups form, even some led by enthusiastic individuals, others formed by committed groups.
The scriptures known as the
Bible
Reading the Christian scriptures, the Bible, is the cause of some differences. Christians are convinced that the Bible is the Word of God and every word is true. Problems arise when it is not understood that the writings in the Bible were written by inspired humans over thousands of years. Some books write about the very early histories of the people who became the Jews, the people of Israel. Like all nations the Jews came from different groups of people who came together though circumstances of history, their origins gathered from early oral sources, written much later in time. Some of the writings tell of the development of the nation and its colourful history during which they developed their unique understanding of God as One indivisible God. Some writings are those of prophets who arose at times of need during the long years that included a time of exile of most of the people from their own land for 50 plus years. And the history of the nation and its ups and downs is a thread running right through to the time of Jesus whose coming became the reason for measuring the centuries from before and after his coming i.e BC and AD. The Bible is written in ancient languages and is read in various modern translations. Reading the Bible requires understanding that needs years of Bible study in theological colleges and the learning of languages, histories, cultures of past times. For Christians picking up their Bible for daily reading is best done with a commentary. There are many helpful Bible commentaries available. It is the Christian understanding that reading the Bible with an open mind, with prayer for guidance by God’s Holy Spirit, is the way to learn with understanding. It is good to keep the mind open and to ask questions when reading the Bible.
Fiji now
Now again the idea of making Fiji a Christian State has arisen. There was an interesting comment on this idea in this newspaper from Nishant Singh in Lautoka (FT 5/5) asking the relevant questions as to what good would Fiji gain. In fact all the Christian groups in Fiji should read that letter and ask themselves the serious question, are we genuinely following Christ? There is so much at fault with the way the Christian churches behave, loud music and preaching disturbing the peace, ignoring of pleas for help, ignoring the needs of the poor. We Christians are generally ignoring the message we preach, Fiji is crying out for real Christian help with all the social problems that are beyond the ability of the authorities, and the Government to deal with alone.
There are small groups of dedicated people doing much good work, but only some of them are Christian. Other religious groups in Fiji often show a much more caring and concerned attitude to our problems and do excellent work, for example the Children’s Heart Hospital in Nasese here in Suva,
It is time we all, of whatever religious beliefs, did more to make Fiji a genuine safe place where people can live in peace and harmony with genuine concern for one another.
TESSA MACKENZIE, known as the woman who designed the Fiji national flag, is a regular contributor to this newspaper. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the views of this newspaper.
