Blake and Deb in Fiji: Religion

The missionaries descended on Fiji in the 1830s with an eye to convert the Fijians to Christianity, and were largely successful. That success was partly due to a strategy of converting chiefs, and partly due to the similarities between Christianity and existing beliefs of tabu (sacred prohibitions) and mana (spiritual power). One renowned exception was the Reverend Thomas Baker, a Methodist missionary in 1867 whose arrogance and cultural insensitivity led to his being eaten by his intended converts. Today 53% of Fijians are Christian, and a majority of those are Methodist. The Methodist church is quite powerful here, but there have lately been calls for greater separation of church and state.

Because of the large Indian population, who were brought here as indentured laborers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, 34% of Fijians are Hindu and 7% are Muslim. All the major religions have at least one national holiday including Easter, Christmas, Diwali Festival, and the Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday.

The churches are very basic buildings, or sometimes they just take up one floor in a commercial building, such as the one here in Savusavu which is above a Chinese restaurant. The most lively one is at the bottom of our road where the preacher uses a microphone and speaks with great fervor in Fijian, with frequent outbursts in English of “Praise God” and “Halleluiah” intermingled in his sermon. On Sunday mornings he can be heard from several blocks away. The Hindu temple just above town is easy to spot as it is painted very colorfully. I’m sure there is a mosque somewhere in town also, but it must be a modest one. In Labasa we saw a much more substantial one near Semoko’s village, and heard the regular calls to prayer over their loudspeaker. Religion can be really noisy.