Sectarianism And

Missions

A Plea for the Primitive Natives

THE following is an extract from a letter received from a missionary in New Guinea. It is quite a friendly letter, and we do not like to use it in hostile fashion. But the argument, as expressed, betrays the mind of a type of man who. in no circumstances, should be allowed tc enter the Pacific Islands mission field; and. for that reason, we publish it: “There appeared in a fairly recent issue of the Pacific Islands Monthly,’ an article advocating the sectionalising of the Mandated Territory among the various denominations so that they might pursue their own peculiar activities in their own respective spheres. When the civil power begins to dabble in such matters it is getting well with out its own province. The conscience cannot rightfully be sectionalism!, no matter under what ‘feller skin’ it might be found.

“According to that writer’s arguments it would be just as logical to restrict all trading concerns to separate spheres. This idea might be applied to practically everything. What a narrow world it would become! What about restricting the ‘Pacific Islands Monthly’ to certain islands, and so forth. Your good paper causes a bit of a flare here and there at times; it is none the worse for that. Freedom of Religion and of the Press are grand heritages. We should prize them, and protest every effort to circumscribe this freedom.

If either should incite to rebellion against the civil powers, then it might be a different question.”

The writer of that extraordinary missive is actually a missionary in daily contact with very primitive natives, and in his district there are missionaries of other sects, with whom he is actively in com petition. This is the kind of missionary who hawks the Christian religion as if it were a brand of canned meat.

If these New Guinea savages are to be “Christianised,” it does not matter in the least what section of the Christian Church does the job. The important thing is that they shall be taught respect for the white man, and the white man’s code of morals.

How can the primitive men of New Guinea respect the Europeans’ religion, when the teachers of that religion are fighting among themselves, each trying to drag “converts” away from the other?

How can we ourselves have any respect for mission work when conditions in the mission field make possible a case like that of Father Cranssen, reported in last issue?

It is bad enough to have sectarianism in our own countries—it is the considered opinion of this writer that sectarianism long since crippled the church and robbed it of most of its value as a factor in our complex social structure—and it is simply nauseating to see this gibbering, half witted thing so busily and mischievously at work among aborigines.

Natives of the Islands may be persuaded to accept our belief that there is only one God; but how can they be expected to understand the differences between “isms” when the great majority of white folk, after nearly 2000 years of squabbling, have more or less rejected creed and dogma, and do not adhere to any particular sect?

R.W.R.

Mr. C. E. Sparrow, Technical Instructor of the Methodist Mission at Salamo, re turned with his wife to Papua from leave by the May Montoro.