Independent voice now for New Guinea church

New Guinea church

From Susan Young

The Anglican church in Papua New Guinea is now a fully self-governing church with its own rules and regula tions and the power to choose its own bishop.

The transition from dependence on the Australian church was made quietly, without fanfare, during the historic first Diocesan Synod, held in a Roman Catholic high school near Port Moresby.

The coming of self-government also brings a measure of democracy to the church—the bishop is now no longer the sole ruler of the diocese.

Synod itself has become the legal governing body.

The main business of this first synod was to establish the legal structure of the church, so that there was a good deal of law to be worked through, most of it introduced and guided by the Diocesan Chancellor and former Administrator of the Territory, Sir Donald Cleland.

However, synod wasn’t all rules and regulations. There was also challenge and some moving moments, some sur prises and some frank talking.

The most vigorous debate was on localisation and independence. This really started with the presidential ad dress, delivered by the Anglican Bishop of Papua New Guinea, the Rt.

Rev. David Hand.

“The sooner the hand over to at least complete internal self-govern ment, the better,” he declared—l don’t think the pun on his name was intended—“ That will remove all kinds of misunderstandings and bitternesses which otherwise will poison our nation.”

He said that the provisional target date of 1980 for complete localisa tion in the church could be changed if necessary. “But it gives a challenge to get on with the job and it gives a clear indication of intention,” he said.

“In the end you can only learn to take responsibility by taking it. Better too soon than too late. We need to push on as hard as we can.”

But when it came to the debate in synod, it was plain that there was as much argument about this in the church as there is in the nation.

Papuan Bishop George Ambo claimed that indigenous people were not yet ready to take control in either church or nation. He said they lacked the necessary sense of responsibility and dedication. He hoped and prayed that self-government and independence would not come in his lifetime.

Many of the brown delegates to synod seemed to want these things to come—in the words of one of them —“slowly, steadily and with under standing.”

However, some delegates, mostly expatriate, were in more of a hurry, and their point of view was put most forcibly by Canon lan Stuart, who favoured “rapid and complete local isation.”

He felt that those who feared this underestimated the ability of indigen ous people, and he thought that the longer expatriates stayed as boss figures, the longer local people would be reluctant to take on responsibility.

Canon Stuart predicted that increas ingly both local and expatriate church leaders would come to feel that the

sooner the expatriates withdrew, the better it would be for the church.

Synod adopted a report on localisa tion which among other things urged the appointment of a “localisation officer” to plan and speed up the de velopment of an indigenous church.

One of the surprises at synod was its recommendation on polygamists, who at present cannot become Chris tians in the Papua New Guinea Angli can Church.

The synod’s commission on mar riage and family life discussed the problem at length and finally came up with the sort of recommendation that most people had been expecting: that people who were polygamous before Christianity came to their area might become catechumens—the in structional stage before baptism.

Unexpectedly, delegates rejected this by giving their support to an amendment recommending that people who were polygamous before Christianity reached them might be baptised—in other words, become Christians. The recommendation can not be put into effect without the bishop’s say-so, but it shows how far thinking on the subject has changed since the problem of polygamists first became a live issue in the diocese about four years ago.

One of the most interesting docu ments to come out of the synod was the report adopted from the commis sion on Church and Nation, which dealt with such topical subjects as national unity, drink and capital pun ishment. The commission said that national unity was essential for Papua New Guinea and that without it there would be “little hope for anyone.”

They warned that the longer self government and independence were delayed, the greater would be the risk of divisions.

The commission discarded pro hibition as a solution to Papua New Guinea’s drink problem because it was felt undesirable to restrict the indi vidual’s freedom of choice. But they did favour a shortening of the drink ing hours and the promotion of an education programme.

The commission condemned capi tal punishment as being against Christian principles.

Members said it would be “most unwise and unfortunate” to hang a murderer at this time, especially if the victim was an expatriate, since many Papuans and New Guineans would inevitably see the execution as some sort of “pay-back” by the government.

All in all, it was a good synod, alert and lively. Certainly the dele gates may justly feel that, 80 years after the arrival of the first mission aries, the Anglican Church in Papua New Guinea has now come of age.