Naming religions

Dear Madam I fully agree with your opening editori al remark to “In the name of God” (PIM Aug. 1997) - to label Fiji a “Christian state” does not guarantee a better state.

We all know the cliche, “Do not judge a book by its cover!” and are once again reminded of the Shakespearean question, “What’s in the name?” Granted, I am a native Tongan and an outsider to the cur rent situation in Fiji. But I am an ordained elder of the Methodist Church, begging permission to interject in the name of reli gions.

I add one further challenge to your already critical analysis: Christianity needs to own up to what it has done, in Fiji and in

the Pacific as a whole.

Until Christianity accounts for her political and oftentimes violent involve ment in native cultures, we cannot fully appreciate her religiosity. In a contribution to the Pacific Journal of Theology in 1993, I closed with the same plea; let’s stop shift ing the blame, and own up to our mess-ups, past and present.

Let’s name Christianity! We must own up to the fact, also, that mixing religion with politics may not be legislated at the state level but religious ideologies cannot be tamed at the personal level.

Each legislator, each parliamentarian, comes as a religious person, openly or in the closet, whether Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, or otherwise.We must own up to the fact, therefore, that religion is political and diverse.

And those are strengths, not weakness es, realistically speaking. We must own up to the fact, also, that we operate in the interpretative level most, if not all, of the time.

Surely no religion is an empirical sci ence. On the other hand, what science does not involve imagination and interpretation?

Data need to be interpreted if they are to be useful. The weaknesses you see in reli gions then, in my opinion, are strengths.

They at least disclose our naivete. So despite my agreement with your critique, I beg to differ, and for responsibleness.

Jione Havea

Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas,

Usa.