Chewing The Religious and Cultural Cud

Written by Pio Sioa
Tuesday, 01 April 2008
Pacific Indigenous Dialogue On Faith, Peace, Reconciliation and Good Governance. Well now that is quite a mouthful indeed. Really heavy stuff too. But if you can get through the long words and the mind bending concepts and ideals, the issue simply boils down to a group effort to inspire the influences of the church and culture to work together. The goal is to make these two heavyweights work alongside each other, like an inseparable married couple who never quarrels or stray off the path of fidelity. Harmonious is the word used. The scene is set around the island countries of the Pacific region, with what appears to be Samoa taking the initiative. There are some very prominent people involved in the group that is trying to promote this special marriage. Samoa’s Head of State is the most influential presence of all and is really at the forefront of this challenging quest to foster a better society in the region. Some of the sharper brains in politics, church and academia turned out for the launching of the book, that bears the long drawn out title above at the official residence of His Highness at Vailele on Saturday morning. Most were either given complimentary copies or bought their own to take home. Undoubtedly, several will be reading it today as to’ona’i for the intellectual stimulation of the mind. It is a good day to be reading these types of loaded writings because the subject matter pertains to issues that involves what this day is all about . Plenty of heavy duty mental application is needed to further the search for solutions or answers to some of the concerns that the book believes require addressing. So how does one foster a harmonious relationship between Christian principles and cultural heritage in a country like Samoa? The role of our religious leaders has become so deeply appreciated, it is now fully embedded in the cultural fabric of Samoa’s society. Perhaps one can be forgiven by saying the anointed disciples of God have it made in Samoa. In a big way too. There are still many rough edges that needs to be smoothed over on the application of values and principles of Christianity, but the kind of paganism that greeted John Williams and the early waves of Christian missionaries to Samoa, are all but replaced by the influences of the Good Word. Basically what is left among the things to be sorted out are loose ends to be tightened up further. To a large extent the weight of responsibility for this kind of mental challenge depends on the disciples of Christianity to sort, and not just for the masses but amongst themselves too. Samoa’s culture has already embraced the main stream denominations we have now, but there are newer splinter groups of bible touters starting to come in. Traditional village authorities who have already pledged their faith to the established teachings of the Congregational, Catholic, Methodists and other early arrivals, are being forced to put up with the newcomers whether they like it or not. Individual rights and the freedom of religion is guaranteed by Samoa’s constitution and for some of the traditional authorities in the villages this is news to them. But ignorance is no defence where the law of freedom of religion is concerned. So other than the shortcomings that are already common knowledge, what this new attempt by our intellectual community to stimulate discussions have to be widened out to ensure a wider scope of coverage. What that means is condensing the difficult concepts into a simpler literary form for our chiefs and orators at the grass roots to chew the cud over. Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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