God's Gentlemen


Book Description

David Hilliard's God's Gentlemen, originally published in 1978, remains the only detached and detailed historical analysis of the work of the Melanesian Mission. Starting with its New Zealand beginnings and its Norfolk Island years (1867-1920), the work follows the Mission's shift of headquarters to the Solomon Islands and on until the beginning of the Second World War. The Mission, which grew out of the personal vision of the first Church of England Bishop of New Zealand, George Selwyn, formally defined its field of work as 'the Islands of Melanesia' although its activities were confined almo.
















Christianity and Animism in Melanesia


Book Description

In this book, Kenneth Nehrbass examines the interaction between traditional or animistic religion (called kastom) and Christianity in Vanuatu. First, he briefly outlines major anthropological theories of animism, then he examines eight aspects of animism on Tanna Island and shows how they present a challenge to Christianity. He traces the history of Christianity on Tanna from 1839 to the present, showing which missiological theories the various missionaries were implementing. Nehrbass wanted to find out what experiences in the lives of the islanders distinguished those who left traditional religion behind from those who held on to it. In the end, he contends that there are twenty factors of gospel response and cultural integration that determine whether an animistic background believer will be a mixer, separator, transplanter, or contextualizer.




God's Gentlemen


Book Description

David Hilliard's God's Gentlemen, originally published in 1978, remains the only detached and detailed historical analysis of the work of the Melanesian Mission. Starting with its New Zealand beginnings and its Norfolk Island years (1867-1920), the work follows the Mission's shift of headquarters to the Solomon Islands and on until the beginning of the Second World War. The Mission, which grew out of the personal vision of the first Church of England Bishop of New Zealand, George Selwyn, formally defined its field of work as 'the Islands of Melanesia' although its activities were confined almost entirely to the island groups that now make up Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. The Diocese of Melanesia was a fully constituent diocese of the Anglican Church of New Zealand from its formation in 1861 until the creation of the autonomous Church of the Province of Melanesia in 1975. Based on a wide range of sources, God's Gentleman is the inner history of the slow growth of an important and genuinely Melanesian church.




The Melanesians


Book Description




Making Mala


Book Description

Malaita is one of the major islands in the Solomons Archipelago and has the largest population in the Solomon Islands nation. Its people have an undeserved reputation for conservatism and aggression. Making Mala argues that in essence Malaitans are no different from other Solomon Islanders, and that their dominance, both in numbers and their place in the modern nation, can be explained through their recent history. A grounding theme of the book is its argument that, far than being conservative, Malaitan religions and cultures have always been adaptable and have proved remarkably flexible in accommodating change. This has been the secret of Malaitan success. Malaitans rocked the foundations of the British protectorate during the protonationalist Maasina Rule movement in the 1940s and the early 1950s, have heavily engaged in internal migration, particularly to urban areas, and were central to the ‘Tension Years’ between 1998 and 2003. Making Mala reassesses Malaita’s history, demolishes undeserved tropes and uses historical and cultural analyses to explain Malaitans’ place in the Solomon Islands nation today.




Melanesian Odysseys


Book Description

In a series of epic self-narratives ranging from traditional cultural embodiments to picaresque adventures, Christian epiphanies and a host of interactive strategies and techniques for living, Kewa Highlanders (PNG) attempt to shape and control their selves and their relentlessly changing world. This lively account transcends ethnographic particularity and offers a wide-reaching perspective on the nature of being human. Inverting the analytic logic of her previous work, which sought to uncover what social structures concealed, Josephides focuses instead on the cultural understandings that people make explicit in their actions and speech. Using approaches from philosophy and anthropology, she examines elicitation (how people create their selves and their worlds in the act of making explicit) and mimesis (how anthropologists produce ethnographies), to arrive at an unexpected conclusion: that knowledge of self and other alike derives from self-externalization rather than self-introspection.