Claiming a Christian State Where None Exists: Church and State in the Republic of Fiji

Abstract

This study interprets the Fijian controversy of Church and State as a debate within the Christian community itself or, more specifically, within the Christian community of the indigenous Fijians. Submissions made by Manasa Lasaro and Ilaitia Sevati Tuwere are outlined. Tuwere argued for a separation of Church and State. Lasaro, ostensibly speaking for the Church as a whole, advocated a Christian State. Their disagreement can be seen as a fraternal dispute, involving different assessments of the relationship of indigenous Fijians to the land (vanua). Secularising trends and increasing pluralism in Fijian society may have provoked rather than retarded the power of the folk church in the political realm. The attention given by the church to the legal authority of the nation might be related to a fracturing of Methodism's organic authority in the land. If such is the case, then, as secularising forces continue in Fiji so will the interest of the folk church in political power.