Special to ASSIST News Service
TONGA (ANS) -- He was an up-sized, jowly man behind a messy desk. He didn't speak as I was ushered in - just sat staring, unsmiling, and still chewing his last mouthful of lunch. I remained standing and nervously told him why I had come. As I finished, he slapped his massive hands down on the desk, lifted himself out of his chair, leaned over the piles of paper and shouted, "If you succeed then I will know for sure God is a Palangi (a foreigner)!"
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A Tongan church |
I was stunned! This is Tonga. Isn't Tonga well known as the "Friendly Islands"? The name given by Captain Cook before he knew the Tongans planned to kill and eat him!
My angry host was a senior civil servant. He was also a lay preacher in his church. So why didn't he welcome this brand new missionary with a glowing vision for winning his little nation to Jesus?
That was 1987. The year before I was working in Christian radio in New Zealand when the King of Tonga visited the station and said he wanted Christian radio for his country. Back in the late 1970's I had visited Tonga and several other Pacific Island nations on a trade mission to build business for one of New Zealand's exporting sea ports. Back then, there were few Palangi in Tonga, which unlike all its neighbors, had never been colonized by a western power. Government and commercial systems were under developed and the Methodist church stood out in its obvious affluence and influence. Institutional Church traditions dominated of every aspect of Tongan life, and Tonga had remained in my heart and mind ever since.
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Tongan dancers |
Now here I was. 1987 in Tonga. My first visit as a missionary. Armed with a bold colonial-looking plan for planting "cookie cutter" Christian radio. "If you succeed then I will know for sure that God is a Palangi!" How could a man of the church think that way? Well, after more than twenty years in Tonga and other South Pacific Islands, I think I know why.
It's common for people in the Islands (in any tribal and feudal culture) to believe that God loves white, middle class Westerners (1) more than he does them. It's largely because of our prosperity and the way we mix our cultural preferences into the Gospel. The idea has unwittingly been reinforced since the first missionaries.
My understanding began on the day I took my Tongan assistant to visit the king. As we entered the doorway of the palace room where the king was waiting, my assistant immediately dropped to the floor and left me to walk forward to a comfortable chair facing HM (as His Majesty was affectionately referred to - behind his back). Now, in those days, I was a regular guest of the king, and being a Palangi meant I could enjoy a certain informality with HM that was not available to a Tongan.
So after sitting down and greeting the king, I introduced my assistant who had remained flopped in a crumpled heap of traditional clothing at the doorway. She didn't look up at him, and he didn't as much as glance at her. "Yes, yes!" he said somewhat impatiently and she was ignored for the rest of our two hour meeting.
Afterwards my assistant explained that HM in fact knew who she was because she was a friend of the princess, but royal protocol forbade him taking any notice of her. She had remained on the floor because a commoner is never allowed to be any higher than he is while in his presence (he was sitting down) and is not allowed to speak or make eye contact. This is how a Tongan shows respect for their king. It's not imposed, it's volunteered. It's a part of being a Tongan.
The next day, Sunday, I was at the king's church. There, in the mainstream European church style of 200 years ago, everyone (except HM) stood to sing their hymns of praise to God. My lesson of the assistant and the king began to unfold for me!
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A Tongan house |
From his heart, the Tongan always goes low to show respect (even when a Tongan enters my office they sit straight down and avert their eyes. To be standing as I sit down is hugely disrespectful). And yet the early missionaries had taught them to show respect to God the Palangi way - by standing as they worship. So this angry lay preacher's outburst was our fault. We westerners had taught him that God is a Palangi by telling him that the way of respect and worship from the Tongan heart, is not the right way for God!
Is it any different today? No, we still assume our cultural values and preferences into our Christianity.
The Bible plus! Recently a village family (not in Tonga) came to our radio station with a basket of cooked food (the common way of local support) and asked if this was enough to get their Mercedes! Our local leader asked them, "What is a Mercedes?" They didn't know - but they had seen a rich Palangi pastor talking about how he got his Mercedes (whatever it is - if God gave it, it must be good) by giving sacrificially to the Lord. And if that Palangi pastor has got himself so many gifts from God, surely his methods would work for them too!
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Tongans fishing |
Bizarre and extreme. Yes. And maybe not intended by that pastor. But we continually see Western pastors and ministries arriving with great fanfare; wearing jewelry and clothes that cost more than most people can earn in a year; staying at the top hotel; and outreaching with slick music and big sound systems. It's so easy to get attention in these subsistence, religious communities when we say God has sent us. It's easy too, for the visitor to confuse local respect for Palangi with success in ministry (deference, hospitality, and harmonious relationship are a higher social values than truth, so we will respond as you say and tell you what you want to hear - as Captain Cook could have found out). And after we have bought into that, we are stunned and offended when we stumble over the unbiblical "under-belly" of these so-called Christian nations.
But it is our fault. We have been giving the unspoken message that God is a Palangi to these people of the Islands for generations. And they still do their best to put on the cultural trappings they see and hear about, so they can be blessed too!
Jesus tells me two things about all this.
In Matthew 10 he sent out His disciples and said "Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food." (Matthew 10: 9, 10 NKJV)
They were sent in weakness, while today we go in all the strength of our western resources. We say we are as fully dependent on God as those early disciples, but it sure doesn't look that way to the locals! Notice also, the disciples were to depend on the kindness of the very people they were sent to minister to. That way, the work begins with absolute faith in God (rather than faith in Palangi systems and resources), and God alone gets the glory. And the local people are involved and empowered right from the beginning, as they see God at work in their midst - even using them to help as well. No room here to think God is an affluent Palangi!
Jesus also warned "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." (Matthew 16: 6 NKJV).
In our Western society, we are more familiar with the leaven (the ideas, practices and subtle influences) of Sadducees who were the rationalists of the day - denying the supernatural and the spiritual realm of life. But in the Islands, we know the Pharisees very well. They believe in the supernatural and resurrection from the dead, and they talk a lot about God - but they place unbiblical loads on people by elevating man-made laws, traditions, and cultural preferences, to a higher or equal status to the Word of God. They replace Jesus Christ and make their institutions the people's Savior.
It's easy to see the leaven of the Pharisees in these church institutions. But the leaven is still corrupting the grace and truth of Jesus Christ through the cultural preferences we so easily assume into our contemporary efforts at mission and ministry - whether across the ocean or across our back fence. Instead of going with preconceived agendas and all the resources we can fit into a Boeing 737, why not go low and slow (like a Tongan visiting their King); listening before we speak; ready to be served as well as to serve; putting relationship ahead of information and trusting God to set the agenda. Letting Him reveal Himself as God to them. Maybe through us, but in His own way that's entirely appropriate to them.
I have never forgotten my shock and embarrassment as I stood in the angry food spray that day. I thank God for it because it changed my life. It taught me to go in weakness so He can show Himself strong. That way they will know God is as much a Tongan as He is a Palangi.
1 A Westerner is a person with a culture and world view based on the Judeo Christian heritage, and who originates from Western Europe, North America, Australia or New Zealand.
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