Island Ministers: Indigenous Leadership in Nineteenth Century Pacific Islands Christianity (review)

This book fills a gap that previously existed in studies of Christianity inthe Pacific Islands: a thorough treatment of indigenous leadership. The important role played by indigenous missionaries has long been recognised and increasing number of biographies and short studies have appeared since the 1960s. Indeed, as Lange points out, the value of the 'native agents' as they were sometimes described was also clear to many Nineteenth Century missionaries themselves. Yet, while admirable surveys of mission and church history in the region exist as well as two excellent collections of essays on the subject of indigenous missionaries no one has attempted a general survey of indigenous ministry in the Pacific Islands until now.

Lange has produced a comprehensive, geographically arranged account that tells the story of Catholic and Protestant leadership from the earliest missions to the close of the Nineteenth Century. The volume will be of great use to scholars as it carefully and succinctly distinguishes practice, church by church and island by island. Lange thus avoids generalisations which would mask the specificity of island contexts and mission emphases. He examines both pre-Christian religious leadership and the denominational heritage of each mission when assessing the model of leadership which emerged in each island. In addition, Lange provides a useful concluding chapter that draws together the threads of his analysis, seeking patterns in the practice of missionaries and experience of Pacific churches.

Lange pays particular attention to the kinds of ministerial roles which Islanders were expected, or allowed, to undertake, and to the way in which these roles were named and recognised. He also examines European attitudes towards the ability of their indigenous colleagues, their training programmes and the possibility of church independence. He brings a welcome focus on the ministers who worked at home in their own islands in additional to those who carried the Gospel to unevangelised shores. Lange also carries the debate forward by identifying an early rooting of indigenous Christian leadership in island soil. Despite the difficultiesand frequent circumscription of Islanders' opportunities, he argues that 'beneath the visible missionary superstructure, indigenous ministry was well developed and clothed in prestige in many places by 1900'. With this work as a firm foundation there is undoubtedly more to come on this important topic.