“Christianized or Civilized? Repentance, Sanctification, Culture, Dual Allegiance, and the First Century of Missionary Transformation in the Solomon Islands”

Abstract

This article examines whether Christian mission in Solomon Islands should be evaluated chiefly as Christianization or as a civilizing project. It argues that the difference cannot be settled by visible indicators such as baptisms, schools, clinics, denominational allegiance, mission stations, imported clothing, church buildings, or Western habits. Biblically, Christianization must be measured by repentance, faith, baptism, discipleship, sanctification, undivided allegiance to Christ, and a communal life re-ordered under His lordship (Matt. 28:18–20; Acts 2:3747; Rom. 12:1–2; Eph. 4:17–24; Gal. 5:16–25). Historically, missionary work in the Solomon Islands generated real Christian institutions and indigenous Christian agency, but it also carried civilising assumptions, colonial discipline, denominational competition, and imported patterns of respectability. Using biblical-theological criteria, contextualisation theory, anthropological work on kastom, and Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov’s layered account of culture, the article evaluates the first century of missionary transformation in Anglican, South Sea Evangelical, Seventh-day Adventist, and wider Solomon Islands contexts. It gives particular attention to dual allegiance and syncretism, arguing that these should not be confused with faithful contextualization or with kastom as such. Authentic Christianization reaches the deepest level of values and allegiance—land, kinship, power, gender, reconciliation, worship, spiritual fear, truth-telling, moral desire, and public responsibility—rather than stopping at symbols, heroes, rituals, or institutional membership. The article, therefore, commends critical contextualization: Scripture judges every culture, including missionary culture, while the gospel is translated into local life through repentance, discipleship, and Spirit-shaped community.