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Polynesian Religious Revivals; M a Study with Background

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Polynesian Religious Revivals; M a Study with Background POLYNESIAN RELIGIOUS REVIVALS; M A STUDY WITH BACKGROUND A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS JULY I960 By Alan Gavan Daws fcVeuoJY>. CBS rvo.HBl "2— APPROVED BYi ./ /? / r > / Charles H. kunter, Ph.D. (Chairman) Winfield E. Nagley, Ph.D. TABLE OP CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. THE ESTABLISHMENT OP PACIFIC MISSIONS Organization of the L.M.S .... 1 The Pacific In evangelical thinking ••••••«•••*••••••••••••• 3 Sandwich Islands Mission of the A.B.C.P.M ..... Areas of mission work Urgency of evangelization .... 9 Missionary view of Importance of work ................ 13 CHAPTER II. MISSIONARY THEOLOGY Inter-denoralnationallsm of L.M.S. .. 18 Ecclesiastical splintering of sects ............... 20 Individual salvation evangelists' common aim ......... 24 Emotional appeal of evangelical religion ........... 26 Reaction to emotional appeal observable ........... 28 CHAPTER III. DOCTRINE IN OPERATION Preaching on salvation .... 30 Jonathan Edwards' revival preaching ............ ••••••• 33 Revival In Northampton, 1 7 3 4 ..... 36 Physical disturbance during revivals...... 39 Conversion In physiological context ..... 43 CHAPTER IV. CHRISTIANITY AND NATIVE SOCIETY Western material culture quickly received 30 Europeanization of social culture ....... $4 Native view of Christianity ........ 36 “Lotus" and heresies 60 Transitional period produces revivals......... 63 Polynesian Ideas adaptable to Christianity .... 64 TABLE OP CONTENTS (continued) CHAPTER V. THE GREAT REVIVAL IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS Mission progross before Great Revival ................ 69 Revival begins on Hawaii ........... 73 Titus Coan .... 74 Lorenzo Lyons ..... 87 Conservative attack on revival ..... 87 Church admissions 88 Subsidence of revival 95 CHAPTER VI. THE GREAT AWAKENING IN SAMOA Establishment of Samoan mission .... 99 Archibald Murray on Tutuila ........ 101 Revival begins at Fagopago ......... 104 Spread of revival .................. 108 Subsidence of revival ..... 116 CHAPTER VII, CONCLUSION No revivals in Society Islands ..... 120 Rarotonga ...... 122 Incidence of revivals in general terms.......... 124 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......... 131 FIGURE 1 Comparative Admissions to Sandwich Islands Churches, 1825-1863 ..... 88a INTRODUCTION This thesis discusses one aspect of missionary work In the Pacific during the early nineteenth century — the occurrence of religious revivals In Polynesia under Protes­ tant missionaries of the London Missionary Society and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The work of the L.M.S., centering on the Society Islands, was begun In 1797. The A.B.C.F.M.'s first Pacific missionaries arrived in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in 1820.* These missions, the first In Polynesia, were not, however, the earliest of the modem era. The eighteenth century had already produced a great deal of evangelical work, home and foreign, beginning with the activity of the Anglican Church's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel In Foreign Parts. The Moravian Brethren, two decades after their formation in Germany In 1722, had workers In the Vest Indies, Greenland, the American colonies, South Africa, Dutch Guiana, and Labrador. The Wesleyan Methodist movement of the seventeen thirties In England had immediately assumed an evangelistic characterj home missionaries were sent out from the seventeen forties on, and assistance was given to American Methodists after the War of Independence. George * No attempt has been made to evaluate the work of British missionaries in New Zealand and French Catholic missionaries who came to various parts of Polynesia some years after the establishment of Protestant missions. li. Whitefield, the English Calvlnlstlc Methodist, made amazingly successful tours of the American colonies during the Great Awakening of the seventeen forties. At the same time the Americans themselves were working vigorously among white colonists and Indians. By the time of the Pacific missions of the L.M.S. and the A.B.C.P.M., the extent of activity was even greater. In England, sectarian societies representing Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists, Anglicans, and Scottish Calvinists had come Into existence and sent workers to many parts of the world. By 1820 the L.M.S. Itself had, In addition to Its stations In the Society Islands, fifteen posts In the Far East, two In Russia, two in the Mediterranean, twelve on the African mainland and two on Islands off the coast, and three in thè West Indies. Several of the New England states of America had home missionaries In the field by 1800, In 1812, the A,B.C.P.M.'s earliest overseas missionaries left for India. The early years of mission work In the Pacific were characterized by constant labor In the face of sporadic aberrations and reversions to heathenism on the part of the Islanders. Progress was generally slow; In some cases, missions had to be abandoned. A major achievement In the ■ history of a mission was the conversion of members of the ruling families of the islands. The adoption of the new religion by the chiefs and Its consequent observance by the ill. common people produced great outward signs of prosperity in the Christian church. Indeed, from 1830 to 1850, some of the biggest Protestant congregations in the world met for worship in Polynesia. Several of the British and American preachers in the South Seas spoke to thousands of natives each Sunday, and in many cases their sermons were regularly heard by the entire population of the islands where they were stationed. Even this level of achievement, however, was no guarantee of ultimate success for the missionary cause. Christian observance of a ''social" or "political" kind was not always accompanied by a thorough-going change In the moral basis of Island society. Congregations might be huge, but actual membership In the church remained small. Outward conformity might be widespread, but inward conviction was not nearly so common. "Experiential conversion," the rebirth of sinful man Into a "state of grace," was a rarity. Occasionally, though, the missionaries were confronted by a more exciting and turbulent set of circumstances. A few of the Polynesian Islands experienced religious revivals, amazing In their intensity and duration. Society wore a different face while these were going on, and the Christian church gained spectacularly in short-term Influence, If less spectacularly In the long run. One of the interesting things about the revivals was that they shared many characteristics In common, whether they occurred in Eastern Polynesia under American missionaries, or in Western Polynesia under British missionaries. Further, they were strikingly similar in many of their manifestations to previous revivals in Britain and America. There can in fact be no understanding of the Polynesian revivals without a working knowledge of the evangelical background. Accordingly, attention has been given in the early chapters of the thesis to the particular quality of the eighteenth and nineteenth century evangelical mind, to the actual doctrinal content of the evangelical religions of that period, and to the operational effects of the practical application of this doctrine. Another point of interest is that the Polynesian revivals were concentrated within a relatively brief time span — roughly the thirty years between 1830 and i860 — which suggests that there was only a short period when conditions in the rapidly-changing society of Polynesia permitted the factors producing revivals to operate successfully. This idea is worked out in detail in the later chapters of the thesis, which thus becomes, in its entirety, a study with background. CHAPTER I THE ESTABLISHMENT OP PACIFIC MISSIONS On August 10, 1796, the ship Duff, carrying thirty London Missionary Society workers bound for the South Seas, left Blackwall on the river Thames on Its way to Spithead. The Society’s flag — three doves argent, bearing olive branches In their bills, on a purple field — flew at the masthead. As the ship moved down-stream, the missionaries and their friends, a hundred voices strong, sang: "Jesus, at thy command, we launch Into the deep," Forced to wait for a convoy at Spithead, the Duff did not get away from England till late September; and the voyage to the Society Islands took a further five and a half months. The mission­ aries went ashore at Matavai Bay on the Island of Tahiti in the first week of March, 1797« The Idea of sending a mission to the Pacific had come to Dr. Thomas Haweis, rector of Aldwinkle In Northampton­ shire and chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, in the seventeen eighties. He had read the published accounts of Cook’s voyages to the South Seas, and, enthused, had arranged, with Lady Huntingdon’s approval, to send two young theological students to Tahiti* They were to have sailed with Captain William Bligh on his second Pacific voyage, but problems arose — the young men had not attended a recognized university and so were not permitted to be ordained. Bligh left without them In 1791. During the early nineties, the missionary Idea received a good deal of attention. Havre is put it forward again in a book of essays published In 1790; two years later, William Carey, the notable Baptist, wrote and spoke in support of missions to the heathen, and went on to found the Baptist Missionary Society. In 1793# a group of clergymen established the ^ same year, regional associations of Congregational ministers in Warwickshire and Worcestershire resolved to support missionary enterprise with prayer and with money. The "Letters on Missions" of Melville Home, a Church of England clergyman who had been chaplain to the British colony at Sierra Leone in Africa, were published in 179^# and excited a great deal of interest; towards the end of the year, several clergymen began to meet in London at regular intervals to work out a plan for a missionary society. This provisional committee arranged a series of general meetings for 1795# and at the first public gathering on September 22, a large and motional crowd in the Countess of Huntingdon's chapel at Spaflelds heard Dr.
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