Abstract
Christianity in Oceania provides a comprehensive and powerfully insightful resource for understanding the Christian faith and its many expressions within Oceania. This volume brings together forty-one contributors from every country within the region to analyze the expression of Christian faith in terms of demographics, countries, ecclesial traditions, and themes. With a contemporary focus, these four angles of examination work together to build a nuanced and textured comprehension of how Christianity has been introduced, accepted, and matured throughout its presence within this region. It considers the history and impact of colonization, missions, migration, globalization, and inculturation upon the present and future Oceanian ecclesial life. Highlights of this text include its commitment to include as many Indigenous authors as possible and its representation of the diverse shared and contrasting perspectives present within the Pacific region.
Gina A. Zurlo and editor Katalina Tahaafe-Williams open the text with a demographic exploration. They provide a robust and reliable statistical account of the religious diversity and density across the region and develop a foundational understanding of the presence and spread of the major Christian traditions from 1970 through to 2020. This section accounts for the impact of globalization and migration on the concentration and relevance of Christianity within Oceanian societies over the past fifty years.
Next are fourteen interpretive essays tracing the Christian faith within all twenty-four Oceanian countries. These authors offer “critical insider perspective” (xii) on the colonial histories, geography, and Indigenous culture that have shaped Christian expression within their countries.
The last two sections of the volume trace the history of ecumenical traditions and the definitive themes of Christianity in Oceania, giving deeper consideration to the histories, themes, and issues that these societies most resonate and wrestle with. Feleterika Nokise’s chapter “Pacific Conference of Churches” explores the region’s unique efforts toward ecumenical unity and appeals to future prospects of ecumenical collaboration among the Pacific Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. Of particular note within the “Key Themes” chapters is the vital place of ecology within the faith, culture, and life of the peoples of the Pacific. Many of the authors in this section express the importance of land and sea for these various models and themes, and they highlight the rich theological contributions arising out of this cultural value. Additionally, the exploration of precolonial understandings of God and Indigenous expressions of theology stands apart as an invaluable element within this text as it “follows the changing tide of Christianity’s inculturation in Pacific spirituality” (351).
Overall, this volume stands as a significant text for understanding Oceanian Christianity today. Editors Ross, Tahaafe-Williams, and Johnson give due diligence to the unique and complex relationship this region has with the Christian religion and draw attention not only to the future directions of Christianity in Oceania but also to the profound contribution that it could and does have for the global Christian church.