Missionaries cause unease

Press, 20 January 1979, Page 22

Missionaries cause unease

NZPA’ Port Moresby In the dense forest lands of Papua New Guinea, missions run by various Christian sects are continuing their work of teaching, healing, modernising, and sanctifying. On the coastal lands centred on Port. Moresby, Papua New Guineans are getting on with a more advanced version, of the same functions — building houses, schools, a university and, of course, churches. This process of development is causing a backlash against the missions which gave Papua New Guinea its initial impetus on the road to modernity. One of the country’s most prominent lawyers, Mr Bernard Narokobi. has called for their abolition and his was apparently not a voice in the wilderness.

At a university seminar in Port Moresby, Mr Narokobi said P.N.G. did

not need mission schools which excluded nonbelievers and were set up to promote a particular religion. His call was supported in part by a psychologist, Mr Rob Robin, who has been studying the impact of 17 Christian sects running missions in the Southern Highlands Province.

Mr Robin said some fundamentalist revivalist groups have damaged local societies and while people are under their influence, children, gardens and daily chores get neglected. He said one nursing sister had noted that when some missionaries suggested that the end of the world was at hand, the weight of babies dropped dramatically because their parents were busy preparing for the impending holocaust. Mr Robin said certain sects frighten people by teaching them that the end of the world is nigh — in some. cases prompt-

ing people to stay in church for. three or four days without sleep, praying in preparation. While this is going on infants are not being fed, pigs run amok in village gardens and weeds get out of control. Mr Robin’s study began ih 1975. He said he has found that not just small sects are giving trouble. Some are capable of putting 30 to 40 missionaries in the field, he said. There has been occasional trouble with Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses using methods contrary to the policies of their churches, he said. Difficulties are also arising from the “fanatical approach,” which Mr Robin said is favoured by some national missionaries who are not properly supervised by their churches. Missions naturally have their supporters and at the Port Moresby seminar, a Government official, Mr Roy Yaki, noted that

people in his area, the Southern Highlands Province, had welcomed the arrival of Christianity with relief, mainly because of the impact it had on traditional tribal fighting. But Mr Yaki, who is the province’s administrative secretary, said the activities of some missionaries including a roadside preacher group known locally as the Hallelujahs, were cause for concern. The group interfered in what he called “very private matters” between husbands and wives. People who try to start one-man churches in Papua New Guinea should be deported, Mr Yaki said. He was particularly disturbed at one report from an employee who told him he had returned home one day to find that his wife was not ther. Investigation revealed she was not there. Insion that lasted eight hours. In a country in which religious groups and missions play a significant

part in the socialisation! process, this debate is expected to continue. Certainly at the Port Moresby seminar, the audience was divided by speakers’ comments. One, that of a middle-aged European, suggested that the drift of the speeches was authoritarian. Another said it was a pity missions had not been invited to present their arguments. Missions had contributed much to Papua New Guinea’s development and missionaries, “who are human too” could be discouraged by the seminar. He said their contribution to development could be lost by such argument. Meanw'hile there are distinct motions in official circles to modify the role of church missions. The administrative secretary of the Western Highlands Province (Mr Patrick Gaiyer) is adamant: “There is a definite need for the Government to control the direction of these missions.”