'Kastom', Syncretism and Self-Determination
The Reconciliation of 'Bipotaim' and 'Pastaim' in the Church of Torres Strait
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600002348Keywords:
Anglican Church, Torres Strait, Church of Torres Strait, political, communal and doctrinal issues, syncretic theologyAbstract
Late in 1997 the Anglican Church in Torres Strait, for more than eighty years the bastion of Torres Strait Christianity, split, and in the following year the new Church of Torres Strait came into being, its congregations aligned with the traditional Anglican communion. What follows is an attempt to unravel the complex political, communal and doctrinal issues that caused the split, considering them in the light of an ongoing assertion of indigenous self-determination which can be traced back to the colonial era. The article also briefly traces the emergence since the early 1980s of a potentially liberating syncretic theology in the Torres Strait Anglican tradition which may hold within it the possibility of a reconciliation between bipotaim and pastaim, darkness and light, and tries to assess the implications of the split for this nascent theology.
References
Beckett, Jeremy 1978, ‘Mission, Church, and Sect: Three Types of Religious Commitment in the Torres Strait Islands’, Boultier, J.A.(eds), Mission Church and Sect in Oceania, Michigan University Press, Michigan.
Beckett, Jeremy 1987, Torres Strait Islanders: Custom and Colonialism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Beckett, Jeremy 1994, ‘The Murray Island Land Case and the Problem of Cultural Continuity’, Sanders, W. (ed.) Mabo and Native Title: Origins and Institutional Implications, CAEPR Research Monograph No. 7, Canberra.
Berndt, Ronald M. and Berndt, Catherine H. 1988, ‘Body and Soul: More Than an Episode!’, Swain, Tony and Rose, Deborah Bird (eds) Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions: Ethnographic and Historical Studies, Australian Association for the Study of Religions, Bedford Park.
Church of Torres Strait, 1998, Newsletter No. 1, January.
Haddon, A.C 1908, Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Strait: Sociology, Magic and Religion of the Eastern Islanders, Volume VI.
Haddon, A.C 1935, Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Strait: General Ethnography, Cambridge, Volume I.
Hankin, Gayai 1999, Sermon, July One, Kaziw Meta.
Hall-Matthews, Bishop Tony 1994, ‘A Question of Change’, Torres News, 23–29 September.
Lawrence, Helen Reeves 1998, ‘“Bethlehem” in Torres Strait: Music, Dance and Christianity in Erub (Darnley Island)’, Australian Aboriginal Studies 12.
Mullins, Steve 1983, Field Diary August.
Mullins, Steve 1995, Torres Strait: a History of Colonial Occupation and Culture Contact, 1864–1897, CQUP, Rockhampton.
Mullins, Steve 1997, ‘Torres Strait and the Decolonising Project: Recent Events in a Broad Context’, Policing the Open Border, ADSC, Canberra.
Passi, Dave 1980, Interview with Mullins, Rockhampton, 19 August.
Passi, Dave 1987, ‘From Pagan to Christian Priesthood’, Trompf, G.W. (ed.) The Gospel is Not Western: Black Theologies from the Southwest Pacific, Marynoll, New York.
Pattel-Gray, Anne (ed.) 1996, Martung Upah: Black and White Australians Seeking Partnership, Harper Collins, North Blackburn.
Sharp, Nonie 1984, Springs of Originality among Torres Strait Islanders, 2 Vols., PhD, La Trobe University.
Shnukal, Anna 1983, ‘Torres Strait Creole: the Growth of a New Torres Strait Language’, Aboriginal History 7.2.
Stewart, Charles and Shaw, Rosalind (eds) 1994, Syncretism/Antisyncretism: the Politics of Religious Synthesis, Routledge, London & New York.
‘Torres Strait Schism’, 1999, Compass, ABC Television, 22 August.
The Messenger, February 1998, 7.1; May 1998, 7.2; Epiphany 2000, 9.1.
Trompf, G.W 1991, Melanesian Religion, Cambridge University Press, Sydney.
White, Gilbert 1925, Round About the Torres Straits: a Record of Australian Church Missions, SPCK, London.
Wetherell, David 1993, ‘From Samuel McFarlane to Stephen Davies: Continuity and Change in the Torres Strait Island Churches, 1871–1949’, Pacific Studies 16.1.
