ABSTRACT
The underlying reason for the continuing conflict and tension between Kwara’ae Christianity and tradition is that the two categories were historically constituted in opposition to one another as the ideologies of alternative social orders upheld by competing political factions. From the Kwara’ae point of view the tradition-Christianity opposition was central to the broader conflicts of colonialism. The traditional social order as a whole inevitably became identified with the ancestral religion as ‘heathen’, meaning non-Christian, which Christians did their best to give a negative value. There is also a certain irony in the fact that South Sea Evangelial Mission missionaries actually encouraged European values as they sought to promote an indigenous Christianity, while at the same time Kwara’ae church leaders were creating an indigenous Christianity as they sought to introduce European values. The tradition-Christian opposition actually operates within the theology of indigenous Christianity.
