ABSTRACT
In a remote corner of the western Pacific, there is an island about two miles in diameter, with a single mountain. Ocean swells break constantly along its rocky northern shore, and there is no safe anchorage for large vessels. The nearest neighbours are 200 miles away. The island is called Tikopia, and it is inhabited by people of Polynesian descent. When the New Zealander Raymond Firth went to study their way of life in 1928 there were about 1,200 Tikopians, the majority still following their indigenous religion. That was remarkable because by that date all the other Polynesians across the entire Pacific were Christian, and most had been for generations. Many were converted by the London Missionary Society, an interdenominational alliance of Anglicans, Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians.
