“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own mind, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
There is a truth in these words that our ancestors understood before the ships arrived. They did not search for it. They lived within it. Their mind, their heart, their Vanua, their Qoliqoli—that was the temple. And kindness was not a doctrine; it was how they fished, how they planted, how they mourned together, and how they forgave.
And then came the missionaries—hand-in-glove with colonialism.
Western missionaries did not simply offer a new faith; they declared our old one vakatevoro—devil worship. They painted our ancestors as lost, our chants as evil, our connection to land and sea as primitive superstition. They rewrote the very skin of divinity: Jesus, born in Bethlehem under a Middle Eastern sun, was rendered white. White was pure. White was saved. We were told that our blackness was a stain, only their God could wash away.
Generations internalized this. We burned our carvings. Our Tabua even. We learned to kneel and recite and look outward—to Jerusalem, Rome, to Canterbury, to Salt Lake City—for a holiness we had always carried in our own breath. The temple within was boarded up. The search became external, desperate, and colonial: to be good meant to be like them.
But here is what we are finally remembering: our traditional spirituality was never devil worship. It was environmental wisdom in sacred form. Our protocols for when to fish and when to rest the qoliqoli were not superstition; they were sustainable marine resource management. Our cycles for planting and harvesting aligned with lunar patterns and soil regeneration. Our reverence for Vanua—land, people, and spirit as one—is now being rediscovered by climate scientists as “community-based adaptation.” We were not primitive. We were prescient.
The great tragedy is that we spent centuries searching for the wrong reasons—to earn a white God’s favor, to escape the label of heathen, to fill a void that colonialism carved into our identity. But the void was artificial. The temple was never destroyed; only ignored.
The Wisdom Already Within
Recently, a niece shared with me her reading of Richard Schwartz’s ‘No Bad Parts’, a book about Internal Family Systems therapy. She wrote:
“The book talks about how people carry different parts of themselves—some wounded, some protective, some carrying burdens from past experiences—and how healing comes through understanding, connection, and compassion rather than judgment. As I read, I was struck by how much it aligns with many of the things you write about… It reminded me that long before these ideas appeared in books and research papers, our ancestors understood the importance of belonging, relationships, storytelling, identity, and caring for one another. Traditional knowledge and practices weren’t just customs—they were ways of keeping people connected, grounded, and accountable to the community.”
Her words struck me deeply. Here is modern psychology—peer-reviewed, evidence-based, respected—arriving at the same conclusions our ancestors lived for millennia. The idea that healing comes through understanding and compassion, not judgment. The recognition that we carry many parts within us—some wounded, some protective—and that integration, not exorcism, is the path to wholeness.
Our ancestors knew this. They understood that a person who had broken a tabu, was not irredeemably evil but needed restoration through ceremony, community, and veilomani. They understood that healing required belonging, that identity was not individual but communal, and that stories carried the medicine of memory.
This is what I mean when I say the temple is within. Not that we are perfect, but that the seeds of healing, wisdom, and connection are already planted in us—in our traditions, our relationships, our Vanua. We don’t need to import a foreign framework to become whole. We need to unearth what was always ours.
As my niece put it, “Some of what modern psychology is discovering today is simply catching up with truths that many cultures have carried for generations.”
The Gift of Inculturation
This brings us to a concept that offers a way forward: inculturation. Archbishop Peter Loy Chong, in his recent homily honouring the late Ratu Manoa Rasigatale—a son of Rewa, of Fiji, master storyteller and cultural theologian—spoke of this with profound clarity. Inculturation is the process by which faith adapts its teachings, practices, and rituals to fit a specific culture. Instead of forcing one culture’s traditions onto another, it expresses core beliefs using the local population’s language, values, and customs—without changing fundamental truth.
Rooted deeply in the Christian concept of the Incarnation—the idea that God became fully human in a specific time and place—inculturation teaches that the Gospel must similarly “take flesh” in every culture it reaches. It is a two-way street: the message transforms the culture by challenging harmful practices, while the culture gives the message a fresh, unique way of being understood.
Ratu Manoa embodied this. He gathered forgotten memories like the dulali (nose flute) and the bacaniqele (earthworm)—symbols our ancestors used in worship and daily life—and made them alive again for today. He designed ceremonial garments and stained glass that depicted Fijian symbols, not European saints. He showed us that the Gospel does not destroy culture; it enters into our culture, purifies some of it, and allows God to speak through it.
When he welcomed visitors with a kamunaga, he wasn’t just offering a whale’s tooth. He was communicating something that words cannot: honor, humility, and sacred relationship. As the Archbishop said, “Symbols communicate things that touch the mind, the heart, and the imagination that words cannot communicate.”
Ratu Manoa was more than a storyteller. He was a theologian—helping us see God and experience God through the richness of iTaukei culture. In his own way, he was doing what the Gospel has always done: translating the eternal into the local. He was practicing inculturation before it had a name.
Reclaiming the Inner Temple
Some say this is unbiblical. They quote Jeremiah 17:9—”The heart is deceitful above all things”—and argue that looking inward is a path to self-deception, not salvation. They insist that humanity is separated from God through sin and that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.
I do not deny these truths. But I reject the colonial framework that says our pre-Christian selves were irredeemably lost and that our ancestors were spiritually empty.
Consider this: Darwin proposed an origin of life that challenged literal Genesis. Some called it heresy, yet mainstream science accepts it—not as anti-God, but as revealing God’s creative process. Similarly, missionaries called our ancestral wisdom “devil worship,” yet it held ecological and communal truths—God’s fingerprints on our Vanua. If science can broaden our understanding of God beyond a single interpretation, why can’t our culture?
The Bible itself is full of people who met God in mountains, trees, wells, and ordinary homes—not just in foreign-built institutions. God’s fingerprints are on creation (Romans 1:20). And creation includes the Vanua, the Qoliqoli, and the wisdom of our ancestors.
The claim is not that humanity contains a hidden divinity waiting to be awakened. The claim is that the Imago Dei—the image of God—was never erased, only buried. Colonialism tried to bury it under foreign rituals, foreign hymns, and foreign garments. Inculturation digs it back up. It says: You do not need to become European to become Christian. You can be ITaukei. You can be Pasifika. And you can follow Christ—not because you abandoned your ancestors, but because the God who made them also made you.
And as my niece observed, modern psychology is now affirming what our ancestors always knew: healing comes through understanding and compassion, not judgment. The parts of us that are wounded, protective, or burdened are not evil to be cast out. They are parts to be understood, integrated, and brought into the wholeness of community.
A New Way Forward
Archbishop Loy Chong has spoken of the veiwekani—the sacred interconnection between faith (Lotu), land (Vanua), and governance (Matanitu). He has called for fusing religion with iTaukei faith and spirituality: Sema na lotu kei na ka vakavanua.
This is a fresh approach—one that recognizes the Vanua and vakavanua as essential to faith. It is a vision that is sadly missing in Western liberal democracies, where religion has become privatized and culture has become secularized. But in the Pasifika, we have an opportunity to do something different. We can hold both: the Gospel and our culture. Not in tension, but in harmony.
This is not syncretism. It is not mixing Christianity with paganism. It is recognizing that the Gospel was never meant to be a foreign transplant. It was always meant to take root in every soil, speak in every tongue, and sing in every rhythm.
The philosophy is kindness. Not as a works-based salvation, but as the fruit of a faith that is truly incarnated. When we care for the reef, we are caring for creation. When we share the harvest, we are living veilomani. When we honor our ancestors, we are honoring the generations that prepared the way for us.
Modern psychology tells us that belonging, relationships, storytelling, identity, and caring for one another are essential to human flourishing. Our ancestors knew this. The Gospel affirms this. And inculturation allows us to live this truth in our own way, with our own symbols, in our own language.
Restoring the Library
Ratu Manoa’s passing is like the burning of a library. His stories, his symbols, his wisdom—they are irreplaceable. But his legacy endures. His videos remain. His teachings remain. The symbols—the dulali, the bacaniqele, the kamunaga—remain.
And now it is our turn to carry them forward. Not as relics of a pagan past, but as living expressions of a faith that is rooted in our identity. We must preserve his stories, share his videos, and continue the work of inculturation. We must ensure that future generations know who they are as ITaukei, as Pasifika, and as Christians—not in spite of their culture, but because of it.
Let us stop searching for the wrong reasons—to impress, to secure, to escape, to control. Let us instead sit quietly in the only temple that matters: the open, honest, beating heart of our own awareness. And from that stillness, let kindness simply flow. No temple required. No foreign philosophy needed. Just this. Just us. Just now.
Because in my book, my religion is within me first and foremost. That doesn’t make it false—it makes it mine. And if the Gospel is truly for all nations, then it must be able to speak in the language of my ancestors, sing in the rhythm of my meke, and dwell in the Vanua that has held our people for centuries.
The storyteller has gone from our side, but his stories remain. The voice that once told the stories of Fiji, now rests in the presence of the One who is the source of every story, every culture, every language, every people. May his legacy continue to speak long after his voice has fallen silent. May the winds be fair, the seas calm, and the light of the Almighty, guide us all safely home.
And may we, his children, have the courage to look inward—not to find perfection, but to find the temple that was never destroyed, only waiting to be reopened.
Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian 