We were raised on the well-meaning but ultimately cowardly advice to avoid talking about politics, religion, and sex. This was not wisdom; it was intellectual disarmament. By silencing the conversations that matter most, we failed to build the muscles of civil discourse, leaving us unable to navigate disagreement with grace, to understand the faith of our neighbors, or to articulate the sacred boundaries of our own bodies with confidence.
This vacuum of understanding has now been filled by its most toxic counterpart: the performative, often destructive, culture of social media, particularly embodied by a certain breed of Fijian TikTok ‘influencer’ we should all abhor.
These digital performers are the grotesque product of our silence. Having never been taught how to have a difficult conversation, they instead master the art of the provocative spectacle. They trade in the currency of shame, scandal, and sensationalism because we never learned the value of substance. They reduce complex human beings to simplified caricatures and complex issues to inflammatory dares because we never cultivated a appetite for nuance.
When we avoid teaching our youth how to debate politics thoughtfully, they learn to substitute reason with rabid partisan trolling. When we avoid deep, theological discussions about faith, they exchange a mature spirituality for the hollow theater of religious performance, using scripture as a weapon rather than a guide for compassion. And when we fail to have honest, consent-based conversations about sex and touch, we create a environment where these topics are not explored with respect, but are exploited for clicks through sexualized dares and risky behavior, further blurring the lines of what is acceptable.
These influencers are not the cause of our societal dysfunction; they are a symptom. They are the harvest of a culture that prized polite silence over honest, messy, and necessary dialogue. Our silence did not create peace; it created a void, and nature abhors a vacuum. Into that void rushed the loudest, crudest, and most attention-seeking voices.
The path forward is not to scold them, but to out-compete them. We must consciously build a culture that values difficult conversations. We must teach our children—and ourselves—how to listen, how to question with respect, how to hold a conviction without dehumanizing the opposition, and how to use our platforms not for self-aggrandizement, but for genuine connection and understanding.
We tried silence. It gave us a digital screaming match. It is time to find our voice.
The Pharisee in the Pulpit: How Fijian Christianity Lost Sight of the Mirror
In many of our churches across Fiji, a peculiar faith is preached. It is a faith more concerned with the geography of Jerusalem than the geography of the human heart. It speaks more of a chosen people in a distant land than the divine spark in the person sitting next to you. Unknowingly, it has become more aligned with the Christianity of the Pharisees—whom Jesus condemned—than with the Christianity of Jesus Christ himself.
The central tenet of this modern Pharisaism is external validation. Where the historical Pharisees clung to strict adherence to Mosaic law as a sign of holiness, some expressions of Fijian Christianity; influenced by colonial and political Zionism, display a fervent focus on a physical Israel, future prophecies, and outward rituals. This faith is built on a foundation of otherness: the holy land is there, not here; salvation history happened then, not now; God’s chosen are them, not us.
This is a profound departure from the radical, unsettling message of Christ. It rebuilds the very walls of separation that His ministry sought to dismantle. The apostle Peter experienced a revelation that shattered this paradigm: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). The early church concluded that the covenant was for all of humanity through faith. There are no exclusively ‘chosen people’; we are all God’s people.
When asked to name the greatest commandment, Jesus did not say, “Pledge allegiance to a foreign state.” He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and love your neighbour as yourself.” He insisted the entire law hangs on this. Everything else is commentary. This commandment is universal, directed at every human being, without exception.
The transformative power of Christ’s teaching is that it demands we stare into the mirror. “The kingdom of God is within you,” He said (Luke 17:21). It is not a remote destination to be visited, but a state of being—cultivated through compassion, humility, and justice, right where we are.
The colonial introduction of Christianity to Fiji often came with a Pharisee’s handbook. It taught us to externalize God—to see Him as a distant, white patriarch whose favour was earned by rejecting our own world, our Vanua, our ancestors. It was a theology of displacement, convincing us our sacredness was elsewhere, white and that we were secondary in a divine plan. How can this be? In doing so, it committed the error Jesus condemned: prioritizing external abstract ritual over “the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23).
The irony is profound: we venerate a man born in Bethlehem, who broke Sabbath laws to heal the sick and ate with sinners, yet we often practice a religion of exclusion, judgment, and meticulous outward observance that reinforces the very barriers He died to tear down.
True Christianity is not about looking to the Middle East for a sign of salvation; it is about looking into the eyes of your neighbour and seeing Christ. It is the recognition that Na Kalou na Vanua is not heresy but a profound truth—that the divine is immanent, present in this world, even right here in Fiji and within us. When God said, “Let us make mankind in our image,” He was describing a spiritual capacity for love and moral consciousness granted to all. God is a mirror of our highest being. To know God is to know ourselves truly and to choose love.
The challenge for Fijian Christianity is a choice: Will we continue down the path of the Pharisees, seeking holiness in external lands and rigid doctrines? Or will we embrace the liberating message of Christ himself—that there are no chosen people, only a chosen path: the path of love? The kingdom of God is within, demanding we see the divine in our own reflection and in all we meet.
Real Christianity is not an escape from the world, but a courageous engagement with it, beginning with the person in the mirror. It asks not, “Do you support the right nation?” but “Have you clothed the naked, fed the hungry, and loved the unlovable?” The answer—the state of our own hearts—is the only Zion that truly matters.
It is time for Fijian Christianity to have the courage to look squarely at its own reflection.
The images from Gaza haunt the conscience of humanity: endless columns of desperate families fleeing under bombardment, children sleeping in rubble, parents starving themselves to feed their offspring, and the constant, grinding terror of displacement after displacement. According to recent UN reports, over 250,000 people have been displaced from Gaza City in just the past month alone, adding to the nearly two million already displaced throughout the territory. As I write these words, countless Palestinian families—including an estimated 1,000 Palestinian Christians—are being forced from homes that have become uninhabitable ruins, joining what the International Displacement Monitoring Centre identifies as one of the largest displacement crises in the world today.
From a Christian perspective, this catastrophic human suffering demands more than political analysis; it requires theological and moral reflection rooted in our deepest convictions about human dignity, divine compassion, and justice. How might Jesus of Nazareth—the Palestinian Jew who knew the trauma of displacement as a refugee in Egypt—view what is happening in Gaza today? What does the forced displacement of an entire population reveal about the state of Christian witness in the world? This question beckons us beyond simplistic binaries and comfortable religious nationalism into the uncomfortable territory where faith meets solidarity with the crucified peoples of our time.
Biblical Landscapes of Displacement
The narrative of forced displacement is tragically familiar within Scripture. The Hebrew Bible tells countless stories of exile and displacement—from Adam and Eve expelled from Eden to the Israelites dragged into Babylonian captivity. God’s people knew the anguish of being driven from their land, the terror of living under occupation, and the bitter tears of displacement. The Psalmist captures this trauma vividly: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1).
These stories were not mere historical artifacts to Jesus; they formed the spiritual imagination of his Jewish identity. When Matthew’s Gospel tells us Joseph fled to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus to escape Herod’s slaughter of innocents, it places God himself in the position of a displaced person. The Incarnation thus includes the experience of forced migration—God becomes a refugee, sanctifying the experience of those who flee violence today. This theological truth should fundamentally shape how Christians view Gaza’s displaced millions: in their faces, we encounter Christ himself, who identified with the displaced and marginalized so completely that he said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
How Would Jesus View Gaza’s Displacement?
Based on the gospel accounts, Jesus would likely respond to Gaza’s suffering with three distinct postures:
1. Radical Identification with the Suffering
Jesus consistently demonstrated what Palestinian theologian Munther Isaac calls “Christ in the rubble”—the Christ who identifies not with powerful rulers but with victims buried under the debris of violence. In Gaza today, Christ is present in the child buried under concrete, the mother mourning her family, the father searching for bread. Jesus’ ministry was characterized by this intentional solidarity with those on the margins: the sick, the impoverished, the ritually unclean, the occupation-weary residents of Galilee. His compassion (literally “suffering with”) was not abstract pity but gut-wrenching identification . As Graham Joseph Hill writes, “The cross holds no nation; it holds brokenness, and it holds both Israelis and Palestinians”.
2. Unflinching Truth-Telling
Jesus would undoubtedly name the realities in Gaza with prophetic clarity. He would condemn Hamas’ horrific attacks on October 7th that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds hostage. But he would also condemn the disproportionate response that has left over 65,000 Palestinians dead, mostly civilians, and created famine conditions. Jesus never remained silent in the face of injustice, whether confronting religious leaders about their hypocrisy or driving money-changers from the temple. His example challenges us to speak truth without partiality, recognizing that “we cannot apologize for truth: and yet we must not weaponize it. We must speak truth rooted in lament, not in tribal vindication”.
3. Rejection of Dehumanizing Theologies
Jesus consistently challenged religious frameworks that justified ignoring human suffering. He healed on the Sabbath, touched the unclean, and ate with sinners—all acts that privileged human need over rigid interpretations of religion. In Gaza, Jesus would undoubtedly reject theologies that privilege one people’s security over another’s right to exist, or that use Scripture to justify endless violence. He would confront what Munther Isaac identifies as the “matrix of coloniality, racism, and theology” that enables the current violence . His ministry reveals a God whose compassion is “indiscriminately available to all”, not a tribal deity who takes sides in human conflicts.
The Crisis of Christian Conscience
The tragedy of Gaza’s displacement is not merely humanitarian; it represents a profound crisis of Christian conscience. While millions suffer, many Christians have remained silent, defensive, or openly supportive of policies that lead to civilian casualties and mass displacement. This failure stems from what Palestinian Christian Dr. Fares Abraham identifies as “the absence of Christ-honoring compassion during these darkest moments of our humanity”.
This moral failure has theological roots. For decades, certain strands of Christian theology—particularly forms of Christian Zionism—have uncritically supported Israeli policy while minimizing Palestinian suffering. This theology often spiritualizes away Palestinian rights and interprets biblical prophecies in ways that require unquestioning support for the Israeli state. As the Gaza war strains these theological models, even evangelical scholars are questioning whether their frameworks have “exhausted a group of evangelical Bible professors pursuing unity on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
The result is what Munther Isaac rightly calls complicity: “The denial is so loud. It’s nothing short of complicity” . When we fail to name atrocities—when we hesitate to call out the killing of 17,000 children or the deliberate creation of famine conditions—we become like the religious leaders who passed by on the other side in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan . Our silence echoes that of German Christians who largely failed to protest the Nazi persecution of Jews—a historical parallel that should unsettle every Christian conscience.
Beyond Bunker Mentalities: Toward a Cruciform Compassion
Christian response to Gaza’s displacement requires moving beyond what Graham Joseph Hill calls “bunker mentalities” that shrink our moral imagination . Nationalism, he argues, “shrinks the heart. Tribal identity makes vacuums in compassion.” Instead, we need a spirituality that embodies what the ancient Christian tradition called orthopathos—right emotions—particularly the virtue of compassion.
Table: Elements of Christian Response to Gaza’s Displacement
Theological Concept
Traditional Response
Transformed Response
Compassion
Pity from a distance
Identification with suffering
Solidarity
Charity for those like us
Justice for all oppressed
Land Theology
Exclusive divine promise
Shared homeland for all
Security
Military protection for one
Human security for all
Peacemaking
Absence of conflict
Presence of justice
This compassion is not mere sentiment but what the Latin root (compati) literally means: to suffer with . It moves beyond sympathy (“feeling for”) to identification (“suffering with”). This compassion becomes incarnational—taking flesh in concrete action:
1. The Spiritual Practice of Lament
Christian tradition offers us the language of lament—the spiritual practice of grieving honestly before God. Lament refuses to rush to resolution or theological justification. It sits in the dust with Job, weeps with Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb, and cries out with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?”. Lament creates space to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), holding the cries of Gazan mothers alongside Israeli survivors of Hamas’ attacks. This lament must include both Israeli and Palestinian suffering, refusing to play a morbid calculus of comparative victimhood.
2. Prophetic Truth-Telling
Following Jesus requires naming injustices without partiality. We must condemn Hamas’ violence and call for the release of all hostages while also condemning Israel’s disproportionate tactics, blockade, and creation of famine conditions. This includes using accurate moral language—even when it makes us uncomfortable. When evidence mounts from numerous Holocaust scholars, genocide experts, and international bodies that Israel’s actions meet the legal definition of genocide, Christians must have the courage to name this reality.
3. Concrete Solidarity
Compassionate orthopathos must translate into orthopraxy—right action. This includes supporting humanitarian efforts, advocating for ceasefires, demanding our governments stop supplying weapons used against civilians, and welcoming displaced people. It means pressuring governments to “open windows for water, food, and medicine, without strings attached”. As Hill powerfully states, “We don’t bless bombs. We bless bread. We don’t sanctify oppression. We wash feet”.
4. Theological Reformation
We need to develop theological frameworks that transcend the partisan divides that have captured Christian witness. This requires rejecting the “us versus them” binary thinking that contradicts the inclusive vision of the gospel. As the Christians in Conversation on the Middle East group has modeled, we need spaces where “self-critique” and genuine listening can occur across theological divides. This theological reformation must center the image of God in every human being—Israeli and Palestinian alike—and recognize that authentic Christian hope “lies not in political solutions but in the Prince of Peace who will one day make all things right”.
The Courage to See Christ in the Rubble
The forced displacement of Gazans represents one of the great moral crises of our time—a crisis that demands Christian response rooted in the life and teachings of Jesus. This response begins with recognizing what Palestinian theologian Munther Isaac calls “Christ in the rubble”—the Christ who identifies with victims buried under the debris of violence . It continues with embracing a compassion that suffers with those who suffer, and it culminates in courageous action that protects life, demands justice, and refuses to choose between victims.
The way of Jesus—the way of the cross—invites us to stand in the crack where grief meets hope. It calls us to reject nationalistic idolatries and tribal loyalties that shrink our hearts. It challenges us to embody what Graham Joseph Hill calls “cruciform ethics” that “doesn’t shy from calling out abuses but does so without rhetorical weaponry”.
As the world watches Gaza’s displacement with either horror or indifference, Christians face a choice: will we be chaplains to power or sanctuaries for the broken? Will we bless bombs or bless bread? Will we sanctify oppression or wash feet? The answer will determine not only the credibility of our witness but the fidelity of our discipleship.
In the end, the question is not whether God is present in Gaza’s suffering—the Incarnation assures us God is profoundly there, buried in the rubble with the suffering. The real question is whether we will have the courage to join God there.
“Grief cracks the heart open wide enough to carry courage.
1 Understanding the Theological Distinction Between Biblical and Modern Israel
The core of Christian fundamentalist’s argument rests on a theological conflation of modern Israel with biblical Israel—a position that numerous Christian scholars and theologians have robustly challenged. Modern Israel is a secular nation-state established in 1948 through geopolitical processes, while biblical Israel represents a covenant community within God’s salvation history . The New Testament itself demonstrates that God’s promises to ancient Israel, find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, through whom blessings extend to all peoples.
Theologically, Romans 11 speaks of spiritual grafting into God’s covenant people through Christ—not political support for any modern nation-state. The Apostle Paul’s metaphor emphasizes the inclusive nature of God’s salvation available to Jews and Gentiles alike through faith, not ethnic or national affiliation. This understanding prevents the theological error of equating modern state policies with divine endorsement.
2 The Ethical Imperative: Principled Non-Alignment in the Face of Injustice
The Pasifika Conference of Churches (PCC) advocates for principled non-alignment—a position that engages all parties while refusing to remain neutral in the face of injustice . This approach reflects Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor” (Matthew 22:39) by prioritizing human dignity, international law, and civilian protection over partisan political alliances .
Reverend Bhagwan and the PCC have explicitly condemned all forms of violence—including Hamas’s initial attack—while emphasizing that criticism of the Israeli government’s policies does not constitute antisemitism. Their statement affirms: “We grieve every life taken and reject every hatred—antisemitism, anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia”. This balanced position recognizes the historical suffering of Jewish people while acknowledging the current plight of Palestinians.
The PCC’s call for Palestinian recognition at the UN General Assembly stems from the same commitment to self-determination that Pasifika nations have sought in our own decolonization journeys. This consistency is what Reverend Bhagwan means by an “Ocean of Peace”—a vision that demands ethical coherence rather than selective application of principles .
3 The Pasifika Context: Why Fiji’s Embassy Decision now is Problematic
The Fiji government’s decision to establish an embassy in Jerusalem at this time, contradicts international consensus that the city’s status should be resolved through final-status negotiations . The PCC has cautioned against this move precisely because it prejudges Jerusalem’s status and potentially normalizes ongoing violations of international law .
Prime Minister Rabuka’s claim that this is “not a religious decision” but rather “strategic engagement” rings hollow when considering Fiji’s own peacekeeping history in the region. Fijian soldiers have witnessed firsthand the devastating consequences of conflict, including the 1996 Qana massacre where Israeli shelling killed 106 Lebanese civilians sheltering at a UN compound. This historical context makes Fiji’s diplomatic move particularly morally troubling.
The PCC’s critique is not about rejecting dialogue with Israel but about ensuring that engagement serves peace with justice. As Reverend Bhagwan notes: “We cannot talk about the killing of thousands of people, unarmed civilians, children, the destruction of humanitarian spaces and at the same time talk about relationship with the countries that are perpetrating this violence” .
4 Conclusion: Toward a Consistent Christian Witness
Christian support for the modern state of Israel is not a theological imperative but a political choice—one that must be evaluated based on its alignment with Christian values of justice, peace, and human dignity. The Pasifika Conference of Churches offers a theologically robust and ethically consistent framework that:
Distinguishes between biblical Israel and the modern state of Israel
Affirms the equal worth and dignity of both Israeli and Palestinian people
Advocates for peace based on international law and human rights
Rejects all forms of violence and discrimination
This approach honors Christianity’s Jewish roots while recognizing that the church’s primary allegiance is to God’s kingdom—not any earthly nation. As Jesus told Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Our call as Christians is to bear witness to this alternative reality where peace is established through justice, reconciliation through truth, and security through equal rights for all .
Rev. James Bhagwan and the Pasifika Conference of Churches, exemplify this prophetic witness—one that speaks truth to power while extending compassion to all affected by conflict. This is not abandonment of Christian roots but rather its fullest expression.
I am writing this to myself, because the person I fear I’m becoming is watching closely.
The news of Charlie Kirk’s death didn’t sadden me. My first reaction was colder, sharper—a quiet, unsettling sense of irony. It was the easy response, the one that required nothing of me but a cynical shrug. It felt like a victory for my side. And that is what terrified me.
Because just a week earlier, a different death in the Pasifika, reflected my own hypocrisy back at me. In Fiji, Dr. Isireli Biumaitotoya—a beloved, controversial, and vibrant transgender known as Leli Darling—was murdered. The social media response was not grief, but a grotesque eruption of hate, a chorus of bigotry celebrating the silencing of a voice that dared to live openly.
Two deaths. Two ideologies. One identical, chilling failure of humanity. And I felt it in myself.
This is my uncomfortable truth: my initial instinct was not compassion. It was tribalism. It was to perform a crude calculus of grief, to measure the value of a life based on its political utility. To see a point on a scoreboard, not a shattered family.
I am writing to fight that instinct. I am writing to choose the harder path.
To the family and friends of Charlie Kirk: Your grief is real. To dismiss your pain as an acceptable casualty in a culture war would be to commit the very sin of dehumanization I claim to oppose. To love people who loved him means I must honor the weight you carry. I choose your humanity.
To the memory of Leli Darling and her grieving mother: Your humanity was attacked twice—first by violence, then by a torrent of cruel words that shame our species. To remain silent in the face of that hatred would be a betrayal of everything I believe. I choose to condemn that poison unconditionally.
This is the unforgivable choice we are forced to make in a broken world: to hold two crushing truths at once.
Truth One: A complex, imperfect human being is gone, and a circle of love around them has been shattered.
Truth Two: The ideas they championed have real and often devastating consequences.
To ignore the first truth is to become the cold, cruel monster you oppose. To ignore the second is to be a naive bystander to harm. The only way through is to stand in the painful, dizzying space between them.
So this is my challenge to you, and my note to my future self:
The next time a polarizing figure falls, pause. Breathe. Before you share, before you comment, before you let that wave of tribal satisfaction wash over you, ask:
Do my words widen the rift or help stitch it closed?
Am I arguing against a deadly idea, or am I celebrating the death of a person?
Does my reaction make violence more or less likely?
We are sliding into a world where our digital rage licenses real-world cruelty. We are becoming mirror images of our enemies, arguing against hate with hate.
The world does not need more soldiers in this war. It needs healers. It needs people brave enough to do the hardest work: to see a human behind the label of “enemy,” and to choose empathy, not because it is easy, but because it is the only thing left that can save us from ourselves.
I am trying to build a soul that is a refuge, not a weapon. This is the mirror I choose to look into.
Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian 