God is the king, not the church

Dear Editor,

Thank you Vitolia Mo’a for your piece “Samoa ‘Founded on God’ and Samoa ‘Founded on the Trinity’: Are they One and the Same Thing?” in the Sunday Samoan.

My question is; what is the purpose of a Constitution? 

A nation’s Constitution spells out the people’s rights and freedoms, as citizens of that nation. It also clearly defines how government governs, what they can and cannot do. 

There is no place for the Christian church within this definition. It would seek to impose Christianity on the entire nation and separate those who follow another religious ethos, or indeed, those who follow none at all. Writing Christianity into the Samoan constitution is an inane suggestion, stupid.

Supported by people who often have hidden agendas which are not entirely good. Human nature being what it is, it will be used to persecute others, that is guaranteed. And the persecutors will sinfully try to tell us all, they have God on their side. Poppycock!

Just an observation or two, of history. Samoa founded on God? Samoa was founded on the Samoan way.

While I respect Samoa is now a Christian country, the Samoan culture goes back many thousands of years, long before the King James bible was even written, and long before the Europeans introduced their very Victorianised form of Christianity to the islands.

For thousands of years Polynesian people lived in perfect harmony with nature, in Gods Eden.

It is also true that most Polynesian societies were matriarchal societies in ancient times. Many operating a political system where it was the women who made the important decisions and the men implemented those policies, which seems to me to have been a very wise system. 

Then along come the Europeans, who “imposed’ their religion, giving us their palagi sins, and suddenly Polynesian women are relegated to being little more than chattels, with little or no say in anything, and are having to fight back today to regain rights they should never have lost. 

Another truth, with the invention of the Christian faith, women became instantly, in every sense, second-class citizens. It is only in very recent times, that woman have been able to train in the priesthood with a few churches. In ancient times, the priestess was revered. Other churches still do not recognise women’s contributions, beyond being cooks and baby makers.

God was there before the beginning of time and the Samoan culture was there before Christianity was even a twinkle in the Romans eyes, because it was the Romans who built the first Christian monastery and the first Christian churches, which is interesting given it was them who nailed Jesus onto the cross. It was with the advent of these first churches, run by men, that women were placed second, under men.

The organised Christian religions are responsible for wars, genocides, slavery, and making the poor poorer, while they gilded their churches in gold. This still goes on today, churches pressuring poor parishioners to give beyond what is a reasonable expectation, beyond their ability to afford

God never said one must belong to a church, he demanded faith. That’s a very different thing. All too often I see our people, dressed in their Sunday best, attending church, fervent with the devout belief of religious zealots, only to be sinners for the rest of the week. These same zealots now want religion to be written into the constitution, mixing religion with politics.

Perhaps you will read my critique of the churches as harsh, however, life is about balance. Faith is a fine thing but the church should not “rule” a person’s life. The church should not seek to rule anything, including government. God is the king, not the church.

And of those who stand at the head of our churches...beware any man who tells you he knows the mind of a god, because that man is a liar. Only God can know what is in his own mind.

Robbie Kaiviti

Samoa Observer

Upgrade to Premium

Subscribe to
Samoa Observer Online

Enjoy unlimited access to all our articles on any device + free trial to e-Edition. You can cancel anytime.

>