8
P. D. Nunn and J. M. Luetz
The overwhelming importance of religious and cultural-spiritual beliefs is clearly
enunciated.
The Roots of Spirituality and Religion in the Pacific Islands
Region
Pacific people’s beliefs in a spiritual dimension to the tangible world are deeprooted in Pacific pasts, a notion that is explored in Chapter 4 by Francisco GelvesGómez and Shannon Brincat in reference to Fiji. Their soundly-researched and
compellingly-argued study seeks to understand how the harmonization of the relationship between humans and Nature can be used to confront the challenges of future
climate change. They ask to what degree such culturally-grounded understandings
can become incorporated into policy, something that may optimize future adaptation
processes.
Many of these points are reinforced in Chapter 5 in which Guy Jackson
and Annah Piggott-McKellar discuss Pacific people’s understandings of natural
hazards, including those otherwise attributable to climate change, in contrasting
contexts from the highlands of Papua New Guinea and the low atolls of Kiribati.
The fact that these understandings have been largely ignored in most externallysponsored efforts to achieve effective and sustainable adaptation here accounts for
their commonly negligible impact and points the way forward.
The degree to which religious interpretations of disasters in the Pacific, as well as
more insidious effects of climate change (like sea-level rise), permeate contemporary
understandings is explained in Chapter 6 by Richard Davis. He argues not just for
the mandatory recognition by outsiders of the extent of these interpretations but also,
using insights from Martin Luther’s reformism, how climate change can be perceived
as an outcome of human misuse of the natural world and that Pacific Island peoples,
while having contributed little directly to this situation, have a role to play in rectifying
it.
Religion as Culture, Religion for Wellbeing
The next group of chapters focuses on the practical expressions of religion in
the Pacific Islands, especially as it influences behaviour, decision-making and the
prospects for the future. In Chapter 7, a study of the role of religious belief during and
after an unprecedently strong tropical cyclone in a rural Fiji community is presented
by Shirleen Sahai and two colleagues from the University of the South Pacific, the
premier tertiary teaching and research institution in the Pacific Islands region. In this
chapter, we learn about the power of prayer and the calming effects of belief and
hope that facilitated recovery in the aftermath of this event.
P. D. Nunn and J. M. Luetz
The overwhelming importance of religious and cultural-spiritual beliefs is clearly
enunciated.
The Roots of Spirituality and Religion in the Pacific Islands
Region
Pacific people’s beliefs in a spiritual dimension to the tangible world are deeprooted in Pacific pasts, a notion that is explored in Chapter 4 by Francisco GelvesGómez and Shannon Brincat in reference to Fiji. Their soundly-researched and
compellingly-argued study seeks to understand how the harmonization of the relationship between humans and Nature can be used to confront the challenges of future
climate change. They ask to what degree such culturally-grounded understandings
can become incorporated into policy, something that may optimize future adaptation
processes.
Many of these points are reinforced in Chapter 5 in which Guy Jackson
and Annah Piggott-McKellar discuss Pacific people’s understandings of natural
hazards, including those otherwise attributable to climate change, in contrasting
contexts from the highlands of Papua New Guinea and the low atolls of Kiribati.
The fact that these understandings have been largely ignored in most externallysponsored efforts to achieve effective and sustainable adaptation here accounts for
their commonly negligible impact and points the way forward.
The degree to which religious interpretations of disasters in the Pacific, as well as
more insidious effects of climate change (like sea-level rise), permeate contemporary
understandings is explained in Chapter 6 by Richard Davis. He argues not just for
the mandatory recognition by outsiders of the extent of these interpretations but also,
using insights from Martin Luther’s reformism, how climate change can be perceived
as an outcome of human misuse of the natural world and that Pacific Island peoples,
while having contributed little directly to this situation, have a role to play in rectifying
it.
Religion as Culture, Religion for Wellbeing
The next group of chapters focuses on the practical expressions of religion in
the Pacific Islands, especially as it influences behaviour, decision-making and the
prospects for the future. In Chapter 7, a study of the role of religious belief during and
after an unprecedently strong tropical cyclone in a rural Fiji community is presented
by Shirleen Sahai and two colleagues from the University of the South Pacific, the
premier tertiary teaching and research institution in the Pacific Islands region. In this
chapter, we learn about the power of prayer and the calming effects of belief and
hope that facilitated recovery in the aftermath of this event.