At the time of independence in 1964 the Methodist Church in Fiji had 34,165 full members, 807 church buildings, 123 native, 3 Indian and 9 European ministers, 30 theological students, and 6,430 local preachers.76
In 1980 the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church commissioned a self-study report about the state of the church. At this time the church had declined to 25 percent of the population in Fiji and 64 percent of indigenous Fijians.77 Confirmed members (siga dina) were 5.39 percent of the population or 12.1 percent of the Fijians. Half of the constituents attended regular morning services in any one week, but only 9.82 percent attended prayer services. In total, 13.46 percent of the congregations had a men’s fellowship, around 50 percent a women’s and youth fellowship, but less than 8 percent had a community service project.
Though the church still had a strong stand in the Fijian rural community according to the number of baptized constituents and lay preachers, the gathering of believers in classes had dropped to small numbers, with the exception of the women’s and youth groups. Thornley highlighted the trend that at the beginning of the twentieth century membership had become unattractive.
According to the 1985 report, most small village congregations did not have their own minister. The circuit minister (talatala) oversees between three and fifty-four congregations and between three and fifteen catechists. Alfred S. Dale observed:
The primary function of the talatala is in fact administrator; manager of the circuit, with the secondary function to provide the priestly services of baptism, marriage, funerals and communion. . . . Preaching cannot be used to develop any continuity of ideas, thoughts, theologies, or doctrines about the church, one’s vocation, or the role of Christians in the world. It is also primarily lay preaching, mostly testimonial. The primary function of management and administration appears to be of little concern in training or evaluation of the competency of a talatala.78
If the minister is occupied with administrative and priestly work, the development of faith and the work of evangelism will decline. Though the Methodist Church has a proud tradition of lay preachers they are often little educated and cannot make up for the missing presence of the minister. Catechists received at least some training, but the lay preachers used to have very little training. The 1985 report included 3,000 opinion questionnaires. The following statements were made most often:79
• There is too much provincialism and too little democracy in the selection of church leaders (96.1%);
• Need for material for nurturing baptized members (94.7%);
• The need for follow-up for the newly confirmed (94.4%);
• Every church should have a worship committee (93.6%);
• The church should provide training for confirmation of full members (92.4%);
• There is an increasing need for trained lay leadership at every level of our church life (88.7%);
• Excessive yaqona (kava) drinking as incompatible with ministry (88.2%).
Even though it seems that the questionnaires suggested some criticism by their choice of questions, opportunity was given to free comments which confirm the criticism. Many of those comments80 complain about poor performance of pastors (talatalas) and lack of opportunity for growth in faith. Some of the comments expose problems in the leadership of the talatalas, who appear to be uneducated or indifferent, never visit their constituency (or only on Sunday), work only on Sunday, do not prepare sermons, do not provide a role model of Christian life, or do not teach members about their faith. Others said that the talatala only has time for the catechist and the elders, not for education, youth work, or the women. Many complained about the heavy kava drinking of ministers. There were also complaints about the quality of the sermons and the lack of youth work and Sunday schools. Many comments asked for better training of church leaders, including catechists and lay preachers, and more Christian education for all members.
In terms of faith building and evangelism it was complained that evangelism was confused with fund raising or that it was totally missing. Other comments requested follow-up classes for confirmed members; the strengthening of personal visits; the development of new forms of worship; the strengthening of family worship, devotions, and premarital counseling; assisting the chiefs to be good Christians; counseling and pastoral care as well as youth activities.
With regards to social relations, nearly 85 percent agreed that the church should remain close to the chiefly structure of traditional Fijian culture, but 95 percent supported the view that the church should lead in interracial relations and help members to live at peace with non-Christians. Almost 70 percent said that the church should be involved in social and political issues and 82.5 percent said that church land should be given to the poor. Several comments questioned the identity of church and vanua (people of the land), saying that the church should challenge the vanua to renew itself, and that the church is not just the chiefly way.81
This report revealed that the majority of the members wanted the Methodist Church to focus on evangelism and faith building. Evangelism, active participation in classes, and growth of faith were no longer seen as priorities by the leaders, contrary to the expectations of many members.
According to the government census of 1996, the Methodist Church had lost many members to other churches, especially the growing Pentecostal churches.82 At the same time the statistics of the church indicate that the number of confirmed members has risen sharply, from 23.5 percent in 1984 to nearly 50 percent in 2005 (105,423 out of 212,860),83 with 3,659 confirmation classes and 1,562 Bible study groups. This rise was the result of a policy in the time of the presidency of Manasa Lasaro in the early 1990s to introduce regular confirmation classes for twelve-year-old members.84 The rise in membership can be interpreted as an attempt to counter the impact of Pentecostal evangelism. The last available census in 2007 confirms the trend: the Methodist Church has decreased to 34.7 percent of the population (36.2% in 1996), while the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches have gained around 10 percent.85
Since the 1990s the Methodist Church has shown a mixed image. On one side there is the lively preaching, prayers, Fijian hymns, and meetings which continue the spirit of the mission days with its classes and love feasts. The annual conferences with their choir competitions and collections are attended by thousands from far and near.
On the other hand the leadership of the church has been dragged into political conflicts indicated by the coups d’etat since 1987. The steep increase of Pentecostal churches has led to a decrease in Methodist membership. Fiji is no longer a Methodist but a pluralist country, though the Methodist Church continues to be the strongest church in rural areas.
In 1975 the Methodist lay preacher Sakeasi Butadroka formed the Fijian Nationalist Party under the slogan “Fiji for the Fijians” and advocated the expulsion of Indians. The i-taukei movement of native landowners became a political force. Its close link to parts of the Methodist Church was expressed in the call for Fiji to be declared a Christian state. When the Methodist lay preacher Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka launched a military coup in April 1987 the tensions within the Methodist Church surfaced. The president of the church, Josetaki Koroi, who called for a return to the constitutional order was overthrown by other groups under the leadership of Manasa Lasaro, who was later elected church president. The support of many Methodists for both coups was achieved through the advocacy of the Sunday ban. Keeping the Sabbath was a legacy of the evangelical British Sabbatarianism of the early missionaries, who had preached that the blessings of God would return when the Sunday was kept holy.86
John Garrett concludes that “much critical analysis of what was done suggested the