Tribal conversion had to be followed by instruction in the new faith, namely baptismal instruction, confirmation instruction, and schooling. Of great importance was the common responsibility of the converted community for mission, by sending out young volunteers of the congregation to not-yet-converted tribes. This spreading of the gospel by local evangelists became a ground-breaking success. The evangelists were not supposed to start any formal preaching or worshipping, but they shared their life as witnesses of the gospel until the time was ripe that the whole tribe decided to convert to Christianity. These indigenous evangelists became the agents of conversion for many tribes of the mountains and Highlands. They had received only very basic training but, due to the lack of missionaries, they would often give baptismal instruction. Keysser advised that this instruction should be simple and short. Sending evangelists strengthened the reciprocal ties between parent and child congregations, united the congregation in support of their mission, and raised a generation of church leaders through mission. The congregations which had received the gospel reciprocated it by passing it on to others.97 This mission work continued until the late 1970s. Its end threw some congregations into decline.
There can be no doubt that Keysser’s method paved the way for a truly indigenous Melanesian church from the coast to the densely populated Highlands in the 1930s. Peace and unity were achieved among formerly hostile clans under one God. An old man from the Hube area, the mission field of Keysser’s congregation in Sattelberg, remembers:
We won friendship with others and with people from other places. We were free to go where we want. We aren’t afraid to go to places where once we were afraid to go to. There is peace and cooperation now. Every time we go to a new place, we say one name: God or Jesus Christ. The people in that place say the same name and we are happy to be together. The word has put a big impact on our daily lives with one another by sharing the same faith and confessing and proclaiming the name of the Triune God in unity.98
The words “God” and “Christ” became the passwords to new fellowship beyond the former tribal borders. The new Christian order shaped the form and organization of Christianity for the first two generations. It marked Christian life with a strict ethos and served in the formation of a new Christian character. It brought never-before-experienced liberation from fear. However, despite its success the method of Keysser also raised criticism, which I will briefly discuss.
The main theological objection is that this mission method was based on laws rather than on the gospel of forgiveness of sins through the cross of Christ. The order itself became the way to salvation.99 In order to evaluate this criticism we must first understand the Lutheran element in Keysser’s method. Lutheran theology has one center: salvation as justification by faith, grace, and Christ alone. The law can only lead us to the recognition of sin; it will never lead us to salvation. The ethical use of the law and the law as means of salvation or way to God need to be strictly separated. The grace of God comes through the proclamation of the word of God. The first aim of mission is to spread the word of God to those who are living without it.
Keysser was influenced by the Neo-Lutheran emphasis of the nineteenth century on the people as God’s way of creating a Christian community. Mission aims at converting not individuals but a community. This can also be regarded as an expression of the priesthood of all believers, which was rediscovered by the Reformation. Therefore the missionary had to understand and find the right access to the people and their culture. In comparison to other missions it is remarkable that a number of Lutheran missionaries wrote ethnological studies about the people whom they converted.100
These people’s churches followed the German model, which had its roots in the time of the conversion of the German tribes.101 The place of God’s action was seen not as the congregation of the elect but the community of the people. The instruments of mission were the word of God, the sacraments, and church discipline. The latter was the responsibility of the people themselves, not of a higher office or clergy. The ideal was a self-governing, self-disciplining congregation with some freedom to choose the forms of their spiritual life. However, practical necessity and respect made the missionary the spiritual father who had a lasting influence in all forms of church order.
Like the Methodist missionaries, Keysser acknowledged that at the beginning of conversion there was no point of contact with the gospel of the cross. The people declared that they were not sinners and did not need the cross.102 Keysser succeeded in impressing the victory of Christ over the Melanesian spirits. However, the new Christian goal to serve God and to gain eternal life could be underpinned with the traditional Melanesian goal to achieve well-being in this life. The new Christian way could be understood in terms of following a certain order to achieve this goal. This is asserted in a number of Cargo cults which merged Christian symbols with their mythological system of law and order in order to achieve material prosperity.
After his return to Germany, Keysser was confronted with such cults himself, when members of his former congregations wrote to him: “You missionaries brought us God’s message for our soul. We know the way to God. But you have not shared with us the message as to how we can reach material happiness, wealth and the possession of high cultural values. And so we beg you again: tell us quite clearly why you have been so reticent. What is the barrier that blocks our access to those abundant possessions that you have at your disposal?”103
The quest for the secret access to wealth and well-being indicates that Keysser’s new order of life was understood as providing the same effect as the order of the ancestors.104 Therefore Cargo cults could prosper in Lutheran (and also Catholic) areas. It appears that the converts grasped the law with the promise attached that it would bring “salvation” in the Melanesian understanding of well-being. The elders applied instruments of discipline and excommunication like in the pre-Christian community: “It is commonplace for the elders and the pastors to refuse to hear confession unless first of all the people have carried out some act of labor or have given them money.”105
The indigenous theologian Numuc Kemung praises Keysser for being a true Melanesian theologian. His mission was appropriate to the context because it affirmed the basic principle of reciprocity in the Melanesian community.106 Keysser could not have done otherwise, because there was no other capability to receive the gospel. Keysser offered the converts the empowerment to do something for God by adopting a new order of life. Kemung’s assessment is certainly true from the Melanesian point of view. We have, however, to differentiate between what was the best practical way of mission at the time and a theological evaluation of it in hindsight. Some of the later missionaries questioned the role of legalism, discipline, and theocracy in the community order.107
Georg Pilhofer’s mission manual from 1946 indicates that Keysser’s principles continued to guide the mission until after World War II.108 Pilhofer confirms the approach of a “pragmatic” mission working with the community and the Melanesian agricultural worldview. The aim of the mission is Volkwerdung (becoming Christian people) within a Christian order of creation. This term was used by the German Lutheran theology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and misused in the German Christian Church of the “Third Reich.” According to Pilhofer the theme of creation is more relevant than Christology, and salvation is to be linked to the orders of creation. The Old Testament is closer to converts than the New Testament. The gospel should be preached as commitment to the law.109 The Lutheran message of justification by grace and faith alone serves as a pretext for lukewarmness and weakness and has to be avoided. Against the continuing magical thinking, the missionary should emphasize sanctification and point out the eternal reward.
This interesting document provides evidence of how fundamental principles of the Lutheran theology of salvation were given up in the mission, based on a specific interpretation of the context.