Christianity, Calamity, and Culture: The Involvement of Christian Churches in the 1998 Aitape Tsunami Disaster Relief

Abstract

giant waves, each fifteen meters high, crashed into an isolated part of the coast in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. The disaster event was sudden and devastating. With practically no warning, about fifty kilometers of the coast became inundated by the waves: houses were smashed, coconut trees were uprooted, and people were flung, helpless, into the sea. The Aitape tsunami, as it came to be known, killed over 2,000 people, and many more were left suffering.Such disaster events are relatively common in Melanesia and the Pacific generally. Indeed, there may well be a close connection between increasing vulnerability to disasters and "development" in the Pacific (see McEntire 1999). The number of organizations that seek to provide relief in disaster situations also appears to be on the rise. These organizations are diverse, operating on a variety of scales and within disparate organizational types and sociocultural frameworks. In the wake of the Aitape tsunami, one such group was the Combined Churches Organization (cco)-a small, ephemeral conglomeration of Christian organizations that provided a distinctive form of relief aid, informed by the local Melanesian culture and the Christian faith of its workers.In this paper, we aim to highlight the paucity of scholarly research exploring the relationships between Christianity and disaster relief in the Pacific. This task is set in the context of the relationships between Christianity, aid, and development more broadly, which is a limited but growing field. In seeking to address this gap, we provide a case study from Melanesia focusing on the Combined Churches Organization and its 321

Religions, natural hazards, and disasters: An introduction

“…In this issue, Wisner emphasizes the role of faith organizations in disaster risk reduction. Religious groups are usually well integrated within local communities and thus often able to respond to disaster in a very short time span (see, for example Ali, 1992;Bolin and Bolton, 1986;Crawford, 1998;Fisher, 1985;Fountain et al, 2004;Merli, 2005;Smith, 1978). Moreover, these organizations often benefit from a high level of trust among local communities.…”

Strategies of salvation: Evangelical Christian praxis and sites of degradation in Sri Lanka

“…These gaps often map onto the most vulnerable sections of society and can create niches for exploitation. Not only that, but there is also a growing trend for official aid to be 'complemented by diverse and growing unofficial flows' (Tan-Mullins et al, 2007: 341; see also Fountain et al, 2004;Paulson and Menjívar, 2012;Thornton et al, 2012), especially those that originate from overseas (see Kampe, 1997). The neoliberalisation of aid has transformed the processes of reconstruction by bringing into focus existing inequalities in the sociopolitical domain(s), and providing avenues for other, more (in)equitable outcomes (see Le Billon and Waizenegger, 2007;Flanigan, 2010;Falk, 2012).…”

“…It ranges from the fixed (such as being granted the permission to register a building as a church) to the fleeting (such as being able to evangelise amongst the communities located within the site of degradation), and provides a necessary precursor to the transformation of communities. In Thailand, for example, the number of churches in the tsunami-hit province of Phang Na increased 10-foldfrom two to more than 20during the period 2004(Falk, 2012. This shows how the tsunami 'provided an entrée for a new phalanx of players' who 'chang[ed] the status quo so that the structures that partially governed patterns of accumulation and social differentiation pre-tsunami were not always the ones that were operating post-tsunami' (Rigg et al, 2008: 15).…”

“…Accordingly, research has recently started to unravel the sociocultural effects of processes of reconstruction. This body of work draws on the fact that ‘we should not treat natural events as separate from the wider structures of everyday life and the social and economic contexts within which people live’ (Rigg et al, : 138), with postmodern approaches in particular helping ‘reviv[e] a sense of openness to the mysterious and the spiritual, [and] challenge the (secular) hegemony of modernity’ (Fountain et al, : 324; see also Gaillard and Texier, ; Clarke, ). Whilst the rigid and oppositional pairing of the religious and the secular has been subject to recent criticism (see Tse, ; Fountain, ; Fountain and McLaughlin, ), I interpret religion as a framework of belief that is reproduced by figures of religious authority, and which serves to unite a community of believers (a ‘religious group’).…”

“…Interviews were conducted in eight different locations throughout the island, including the southern coastal districts of Galle, Matara and Hambantota (all of which were affected by the tsunami), and the northern district of Vavuniya (which was affected by the civil war). Nearly all interviews were with leaders of religious organisationsincluding Christian churches and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and Buddhist organisationsthe aim being to uncover the perspectives and motivations of those operating within different sites of degradation (see Fountain et al, 2004). As a non-Sri Lankan, non-Christian researcher, I recognise that I was invariably, and in various ways, implicated in the hierarchies of power that I sought to uncover and understand during fieldwork.…”