sustain:if:able kiwi

Hybrid Christology as resistance and innovation

Published! ““Hapkas” Christology as resistance and innovation in The Mountain,” Melanesian Journal of Theology 36 (2020): 81-101.

There are lots of feels in this piece of work – a lot of fun to dive into anthropology, literature and art – a real interdisciplinary piece of research. And to write about the country of my birth – Papua New Guinea. Full edition of the journal is online here. That’s right, no paywall! Scroll down to page 81.

The article analyses The Mountain, a novel by Australian writer Drusilla Modjeska. It describes a contemporary Christology – in particular her use of Jesus as “good man true” and the shifts in understandings of hybrid identities in the term “hapkas” (which is Pidgin English for half-caste). I argue for a contemporary Christology of resistance and innovation, in which ancestor agency is affirmed and Melanesian masculinity tropes are challenged.

The article has taken quite a few years to get from acceptance to print. It offers a particularised, Melanesian, reading of some research I had published in Mission Studies in 2019. (“Cultural hybridity in conversion: an examination of “Hapkas” Christology as resistance and innovation in Drusilla Modjeska’s The Mountain,” Mission Studies 36 (3) 2019, 416-441).

After the article in Mission Studies was accepted in 2019, one of the peer reviewers reached out and on behalf of another journal they review for – Melanesian Journal of Theology – suggesting a reworked piece would be of benefit to their readers. The suggestion gave me the opportunity to tighten the argument, as well as include some unpublished research from a visit to Te Papa, plus undertake a literature review of Melanesian Christologies.

Given the Melanesian Journal of Theology retained the original date of publication, it also means I had seven academic journal articles published in 2020 – much of it fruit from my 15-week sabbatical from Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership in 2019.

Abstract – This essay assesses a hapkas christology in Papua New Guinea. A declaration of Jesus as “good man true” in Drusilla Modjeska’s The Mountain is located in relation to hapkas themes of indigenous agency, communal transformation, and hybridity, each in dialogue with New Testament themes of genealogy, redemption as gift, and Jesus as the new Adam. This hapkas Jesus who is “good man true” is then placed in critical dialogue: first, with Melanesian masculine identity tropes as described in anthropological literature and second, with Papua New Guinean christologies, including “wantok,” brother, and protector. The argument is that a hapkas christology acts in ways that both resist and innovate in the reception of the gospel across cultures. This demonstrates how a received message of Christian mission can be creatively transformed in the crossing of cultures and a hapkas christology provides resources in the tasks of contextualisation in a rapidly globalising world.

Keywords – Christology, gospel, ancestor, genealogy, Drusilla Modjeska, post-colonial, indigenous