The Promise Fulfilling
A Compendium Entry
Europeans were never completely satisfied with their culture in the light of Christianity. Their guilt deepened as they experienced the Industrial Revolution, whose clear economic benefits came with a heavy price for many workers. Some began to fantasize about a place untouched by Western sins.
In 1768 Captain James Cook made “first contact” with the people of Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia. In 1784 his book Voyages was published in an affordable version and captured the British imagination. His descriptions of Polynesian society, entirely untouched by the West for 3,000 years, provided the canvas upon which Western artists and poets could express their guilt-laden dreams. In 1823, without visiting Polynesia himself, Lord Byron wrote “The Island,” an expression of his idealized view of the region as a kind of garden of Eden polluted by the arrival of the West:
“Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:- The goldless age; where gold disturbs no dreams, Inhabits or inhabited the shore, Till Europe taught them better than before.”
The experience of the Polynesians themselves differed significantly. Two years before Byron’s story, a Polynesian leader, Auna, of the Christian church in French Polynesia, spoke to a delegation from the London Missionary Society about his people’s lives before and after contact with the West. It seems that the Polynesians had also left the Garden of Eden long before contact with the Europeans:
“We old people know well what we formerly were. We hated, and hunted, and killed one another. Through God’s love alone that Word was brought to us, by our kind friends and teachers, who leaped hither over the tops of the breaking waves to help us.”1
The Bible begins with the assumption that all of humanity is under the same curse. When all things were created in Genesis 1, they were good; including human beings. Beginning in Genesis 2 things start to unravel. By Genesis 11 all of humanity, whoever and wherever we are, is caught in a cycle of violence. For generations, our people have “hated and hunted and killed one another.”
But then, in the 18th century B.C.,
the first settlers arrived on the Polynesian islands of Wallace and Fortuna, Samoa and Tonga (from either Asia or Melanesia)
around the same time that Babylon grew to become the largest city in the world under the rule of the great Hammurabi
Ancient Egypt was in its thirteenth dynasty
A new theme, a new hope, entered the cycle of violence in Mesopotamia:
“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. ‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him…”
-Genesis 12:1-4a
The rest of human history to this day, is a story of the fulfillment of this promise over incredible odds. As we read through the Bible we find story after story of the promise threatened by infidelity, power struggles, and family dysfunction. Each time, at the last moment, unexpectedly and creatively, the promise overcomes the challenge.
This theme is found in European Christendom. It is found in the lives of the Polynesians. If we have eyes to see it can be identified through all of human history and around the world.
“The Compendium” of this Substack channel follows this thread through different people, concepts and events in human history. Like a child coloring outside the lines, the promise works beyond any limits humans assert when history is made in our image. It isn’t a story of the eventual corruption of all that is good. Rather, it’s the story of a powerful and trustworthy promise working to restore all creation to a state of goodness. It cannot be stopped by Egyptian and Persian Empires. It transcends Greek and Roman interpretations of history. It is a story that works around the theme of “enlightened Western progress,” and well beyond the concepts of the oppressed and oppressor, of colonialism and human rights. Rather than projecting human hopes and fears, the story of the promise fulfilling speaks to us of an ancient theme that cannot be vanquished in any age. The story of the promise to Abraham continues to be written today.
Next Compendium Post: “Pao’o and the Promise in Polynesia.”
Tom Hiney, On the Missionary Trail, (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000). p. 73.