It Begins with a Hawaiian
Before any missionary saw these islands, a young Hawaiian sat in New Haven, Connecticut, and wept because no one would teach him. The story of the Gospel in Hawaiʻi does not begin in Boston. It begins in Kaʻū.
We write from Honolulu, for readers in these islands and far beyond them. Hawaiʻi lies more than two thousand miles from any continent, and God has never overlooked a place because of the distance.
“The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.”PSALM 97:1 · KJV
This story needs care. Some have heard it told as a triumph, with missionaries carrying light to a dark people. Others have heard it told as a crime, with missionaries stealing a nation. Neither telling is honest. Read this beside Traditional Religions and Animism, which describes the old Hawaiian religion and how Hawaiian chiefs ended the kapu in 1819. We pick up the story from there.
Hawaiian readers may know this history better than any study can tell it. We honor the kūpuna, we lean on Hawaiian voices, and we will neither flatter the missionaries nor slander them. The Hero of this story is not from Boston or from Kaʻū. He is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He loves these islands.
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For Deeper Study
- Nā Kahu: Portraits of Native Hawaiian Pastors at Home and Abroad, 1820–1900Amazon Nancy J. Morris and Robert BenedettoAbout two hundred lives of Hawaiian teachers, pastors, and missionaries, by two librarians and scholars. A historical reference, not a Baptist one.
- Memoirs of Henry ObookiahAmazon Edwin W. Dwight, ed.His own words and his friends' memories (1818), from New England Congregationalists of that day.
- Life in HawaiiAmazon Titus CoanThe Great Awakening in Coan's own words (1882). He was a Congregational missionary, and his language about Hawaiians is of his time.
- Fragments of Hawaiian HistoryAmazon John Papa ʻĪʻīMemories of the old court and the changing kingdom by a Hawaiian Christian statesman and one of the scholars of the Hawaiian Bible.
- Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American ColonialismAmazon Noenoe K. SilvaA Hawaiian scholar's account of resistance, drawn from Hawaiian-language sources. Not written from a Christian view, and worth hearing for that reason.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Traditional Religions and Animism
Traditional religions across Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas live among spirits, ancestors, and the fear of offending unseen powers, but the God they have wronged has come in His Son, who triumphed over every power and is the refuge of all who trust Him.
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