The Origins of the Bahá’í Faith in the Pacific Islands: The Case of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands

Abstract

“Modern religious history” in the Pacific Islands generally refers to the conversion of Pacific Islanders to Christianity by Catholic and Protestant missionaries. In the case of the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (GEIC—today the independent states of Kiribati and Tuvalu), the introduction of the Bahá’í Teachings in the 1950s perplexed secular and religious authorities alike. This paper uses colonial records and other sources to examine the ways in which the arrival of a new and little-understood religion disturbed the delicate church-state relationship operating at that time. The possibility exists that these interactions were experienced in similar ways in other colonial environments that had comparable sociopolitical conditions.