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CLTC’s Contribution to Development in Melanesia – A Case Study 1

The Christian Leaders’ Training College of PNG – A Case Study of a Christian Contribution to Economic Development and to Theological Change at Worldview and Social Imaginary Levels for

Sustainable Development in Melanesia

A Paper presented at the “Woven Together“ Conference on Christianity and Development in the Pacific, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, 9-10 June 2016

By John M. Hitchen, BA, BD, PhD, with some data provided by Garth S. Morgan, B.Com, LTh. CMANZ, ACIS, CANZ (hon. retired 50years)

Introducing the Christian Leaders’ Training College of Papua New Guinea Inc. (CLTC)

The Christian Leaders’ Training College began teaching in February1965 at its 413 acre (167 hectare) campus near Banz in the Wahgi Valley which was then fast developing as a major tea and coffee growing area of the Papua New Guinea Western Highlands. The college was established by the Melbourne Bible Institute at the specific request of the Protestant churches and missions working in PNG who were also in the process of cooperatively forming the Evangelical Alliance of the South Pacific islands.1 CLTC has for over fifty years been the interdenominational, English language, higher level church and community leadership theological education programme serving this Evangelical Alliance group of churches.2

The central theological and leadership programme began with a four year secondary level Certificate in Church Leadership from 1965 and steadily introduced other higher level programmes: a Diploma of Theology (from 1969); a tertiary level Bachelor of Theology (from 1978); and , after some pilot courses in the late 1990s , from 2008 a Master of Theology degree programme. CLTC was a founding member of the Melanesian Association of Theological Schools from 1968 and its programmes were accredited through MATS until, with the PNG Government delegating educational quality assurance and accreditation to its Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, in 2014 CLTC was formally recognised as a Tertiary Education Institution with accreditation of its programmes now authorised by DHERST.3

From its inception, to provide both funding towards educational costs and a base for its broader vocational training in agriculture, horticulture and technical trades, CLTC has also developed at various times, commercial support programmes in the poultry, dairy, beef cattle, piggery, transport, timber-milling and rice production industries. The College with its derivative organisations, has

1 Melbourne Bible Institute later became the Bible College of Victoria and is now Melbourne School of Theology. The founding of CLTC is recorded in, J. Oswald Sanders, Planting Men in Melanesia: The First Decade of Development of the Christian Leaders’ Training College of Papua New Guinea, (Mt Hagen, PNG: CLTC) 1978. 2 The core founding churches (and the missions from which they grew), included: Baptist Union of PNG (Australian Baptist Missionary Society); Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea (Unevangelized Fields Mission/Asia Pacific Christian Mission/Pioneers); South Sea Evangelical Church(SSEM); Christian Brethren Churches (Christian Missions in Many Lands); Churches of Christ PNG (Australian Churches of Christ); Assemblies of God; Apostolic Christian Churches (Apostolic Christian Mission); and Evangelical Church of Manus (Manus Evangelical Mission). Students were drawn from these and a wide circle of other churches including the Church of the Nazarene; Wesleyan Church; various Synods of the United Church, and a number of independent churches and mission groups. Growing numbers of students from other mainline churches in PNG have enrolled as students in more recent years. 3 The curriculum philosophy and development stages of CLTC’s theological teaching programme are explained in, John M. Hitchen, ‘Evangelicals Equipping Melanesian men and women: an Interpretation of the training ministries of the Christian Leaders’ Training College of PNG, 1965-2010,’ in Tim Meadowcroft and Myk Habets, (Eds.), Gospel, Truth, & Interpretation: Evangelical Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand, (Auckland, NZ: Archer Press) 2011:110-136


thereby contributed into the developing economy of the young independent nation of PNG. This paper explores this contribution and aspects of its undergirding philosophy and policies.

Part One: The College’s Self-Support Philosophy and its Contribution to PNG’s Commercial and Economic Development:

1. The Self-Support Funding Policy of the College:One of the “objects” in the CLTC constitution document, under which CLTC was incorporated in PNG when the Melbourne sponsoring body handed over governance of the College to CLTC’s own PNG based Council in 1973, states:

To provide for the financial support of the College through business programs which positively contribute to the physical and economic wellbeing of the people of Papua New Guinea. Such programs will provide in-service training for employees and aim to compliment the financial partnership with the churches we serve.4

The original vision saw three sources of income as necessary for the College’s financial viability. The students, together with their sending churches, should accept a proportion of the training costs. Student fees, student travel costs to and from the College and personal living allowances were seen as the student and local church responsibility. Partnerships with Christian friends and churches overseas – mainly Australia and New Zealand - would be potential sources of College administered student scholarships, and of donations for capital development or special projects. But the major operational, education and staffing costs were to be funded by commercial support programmes utilising the agricultural potential of the Banz property. While overseas donations were crucial in the early days, the College has very largely achieved the expectation that as overseas donations decreased, the income from within PNG, particularly from the College’s support programmes, would increase to meet the operational costs. Rapid increases in educational training costs and instabilities in PNG’s economy over the last decade mean this pattern which served the College’s first forty five years well, has faced severe pressure over the past six years and is under regular review.5

Integral to this pattern was a recognition that if CLTC was to serve Melanesian churches appropriately it must do so sustainably within the economy and staffing competence of the region it served. Moreover, there should be congruence between the teaching on responsible management and careful stewardship of God-given resources and abilities in church and community leadership classes and the patterns manifest in the College’s own support programmes. This contextual integrity has been a vital ideal not always easy to implement, but steadily pursued by the College. Thus the College has been challenging some previous patterns in which mission agencies and churches clearly separated “Christian” work from involvement in business ventures.6 Successive generations of leadership students at CLTC have shared their educational campus and social, leisure and worship activities with a diverse range of vocationally skilled expatriate and national personnel, all committed to business ventures to underwrite the operation of this Christian educational service. This has been a significant part of CLTC students’ educational experience and values formation in the

4 Rule 2(iii) of CLTC Constitution – 2008 update. CLTC is legally incorporated under the PNG Associations Ordinance of 19665 See, for instance the detailed analyses of sources of funds and costs of training and their implications for ongoing viability of the College in the forthcoming Doctoral dissertation of ‘Kirine Yandit’, “‘Ownership’ and Support of Theological Education Institutions in Papua New Guinea: The Case of the Christian Leaders’ Training College of Papua New Guinea Inc.” Dissertation for DMIn, Australian College of Theology, Sydney, (Forthcoming -July 2016).6 See, e.g., the first part of John M. Hitchen, ‘Towards a Theology of Business for Christians in a Primal Religious Society in a Globalising World,’ Melanesian Journal of Theology, 30-2 (2014): 74-104


“College Family”,7 particularly given the range of commercial ventures to which CLTC has contributed.

2. CLTC’s Banz Campus contributions to Commercial & Economic Development:The first call on the income earning capacity of the Banz property has always been to meet the

food requirements of students and staff. Extensive kaukau (sweet potato), vegetable and fruit production from the College gardens has supplied the food ”scale” allocated to students, staff and their families either by daily or weekly ration allocations as in the early years or purchased through the College store more recently.

CLTC commenced just over a decade after the Australian Government “de-restricted” the Western Highlands to allow outside influences, and business interests into the region for the first time. The burgeoning tea and coffee industries, government administrative, law and order, agricultural, health and education personnel coming into the area saw Mt Hagen, the administrative centre, fast becoming the urban supply centre for the region. Fresh produce was in high demand, and the College soon took up the challenge to help meet that demand. College production beyond the on-campus need was channelled into the following range of commercial opportunities:8

a. Poultry Industry. Initial fresh table egg production began in 1966 by importing day old pullets from New Zealand and subsequently additional pullets from a poultry producer in Port Moresby. The expansion of the consumer egg market in the Highlands to retail outlets in Mount Hagen and to many church agencies across PNG put pressure on the ability to acquire day old pullets in sufficient numbers to grow the production of fresh table eggs. So in 1976, by resourcing a second-hand incubator in New Zealand and setting it up in an existing building,9 CLTC could now hatch day old chickens from fertile eggs imported from New Zealand, thereby reducing the risk of loss of chickens in transit, reducing production costs, and improving income to support the training programmes.

By 1980 the College’s first hatchery building was operational.10 This College could now produce day old live meat chickens for sale, as well as provide the day old stock for laying birds. From an initial hatch of a few hundred chickens from the meat parent breeder flocks in 1980, production grew to reach 40,000 day old meat chickens weekly by 2000. Meanwhile, by 1980 table egg production had expanded to 57,000 per year. 11 In 1980 the poultry net earnings were 19% of the 7 Support programme employees, College students, administrative staff and teaching faculty regularly share together in weekly worship services, periodic half-days of prayer, bible study groups, sporting and social activities and in comparable activities for their children. The Banz on campus community has numbered over 300 for several decades and has exceeded 600 during recent years. 8 Much of the factual data in the following sections on CLTC’s commercial contributions has been provided by Garth S. Morgan who was the College’s founding Registrar 1966 -1975; Administrator 1978-1981, responsible for the development of the support programs and the financial health of the College; from late 1981 till 1984 Garth was seconded to Alliance Training Association (ATA), to computerise their systems and strengthen ATA’s financial contribution to the College; in 1989 he was elected to the College Council and served as Council Treasurer till 2015, when he became the Deputy Treasurer with a Papua New Guinean taking up the Treasurer’s responsibilities. The viability and sustainability of the College financial support programmes have benefitted greatly from Garth and Ruth Morgan’s competency and their continuity of commitment, diligence and persistence throughout the first fifty years of the College’s history. The significance of the Morgans’ contribution was recognised appropriately when the New Zealand Trustees Association conferred on Garth the award of Trustee of the year in 2012. In 2004 the New Zealand Trustees Association had awarded CLTC, “Offshore Trust of the Year for outstanding endeavour and achievement”9 Garth Morgan initiated this while on medical leave for his wife’s health needs in New Zealand. In this, as in many of the steps in the College support programmes, Garth was conscious of Divine guidance in the inspiration for this development.10 The first built in the highlands of PNG.11 Before 1980, layer birds had been reared from day old pullets purchased from the “Shaver” breeder in NZ. From 1980, with the breeder on campus functioning, layer birds were produced from fertile eggs resourced from New Zealand and hatched and grown at CLTC.


total training costs from CLTC’s only campus at Banz.12 By 1999 the poultry earnings had grown to 205% of the combined training costs of the now three CLTC teaching centres, and therefore were sufficient to fund the new Port Moresby training facility.13

Since 2000, these poultry programmes have continued to prove the backbone of CLTC’s source of operational costs for the educational programmes, although in this new millennium these tuition costs have increased significantly, outstripping the poultry income. Statistics, of course, do not indicate the stages of poultry staff recruiting, training, management up-skilling, and professional enrichment for both expatriate and local employees; or the establishing of marketing processes, supply lines for chicken feed and egg cartons (including hand packing in Auckland of a monthly shipping container for nearly 30 years), and logistics for distribution of produce; or all the book-keeping and accounting that lie behind the production achievements. The partnerships with New Zealand and Australian poultry people for advice, project planning, fundraising, and constructing facilities deserve a descriptive account of their own. With fluctuations in the PNG economy since 2000, at least one serious proposal which came to nothing,14 and moves especially by one of the two largest PNG poultry producers located in and near to the coastal city of Lae, there has been a growing competition for the highlands poultry market and therefore a gradual but increasing inability for the College to maintain the net income of the 1990s This has led to a change of strategy. A poultry management contract has been established with one of those producers and they have taken over, as from February 2016, the management and ongoing development of CLTC’s poultry programme with a guaranteed income and share of future increases in that income coming back to the College.15 So the College now begins a new phase in its role which

12 In 1980 net income from poultry operations was PNG kina 30,300 (80% from table eggs & 20% from the hatchery and day old chickens). By 1999, the peak year of the College’s poultry earnings, the net income from the poultry was PNG kina 1.5 million (15% from table eggs and 85%from the hatchery). 13 In 2000 the College opened its three level, 1200m2, resource centre at Waigani, Port Moresby, for the cost of approximately one million PNG kina, funded by the poultry support programmes. 14 In March 2012 the large foreign oil company who were developing a gas field in the Southern Highlands for exporting gas from PNG’s southern coast, approached CLTC to run its Western Highlands proven village based chicken rearing programme in the Southern Highlands provinces. To help the College to produce sufficient day old meat chickens for the expected demand in those provinces, this oil company offered to fund the expansion of the existing College Hatchery, expecting to more than double the Southern Highlands village markets’ supply of mature meat chickens. Since the oil company had commenced operations, the village market price of meat birds for consumption had tripled in price due demand from oil company employees enjoying their high wages. Those employed in traditional jobs in the villages, on comparatively meagre wages, like teachers and church pastors, could no longer afford poultry products to feed their families. After nine months of extended discussions, preparations of designs, working drawings, engineers’ calculations to support quotations from New Zealand for specialised building materials and kit-set steel framing to span a 650 m2 hatchery, and from USA for hatchery equipment, the College needed and asked for over a million PNG kina to complete the task. The oil company committed itself to the funding five days before construction of the trusses was to begin in New Zealand, in order to meet the oil company’s strict time table. At the oil company’s request, the College paid a 3% deposit for the construction of the special trusses to begin (about two weeks before Christmas 2012) and the oil company’s first funding payment was promised for one day after the deposit had been paid. The one day delay related to a company meeting apparently. The funding never came. Telephone calls were not returned. Emails were not answered for over a month. The College was committed. So, yet again, with a sense of Divine re-direction in this crisis, six New Zealand families and trusts were inspired to loan the College NZD660,000, which was all repaid over the next four years, from poultry earnings and NZD80,000 of poultry designated donations. Thus the poultry production potential has been significantly enhanced. 15 This company’s motivation for paying CLTC for the privilege of managing the College’s poultry programmes, is the access it gives them to all the existing poultry facilities (including the recently build state of the art hatchery, large enough to triple the existing production of day old chickens), and the established infrastructure on the College campus, all available in the centre of the nine highlands provinces, which are home to about 40% of the PNG population. This Company is committed to PNG’s national development goals and is involved


began when the College Registrar initiated and then became the founding Secretary /Treasurer of the PNG Poultry Industry Association (PIA) in 1970.

b. Dairy and Beef Cattle Industries;The terms on which CLTC leased the Banz property from the PNG government required that

73%, or 300 of the total 413 acres, be devoted for agricultural purposes. Beef and dairy production were obvious choices with potential for enhancing in culturally appropriate ways parts of the property. With the enthusiastic partnership of New Zealand Dairy farmers an initial herd of dairy calves was arranged for shipping to PNG in 1965. However the Australian government refused to allow cattle from NZ to enter PNG because of liver fluke in NZ sheep! But by February 1966 twenty-five Illawarra Shorthorn cattle were sourced from the Swiss Evangelical Brotherhood Mission in the Eastern Highlands of PNG and trucked by CLTC to the campus. Pasture had been planted and essential milking equipment prepared in New Zealand during 1965 for dairying to commence.16

The first commercial sale of fresh milk was of 12 one litre cartons packed in a fish carton and flown from Banz to Kagamuga (the Hagen airstrip) to a Mount Hagen hotel in 1966. The market expanded to retail stores, the hospital, and plantations with pasteurised, cartoned and bulk milk plus cream and flavoured milk in 250ml cartons. During 1971 the College commenced upgrading the dairy herd by artificially inseminating them with Friesian semen from Cambridge NZ.17 By 1977 there were 244 head of cattle, including 180 mature cows and replacement heifers, 50 being bred by AI. All the College’s farmers in those years had backgrounds in dairying in NZ, so in 1977 with the cows only averaging six litres per cow per day, they adjusted herd management to cope with higher altitude conditions (including sunburn), the annual two-season weather conditions, and the particular pasture types which flourished. Experiments were also undertaken with breeds more suited to such conditions including Murray Greys, Simental and Herefords complementing the original Illawarra, Friesian and Brahmin stock.

With the advent of UHT( long life) milk imported from Australia, which did not require refrigeration, and the dwindling expatriate population following independence, the dairying was becoming less and less profitable so the College ceased milk production in 1992, after being the only commercial milk producer in the Highlands for thirty seven years. Using artificial insemination, with NZ beef semen, the dairy herd was converted to a multi breed beef herd.

In 1968/9 the College developed a beef cattle grazing area on the north western boundary of the farm and resourced twenty Brahmin cows and bull, funded through an application to the German agency Bread for the World. The beef herd, in 2016, numbers between 350 and 400 head, depending upon the number of young breeding stock being sold to indigenous cattle projects, and how many being processed through the College abattoir (the converted previous milk processing facility) for the Mount Hagen super markets and on campus use (one or two steers a week).18 The cattle programme has equipped a number of farm trainees and workers with the skills for beef cattle management for local cattle projects. While eating beef has fitted well into PNG life-styles and cultural patterns, traditional ways have not embraced fresh milk as part of local diets or food preparation processes.

in building up other national business people for the country’s long term benefit.16 Robin Cowie, the CLTC Agriculturist, Ron Youngman and Garth Morgan called on several Waikato, NZ dairy farmers who were upgrading their cow sheds and gathered up their discarded milking machines; then asked Claude Evans of Alfa Laval, Hamilton, to create a four bale milking machine, which he did for fifty pounds.17 In late 1975 the NZ Government followed up their proposal to assist the PNG Government to establish a dairy industry more widely in PNG. A team of three NZ specialists researched the opportunities, using the nine years of data collated by the College in their proposal. The recommendation was for the PNG authorities to use the Wahgi valley and centre the industry on the expertise that the College could provide. But nothing resulted from that research other than the College obtaining a soft PNG Development Bank loan, for building a twelve aside Herringbone milking shed and processing room to pasteurise, standardise, carton and flavour milk for Mount Hagen town and the Chimbu region.18 Artificial insemination is used on a three year cycle to supplement the work of the bulls (which have been breed from NZ semen by AI), and to provide new blood stock.


c. Trucking and Timber Industries – Alliance Training Association; By 1966 CLTC had established its own reliable transportation supply line, trucking goods the

500kilometres from the coastal port of Lae into the highlands.19 Many highland church and mission agencies realised they could cut their costs considerably if CLTC trucked their goods to the road-head at Mt Hagen in the Western Highlands. Thus MAF, the church agencies’ aviation service, re-located to Mt Hagen for shorter flights to the many remoter church or mission locations. In 1969 the College’s now eight trucks travelled 230,000 miles (370,000kms), completing 340 return trips and moving 2,578 tons of supplies and fuel for highlands-based plantations and oil companies, as well as Christian agencies and the College.20

With the trucking programme flourishing, the College decided to form a separate support arm, Alliance Training Association Inc. (ATA), from 1 July 1970.21 ATA’s steadily growing associated training programmes in mechanical engineering and trucking operation were better served by being a separate organisation rather than by continuing as part of a theological College. By 1978 ATA had a well-established administrative, logistics and training base at Omili in Lae.

From the beginning in 1964 CLTC sourced timber from near the College for its building needs. This soon required a timber lease at Nondugl, twenty-five kilometres distant, and a sawmill on campus to produce the timber needed for lecture rooms, administration, staff and student housing, library and study space, and for each aspect of the support programmes. Once ATA was set up its timber division took over this area and developed its own multi–faceted sustainable felling, milling and sales business in partnership with local cooperatives in the Kaupena, Mt Giluwe, Southern Highlands area, and a major sales outlet in Mt Hagen.

For many years ATA contributed to CLTC’s operational costs from income earned. But ATA struggled with inadequate capital for the rate of development and from 1990 its operations were no longer profitable due to borrowing to sustain earlier expansion, so its assets were disbursed and spawned a number of PNG owned truck and timber-related businesses, several of which are still major players in the trucking industry. Moreover, a number of these leading driver-owners, key trucking company managers, and not a few mechanics still working in the industry gained their skills and early training through the high standards inculcated at ATA.

d. Through CLTC’s agricultural training programmes. As an earlier article explained:

From the first intake of Farm Management Course students in 1966 the College struggled with ways to prepare young men to develop farming and agricultural understanding and skills suited to influence the direction of economic development at the grass roots as the nation headed towards independence. Attempts at developing a model farm; introducing “intermediate technology”; applying globally proven “development” processes; and trying [their] own creative approaches, have met with differing levels of success. Cultural problems in changing traditional decision-making and farming procedures; difficulties in developing sustainable supply lines; creating regular market outlets; and handling unreliable transportation systems—or the lack of

19 The accepted practice in the early 1960s before the advent of trucking, had been to fly everything by DC3 aircraft from Madang into Banz at a cost of 2/6 per pound. With its two international (8 Ton) trucks CLTC reduced the coast to highlands freight cost to 1/8 of the airfreight!20 This earned the College a net surplus that year of $36,041 from a gross income of $122,401 less expenses of $86,360, giving a return of 29.5% on sales. In the same year the total cost of the College’s biblical and leadership training programs was $25,156. The balance of the earnings together with those from the poultry, contributed to funding College campus and infrastructure development.21 The College gave ATA $20 to open a bank account, plus its eight trucks which, after the original two gifted from Australia, had been funded through the College’s strict depreciation policy. ATA operated for more than twenty five years, regularly donating funds to the College.


them—could be listed as some of the issues and problems encountered. Although in more recent years the agricultural training has been discontinued, then re-born as a rice-growing training programme, and now potentially expanding back into some of the earlier areas of project training, [there is] no cause for shame in the effort made, the lives influenced and the skills imparted that have been an important part of the nationwide struggle to determine how best to integrate the old and the new in a young nation’s economy.22

Through the Agricultural Training programmes, not only were significant groups of students equipped personally for farming vocations, but patterns were developed for ongoing introduction of new kinds of farming to the students’ home areas. Noteworthy among these have been:i. Beef Cattle and Poultry Projects. The College has facilitated many small scale cattle projects in

the villages of ex-students, or of churches linked with the College. During the 1970s, Mission Aviation Fellowship Cessna single engine planes flew eighty loads, of one bull and four heifer weaned calves, with a total weight of less than 950 pounds (430kgs) taking off from the College’s Giramben airstrip, thus establishing cattle projects and introducing beef into the food chains in many of the remote areas of PNG. This dietary supplement has been well received, and PNGns have shown themselves able cattle husbandmen. Traditional celebratory feasts now often include beef as payment of tribal obligations in the new economy.Similarly, after ad hoc involvement from earlier years, in 2000 the College established a village level training programme, with a Pidgin English illustrated manual, to encourage and assist women and men establish small chicken rearing projects. By also marketing poultry feed with day old chicks many village projects have been introduced and sustained, 23 particularly in places with road access to the College in the Wahgi Valley.24 Where the traditional Highland diet was limited in its protein intake, such projects have helpfully supplemented traditional foods.

ii. Pig production. At a number of times over its history, CLTC’s piggery has been a similar source of young stock: strengthening blood lines and providing supplementary food for Highland communities where pigs have played a key role in local economies for generations. The increasing demand for frozen pork in regional urban supermarkets is currently being explored as another strand of income earning.

iii. Rice Production. In the College’s early days coffee and tea plots were developed on a model farm for agriculture student tuition. With the termination of the general agricultural training programme in the late 1980s, these plots were discontinued. More recently demonstration plots of highland rice have been developed for rice-growing training programmes of various length, with allied follow-up field support and central milling facilities for village rice-growing projects near the College. The plantings on campus are also expanding into a viable rice production programme for the local area. In 2016, 10 hectares of rice is being grown for a yield of 34 tons, half of which will be sold for seed to expand the rice growing in the Wahgi Valley, and the remainder as packaged rice for sale through retail outlets.

CLTC has also partnered with overseas agencies in agricultural student training programmes which have failed to take root or bring continuing development in the home areas from which students were recruited. Both the successful and non-sustainable experiences suggest that to be sustainable the trainers and local community leaders need to have good partnership relationships at every stage of such programmes. Choosing the students, evaluating their progress, and commencing the new venture after training need to be owned by the local community leaders at each stage. Since trainees are usually younger people, and local community change is normally initiated by local elders, these partnership relationships are essential. Agricultural or other technical knowledge on its own is

22 Hitchen, ‘Evangelicals Equipping Melanesian men and women…’ 2011: 120.23 With bush material sheds and a box of 52 day old meat chickens, once established, a person could with a PNGKina 300 investment return a 100% profit of K300 for their labour, if they sold in the village markets, 50 mature meat birds within seven weeks of buying their box of chickens from the College. 24 Recent Civil Aviation occupational health and safety regulations have at least temporarily curtailed the transporting of calves or day old chicks in light aircraft, thus hindering wider distribution of stock for more remote village projects, despite the previously proven viability of such transportation.


insufficient to bring about development at village level. Understanding the way a change in farming methods effects societal leadership, personal status, and intra- and inter-tribal relationships is also vital. But at a deeper level the worldview assumptions of a community are usually challenged by new approaches in areas where custom and tradition have operated for generations. Hence post-training on-the-job support and follow-up from trainers involving both trainees and local leaders is likely to be a priority. We could go on, but the point is that a wealth of insight and data for more viable training has been accumulated over the fifty years of CLTC’s involvement in such development ventures. How to utilise this is an ongoing issue.

e. Through CLTC’s Technical and Trade training programmes. Particularly during the College’s establishment phase, cohorts of trainees worked alongside vehicle mechanics, carpenters, joiners and other tradesmen, both expatriate and Papua New Guinean, learning basic trade skills and gaining practical technical experience along with rudimentary lessons in their chosen trade. Small, but significant numbers of such tradesmen have sustained building or basic vehicle maintenance programmes over extended periods for the church groups which availed themselves of this training opportunity.

As the College has needed to develop its own Information Technology team to service on-campus and between campuses communications, further training possibilities in this field are also being explored.

CLTC has always seen part of its mandate as equipping local people with skills in these kinds of practical service to their communities. Recognition by DHERST of CLTC as a Government approved Institute of Higher learning in April 2015, has also brought pressure on the College to further these community development-related aspects of training at higher levels.

Summary thus far:CLTC’s diverse experience in commercial contributions to the PNG economy indicates that these fifty years have accumulated a strong data base for deeper evaluation of the lessons the College has learned or could learn about equipping Melanesians for involvement in these different industries, and about establishing and sustaining viable commercial interests in the Highlands regions. Detailed records of each of these ventures are well preserved in College archives held both on the Banz campus and in New Zealand. This paper can only pick up on one major issue which comes to the fore in any consideration of CLTC’s contribution to Pacific development – namely the necessary theological undergirding for sustainable development.

Part Two: The College’s Theological Contribution to Melanesian and Pacific Worldview and Social Imaginary Development:We could approach the contribution to national and regional development of the theological and biblical aspects of CLTC’s ministry from a number of perspectives.

1. Various possible Perspectives on CLTC’s contribution to development in the Region- As an interdenominational College serving a theologically and ecclesiologically diverse group of churches and agencies from across the Christian spectrum, CLTC has been a focal point for cultivating cooperation and unity between future church leaders. Sharing together during their student days, often with fellow-students from traditional enemy tribes, College has enabled them to discover their common commitments, values and aspirations as they live, study, play and socialize together on campus. This practical ecumenism while studying at CLTC inculcates bonds of mutual respect and partnership transcending traditional barriers of clan, language, locality and inherited loyalties. We could enlarge on the significance of such unifying experience in a nation and region with as many cultures, and cultural divisions, as Papua New Guinea and Melanesia. - Or, we could consider the College’s contribution by assessing the work of its graduates who have come from nearly all of Papua New Guinea’s twenty provinces, its one autonomous authority,


Bougainville, and the National Capital District, from the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. The over 1500 graduates have served:

… as unheralded itinerant evangelists in previously un-reached pockets of PNG; as steady, long-serving village congregation pastors, serving as community rallying points in their own tribal areas; as pastors of urban congregations struggling to address the pressures of post-modern city living; as teachers and administrators in every kind of vernacular, neo-Melanesian or English-speaking Bible School across the nation; as chaplains to the military and police forces; as translators, literacy teachers and literature and audio-visual producers for multiple language groups; as heads of denominations, as members of regional and national councils of churches; as cross-cultural missionaries in significantly different cultural groups in their own country; and as missionaries in foreign nations. Add to these more-directly church-related ministries the work of graduates serving with para-church agencies: in evangelism; discipling programmes; radio and literature ministries; development and aid projects; social welfare, student, and educational service of various kinds. Several graduates have gone on to other professions, especially education and medicine, and to a range of entrepreneurial and business vocations.25

From the first graduating group onward, several have served as Members of the House of Assembly, PNG’s national parliament, during times of rapid political development. 26

- Given the PNG Government’s heavy dependence on church contributions to education, health and youth work across the nation, not surprisingly, we could refer to the contribution of graduates and faculty to national educational curriculum development groups, or local community Board roles in education and health services; or Port Moresby faculty roles in developing national youth strategies in partnership with the government; or faculty and graduates involved in education, particularly in religious studies in schools.- Nation-influencing radio and cassette production services have operated from the Banz campus; faculty have served on the Churches’ Council for Media Coordination; and on the initial ethics committee preparing guidelines for ethical standards for television broadcasting in PNG. Graduates, students and faculty have published widely-used booklets and study material on leadership development, family life, and a range of character-building, worship, biblical, and Christian living topics through local publishers such as Christian Books Melanesia, and the Melanesia Journal of Theology.- Or, we could analyse more fully the nation-building contribution of the curriculum content of the College’s central church and community leadership, biblical and theological programmes leading to the Government DHERST recognised Diploma of Theology, primary degree level Bachelor of Theology and graduate level Master of Theology awards. But these, and other perspectives in the above list have been covered in a number of other places.27

Therefore we shall focus the remainder of this paper at a deeper level.

2. CLTC’s Theological contribution to Worldview and Social Imaginary Level Change essential for ongoing Development. CLTC’s participation in Melanesian societal and economic development over the past fifty years has highlighted one fundamental issue: for long term, sustainable development merely teaching pragmatic, technical, professional or practical competency, even with appropriate theoretical understanding and adaptation to local needs, is not sufficient. Development needs to address the worldview or social imaginary level change, or transformation, necessary for the desired development to become culturally embedded. Without deep-level worldview transformation the

25 Hitchen, ‘Evangelicals Equipping Melanesian men and women…’ 2011: 133-34.26 Traimya Kambipi (Lumusa, WHP), Glaimi Warena (Kauapena, SHD), Wesani Iwoksim (Telefomin, ESP), Judah Akesim (Brugam, ESP), to name some of the first group.27 See, J. Oswald Sanders, Planting Men in Melanesia, and Hitchen, ‘Evangelicals Equipping Melanesian men and women…’, already referred to, and K.W. Liddle, Chapter … Into the Heart of Papua New Guinea, Auckland, NZ: Castle Publishing.


developments remain superficial and dependent on external input to continue long-term. Moreover, changes necessary to embed healthy development within Melanesian cultures do not take place through appropriating merely physical, material, technological or professional (or we might say ‘secular’), concepts and processes. Development involves spiritual and theological aspects if cultural embedding is to be permanent. In reaching this conviction, CLTC has been drawing on some of the wealth of Christian mission experience, both positive and negative, particularly since the beginning of the modern Protestant missionary movement in the late eighteenth century. The lessons gleaned from missiologists can enrich the wealth of insight into worldview transformation available from social anthropologists and the increasing understanding of changing social imaginaries being offered from historical philosophers.28 For this paper we shall draw particularly on the work of the New Zealand "primal religions" scholar, the late Harold W. Turner. 29

Turner showed from his in-depth knowledge of New Religious Movements in primal societies,30 the importance of the religiously, or theologically shaped worldviews and social imaginaries which either facilitate or hinder peoples from primal religious cultural backgrounds participating in sustainable, socio-economic development. Turner identified a number of fundamental worldview factors or themes which need to be supplemented, or transformed for development to be firmly rooted wherever a traditionally primal culture is interacting with, and finding a viable place within, the global economic and socio-political spheres of their region.31 Turner discussed five worldview themes, indicating for each a direction in which they need to change for sustainable participation in the global flows surrounding them. We shall consider each in turn, giving our own headings, examples and further comments:

i. Cosmology – Turner summarised the first needed transition as a move, “From a closed unitary, sacralized cosmos to an open, de-sacralized system with contingent interrelations.”32 He saw five concepts at the heart of such worldviews. There is a “harmony between the earth, the plant and animal creation, [humanity], and the spirit world.”33 Like traditional Melanesian worldviews, this reflects an assumption that the cosmos is fixed, its structures unchangeable as handed down from the ancestors. Each part was to be respected because of its religious significance: the natural world is “too sacred to work on or develop.”34 A primary responsibility was seen as upholding the existing structures, “with nature, [humans], and the gods each playing their necessary parts in maintaining 28 We are drawing on missiologists like Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History, Studies in the Transmission of Faith, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996, and, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission and Appropriation of Faith, Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002; and Africans, Kwame Bediako, African Christianity…..and Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture [American Society of Missiology Series #42] Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, Rev Edn, 1989/2008; and from social anthropologists who apply their work in mission settings, like Paul Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues, Michigan: Baker, 1994; and Louis Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures …. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1988; and the work of historical philosopher, Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007, and his commentator, James K.A.Smith, How (Not) to be secular: Reading Charles Taylor, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,2014.29 Specifically Turner’s essay, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements in the Tribal Societies of the Third World,’ in Frederick Ferre and Rita H. Mataragnon (Eds.,) God and Global Justice: Religion and Poverty in an Unequal World, New York: Paragon House, 1985: 84-110.30 See, e.g., his annotated bibliographies, H.W. Turner, Bibliography of New Religious Movements in Primal Societies. Boston: G.K. Hall. Vol. I: Black Africa. 1977, 277 pp.; Vol. II: North America. 1978, 286 pp; Vol. III, Oceania. 1990, 348 pp.; Vol. IV, Europe and Asia. 1991, 279 pp.; Vol. V, Latin America. 1991, 233 pp.; Vol. VI, The Caribbean. 1992, 303 pp.; or H.W. Turner, ‘New religious movements in primal societies and their study.’ In V.C.Hayes (ed.), Australian Essays in World Religions. Adelaide: Australian Association for the Study of Religions 1977: 38-4831 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…’, 92-101.32 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…’,9333 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…’,9334 Hitchen, ‘Towards a Theology of Business…’ 95. In this section of the business paper I refer briefly to Turner’s five themes.


the harmonious functioning of the whole.”35 These views lead to the belief that there is only a limited amount of “good” in the universe which should be shared equitably amongst people according to the rules of reciprocity established by the ancestors. Whenever any imbalance occurs through one group gaining more than their share of the “good”, the depleted tribal group is under obligation to put things right by retribution – what PNGns call “payback”. Turner points out that fundamental concepts such as these do not encourage business or other creative development. These innovations require a worldview change to see the world as an open, contingent universe (not “necessary” in its present form but able to be changed by human decisions), with creative potential for accountable management. Turner noted that the interaction of the western heritage with the Hebrew way of thinking led to a “desacralizing” of the natural world, freeing it from belief that every part was controlled by spirit powers, and opening the natural world to exploration, discovery, experiment and responsible “development of its vast potential.”36 Charles Taylor’s more recent analysis of “pre-modern” worldviews - or “Imaginaries” as he calls them - has drawn attention to this traditional “enchanted “ view, and the “disenchantment” process which has gone on in the west over several centuries.37 Taylor has carefully analysed the complex ways this process has moved towards the secular culture of the west today. However, labelling the primal worldviews as “pre-modern” unfortunately carries overtones implying they are simply old-fashioned and out-dated. We contend the Pacific region should not just forget their traditional views as a thing of the past and copy or adopt a current western worldview. The west’s new imaginaries have led to a cosmology which fosters the inter-related problems of exploiting and polluting the environment, and a loss and rejection of motivating relationships with the transcendent world. CLTC’s theological education provides a significant alternative. The Christian Gospel opens for Melanesians a way to transition to the kind of worldview Turner has shown is necessary to equip peoples from a primal religious background to embrace an open, creative approach to development. But this way also retains and enhances those aspects of their traditional worldviews which respect, care for, and manage responsibly the environmental trust they have inherited from their forefathers. Such a way is possible without a reductionist rejection of the spiritual dimensions of their heritage, but with an enriched, personally enlivened and communally expressed further development of their spiritual foundations as presented in the biblical narrative culminating in the Triune God’s redemptive intervention in the human sphere in Christ Jesus. Teaching and grasping the cosmologically transformative re-orientation of Pacific social imaginaries inherent in this Christian message is a significant contribution towards embedding positive development in our region.38

ii. Epistemology and Technological Effectiveness. Turner describes the second desired movement for a primal worldview as: “from dealing with power through magic and ritual to dependence on science and faith."39 We expand this factor and define it as transitioning to a new epistemology and seeking a new kind of technological power or effectiveness. Primal worldviews regard magic and religious ritual as the means to the ‘kru’ (Melanesian Pidgin for ‘the secret knowledge that brings material power and prosperity’).40 Hence, in Melanesia, magic and ritual are seen as the secret to technological effectiveness in the material realm and to the knowledge which enables a person to control the forces of the spiritual realm. In traditional primal societies magic and religious ritual filled the same role as science and technology in the modern western world. Magic uses “occult knowledge or skills, or potent objects” to gain the desired control. Ritual “relies on ceremonies, sacrifices, words of power, the skills of specialists in the sacred, or spirit powers present at sacred places.”41 Or, as James K.A. Smith describes Taylor’s understanding: in “the ‘enchanted’

35 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…’,9336 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…’,9337 Taylor, A Secular Age,32ff; James K.A Smith, How (Not) to be Secular, 28-3038 We outline aspects of this “way” in, Hitchen, ‘Towards a Theology of Business…’39 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…93 and 94-96.40 cf., some applications of the concept of “koru” in Maori.41 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…94


premodern imaginary… it was also assumed that power resided in things… things can do stuff.”42 Thus, “in the enchanted world, the line between personal agency and impersonal force was not at all clearly drawn.”43 Daily activities of the clan, like gardening or fishing can thus become “authentic religious acts.”44 Turner notes that such acts can fill valid custodial roles for the environment, but, after tracing the influence of Hebrew thought in changing the western worldview, Turner stresses that “reliance upon the efficacy of magic or religious ritual as causal agents to control the environment is incompatible with realistic action toward development.”45 Again, making such transitions in basic motivation does not come merely by seeing another option, nor by merely formal instruction in a new technology. It requires theological discussion and new worldview understanding for distinguishing and relating traditional “lo” (‘law’ or authoritative inherited customs), magic, and religious ritual, on the one hand, and Scripture, grateful responsive worship, faith and prayer, on the other, and to discern when to use the religious or the scientific approach appropriately. Turner also suggests that a turn away from magic and ritual needs a balancing emphasis on the place of hard work in appropriating the desired epistemological change.46 Melanesian theological education contributes to this kind of nuanced learning.

iii. Understanding of Time. Turner saw the third desired transition for a primal worldview as, “the addition of history to myth in dealing with time.” Primal societies “may be described as essentially conservative, looking along lines of lineage and genealogy into the mythical past and thus finding legitimization for the present. As for the future… at the deeper levels of worldviews and basic social forms and sanctions, no changes were desired, much less deliberately planned and worked for.”47 Traditionally Melanesians walked through time facing taim bipo (the past which came before you, in Neo Melanesian Pidgin) with the future called taim bihain - still at your back, behind you, yet to be known. The concept of history as a lineal, progressive and purposeful understanding of time with patience and hope as common requisites, differs radically from that traditional Melanesian view, but is assumed in western views of development and how to achieve it. Westerners do not often acknowledge how deeply their view of time draws on Christian theological presuppositions. The biblical understanding of the progression of time as “His story” – God’s dealings with his people through time - and its inherent purposeful view of time, has been foundational for concepts like purposeful planning, investing for future expansion, maintenance of resources for ongoing growth, and step by step achievement, all of which are embedded in western approaches to economic development. We hardly need stress the contrast between such concepts and the view that ancestors control the present and must be consulted for any greater share of “good”. Therefore, in Melanesia, cultivating planning for sustainable development also has consciously to cultivate a new sense of historical and future time as a vital aspect of embedding the desired development within the culture – and theological issues are inherent in such changes in social imaginaries.

iv. Understanding humanity, human nature and social values. Turner’s next change in primal thinking for the sake of sustainable development is to move “from the closed, unitary, sacral society to the open, plural, secular society.” Traditionally, Turner explained, “the tribe, its rulers and institutions were set within a sacred cosmic order that formed part of the traditional worldview.” 48 Such societies were also closed in another sense, “in terms of being confined to a particular ethnic group, language, and culture, and a specific set of ancestors.”49 Turner noted the way the coming of independence both politically and in church governance had set many such societies on a path toward more pluralist, open societal structures, and steps to develop relationships beyond the

42 Smith, How (Not) to be Secular,29.43 Taylor, A Secular Age,32.44 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…9445 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements… 95.46 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…96; as we have also explored: Hitchen, ‘Towards a Theology of Business…’ 83-4.47 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…9648 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…9849 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…99


traditional clan boundaries. But such change does not come quickly. In Melanesia a person’s intrinsic value derived from their belonging to and participating in a particular tribal community. It involves major worldview re-adjustment to transition from a belief that human dignity derives from belonging to a particular clan to a more open recognition of human dignity as inherent in being human. Extending the boundaries of the wantok group raises serious questions about identity and belonging. Taylor has traced this transition in the west, noting the emergence of the “buffered self” where individuals have become insulated and isolated from communal expectations and responsibilities to the point of widely accepted individualism with the risk of increasing self-centredness.50 But a Melanesian response to the call for more open and pluralist societies should not be seen as a call to embrace the individualistic “buffered self” of the west. There are communal values and responsibilities from the traditional social imaginaries to be cherished and preserved. But this means the pathway to a more open, welcoming society involves re-thinking theological dimensions regarding human nature and the scope of human accountability. Only thus can healthy development concepts be incorporated while retaining enhanced communal values when addressing questions of shared ownership, optimizing productivity, planned investment, capital accumulation and communal obligations in wealth distribution.51 Moreover manifest links between the west’s “buffered self” and uncontrolled capitalism, rampant greed, corruption in business practice and the increasing gap between rich and poor, would make most Melanesians pause to think twice before following the western pathway. Or at least to ask where theological principles apply in making development decisions regarding human and social welfare, which is what a theological education equips the student to do.

v. Ethics and Moral Causality. Turner explains his final change theme as: “Evil involves moral rather than ritual pollution and is located internally as well as externally.”52 This area demands attention because “all human activities have to recognize the existence of evil,” and “development processes … involve the removal of a range of evils such as ignorance, sickness, hunger, oppression, discrimination, injustice, anomie, poverty, and wide wealth differentials across the world,”53 not to mention natural resource exploitation, environmental and moral pollution, sheer human degradation, and loss of respect for human life. Cultures vary in how they account for, or allocate responsibility for such evils. In primal societies, “when stagnation, failure, misfortunes, and disasters are so readily blamed on one’s fate or on demons and evil spirits, witches and sorcerers, or superior magic employed by one’s enemies, then individual and corporate initiative, effort and responsibility are undermined. Without these there can be no development. … the location of evil, and responsibility for it must be internalized to a large extent.” While there are external causes of evil, these too, are often related to “evil social, economic, and political structures and traditions that must also be attacked and changed.” 54 But in both the more personal and the manifestly social varieties of evil, human blame and responsibility need to be acknowledged. Significantly the Christian Scriptures list magic or sorcery as “a work of the flesh” (Galatians 5:21) – deriving from human desire gone wrong. Again, we are not advocating a western worldview denial of any ontological reality to the demonic or evil forces – Melanesian experience of their reality forbids that. But a fatalistic blaming of such forces and not owning the human factors causing and aggravating evil is irresponsible. So again theological discrimination and discernment contribute to recognising both the real presence of the full range of evil causes, and the fundamental human responsibility to address them adequately for the sake of community and societal development.

50 Taylor,A Secular Society, 37-41; J.K.A Smith, How (Not) to be Secular, 28-3051 We compare two forms of business ownership structures - one based on cooperative wantok patterns and one on more entrepreneurial commodity based operations - in the appendix to Hitchen, ‘Towards a Theology of Business…’52 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…98-101.53 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements… 99, 100.54 Turner, ‘The Relationship Between Development and New Religious Movements…100.


Turner’s five themes each point to a deep-level worldview, or social imaginary transition to firmly embed healthy development within Melanesian societies. We have suggested that at that deep level each of these themes contains theological aspects which need to be articulated and grappled with to ensure the change is accepted and sustained. Furthermore, we are also claiming that identifying, discussing, clarifying underlying factors, evaluating options and finding resolutions for these five aspects of worldview, and doing so with theological depth, is the most significant contribution CLTC has made, and can continue to make towards development in the Pacific.

Conclusion: A Further factor in Worldview Change to Sustain Development: The Search for Salvation. In analysing the components of an adequate worldview for the new challenges facing Melanesian nations today, there is a danger that in focusing on the parts we ignore the whole. Each of these themes has confirmed that Melanesian and Pacific societies are deeply imbued with religious consciousness. This is not a peripheral interest of a few, but a basic focus of their holistic worldviews. This openness to input from the Other, or the Transcendent beyond the human, serves as an integrative factor holding together the various strands we have discussed. It has been summed up helpfully as the “search for salvation” at the heart of Melanesian worldviews.55 Any adequate approach to development in the Pacific needs to ask whether this search is itself being developed adequately to embrace and consolidate the desired developments in the various other worldview aspects? Or, reframing the question, how is this traditional religious consciousness and quest best served at this point in the historical development of the Pacific nations? There is only a limited number of options for responding to that question. Three stand out:

The Renaissance Option; Some might want simply to renew the traditional primal religious views and confirm the search for salvation as the quest for gutpela sindaun, “the good life.” Closely associated with each of the above themes is the Melanesian assumption that the goal of human life is to gain “the good life.” This is conceived fundamentally in terms of present satisfaction in every aspect of life: personal, family, business, social standing and material wealth. Flourishing means immediate gratification of material desires: fully satisfied communities, free from any pain or hindrance. Such a view, at first sight, appears similar to the Old Testament of the Bible concept of shalom – Hebrew for peace or complete harmony in every sphere of life. This partly explains the appeal or sense of affinity primal societies have with Hebraic thought. It is a short step from observing the ‘lo’ (law and customs) of the ancestors to a legalistic reliance on a new code of commandments to please God and to receive “blessing” from God – understood in material terms - as recompense for loyal obedience to the new laws. It is possible to make a transition from loyalty to one set of religious rules to another without any fundamental re-orientation of the underlying worldview. This has been a key aspect of most of the Melanesian adjustment movements or “cargo cults” which have proliferated in Melanesia.56 Some would suggest the traditional worldview should not be changed, assuming it may be possible to reconstruct what has already begun the process of change. But we have shown that would make any real participation in the wider socio-political and economic worlds impossible, since the contrasting worldviews are incompatible.

The Secular Option: Some Melanesians, as well as many outside observers see rejection of the primal worldview in favour of a full acceptance of the western secular option as the way forward. But we ask, “In Melanesian and Pacific societies so deeply imbued with religious consciousness, are secular options adequate for the changes taking place?” Or, in the light of the experience of the past fifty years at least in Melanesia, does the secular option, grafted onto an unchanged traditional worldview, or onto a merely technologically modernised primal worldview, not in fact foster short-

55 See, e.g., John Strelan’s analysis of adjustment movements in Melanesia entitled, Search for Salvation: Studies in the History and Theology of Cargo Cults, Adelaide, Lutheran Publishing House, 1977.56 As well as Strelan, see, Friedrich Steinbauer, Melanesian Cargo Cults: New Salvation Movements in the South Pacific, London and St. Lucia, Queensland: George Prior Publishers and University of Queensland , 1979


lived ventures and bribery and corruption as an inherent part of development in Melanesia today? The secular option’s basic failure to face the ontological reality of the religious experience of Melanesians, leaves it inherently reductionist and does not deal with the range of lived experience at the heart of the Pacific or Melanesian ways. Cultural integrity requires more than the secular option has to offer.

The Christian Theological Education Option: Cognisant of our bias, we suggest the Christian Gospel, even with its inappropriate and partial applications of some Christian history, has, with depth of contextual awareness, the seed-sowing potential to more adequately provide the needed integrative basis. The Gospel offers a way for retaining and enriching the “noble traditions” of Melanesian heritage,57 and also guiding the ongoing transitions of worldview necessary for meaningful, dignified Pacific participation in social, political, economic, environmental and spiritual development which is firmly embedded within our Pacific cultures. Theological Education's most significant contribution to such holistic development is the way it builds and renews the worldview basics, thereby equipping gardeners to tend the roots and ongoing health of the trees of cultural flourishing, not just focussing on means of harvesting currently accessible fruit.

The CLTC experience clearly recommends the third option.

John M. Hitchen,June 2016,Email: [email protected]

57 To use the phase from the PNG National Constitution.

mailto:[email protected]

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