Interrogating the Place of Practical Theology through the Sermons of Displaced iTaukei Communities

There are currently forty-two Fijian villages slated for relocation because of environmental catastrophes and rising tides.  The majority of these villages are iTaukei Fijian communities that are part of the Fijian Methodist church.  The sermons of these Indigenous communities describe rich and complex relationships with place (i.e. vanua) as a theological, biblical, and ontological category – often in response to place’s loss. They also resist reductive, colonial understandings of place that continue to haunt Western practical theological methods. In attending to the theological and ethical questions raised in iTaukei sermons, this paper interrogates approaches to place in practical theology that continue to marginalize displaced communities and argues for the environmental significance of the ecclesial practices of communities displaced by the climate crisis.