Disaster, Divine Judgment, and Original Sin: Christian Interpretations of Tropical Cyclone Winston and Climate Change in Fiji

Paradise in the Pacific is often rendered as a natural condition where ‘native’ people live in simple harmony without the need for government or state institutions. However, Christian traditions also include Paradise, not simply as a state of innocence but as a narrative of salvation history where Paradise is lost through sin and must be restored through sacrifice and repentance. This paper takes recent Fijian Christian interpretations of Tropical Cyclone Winston as a key site where contested ideologies of Paradise are being reworked. As the idyll of island harmony is disrupted by disaster, Christians have seen Winston as an act of divine judgement and punishment on a sinful people. This paper analyses how narratives of a sinful nation intersect with contemporary formulations of climate change, disaster, politics and human agency