Celebrating the ‘Troubling’ Tongan Theologian Rev. Dr. Jione Havea

Joining the cloud of theologians, church leaders, academics, and Indigenous communities across the global public sphere, I offer my heartfelt tributes to Rev. Dr. Jione Havea. As we mourn the loss of his life, we also uphold Monica ma’am and Diya in our prayers during this difficult time, giving thanks to God for Jione’s life, faith, witness, and theological contributions.

The rich tributes paid by global church bodies, including the World Council of Churches (WCC), World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), Council for World Mission (CWM), Uniting Church in Australia, and the Methodist Church in Great Britain, along with numerous institutions and theologians, stand as a profound testament to how deeply Jione inspired, challenged, and influenced others through his theological writings and reflections.

His decolonial and Indigenous reflections on Scripture, land, and life remain deeply significant. His published books and articles speak profoundly and voluminously of his clarity, courage, and passion in seeking to make theology relevant to the realities and struggles of our times. Through his writings, Jione continually challenged the church and academy to listen afresh to voices from the margins, to honour Indigenous wisdom, and to reimagine theology as a living, liberative, and contextual practice rooted in justice, dignity, and hope.

I had the opportunity of knowing Jione through the Council for World Mission’s DARE initiatives, and it was an honour to work with him on the book Troubling (Public) Theology: Spaces, Bodies, Technologies (Bloomsbury, 2023), which he edited and to which I had the privilege of contributing a chapter. Later, I also had opportunities to meet him at Dalit theology conferences in India, where his warmth, humility, and theological insight left a lasting impression on me and many of our friends.

When Tonga was struck by the devastating tsunami triggered by an undersea volcanic eruption in 2021, I invited Jione, as a native Tongan Methodist pastor and theologian, to join an online prayer vigil that I organised for Tonga. Despite the difficult circumstances and the very late hour of the night, Jione joined us live to offer theological and contextual reflections from the ground reality. Even amidst crisis and suffering, he carried a profound pastoral presence and prophetic clarity, reminding us of the resilience, faith, and dignity of the Tongan people.

For me, Jione will forever be celebrated as a “troubling” Tongan theologian, one who was bold and prophetic in speaking out for the cause of justice anywhere and everywhere. His theology can be described as “troubling” in at least three important ways.

Firstly, his theology, particularly the way he re-read Scripture through an Indigenous, decolonial Pasifika perspective was deeply troubling to the Eurocentric colonial theological enterprise. He challenged dominant theological frameworks that had long marginalised Indigenous voices, cultures, lands, and ways of knowing, and he reclaimed theology from the margins of empire.

Secondly, his theology was troubling because he boldly challenged the church not to conform to systems of power, but to become prophetic in standing up for justice. His critique of empire-centric and empire-infested theology, especially through Indigenous epistemologies and his powerful “sea of theologies” paradigm, unsettled rigid theological boundaries and called the church towards relationality, fluidity, resistance, and liberation.

Thirdly, his theology was troubling because it challenged the very methods and imagination of doing theology itself. Through storytelling, metaphor, and the rich imagery of sea, land, ocean, currents, and voyage, Jione reimagined theology as something living, moving, contextual, and deeply connected to people, memory, struggle, and ecology. In doing so, he opened up creative and decolonial ways of theologising that inspired many across the world.

Perhaps one of the greatest lessons Dalit theologies can learn from Jione is this: theology must remain restless. It must continue to “trouble” every system, be it colonialism, casteism, racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ecclesial complicity and many other principalities and powers that denies the dignity and mutual flourishing of God’s creation.

Jione will forever be remembered and celebrated for his wisdom, theology, faith, humility, and unwavering passion for justice. His life and witness have left an enduring mark upon the church, academy, ecumenism and global public sphere. We will deeply miss his prophetic voice, gentle spirit, and courageous theological imagination.

Yet, his legacy will continue to live on through the many lives he inspired, the communities he journeyed with, and the theologies he nurtured from the margins and across the oceans. Long live Jione and his theology. May his theological legacy continue to challenge, inspire, and guide future generations towards justice, dignity, liberation, and hope. May he rest in God’s eternal peace and in the embrace of the vast ocean of divine love and may you rise in power.

Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta,

Stockport, UK

08.05.2026