Book Review: A story of seven modern martyrs

In April 2003 seven members of the Melanesian Brotherhood were brutally tortured and murdered during the “Ethnic Conflict” which almost destroyed life on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

Their deaths shook the Anglican world for the church at large saw these Brothers as peacemakers and mediators. Daily over their 78 years as a religious community. Brothers were often called upon to bring harmony and peace into the lives of individuals, families and communities, and nation as well as being evangelists of the Good News of God.

Richard Carter, an English priest, a tutor and chaplain, and I were admitted as Brothers in 1999-2000 into this entirely Melanesian religious community which is the largest Anglican order in the world with some 400 Brothers living and serving in The Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.

Richard and I lived through the tragedy and horror of these seven Brothers’ deaths which now SCM-Canterbury Press has published in Carter’s account of our “life in the Spirit”, of the crushing anxiety of those five months in 2003 and the horror-ridden news of their dying.

During those months before the community learned of the Brothers’ torture and deaths, they held together incredibly, keeping a 24-hour vigil of prayer in the community chapel for the supposed hostages held by the renegade, Harold Keke and his men. It was only in August that it was learned that all seven were killed on the day of their arrival at his camp.

Their death was the hardest piece of news ever received and the community felt broken. And yet it was a turning point not only for the Brothers but for all the people of the Solomons who turned out in their thousands for the funeral.

Despite the depth of sorrow, there was a sense that these Brothers had done something incredibly courageous and out of their great love. And so amidst the overwhelming grief there was a hint of hope, and soon a sense of God’s creative grace over death.

Richard Carter, now a priest at the Church of St. Martin-in the-Fields, London, has given us a deeply moving and profoundly honest insight into the day-to-day life and ministry of these young, committed Christians.

But it is also an unflinching account of pain and uncertainty, of hope over despair, of resurrection to new Life in Christ. As the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Preface says, “This is truly The Word made Flesh and a precious gift to us all”.