Religion
The king and the majority of the royal family are members of the Free Wesleyan Church (Methodist) which claims some 40,000 adherents in the country. There are four other Methodist denominations in the country. The Roman Catholic Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints each have a strong presence in the country as well. There is also a small Seventh-day Adventist Church group (Anglicans), some adherents of the Bahá'í Faith in Tonga, and there are even some Tongan Muslims.
Tongans are ardent church goers. Church service usually follows a call and response structure. Singing in the church is often done a cappella. Although church attends primarily to the spiritual needs of the population, it also functions as the primary social hub. As consequence people who go to a church of another denomination are absolutely not shunned.
Sunday in Tonga is celebrated as a strict sabbath, enshrined so in the constitution, and despite some voices to the opposite, the Sunday ban is not likely to be abolished soon. No trade is allowed on Sunday, except essential services, after special approval by the minister of police. Those that break the law risk a fine or imprisonment.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Tonga
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“... religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“As soon as a religion comes to dominate, it has as its opponents all those who would have been its earliest disciples.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The only human beings I have thoroughly admired and respected in the world have been those who carried the load of the world with a smile, and who, in the face of anxieties that would have knocked me clean out, never showed a tremor. Such men and women end by owning us, soul and body, and our allegiance can never be shaken. We are only too glad to be owned. Religion is nothing but this.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)