CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHRISTIANITY IN JAVANESE CULTURE AND SOCIETY Java is by far the most populous of the islands of Indonesia. In 2000 out of a total population of nearly 206 million some 121 million lived in the very densely populated island of Java, some 830 per km2 (about 60 in Sumatra, 10 for Central and East Kalimantan, 140 in North Sulawesi and slightly over 4 for Papua).1 Th e numbers for Christians in Java in 2000 were; Statistics for Javanese Christians in 20002 Province Number of Percentage Total population Christians Jakarta 837,682 10.04% 8,361,079 West Java 703,604 1.9% 35,724,092 Banten 213,135 2.63% 8,098,277 Central Java 874,245 2.83% 31,223,259 Yogyakarta 245,062 7.85% 3,121,045 East Java 799,276 2.3% 34,765,998 Total 3,673,004 3.03% 121,293,750 Totalling 3,673,004, the Christians in Java represent a mere 20.5% of the sum of Indonesian Christians, while about 60% of the whole population live in Java. Th is fi gure alone is already a good indication of the minority position of Christianity in this most important island of the archipelago. In 1800 there were virtually no native Christians in Java. Besides the white Christians there was a much larger number of Eurasian baptised, but the real growth of these communities took place during the last two centuries. Still, the vast majority of Javanese are Muslim. Th e capital of Jakarta, a melting pot of the various ethnic identities of the country, showed in 2000 slightly higher than the national overall number of Christians or 8.92%. Besides, there was a signifi cantly higher number of Christians in the region of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, while the province of West Java had by far the lowest number for the Christians. Th is chapter seeks to sketch a picture of the history of these communities. 1 Cribb 2000:70, with some modifi cations. 2 Leo Suryadinata 2003:3, 115–116. K.A. Steenbrink and J.S. Aritonang - 9789047441830 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 07:07:28PM via free access 640 chapter fourteen In the fi rst half of the nineteenth century there were no indigenous Javanese Christian communities. Th ere were also no coordinated and continuing mis- sionary eff orts. Between 1822 and 1843 three missionaries of the London Missionary Society (LMS) worked in Batavia and some other cities. Th ey were William Milne, Robert Morrison and Walter Henry Medhurst. Th e Dutch Indies was their second choice. Th ey wanted to start a mission in China and they used the Chinese community of Batavia and other towns in the colony as a starting point for their fi nal goal. Medhurst joined the British army during the fi rst Opium War of 1843, as a translator, and had remained in China since then. Th e small Malay and Chinese congregations were left behind.3 Another missionary was the German Gottlob Brückner, who worked for the Baptist Mission Society of Britain and translated the New Testament into Javanese, had it printed (in Javanese characters) in Serampore between 1828 and 1831 and worked until 1857 in Semarang without many visible results. His trans- lation of the Gospel of Mark was printed in 1831 but initially forbidden by the colonial authorities, fearing that active missionising among the Javanese might cause troubles. Only in 1848 permission was given to sell sections of the New Testament among the Javanese.4 Th e real beginning of Javanese Christianity started with some local initia- tives by Eurasians. Th e fi rst was Coenraad Laurens Coolen, born in 1775 of a Russian father and a Javanese mother of noble descent. In 1816, while still a soldier in the colonial army, he came into contact with a small group of pious commoners who were nicknamed “the Surabaya Saints,” with the German born watchmaker Johannes Emde (1774–1859) as their central fi gure. Th e colonial government did not like the activities of this small group and in 1820 Emde was even sent to prison at the instigation of a minister of the Protestant Church (Indische Kerk). Aft er serving for some years in the colonial army and the forestry service, Coolen managed to get permission to clear a forest in the isolated region of Ngoro, close to Mojoagung, some 80 km southwest of Surabaya. Coolen became the founder of a new village that attracted many Javanese from the region. In the mid-1840s there were already about 1000 people. Coolen was a pious Christian, but also continued much of Javanese tradition and wisdom in his life. He was convinced that his son was the incarnation of the local saint whose grave was found in the forest of Ngoro. He was acknowledged as a kiyahi, a traditional wise and holy man, albeit in a Christian version, but still one who could give advice and receive visions. He did not urge the new villagers to become Christian, and accepted that many of them remained Muslim. But he set a number of specifi c rules 3 Steenbrink 2002. 4 Swellengrebel 1974:45. K.A. Steenbrink and J.S. Aritonang - 9789047441830 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 07:07:28PM via free access christianity in javanese culture and society 641 for his foundation like abstention from work on Sunday. Th e Christians were obliged to attend Sunday morning worship, as well as the midweek meeting in private houses. In the early 1840s a number of Ngoro villagers went to Emde in Surabaya to be baptised, something that was not practised by Coolen. Emde not only baptised the group but also told them to cut their hair, wear European clothes and refrain from semi-sacral wayang or traditional puppet play. Th ey were initially chased away from Ngoro by Coolen who did not like that Christians should behave like Europeans. But later Coolen gave in, and 200 of his people were baptised in 1854, but he forbade them to cut their hair or to change their names as was customary for other Javanese who were baptised. Coolen translated the basic doctrines of Christianity into Javanese and composed hymns in traditional Javanese style where his version of the Christian creed came very close to the Islamic confession, I believe in Allah, the One Th ere is no God but God Jesus Christ is the Spirit of God Who excels in his power Th ere is no God but God Jesus Christ is the Spirit of God.5 Th at God is called Allah was not so sensational because this is common in the Indonesian languages. Th e second and fift h line, however, is not in Javanese but very close to the Arabic and Muslim confession: la illaha illallah. Th at Jesus is called Spirit of God (Ruhullah) is also identical to the Muslim creed and phrasing. Coolen was assisted by Paulus Tosari and Abisai Ditatruna who founded near Ngoro the new village of Mojowarno, for the next century the centre of Christianity in East Java. We will deal in more detail with this ‘founding father’ of Christianity in East Java in the special section on East Java below. In Central Java the fi rst major movement towards Christianity was led by more sophisticated and semi-professional, but also self-made Christians teachers, the most important of them being commonly called Sadrach. Born in northern Central Java about 1835–1840 under the name of Abbas, he not only followed the basic training in chanting the Qur’an as was common for Muslim children, but he became also a student of Islam at several pesantren, boarding schools that have the character of Islamic monasteries or seminaries in the countryside of Java. His fi rst meeting with Christianity probably was through a gospel of John in Javanese translation that he received through an evangelist who preached at market places and distributed tracts and texts of the 5 Cf. Sutarman 1990:135. K.A. Steenbrink and J.S. Aritonang - 9789047441830 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 07:07:28PM via free access 642 chapter fourteen gospel. He came into contact with Dutch missionary Jelle Jellesma in East Java (Mojowarno), and with the rather independent Javanese Christian evangelist and mystic Ibrahim Tunggul Wulung near Jepara. Under the name Sadrach (Javanese converts were given no names from the New Testament, but from the Old Testament) he was baptised in 1867 in Batavia by the famous lay preacher Frederik Lodewijk Anthing. Sadrach for some time worked as an evangelist and distributor of tracts in cooperation with Anthing, but fi nally established a Christian centre of his own in Karangjoso, near Purworejo, in the southwestern region of Central Java. As Sadrach Surapranata he became leader of a more or less independent church (only in loose relation to the Irvingite Apostolic Church) that was considered by some Protestant missionaries as rebellious and heretical. In its heyday the Sadrach community had some 5,000 members in more than 60 small communities. Th e schism between Sadrach and the Reformed missionaries of Central Java occurred in 1891 during the visit of mission inspector Frans Lion Cachet and was from the beginning contested by some missionaries with experience in the fi eld who wanted to give more organisational and also religious freedom to this gift ed and original religious leader who had a thorough knowledge of the Bible. Sadrach established a well-organised structure for his congregations, regulating baptism, marriage and festive days. He also included some Islamic practices and local wisdom teachings (ngelmu) and defi nitely never wanted to become a blind imitator of foreign missionaries.6 Only aft er the death of Sadrach, the greater part of his movement was reunited with the Protestant mission congregations, and fi nally with the Gereja-gereja Kristen Jawa.