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CHANGING RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES: A CASE STUDY OF CATHOLIC CONVERSION IN YOGYAKARTA
TESIS
UNTUK MEMENUHI SEBAGIAN SYARAT MEMPEROLEH DERAJAT SARJANA S-2 PADA PROGRAM STUDI MAGISTER ILMU KAJIAN BUDAYA
PROGRAM STUDI MAGISTER ILMU KAJIAN BUDAYA
Diajukan oleh
Feras Husain Ebrahim Ahmed H S
166322015
FAKULTAS MAGISTER ILMU KAJIAN BUDAYA
UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA
2020
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KATA PENGANTAR
Saya ingin mendedikasikan halaman ini untuk setiap orang yang sudah berperan penting dalam pencapaian akademik saya. Pertama-tama, saya ingin berterima kasih kepada orang tua saya yang sudah mendukung saya dengan cinta dan pengertiannya. Tanpa mereka, saya tidak akan pernah bisa sampai pada titik kesuksesan saya sekarang ini. Kedua, saya ingin berterima kasih kepada semua profesor saya dan anggota staf Kajian Budaya, yang sudah membekali, membantu, memberi saran, dan membimbing saya dengan penuh kesabaran selama proses penelitian. Terima kasih semua untuk dukungannya yang tanpa lelah.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge everyone who played a role in my academic accomplishments. First of all, I would like to thank my parents who supported me with love and understanding. Without them, I could never have reached this current level of success. Secondly, The researcher would like also to thanks my professors and staff members of Culture Studies Programme, Faculty of Graduate
Studies, University of Sanata Dharma. : Dr. Yustinus Tri Subagya, Dr. Gregorius
Budi Subanar, S.J., Dr. Stanislaus Sunardi, Dr. FX. Baskara T. Wardaya, S.J..
They have helped the researcher in this research and guided the researcher through their wisdom and experience to understand and expand the researcher’s knowledge on the local church in Indonesia, especially in Semarang archdiocese.
Each of whom has provided patient advice and guidance throughout the research process. Thank you all for your unwavering support.
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DAFTAR ISI
HALAMAN JUDUL ...... i
HALAMAN PERSETUJUAN ...... ii
HALAMAN PENGESAHAN…………………………………………………..iii
HALAMAN PERNYATAAN ...... iv
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS……………..…………………………v
KATA PENGANTAR...... vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... vii
DAFTAR ISI...... viii
ABSTRAK ...... xi
ABSTRACT...... xii
CHAPTER I
1.1. Background of Study…………………………………..……………………1
1.2. Research Question………………………………………………………….14
1.3. Research Goal………………………………………………………………15
1.4. Significance of The Research……………………………………………...15
1.5. Literature Review………………………………………………………….16
1.6. Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………52
1.6.1. Catholics as Objects of Dynamics Structure Change………...52
1.6.2. Formation of Subjects identity as An On-going Process of
transition and conflict…………………………………………….56
1.7. Analytical Framework…………………………………………………60
1.8. Methodology…………………………………………………………....61
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A. The Research Method...…………………………………………....61
B. Research Plan………………………………………………………64
C. Ethic Consideration………………………………………………..66
D. Method Research…………………………………………………..66
CHAPTER II
THE DYNAMICS OF CATHOLICISM IN YOGYAKARTA
2.1. Introduction of Catholics in Yogyakarta…………………………………68
2.2. The Growth of Catholic in Yogyakarta…………………………………..73
2.3. The Pioneers of The Catholic Mission in Java…………………………...82
2.3.1. The Anti-Communist Purge and Conversions…………………….84
2.3.2. Growth of Catholic Faith…………………………………………...88
2.4. Catholics Role in Politics…………………………………………………..89
2.5. Catholic Church Hierarchy in Indonesia………………………………....97
2.6. The Relation of Catholics Community with Other Religious Groups...102
2.7. Intolerance and Discrimination in Yogyakarta (and Cross Religious
Dialogue)……………………………………………………………………….102
2.8. Attacks on Churches and Freedom of Worship……………………..…105
2.9. Cross Faith Relations between Religious Groups……………………...108
CHAPTER III
EIGHT EXPERIENCES OF BEING NEW CATHOLICS
3.1. A.G …………………...……………………………………………………113
3.2. J.M…………..……………………………………………………………..116
3.3. P.A…………………………………………………………………………121
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3.4. Mai……………...………………………………………………………….125
3.5. Mas Putra………………………………………………………………….129
3.6. Ria………………………………………………………………………….130
3.7. Vici…………………………………………………………………………134
3.8. Lisa X………………………………………………………………………138
CHAPTER IV
CONVERSION AND SOCIO -CULTURAL CONSEQUENCES
4.1.Individual Identity……………………….…………………..……………142
4.2. Conversion and Commitment ……...……………………………………159
4.3. The Opposition to Catholic Identity……………………………………..166
4.4. Closing Notes…………………………………………………………...…177
CHAPTER V
5.1. Preface……………………………………...……………………………...178
5.2. Limitations of Research and Suggestions……………………………….190
5.3. Closing…...……………………………………………………………...…192
REFERENCES………………………………………………………………..194
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ABSTRAK
Studi kasus tentang agama Katolik di Yogyakarta ini bertujuan untuk memberi titik terang dan pemahaman mengenai dinamika agama Katolik di Indonesia. Kedatangan agama Kristiani selama masa kolonial Belanda di Indonesia dan Jawa mempunyai pengaruh besar dalam pembuatan identitas baru diantara populasi mayoritas agama Islam. Kajian ini akan membahas tentang perjalanan orang awam Katolik dan juga misionaris dalam menetapkan kelompok kepercayaan mereka di Jawa Tengah. Ada banyak tantangan besar untuk identitas Katolik pada periode 1890 hingga saat ini. Perlu kita ketahui bahwa munculnya populasi Katolik di Jawa dan Yogyakarta sudah berkontribusi untuk keberadaan pentingnya sosok pahlawan nasional Republik Indonesia. Di sisi lain, akar identitas Katolik yang tertanam dalam budaya Jawa di Yogyakarta telah menciptakan dan membentuk identitas Katolik ini untuk pemeluk agama baru di Indonesia. Hal itu dilihat sebagai sebuah masalah bahkan sejak kemerdekaan Republik Indonesia.
Untuk meneliti hubungan antara negara dan agama di Indonesia, penelitian ini menggunakan konsep presentasi diri oleh Erving Goffman, dimana kita dapat melihat latar belakang dan pencitraan agama Katolik. Identitas mereka di publik sering dikaitkan dengan stigma seperti ketika awal kemerdekaan mereka dianggap sebagai pengkhianat dan sekutu Belanda, dan di era modern, Katolik dianggap sebagai sekutu Amerika dan negara Barat.
Penelitian ini berfokus pada konsep konversi dan konversi agama Katolik di Yogyakarta dan Jawa Tengah dimana peneliti lebih fokus pada perbedaan periode waktu selama konversi dari pribumi Yogyakarta. Beberapa adalah konversi spiritual dan beberapa adalah konversi paksaan sehubungan dengan kudeta anti komunis Indonesia (1965-1966). Terlebih, studi kasus ini mencoba untuk memusatkan hubungan antara negara dan agama Katolik dan juga agama kelompok minoritas dalam hal dinamika mereka dengan negara dan bagaimana Pancasila digunakan pada periode waktu yang berbeda dan terhadap kelompok agama minoritas.
Pada akhirnya, kemunculan intoleransi di Yogyakarta terhadap agama Katolik dan agama minoritas lainnya dimulai dengan jatuhnya rezim Soeharto yang mengarahkan ke kemunculan partai politik Islam seperti FPI di Indonesia dan Islamisasi orang Jawa dan budaya lokal. Ini dimana tantangan dimulai pada mayoritas populasi Islam di Indonesia dan kelompok agama minoritas di ranah politik demokrasi, dimana pembentukan identitas sosial yang baru dapat dilihat sebagai sebuah ancaman. Selanjutnya, penelitian ini akan menjelaskan dan membuka penanggungan dalam menetapkan sebuah identitas sosial Katolik di Yogyakarta.
Kata Kunci: conversion, religious identity, Catholic mission, culture, identity transition
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ABSTRACT
This case study of the Catholics in Yogyakarta aims to shed new light and have an understanding of the dynamics of the Catholics in this part of Indonesia. The advent of Christianity during the Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia and Java had a great impact in creating new identities among the large Muslim population. The study will show the journey of the Catholics laity as well as the missionaries in establishing their stronghold in Central Java. There were great challenges for the Catholic identity between the periods of 1890 until the current moment (2020). Also, we need to note that the rise of the Catholic population in Java and Yogyakarta had contributed to the establishment of very well important national heroes and figures in the Indonesian Republic. On the other hand, the deep-rooted Catholic identity which blended inside the Javanese culture in Yogyakarta had created and shaped this new Catholic identity for some converts within the Indonesian state. It was seen as a troublesome ever since the independence of the Indonesian Republic.
To scrutinize the relationship between the state and the religion in Indonesia, this research uses the concept of presentation of self by Erving Goffman, where we could see the Catholic in the background and on-stage presentation. Their identity to the public often faces many stigmas including at the early days of independence as being labeled as traitors and allies of the Dutch, and in the modern days, the Catholics get labeled as allies of America and the west.
This research shall also focus on the concept of conversion and the Catholic conversions in Yogyakarta and Central Java where the researcher shall further focus on the different time periods during the conversion of the natives in Yogyakarta. Some were spiritual conversions and some were forced conversion due to the Indonesian anti-communist coup (1965-1966). Moreover, this case study tries to centralize the relationship between the state and the Catholic faith as well as the religious minority in terms of their dynamics within the Indonesian Republic and how the Pancasila was used in different timelines and against religious minorities.
Finally, the rising intolerance in Yogyakarta towards Catholics and other religious minorities was started with the fall of the Soeharto regime which led to the rise of the Islamic political parties such as the FPI (Islamic defenders front) in Indonesia and the Islamization of the Javanese people and local culture. This is where the challenge begins in the populous Muslim majority in Indonesia and the religious minorities in the political sphere of democracy where the shaping of new social identities can be seen as a threat. However, this research will unveil the trials and tribulations in establishing a Catholic social identity in Yogyakarta.
Keywords: conversion, religious identity, Catholic mission, culture, identity transition
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CHAPTER I
1.1. Background of Study
In today’s modern world in Indonesia, Catholics are mostly the descendants of local converts. The Indonesian Catholics ancestors did not come from Rome or the Netherlands; they were locals from all walks of life who converted to Catholics faith. The exchange of culture and information mean that people can choose thoughts to share new insights with other cultures and religions where humans as social animals have got the birthright to ask questions and to compare religions and cultural identities. Globalization may seem only having the effect on the economic sector in terms of trade and conflicts in wars, however, it took an impact on religion in the fast-paced of information fellow towards people who travel extensively, and millions more who explore new religious possibilities of gaining information due to printing press and the visual world of media. This growing information exchange and cross-culture and religious interaction between individuals and communities alike had paved the road for the religious/culture concept of conversion. Common people may find it difficult to comprehend the concept of conversion while it breaks down towards the converts ‘transformed’ identities. What the researcher means by ‘transformed’ is the phenomena of religion conversion which are the adoption of new religious beliefs and cultures that differ from the convert's previous beliefs even though conversion may involve a new religious identity and habits which shift from one previous religious identity.
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According to Durkheim who stated that religion is a system of beliefs and practices relative to the sacred that unites those who adhere to them in a moral community. This simple definition even raises a second definitional issue immediately: What is the sacred? Durkheim defined the sacred as something that is set apart or forbidden. Durkheim’s definition might be widened to define the sacred of a realm of non-ordinary reality. The non-ordinary and ordinary are seen as in the world of daily. The primary activity is to “bring about a projected state of affairs by bodily movements, and day to day activities as well as social responsibilities1 ( Bellah, 2011, p.2). Hence religion is very vital for daily life both is social and spiritual sphere the loss of religion creates much great vacuum both on a social culture and spiritual level this may lead to conversion sense the need to fill up the void in the individual life, the emptiness in human interaction
( which is a back clash in conversion) may effects the individual social life and leads it to isolation , so therefore nesscery for people to seek since humans beings are a social species that relies on cooperation to survive and thrive in which conversion may become the ultimate alternative for social, religious breakdowns.
Living in a region where faith and cultures coexist side by side peacefully, the researcher had witnessed seekers who are converting to other religions in the
Kingdom of Bahrain, there are mainly new converts who are truing towards
Christianity of all denominations which is domented throughout the eastern
Arabian Gulf region. The freedom to practice Christianity or any religion other than Islam is not always a given in the Gulf and varies from country to country.
1 Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleo lithic to the Axial Age
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On the Other hand, the Catholic Church in Indonesia represents a population of
7.792.000, taken from a recent survey from Church History and Facts –
INDONESIA(2015). However, this number may seem small if we want to compare it to the greater Muslim majority. It might be easy for a Catholic person to convert to the greater majority. Yet, any kind of conversion for any of reason may take religious conversion into a new total perspective which can be met with hostility and suspicious motives for their conversion.
The converts or already have converted, they are left with the puzzling question of ‘who I am in the society’ and ‘where do I belong’ and ‘what is my function in this newly transformed religious identity converting Muslims,’ in some parts of the world they carry a sentence which is punishable by death, although such sentences are rare. On the other hand, it is the case of evangelical
Christians who do proselytize and end up creating difficulties for all the churches, as the angered authorities clamp down on everyone, several Christian leaders said
(Reuter, 2010).
Religion and culture in Indonesia go hand in hand with politics sphere. Let us take a quick review of the area of focus religious conversion. Politics took a very different turn and approach to the role of Mgr. A Soegijapranata, the
Archdiocese of Semarang, which was to move and fight against communism through discussion with the Catholic politicians and to keep away the Catholics from the influence of the communist organization while the risks of taking sides were crucial at that time. The Archdiocese of Semarang forbade joining the military action to screen the membership of the communist party and not get
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involved in violent actions. Then, from 1967 to 1968, the impact of the abortive coup of the communist party and the fear of being without an official religion within the I.D card (KTP) had pushed forward the conversions and a sense of belonging to an official religion (Buddhist, Catholic, Islam, Hindu, Protestant) as a consequence of this policy. Then, there was a big wave of conversions among
Indonesian people. However, many Indonesians were followers of local native religions.(Subanar, 2001 , 240-241)
The Archdiocese of Semarang was involved in assisting the other
Indonesian citizens becoming Christians. However, there was a big risk taken by the persons or families who tried to help the children of the victims of the chaotic situation. During this period of 1967, there were a great number of baptisms, also in the Archdiocese of Semarang. For the citizens who became Catholic, this was not without risks, whether or not because of the society or their families. There was a sharp increase between the year 1964 in which the Catholic converts were only 4102. It jumped sharply to 13.489 in 1967. Then, in 1969, it was as high as
15.778 converts. Yet, the number of converts was decreased to 5.960 in 1973. As the consequence of the wave of conversions and the increasing number of faithful, new challenges and problems were created for the pastoral care of the faithful.
These challenges and problems included purification of motivations, lay leadership, religious freedom, etc.( Subanar , 2001, 242)
Studying the motivation of conversions to Christianity, some researchers showed that there were some motives for conversion which mostly were political.
The priests who gave pastoral care to the faithful saw other concrete factors which
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influenced the conversion to Christianity. In 1969, the governor of central Java made a policy which invited the religious leaders to take part in the program of mental and spiritual education. Other than talking about biblical or magisterial doctrines, some priests talked about the ethics of Pancasila, showing that those were universal and social ethics. In this way, the people were helped since they knew the professional (Catholic) organizations which were based upon Pancasila
Ideology.
Issues of conversion are not only about changing a social class or even improving one’s security. There is another social dilemma which is the social care and welfare by priests, nuns, and catechists. During the communist purge, it created a massive wave of newly baptized people. Between the years 1967 until
1970, the number of newly baptized people surged and so did the role of layman catechists whose role of caring of the converts from the people to the people who newly converted so this process could ease the pressure on the church. This happened in the same period of the II Vatican Council which made many changes in doctrine and religious practices. This was a new situation which demanded necessary renewal for the catechists. Moreover, after the abortive coup of the
Indonesian communist party, the Indonesian government made a policy that every citizen should belong to one of the official five religions. Besides, there was also an obligation for schools (both private and state schools). It meant that there was also a necessity to supply religion teachers to various schools, private schools, and state schools as well as the parishes. The aftermath of conversion in modern
Indonesia on the development of the Indonesian Catholic community first,
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despite constituting a small minority, Catholics have played an active role in the construction of a democratic Indonesia; second, and a corollary, this Catholic community has achieved a transition from a missionary church into a fully
Indonesian one. So there are basically two poles which either support or hinder the process of conversion the Islamic ethico-religious ideal of shari’ahin the form of constitutionalized law, and the inclusive principles of Pancasila as a sort of civil religion. Ever since the mass conversions the abnagan there was a change of religious demography which attracted a lot of tension from Muslim groups had called for the stop of christianization.
Depending on the social circumstances of the individuals and the prevailing religious prejudices of each society, these pragmatic reasons include difficulty and harassment and even death threats to members of minority religions or converts. It "marks a transformation of religious identity and is symbolized by special rituals" where these rights of passage ceremony occur when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society which some perceived it as a deviant act that disturbs the social structure.
Conversion may provide the final resolution to the identity or social status question, unifying a previously divided self and allowing an investment of the self in new commitments and goals. By placing the adolescent in the context of a group or a tradition which spells out clear commitments and clear guidelines for behavior, a religious conversion supplies the important ingredients of a self- definition. Identity of conversion transformation is really a matter of re- socialization, rather than choice and in that sense, converts are more or less
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passive victims of social processes beyond their grasp and control. What the researcher means by the re-socialization of the self are cultures and habits which undergo social pressure and adoption of new rituals and habits i.e.: eating habits, celebrating religious festivals, social behavior and associations where the former centralized religious institutions are shifted to new changes of the roles of the converted individuals. They are embedded in their new social sphere in which the new worship places play a role of a coffee house like meeting place where discussions are taking place in both the public and private realm. The researcher cannot assure that spirituality may be the lead attraction to religion or it may have a greater social factor for religious conversion. This all will be answered in the upcoming chapters. Personality formation is very vital if we take a brief look in
Goffman’s (1959) theory of the presentation of the self. For Goffman, the self is a series of false facades or masks, presented semi deliberately in order to predict and control the reaction of the other. In the case of conversion, individuals and groups alike tend to behave in a manner which helps them to adapt to the social pressure to survive from isolation (Goffman, p.251, 1959).
The city of Yogyakarta is the central focus of my study. This city is known for what may look like a peaceful city where we can enjoy a blend of religious coexistence and national mysticism of the Pancasila. However, with the collapse of the omnipotent central regime of the new order, the fragmentation of power in the post-Soeharto era had opened the doors for democracy and decentralization to the nation. This decentralization created a power vacuum for religious or ethnic groups to emerge and demand more rights and question their identity role within
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the new democratic government in result of that there were many inter religious and ethnic conflicts in . This situation gave rise to religious groups or conservative groups in Indonesia. The category ‘religion’ has been appropriated in terms of
‘agama’. A Sanskrit loanword, agama combines a Christian’s view of what counts as a world religion with an Islamic understanding of what defines a proper religion– a prophet, a holy book, and a belief in the one and only God.
Accordingly, Indonesian religious politics can be labelled to borrow Sven
Cederroth’s felicitous expression (Cederroth, 1996) – ‘agamazation’, or more generally, ‘religionization’, implying that adherents of indigenous religions are
‘not part of any official religion’ and therefore, they are expected to be
‘religionized’. The free atmosphere of reformation since 1998 has allowed a healthy ideological debate that provides a convenient corpus of arguments state and society in the religious field, and consider whether ‘religions’ can shift from the public domain to the private sphere, or in other words, be somewhat separated from the state.
Faith conversion in Indonesia, especially Yogyakarta city, is seen as a problematic idea or topic of change in the society upon freedom of choice.
According to Michel Picard, (2011, p.99) the advent of the reformation since 1998 has been associated with a process of ‘de-Javanizing’ in Indonesian politics. As
‘New Order Regime politics was Javanese politics, closed and centralist’, post-
Soeharto politics experienced an anti-Javanese backlash. The converts are culture and capital resource for the Indonesian identity construction at the personal and growth group level. It is vital for members of actively participating in society in
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the city of Yogyakarta hold great special status even though it is a separate administrative entity. Yogyakarta is historically and culturally part of the Central
Java. It is the only region in Indonesia that is still governed by a pre-colonial monarchy, the Sultan of Yogyakarta, who serves as the hereditary governor of the region. However, religious syncretism in Yogyakarta exhibits a blending of religious belief systems into a new system. The clash between the secular systems among the several groups of more extreme Islamists most still maintains the
Indonesian state as their framework of action. Such as in the case of the Front
Pembela Islam (FPI) or Front of the Defenders of Islam with rising hostility against a minority, it is leaving a climate of fear for freedom of religion. Freedom of faith is also imperiled by amendments requested for the Criminal Code, where articles on blasphemy have been aggravated. (Picard, 2011, p.99).
Hardline of religious ideology and laws against blasphemy may hinder freedom of religion and religious practice which has a great impact on conversion
(Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified by
Indonesia, 23 February 2006). The partaking of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights ratified by Indonesia states the following:
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his
choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in
public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance,
practice, and teaching.
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2. No one shall be subject to coercion which will impair his freedom to have or
to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such
limitations as are prescribed by law and they are necessary to protect public
safety, order, health, morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
4. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the
liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious
and moral education of their children in conformity with their own
convictions.
This research does not tend to favor Catholicism over any other religion, yet, it helps to understand the process of adopting a new faith through the integration and the interaction of the converts towards the society. In the researcher’s experience of meeting different converts who are in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia, and overseas, the issue of religious conversion by individual converts may face some setbacks which may hinder their daily life activities such as gaining access to jobs or ex-communication by family members and friends during social gatherings for simply being different in choosing new religious beliefs. This can cause some misconception by the community about the converts for being a rebel, fanatic, or even mentally insane for choosing to adopt a new religious belief. The researcher has encountered some friends of the converts who have converted and witnessed different types of threats and faced ex- communication by family members or even at risk for losing their jobs. If these individual converts come out to express their new religious beliefs, it may be a
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blessing in disguise for many people within the community. On the other hand, there is a very thin line between conversion and freedom of beliefs, in identity and sense of belonging.
Moreover, the actual notion of conversion to a religion is very widely spread in media. Perhaps, highlighting the stories of theological aspects of conversion dominate the concept of conversion of which religion may hold the right path. However, religion and identity transformation of converts may address the thought on these new phenomena to be handled by both community and institution of the Catholic faith. The conversion may shed light upon comprehending culture, social identity, and historical transitions It was due to the researcher’s experience and the researcher’s years of talking to converts which inspired the researcher’s inner desire to investigate these truly life experiences by individuals in Indonesia. Conversions between faiths occur as it is allowed by law.
They remain a source of controversy.
The Conversion dynamics may be different if it is in terms of minority religion conversion to a majority religion. However, it was the other way around, from a majority religion conversion into minority religion that can cause friction and conflict within the community.
In my experience of meeting different converts who are in Indonesia Yogyakarta and overseas the issue of religious conversion by individuals converts may face some setbacks which may hinder their daily life activities such as gaining access to jobs or excommunication by family members and friends during social gatherings for simply being different in choosing new religious believes, this can cause some a misconception by the community about the convert for being a rebel, fanatic or even mentally insane for choosing to adopt a new religious belief, I have encountered some friends of the converts who have converted are witnessing different types threats and face excommunication by family members
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or even at risk for losing their jobs if these individual converts come out to express their new religious believes it may be a blessing in disguise for many people within the community on the other hand there is a very thin line between conversion and freedom of believes in an identity and sense of belonging. The following up part is very vital in the case of conversion which is seen as Erikson states, in fact, emphasizing the often paradoxical is emotionally conflicted by nature of adolescent.(Erikson, 1958, p. 42). In a similar case of conversion in Indonesia within the island of Madura Its population of some 7 million people is mostly Muslim; there are very few Christians. But one man converted to Catholicism, Damianus Edi Rusmanto. Edi belongs to St. Mary of Mount Carmel Parish in Sumenep. The parish has 500 members, most of them ethnic Chinese. As a person of Madurese descent who converted to Christianity, Edi has been harshly treated by neighbors and former friends; and his attempts to teach the community about tolerance continue to require great patience. “When I was old enough to begin elementary school, my father sent me to a Catholic school in Sumenep, next to St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church. There, I met the Sisters of the Congregation of the Sisters of the East; when I was in the Fifth Grade, I asked my father if I could become a Catholic. He did not forbid it. Instead, he supported me. He told me to take my faith seriously. I was eventually baptized, and my family soon followed(churchinneed, 2019) . in my opinion this case of conversion of one of Muslim dominant regions of Indonesia this case can show us tolerance within the family and partial acceptance of the notion of conversion which is surprisingly amazing . The support and communal care of converts’ topic and research are limited due to the lack of research in this phenomenon. The researcher has managed to find articles and books related to this issue of the communal care of the converts.
Debates about whether a conversion is sudden or gradual, total or partial, active or passive, internal or external are useful only if we accept that conversion can occur anywhere between these poles, which have been constructed by converts themselves. As the researcher remarked earlier, the conversion is a process, not a specific event. Perhaps, the word converting better captures the phenomenology of the process. Therefore, social bonding is connected to one’s identity and culture. Conversion is an essential right for individuals from whom
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whatever social class of society belong to today. Converts may be at odds with the right to inherit cultural or religious identity respects for. Diversity is at the core of the Indonesian society Pancasila system of social justice for all Indonesians
"Keadilan Sosial bagi seluruh rakyat Indonesia." These principles of Pancasila are very noble but is it actually effective when it comes to the deal with religious tolerance and how does the Indonesian society view the idea of freedom of choice and the notion of conversion, unlike other countries which view religious diversity as a threat like Myanmar where Muslims are persecuted for their race and religion and in Syria and Iraq after the wars? The element of religious diversity and tolerance played a major part in creating this strong national ponding element which perverted the country to fall apart through the weapon of respecting and tolerating the other religious and cultural values. The challenge for a new understanding on the taboo topic of conversion which shed lights upon one’s decision making to choose the identity belonging within Indonesia in today’s plural cultural in Indonesia is that identity is at central for understanding matters concerning the integration and socialization of converts. The growing intolerance in Indonesia was researched by Setara-Institute. The 2017 Index of Tolerant Cities is based on a study carried out in 94 cities nationwide between November 2016 and October 2017. The study looked at each local government’s efforts to promote and practice tolerance. And, cities were awarded scores from 1 to 7, with a higher number indicating more tolerance. Jakarta is written at the bottom of the list by Banda Aceh (Aceh), Bogor (West Java), Cilegon (Banten), Depok (West
Java) and Yogyakarta. This previous study may ring some alarming pills for some
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individuals who have converted who may need outreach programs and rights by social activities organized by religious and civil groups that may ease the daily life of anyone who is going through such conversion in terms of being treated normally (SHEANY, 2017).2
1.2. Research Question
The researcher would like to focus on the guided study research on the following research questions:
1. How is the social dynamic of Catholics in Yogyakarta? How are the
historical narratives of the Catholics in Yogyakarta?
2. Why do people decide to convert to Catholicism in Yogyakarta or
Indonesia? How do people undergo the process of religious
conversion?
3. How do the newly converts feel about the conversion? How do people
give the meanings of their new religious identities?
4. How do the new converts adapt to new religious identities? Do the
new converts change their status in society?
2 https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/11/16/bogor-most-intolerant-city-indonesia-says- setara.html
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1.3. Research Goal
This research seeks to reveal people’s experience in the Catholic conversion process. The general purpose of this research is to describe the phenomena of religious conversion. Then, the research objectives are:
1. To describe and analyze cases of converts in the Catholic Church.
2. To understand communal social support that is appropriate to the
context of the converted of individuals and how it brings awareness to
identity belonging after conversion.
3. To comprehend the tolerance in the city of Yogyakarta.
This thesis will specifically avoid any theological discussion of the specific meaning of conversion to Catholicism. Rather, the conversion will be used broadly to refer to both the process of changing religious affiliation to the
Catholic Church community.
1.4. Significance of The Research
This research is meant to shed light upon the new convert’s issues to the
Catholic faith and its relation to members of society within Yogyakarta,
Indonesia. This case study will contribute to the community and to individuals who are newly converted throughout the world to make them feel at peace and to ease their journey to their new identity.
This study is focused on anyone who is going through any type of religious conversion because it involves the social identity formation factors of belonging and refuge by both religious institution and the community. The
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awareness of conversion and wellbeing of converts, on the other hand, should be focused on, especially, when the converts often endure persecution and threats, having the right approach or a system that may provide an easy way for anyone who is considering converting.
This research aims to understand the convert’s ability to maintain their presences as in the society without having to go through conflict with the society by studying the social or cultural and historical contexts dimensions and share their similar issues to enable the converts to select their own individual identities.
The deviant perspective has focused more on the motivations for conversion, not the consequences that may influence the converts and their surrounding communities that range from the family to society at large.
1.5. Literature Review
There are numerous important issues and developments concerning conversion to Christianity and Christians in Indonesia during the late colonial era, reformation era and today. This literature review focuses on three main issues: a)
The definition of religious conversion and its socio-cultural consequences, b) the issues of conversion in Indonesia, c) inter-religious relations and religious conversion and its socio-cultural effects.
a) The concept of conversion of religion is the adoption of new religious beliefs
that are different from the convert's previous beliefs. However, it involves
many elements such as new religious beliefs, personal identity, or a change in
culture and political-social belonging as well as economic interests. The
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researcher shall discuss the conversion, the internalization of the new the
concept of conversion to Catholicism life span, and culture-historical
dynamics within Yogyakarta.
The definition of conversion refers to shifts across religious traditions. We
reserve the term “conversion” for “long-distance” shifts in religious
allegiance. Those are involving a shift across traditions, as from Judaism or
Roman paganism to Christianity, from Christianity to Hinduism, or from the
religion to Islam. Re-affiliation: refers to shifts within religious traditions.
Usually, when people switch from one religious group to another, nothing is
as dramatic as the conversion is involved. Rather than shifting their religious
tradition, most of the time, people merely join a new group within their prior
tradition, as when Baptists become Catholics, or Sunni Muslims become
Shi’ites. His process of re-affiliation is very similar to the process involved in
conversion—although it is far more frequent and much less disruptive than
conversion in terms of the costs to the individual and the group. Mass
Conversion means, in contrast, religionists attribute mass conversions to an
effective prophet or preacher who exposes people to the light of truth and
logic. For example, for Christian scholars, the oldest and still dominant
explanation of the rise of Christianity is that the Greco-Roman world was
saved by mass conversions in response to public preaching that led
reasonable people to draw reasonable conclusions (Stark, 2000, p. 114).3
3 Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion
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Conversion can be understood as the process of changing or causing something to change from one form to another. However, in this context, conversion can be seen as the paths to God or Creation of the family
(marriage). It can even look like something from the perspective of an economy and the Cold War effect on conversion. Thus, there is no direct definition of conversion. It is dependence on the context meaning. Whether the conversion of Sual to Saint Paul or Conversion on the way to Damascus the conversion from Judaism to Christianity, it may seem like an old ancient phenomenon or the conversion of the Edith Stein. An ex-atheist, who was a
German Jewish philosopher, converted to Catholicism and became a
Discalced Carmelite nun in the 19th century. All of these conversion phenomena are common among all walks of life. It is often seen as taboo phenomena that were affecting everyone from indigenous/native religious traditions. Therefore, understanding conversion requires some consideration of what people are ‘converting’ from; that is, in this case of culture as a cohesion tool and a source of social belonging and uniting people into conformity. However, the conversion may cause social disorder. This happens when the meaning and purpose values fail to address the needs of the individuals. On the other hand, conversion, according to American sociologist
Rodney Stark, referred to an abrupt religious experience involving an increased commitment within the framework of the person's own religious group. This experience typically occurred against the background of an already devout religious life. In other studies, conversion designates a change
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from one religious affiliation to another, in most cases to culturally deviant groups or from a nonreligious background to an intense commitment to religious beliefs. Converts who participated in the present investigation have actually changed their religious affiliation, following their conversion or they have at least acted upon their new religious commitment by joining a new organization or a new community (Stark, 2000, p.198). Conversions of this type involve the most easily discernible changes in beliefs and attitudes.
Conversion is really a matter of re-socialization, rather than choice and in that sense converts are more or less passive victims of social processes beyond their grasp and control.
The domains of conformity on conversion are seldom about seeking or embracing an ideology. It is about bringing one’s religious behavior into alignment with that of one’s friends and family members, a major stake in conformity that consists of our attachments to others. Most of us conform in order to retain the good opinion of our friends and family. However, some people lack attachments. Their rates of deviance are much higher than those people with an abundance of attachments. Political-social aspect is a major stake in conformity, consists of our attachments to conform in order to retain the good opinion of our friends and family and to others. Yet, most people lack attachments. Their rates of deviance are much higher than those people with an abundance of attachments (Rodeny Starks, 2000, p.120).
Rodeny (2000) refers to belonging and ponding as a meaning-making tool: in the case of the religious sect, the Moonies, sociologists, also found it
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interesting that even though all the converts were quick to describe how empty and desolate their spiritual lives had been prior to their conversion; many claimed that they had not been particularly interested in religion before.
Moreover, we can draw upon this capital in times of our friends’ need will rally to our support here. We see why children usually adhere to the faith of their parents and relatives. By doing so, they protect their kinship ties. By remaining within the faith of those to whom one is attached, one maximizes social capital by retaining the good opinion of others. Marriage and migration are major factors tending to produce shifts in attachments that newcomers must make new friends.
The process of conversion which involves a relocation of religious thought , culture and daily habits creates this new vacuum before or during the conversion process so therefore the notion of the homlessminds according to
Peter Berger is seen as pluralization is held to undermine the great traditional source of meaning. The religion of the ‘homelessness’ of modern social life has found its most devastating expression in the area of religion (Berger,
2001, p.200) Homeless Minds is forced to turn to the only remaining source of meaning and significance: their own subjectivities. Human beings are not capable of tolerating the continuous uncertainty (or, if you will, freedom) of existing without institutional supports. The way is thus paved for ‘homeless minds’ to seek out what Berger calls ‘secondary institutions’. These are less strongly institutionalized than the primary institutions which are experienced as an iron cage of meaninglessness and rigidity. At the same time, they are
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sufficiently institutionalized to provide some guidance, and thus to serve as a
refuge and support for ‘homeless minds’. Secondary institutions may cater for
those who seek liberation from the iron cage, that wants to find identity and
growth by way of what lies within, but also feels the need for guidance with
regard to what their ‘subjective reality’ has to offer. We can relate here the
second institutions are the second identity which is selected by the convert to
replace that social, religious and self-identity vacuum.
From the researcher’s perspective about what Berger is referring to as the
‘homeless minds’, it can be seen from a religious-social concept that the
converts cannot live without an actual institution which is referred to as
religion. Therefore, the converts long to belong. Nevertheless, the former
religion is completely gone. There will be a greater need to revive social or
political ponds by remerging within these groups through the process of
conversion which is the right passage for conformity and acceptance.
Secondary institutions may cater for those who seek liberation from the iron
cage that wants to find identity and growth by way of what lies within but
also feels the need for guidance with regard to what institutions cater for the
‘homeless minds.’ The study of religion ‘loss of faith’ in primary institutions:
The loss of faith in primary institutions commitment has shifted towards
‘self-realization’. b) Issues of Conversion in Indonesia
Islam was coming to Indonesia as it did filter through the religious experience
of India. It had acquired mystical elements that fitted it well for acceptance in
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the Indonesian setting. Especially, in Java, it remained no more than a thin
veneer in Javanese religion. However, from the latter part of the nineteenth
century onward, Indonesian Islam gradually began to shed some of its
syncretic characteristics, partly because of greatly increasing contact with
Mecca as rapidly increasing numbers of Indonesians who undertook the hag.
There, it remained in Java. However, a sharp difference happens between the
santri and abangan variants in Islam. In greatly simplified terms, the santri4
can be identified with a concern with Islamic doctrine, with observing the
prayers, with intolerance for heterodox Javanese beliefs and practices, and
with a sense of the Islamic community, of umat. On the contrary, the abangan
practices some form of the Javanese syncretic religion, though the dominance
of animistic as well as Hindu-Buddhist folk beliefs shifts to an emphasis on
more sophisticated beliefs integrating Hindu-Buddhist concepts of fate,
reincarnation, and the philosophy of life.( W. Jones,38,1976).
The encounter between Javanism and Christianity spread across various
Christian proselytizing groups. As for the Protestants, European missionaries,
as well as Indo-European pious laypersons and some indigenous religious
leaders, contributed to the spread of Christianity in a disorderly and often
competitive manner. In the case of Catholics, on the other hand, the Jesuits
played a decisive role in this development. Back in the Netherlands Indies
since 1859, the Society of Jesus was formally charged with the mission in
1893. In 1896, the first three Jesuits settled in Central Java, on the margins of
4 The santri are people in Javanese who practice a more orthodox version of Islam
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the European environment. The work of one of them, Franciscus van Lith, who spent 25 years (1896–1921) among the Javanese, deserves special attention, both for the profusion of documentation he left and for the prominent role attributed to him by the Indonesian Catholic memory. When van Lith arrived in Muntilan, a small town of Central Java, some 30 km north of Yogyakarta, the number of Catholics in Central Java had the total number of only a few hundred natives. Forty years later, the 28,877 non-European who were Catholics of the Apostolic Vicariate of Batavia appearing in 1939.
Statistics were almost all living in this area. Today, with half of a million
Catholics (and more or less the same number of Protestants) in the
Archdiocese of Semarang, Christians are living in the Indonesian province of
Central Java and the Special Region of Yogyakarta that represents a rather dynamic minority in this overwhelmingly Muslim society ( Steenbrink 2007, p. 355-357). Central Java is a very rare example of mass Christianization in a
Muslim area. The missionary station of Muntilan later is called the
‘Bethlehem of Java’ by the alumni of the Xavier College that took on the major role in this development (Rosariyanto 1997, p. 1). Under van Lith’s leadership, Muntilan became the center of the Catholic Javanese mission during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In spite of his indisputable success, Franciscus van Lith was a very controversial figure.
F.X. Satiman, the first Indonesian Jesuit, called van Lith ‘the father of the
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Javanese’, but the Dutch-colonial government branded him as ‘a social-
communist priest’.)5
In West and East Java, the small flocks of Christians came from the rural
areas and in most cases, they were brought together in isolated Christian
villages. Until the 1950s, urban Christianity was something for the European
and Chinese population, with the exception of Central Java where both
Protestants and Catholics from the beginning were used to living in a diaspora
situation of a tiny minority. In the 1950s and 1960s, more and more rural
Christians were also turned to urban life. From the 1970s on, with the light
decline of the Christian presence in primary and secondary education
(although they still fostered the strong position as quality schools), there was
more and more academic education organized by Christian institutions.
Jakarta has now a score of Christian universities. In Yogyakarta, we find side
by side the Jesuit Sanata Dharma University and a branch of the Jakarta Atma
Jaya University, led by the Catholic laity in cooperation with the diocesan
clergy. Similarly, the mainstream Protestant Duta Wacana University of
Yogyakarta developed in rivalry with the Evangelical Immanuel Christian
University. All these institutions, however, could never dominate the
5 Mgr. Antonis van Velsen (SJ) called him ‘a dangerous man’ (Rosariyanto, 1997, p. 2) and the Catholic politician, Feber, spoke of his as ‘swerving to the extreme left in his later years’. Such varied opinions can be explained by the fact that van Lith personified an acculturation model of Christianity paired with a political commitment Both aspects are relatively innovative within the Dutch East Indies clergy. This earned him the enmity of many of his colleagues and conversely boundless admiration from much of the indigenous Catholic population. The Jesuit often presented as a kind of ‘Catholic wali sanga’, gave birth to a considerable literature within the Catholic community, which greatly contributed to the Javanese narrative of the implementation of Catholicism. In that way, it was the ‘van Lith epic’. Overshadowing some elements and highlighting others, he allowed Indonesians to develop a specific conception of their entry into the Catholic religion, which inscribed it in a broader spiritual history (Karel Steenbrink, 2008, p. 438
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educational market, and could not even compete with the much richer and
more prestigious state universities (Steenbrink, 2008, p. 707). For the period
between 1945 and 2000, three issues dominated the Christian denominations
which were probably much more important for urban people than for rural
Christians. Firstly, from 1945 until 1965, the main issue was that of
consolidation, proving that Christianity was not the religion of the colonizer
and oppressor, but a living religion for true Indonesians. Secondly, 1965–
1985 was the period of contribution to development. In this period, we see the
start of the development aid in Europe. Churches should have become
independent in this period but there was a contradicting counter-current of
money. Particularly, Germany and the Netherlands started supporting
development projects that were proposed and managed by church personnel.
Another issue that became very prominent in this period was enculturation or
contextualization. The Christian message should be brought into harmony
with Indonesian local cultures. Thirdly, in the period 1985–2000, we noticed
more and more distance from actual politics. Development organizations
became independent from the churches as NGOs. The Evangelical and
Pentecostal churches became more prominent, mostly in the urban areas of
Java. The Charismatic movement became strong among Chinese Catholics in
the bigger cities (Steenbrink, 2008, p. 647).6 After Indonesia’s independence
in 1945, the role of the sultans of Surakarta and Yogyakarta became less
conspicuous, though Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX (r. 1939–1988) especially
6 A History of Christianity in Indonesia
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played an important role in the politics of the republic, as a cabinet minister under Soekarno’s and later under Soeharto’s regime, and even (1973–1978) as vice-president of the republic. At the end of the twentieth century, his heir,
Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, was involved in creating the conditions for the so-called Reformasi after Soeharto’s fall. Finally, we have to mention here, that in 1965–1966, the bloody clash between Soeharto’s army and certain
Islamic groups on one hand, and members and sympathizers of the
Communist Party (PKI) and nationalists, on the other hand, did cost tens of thousands of lives in Central Java and left deep scars which are felt until today. Both in East Java and Central Java, thousands of victims and accused people came to the Christian churches to seek refuge and comfort. During the economic and political uncertainty of the final years of Soekarno’s reign and during the first decade of Soeharto’s regime, the churches grew rather spectacularly (Karel Steenbrink, 2008, p. 685).
Christianity is no stranger to the region. It was actually, in 1900, enjoying the experience of self-governance within the GKJ began, as the congregation in
Purworejo received its own church board. The work in Yogyakarta and especially Surakarta prospered. The intensive contacts with the upper class of priyayi led to a type of congregation that showed self-confidence and power.
The first medical doctor (J.G. Scheurer, from 1893 on) and the first hospital,
Petronella hospital (now Rumah Sakit Bethesda), were established in
Yogyakarta. In 1904, the characteristic of the church building in
Gondokusuman (Yogyakarta) was built and a year later, the teachers of
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seminary (Keuchenius School) opened its gates, serving as a training school
for indigenous evangelists. From 1911, on this training school, headed by
Rev. D. Bakker, functioned independently as a seminary. It was developed
into the present Universitas Kristen Duta Wacana. Within twenty years after
it started its work, the mission of the GKN supervised a number of hospitals
and well-equipped medical personnel. The latter mission was sent by
churches in the Netherlands but comprised also by the educated Indonesians.
Also, a number of schools had been opened. An important part of the
missionary’s method was the publication and distribution of Christian
literature in the Javanese and Malay languages. Perhaps, no other mission had
paid so much attention to the spread of written material. Periodicals like
Mardi Rahardjo and Penaboer had a circulation of tens of thousands of copies
(Steenbrink, Aritonang, 2008, p. 696)7. The growth of the church through
statistics of religious affiliation is not very reliable and trustworthy.
Comparisons are hard to make. It seems clear that the churches in Central
Java experienced their largest church growth rates in the period between 1960
and 1970. Government statistics (Department of Religion) mentioned for
Central Java 15.500 Protestants and 110.000 Roman Catholics in 1968.
According to De Jong, the GKJ counted 60.000 members in 1964; 90.000 in
1969; and 130.000 in 1972. The growth rate of other churches had been
comparable. Willis gives a growth rate of the Baptists in Central Java of
20.8% in 1960–1965 and 21.6% between 1965 and 1970. Their growth rate
7 A History of Christianity in Indonesia (Studies in Christian Mission)
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was smaller than GKJ, GKJTU, and GITJ. The Roman Catholic Church experienced similar growth, from 92.000 members in 1962 to 234.000 members in 1972 within the diocese of Semarang. Willis, Ukur, and Cooley and others gave a number of reasons for this growth within the Javanese churches of East and Central Java. Next to the government’s decision mentioned above, efforts by the churches, spiritual needs of the inner life, influence from village leaders, personal witness by neighbors or family members, protection out of fear of being labelled as a communist, service of the churches through hospitals and schools, miracles like the power to exorcise demons, have been mentioned here. Although this growth rate has decreased since the 1980s, nevertheless, almost all churches still seem to grow faster than the population growth in general.
From the 1970s onwards, the attitude of Christians in Central Java towards culture started to change. Yogyakarta became a center of cultural renewal within the churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was tried, for instance, to use wayang (shadow play) performances based upon Bible stories as a mean of evangelization. This was a success of Harun Hadiwijono, professor of systematic theology and a truly orthodox. From the 1970s onwards, the attitude of Christians in Central Java towards culture started to change. Once he confessed privately that he still preferred the real shadow play that had themes from the Hindu tradition in which noble characters combated each other above the Christian wayang wahyu. In the field of visual arts and dance, the name of Bagong
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Kussudiardja (1928–2004), a well-known painter and choreographer in
Yogyakarta, has to be mentioned here. Notwithstanding lack of support from the first generation of foreign missionaries, many local churches have accepted in the meantime visual art and dance, and wall paintings, mosaics and even stained-glass windows with Biblical or Christian motifs that have decorated several church buildings. The Discourse of conversion in
Yogyakarta, the period of the September 30th, was a bloody and difficult period for the Catholic Church and the archdioceses of Semarang, the ideological of the Indonesian constitution the Pancasila, was under a great threat while the country was drawn into a state of fear and political instability.
In May 30, 2014 a group of Islamic fundamentalist had brutally and violently attacked the faithful of the parish of the Holy Family of Banteng, in the area north of Yogyakarta (Java). Church sources in Semarang confirmed that the attack took place at 9 the night before when Catholics held their weekly meeting to pray the rosary and practice their Sunday hymns. Local witnesses reported that, suddenly, a group of Islamic fundamentalists raided the private house owned by a local Catholic leader, throwing stones and rocks. The assailants brutally beat him and then fled in haste. The reason for the attack was unknown. It was also unclear whether they wished to target the publisher in particular or the entire Catholic community.
The incident had caused shock and fear among the faithful who feared new attacks. The Archbishop of Semarang, Mgr. Johannes Pujasumarta, reported that the reasons behind the attack should be investigated quickly and clearly.
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He hoped for thorough investigations, not only by the police but also "the
local Catholic community” and the results would be handed over "to the
authorities for further investigation". Sources engaged in interreligious
dialogue recalled that the area was known for the presence of various Islamic
organizations, moderate, and extremist. The latter, it had become protagonists
in the past of violent attacks against the Muslim Ahmadi minority. Indonesia
is one of the most populous Muslim nations in the world. Increasingly, it has
become the scene of attacks or episodes of intolerance against minorities,
whether they are Christians, Ahmadi Muslims, or belong to other faiths.
Permission to build a building (Izin Mendirikan Bangunan or IMB) in
Indonesian had been used to prevent the construction of Christian places of
worship or stop construction already underway, as it was the case for the
Yasmin Church in West Java. In December last year, at least five Christian’s
places of worship had to close their doors due to pressure from
Islamists.( asianews, 2014) c) Inter-faith relations, Catholicism and political and social-historical issues
Yogyakarta is a multi-faith city which is rich with its Javanese heritage and
culture-rich heritage places from the Keraton to south in Magelang
Borobudur temple and Prambanan temple which can bespeak of the diverse
religious nature in the city of Yogyakarta. This cross-culture and religious
blend have created a type of religious syncretism which in a way or another
may allow or reject the idea of coexistence and religious conversion
depending on social-political content which impacts the interaction process
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between the two bodies of religious or political structure. There is a great
misunderstanding; if some people convert to a religion because of the
emotional support and financial, they may help them to have received from
a religious institution that is certainly understandable. A good example of
conversion is in late antiquity when wealthy Christians began to join
the Catholic Church in large numbers, helping out the Christians financially.
It was a requirement for membership and needy pagans who
could certainly see that conversion might bring earthly benefits as well as
heavenly rewards (Jacoby, 2016, p. 61)8.
The Indonesian constitution does not recognize a state religion, but this
notionally secular foundation has been repeatedly debated in post-
Independence of Indonesia, and remains contested. Moreover, human rights
and the protection of religious freedom, in particular, are counterbalanced by
other laws, protecting religion. The overarching principle in the preamble of
Indonesia is a state that sustained by faith. It is partnered with a clear
recognition of the right to freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is, in fact,
mentioned twice in the constitution, first in article 29 (in term of echo in the
preamble statement):
1. The State shall be based upon the belief in Almighty God.
2. The State guarantees all persons the freedom of worship, and each
according to his/her own religion or belief.
8 Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion
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Following the end of the Soeharto’s era (1998), significant amendments were introduced, including an expanded range of human rights. Interestingly, art 29 was retained and freedom of religion was repeated, in modified form, in art 28E:
1. Every person shall be free to choose and to practice the religion of his/her
own choice.
2. Every person shall have the right of the freedom to believe his/her faith
and to express his/her views and thoughts, in accordance with his/her
conscience.
3. Every person shall have the right of the freedom to associate, to assemble,
and to express opinions (Fenwick, 2016, p. 47).
State law and religion analysis of the relationship between the state, law, and religion in Indonesia most commonly comprise identifying where Indonesia might be said to rest on a spectrum running from ‘secular’ to ‘religious’. The
‘degree’ of secularism in Indonesia has given rise to a range of formulations:
Indonesia is ‘not fully secular’ (Otto, 2010, p. 456); it is ‘quasi-secular’ or even ‘pseudo-secularist’ and ‘semi-secular’ (Butt, 2010, p. 299). The
Department of Religion effectively opts out of the secular state. In its description of government policy or ‘wisdom kebijaksanaan), it states that
Indonesia is neither secular nor religious. An alternative approach considers the issue starting, as it were, from the other end of the spectrum, considering the degree to which Indonesia has been ‘confessionalised’. Ichwan (2006, p.
15) proposes that, by force of the various mechanisms by which the state has
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engaged with faith (an Islam in particular), Indonesia has experienced a
process of ‘de confessionalisation’. (Otto 2010, p. 480), (Fenwick, 2016, p.
84).
In the case of Yogyakarta, Muslim and Christian relations in Kolojonggo
9symbolize the co-existence of two religious communities both Muslim and
Protestant villagers who hold their weekly learning courses in the mosque, and the latter in the house of a Protestant family. The evenings, when Christians have a meeting in a house near the mosque, they give villagers an additional chance to appreciate their religious difference. A group of villagers from the same neighborhood, walking and chatting together, arrives at the mosque and then separates, each group heading for a different place. On these occasions, it often happens that Muslims sitting inside the mosque and listening to the sermon about the Grace of Allah, hearing a hymn praising Jesus Christ. The importance of one's religious identity previously is confined to the religious domain. It has begun to extend into non-religious domains. This is most clearly manifested in the life of some youth whose peer group solidarity is limited to those from the same religion.
They play, chat, eat, watch television and go to the market mainly with either
Muslims or Christians. Another example of the increasing importance of religious identity in non-religious domains is the activities of BAZIS which collects religious alms solely and uses it only for Muslims. BAZIS activities indicate that the consideration of villagers’ economic welfare is conventionally thought to be the duty of community, group, or a family. It is now viewed as the responsibility
9 It’s an alternative name used to protect the people in the research; its actual location is in Godean
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of a religious community. These developments show that the previously fixed division between the religious and the non-religious is in the process of erosion.
The relations between Muslims and Christians in Kolojonggo is at the point in which religious identity has gradually extended into non-religious domains. One thing that should be considered in this discussion is the effects of outside influences on these relations and the ways villagers perceive them. The first of these is the government's policy of suppressing any expression of open conflict which has helped the concept of harmony (rukun) which becomes an official idiom in the village life. As a result, conflicting interests between Muslims and Christians have not been expressed in public but remained hidden, unseen from the outside. The second outside influence is Muslim intellectuals from
Yogyakarta city. Their perspective on Christianity and Christianization has flowed into rural areas through various channels, helping Muslim villagers to re- conceptualize their relations to Christians.
Although indigenous Christian communities were presented in several parts of Java in the 19th century and Christian missionaries were allowed to work among the Javanese Muslims from the mid-19th century (Hefner, 1993, p. 99-
100), the numeric expansion of Christians in Java was not so remarkable in the
Dutch Colonial period. The 1930 census shows that only 0.27 percent of the total population in Java embraced either Protestantism or Catholicism (Rauws etal.1935). The pace of Christian expansion accelerated in the Old Order Period.
Between 1953 and 1964, the Roman Catholic Church doubled its followers in
Java (Lembaga Penelitian dan Pembangunan Sosial, 1968: table. 33), while
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membership growth of a few Protestant Churches in Java reached more than 20 percent per annum between 1960 and 1964 (Willis, 1977, p. 192). The growth of
Christians in Java before 1965, however, bore little comparison with that from
1965 to the early seventies. In this period, both the Protestant and Catholic
Churches witnessed an extraordinary increase in new converts to Christianity
(Hyung-Jun Kim, 2011, p. 200)10.
When the ratio of Christians to the total population in eighty-two districts in Java is compared, this becomes clearer that in 1980, Central Java and
Yogyakarta possessed a higher Christian ratio than East and West Java. One of the interesting features in Figure. VII-3 is that four districts in Yogyakarta are ranked at the top among thirty-three districts in Central Java and Yogyakarta. (Hyung-Jun
Kim, 2011, p. 180) To take a more precise, look at this feature, a ratio of
Christians in four districts of Yogyakarta and that in twenty-nine districts of
Central Java are compared in Table. VII-2. This table indicates four districts in
Yogyakarta had a ratio of Christians which was three times higher than districts in
Central Java in 1971 and this gap was widened in the 1970s, making the ratio more than four to one in 1980.
The rapid growth of the Christian population in the district of Sleman (and
Gunung Kidul) shows that the percentage of Christians in Sleman was much lower than in Kulon Progo in 1970, but in subsequent years, it surpassed the latter.
The annual increase rate of Christians in Sleman was 11.9 percent in 1971-1980,
10 Reformist Muslims in a Yogyakarta Village The Islamic Transformation of Contemporary Socio-Religious Life
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which exceeded the increase of three other districts in Yogyakarta and of twenty- nine districts in Central Java.
Overall, the statistics show the eighty-two districts in Java. The highest ratio of Christians to the total population in 1980 and probably in 1990 was found in the district of Sleman where Kolojonggo is located. In Yogyakarta, the rapid expansion of Christianity and the presence of a higher ratio of Christians have given Muslims more opportunities of witnessing the process of Christianization and interacting with Christians than Muslims in other parts of Java. The other factor which makes Yogyakarta peculiar is that it hosts the headquarters of
Muhammadiyah and many reformist intellectuals. These then have helped to create an environment in which the issue of Christianization is discussed more seriously and frequently by Muslim intellectuals than in any other part of Java.
For example, in the Muhammadiyah Congress held in 1990, the harmonious life among followers of different religions came to the fore. One of the resolutions of this congress was called for the government to take strong action against the violation of the government decree prohibiting the missionary activities toward
Muslims. Reformist intellectuals' concern about Christian missions is well expressed in an article officially published by Muhammadiyah, a part of which goes as follows:
As we witness in Indonesia, Protestants and Catholics have spread their religion professionally. For two decades since the installation of the New Order Government, we have witnessed an extraordinary expansion of these two religions: the increase in the percentage of Christians (in the total population), (the foundation of) many churches, and the spread of schools (established by Christians) into the rural villages. As it is known, power of attraction in Christianity is not its teaching and scripture, but (its capability to carry out) community service such as giving out foods and clothes to the
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poor and assisting orphans, the decrepit, those disasters and so on (Muhammadiyah, 1991, p. 183-184).11
As we can witness that there is an actual awareness within the Muslim and
Muhammadiyah communities about the Christianization in Java since there is a rising number of church members. This may cause a conflict or a counter-reaction towards coexistence and peaceful living due to perhaps government approach to turning ‘a blind eye’ to Christianization which may lead locals to rebel towards intolerance. The Indonesian government needs a strategy to address growing religious intolerance, particularly in areas where hardline Islamists and Christian evangelicals are competing for the same ground. When we view the Indonesian government, it needs a strategy to address growing religious intolerance, because without one, mob rule prevails. Local officials address each incident only when it gets out of hand and usually by capitulating to whoever makes the most noise.
Every time this happens, the victors are emboldened to raise the stakes for the next confrontation. Christian-Muslim tensions have increased in Indonesia for several reasons:
Failure of the government to prevent or effectively prosecute incitement and
intimidation against religious minorities.
Growth of Islamic vigilante organizations and various like-minded coalitions
that have become a public order menace.
Aggressive evangelical Christian proselytizing in Muslim strongholds.
11 Hyung-Jun Kim Reformist Muslims in a Yogyakarta Village: The Islamic Transformation of Contemporary Socio-Religious Life
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Effective devolution of power through decentralization to local authorities,
even on issues such as religious affairs which are supposed to be the preserve
of the central government.
Reluctance to prosecute “hate speech” partly out of confusion over acceptable
limits on legitimate free expression.
Lack of any serious effort to promote tolerance as a national value
(Crisis Group, 2010, p. 2). While officials and legislators talk about the need for “religious harmony”, there is a sense that this can be legislated or even imposed, rather than requiring sustained time and effort to understand how tensions have grown and developed the programs that are designed to reduce them. Interfaith dialogues are not the answer; with a few exceptions, they are often little more than feel-good talk-fests that do not grapple with real problems.
The concern of reformist intellectuals about Christianization is not confined to their own circle but spread gradually to the countryside by way of the network of pengajian, publications, individual contact, and so on. As a result, relations between Muslims and Christians in the rural areas of Yogyakarta have been constructed not only by local dynamics but by influences from Muslim intellectuals in the city. The frameworks that these intellectuals use to grasp the issue of Christianization and Christianity constitute Muslim villagers’ understanding of their relations with Christians.
New converts to Christianity were not willing to discuss it except for a brief comment while other Christians generally did not want to talk about who the
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new converts were, who, among Muslim villagers, were sympathetic to
Christianity and who were participating in the Christian learning course preparing for baptism. If they did talk about the reason for the conversion, the new converts generally mentioned their feeling: since they had a good feeling about Christianity and found it to be compatible, they decided to accept it. Sociologically, one common feature is found among the new converts: a Christian family lives nearby in their immediate neighborhood. However, the converts did not want to admit this fact. When asking about the sources by which they had come to know
Christianity, they did not point out the person who had persuaded them to attend the Christian learning course, the prerequisite for conversion. Instead, they emphasized the independence of their decision. The same mode of explanation was used by those who had converted to Christianity a long time ago or had been born into Christian families when asked to explain other villagers' conversion to
Christianity. They generally talked about the lifestyle and behavior of Christians and the solidarity of the Christian community as the primary sources through which non-Christians encountered Christianity. Below is the reply of a Christian villager, when was asked about why people converted to Christianity: The central things which guide someone to Christianity are the lifestyle and behavior of
Christians. Christians are not like 'a huge empty barrel which is lousy'. Christians love others and try to actualize this love. This impresses non-Christians and becomes the major motive for them to make efforts to know more about
Christianity.( Jun Kim,186,2007)
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The strong solidarity of the Christian community was not denied even by
Muslims. Whenever a ceremony was held in a Christian family, Christian villagers, irrespective of their geographical proximity, came to give assistance. As the preparation process for a ceremony, especially cooking was customarily done by neighbors or close relatives neither the presence of Christian women who were neither close neighbors nor relatives of the host that could be easily recognized by others. When a Christian died, the solidarity of the Christian community was even more clearly expressed. From the first to the last stage of burial, all the work was monopolized by Christians. They bathed the corpse, dressed it, carried the coffin to the cemetery and performed the last service at the cemetery, all of which provided no room for Muslims to be involved, apart from their participation as guests. The same situation, however, did not apply when a Muslim died.
Not only Muslims but Christians actively participated in it. Sometimes, the participation of Christians in dealing with the death of a Muslim was more evident than Muslims themselves. In several cases, it was a Christian villager with the
Muslim kaum (nation or Muslim group) who entered the hole where the corpse would be placed, arranged the corpse to face Mecca, calculated the number of stones to support the corpse, and closed the hole with cement plates. In this respect, the evaluation of Christians that the solidarity of the Christian community is the key to attracting non-Christians to Christianity seems to be correct.
Apart from the solidarity of the Christian community, several clergymen enumerated various other factors as reasons for conversion to Christianity:
Christians' emphasis on love rather than on rules and regulations; stresses on one's
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personal experience and feeling rather than on mere memorization, fanaticism of
Muslims, the desire to be buried in a coffin, and witness of God through dreams or other experiences. Whatever the actual reasons for conversion, the Christians' own evaluation of conversion puts a high emphasis on one's inner aspects rather than outer influences: attracted to Christianity by observing the behavior of
Christians. People are eager to know more about it and increasing knowledge enables them to convert to Christianity.
Studies about relations between Muslims and Christians in Java have shown that the official view of the government, namely that harmony dominates the relations between followers of different religions, is not incorrect. Akkeren,
(1970, p. 136), who did his research in the early 1960s in an East Java community where Christians were in the majority, pointed out that discrimination based on the religious difference was not felt in social interactions. The same situation applied to a Yogyanese village in the 1950s, Muslims and Christians in this village. According to the custom of Muslim villagers, the number created an atmosphere of peace in social life, respecting each other's religion (Soemarjo,
1959, p. 99).
Research done in the 1970s in Central Java also noted that mutual respect between Muslims and Christians were free of incidents suggesting conflict characterized their social interactions (Mohammad, 1979, p. 177). Although the shortage of comparative data makes it difficult to make a generalization, these studies show that religious difference was not a basis of social conflict, and the religious distinction between Muslims and Christians was not felt strongly in non-
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religious domains. It is likely that until recently, Muslim-Christian relations in
Kolojonggo were dominated by harmony, as it was symbolized by the reciprocal movements of foods and visits between Muslims and Christians. It is said that
Christians were included in the Muslims’ exchange network of food after the fasting month and were invited to kendhuri held after the fasting month made (WWL, 2018, Church History and Facts )12.
Let us take a look at the twentieth century where we witnessed the influx of many new Protestant missionary groups, as well as the continued growth of
Catholicism and of large regional and reformed Lutheran churches.
The Church is fragmented into more than 300 denominations in Indonesia, creating rivalry and disunity. Apart from the Roman Catholic Church, the largest denominations belong to the Reformed and Lutheran traditions, which were brought to the country by Dutch and German missionaries. Over time, smaller denominations such as Baptists, Adventists, and the Salvation Army became established, complemented by a number of independents - especially Pentecostal - churches as well.
According to WCD statistics, 79.4% of the population is Muslim. There are also millions of atheists/agnostics and those following ethnic religions,
Hinduism (mainly in Bali), Chinese folk religion and Buddhism. While
Christianity became a major religion in eastern Indonesia, Islam became strong in the western and central parts. The very special brand of Islam in Indonesia, named
“Islam Nusantara”, has always been moderate and tolerant towards other
12 https://www.opendoors.no/Files/Files/NO/WWL-2019-dokumenter/Landprofiler-WWL2019- Engelsk/Indonesia-WWL-2019-DOSSIER-December-2018.pdf
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religions. However, it received a strong blow with the successful blasphemy campaign during the election of Jakarta’s governor early in 2017. Governor
“Ahok” had been the first Christian governor in Jakarta for more than five decades, so his prison sentence for blasphemy and the emotionally charged election campaign, based on strong religious motives, might prove a game- changer for Christians in the country.
Indonesia is no stranger when it comes to cross religious conversion. In this case, it was the eastern region of Indonesia, in this account of the clash of culture (adat) and native animist religions, and politics. The echo to another religious beginning in a Moluccan story had been actively involved in the conversion of Aruese13, and, along with others, had in the mid-1970s engaged in the fierce fight for local converts that pitted advocates of
Islam. Protestant Christianity is represented by the GPM (Gereja Protestan
Maluku or the Protestant Church of the Moluccas) and Sacred Heart Catholicism against each other. It seems to have played itself out especially among government officials who were themselves primarily from the neighboring of south Moluccan islands of Kei and Babar and the provincial capital of
Ambon, and among their Aruese followers. In a letter to his Bishop in Ambon, one Dutch priest went so far as to characterize the conflicts over converts between the Catholics of his own Sacred Heart Mission—with whom we will be most concerned in this essay—and the GPM Protestants as “miniature wars of
13 The Aru Islands Regency (Indonesian: Kabupaten Kepulauan Aru) are a group of about ninety- five low-lying islands in the Maluku province of eastern Indonesia. They also form a regency of Maluku, with a land area of 8,152.42 square kilometres (3,147.67 square miles). At the 2011 Census the Regency had a population of 84,138; source Biro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011
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religion” (D. Godsdienstoorlogjes) (Pater E., letter of May 31, 1979). (174 Peter van der Veer) More generally, correspondence between Dutch priests based in
Dobo and their Bishop, dating from the period of conversion itself as well as the years immediately thereafter, conveys a profound sense of ambivalence toward the manner in which the conversions took place.
For Aruese in the 1970s, for instance, there were realistically three religions from which they could choose: Islam, GPM Protestantism, and Sacred
Heart Catholicism—that is, religion scaled down in correspondence with regional and historical specificities as well as and probably more importantly—in direct relation to the religious composition of the local officialdom (both civil and military), which stood behind and largely orchestrated the conversion of the archipelago. Not surprisingly, with the hindsight of knowledge brought to these islands by the recent introduction of national television, some Backshore Aruese wonders today why their own choice of religion at the time had been so restricted why, more precisely, unlike themselves, the Balinese, as they see it, was permitted to remain “Hindu,” a term that in Aru applies to what on certain limited occasions these islanders conceive of as their former “religion.” Or what of the tale is told to us by a high-ranking dignitary of the Catholic church, concerning an overzealous catechist who explained the government policy regarding the necessity of having a religion to a group of Moluccan pagans as a straight forward decision between either Islam, glossed simply as a prohibition on the consumption of pork, or
Catholicism, defined more favorably in the eyes of the local population as the absence of this same prohibition.
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The problems besetting a mere abstract appraisal of state policies and discourses regarding religion becomes all the more glaring—at least in the eastern parts of Indonesia and presumably in most other parts as well—in the case of two other religions that are sometimes appended to the familiar list of five Judaism and Confucianism. Granted, neither Judaism nor Confucianism—as the world of religions conventionally understood—presented as such any definitional problems that would prevent them from being considered a religion and therefore included on Indonesia’s official list. Nonetheless, Judaism is hardly a realistic option for potential converts, while Confucianism poses special problems as primarily a
“Chinese” religion. In addition to the chain of associations that frequently links Confucianism to “Chinese” and “Chinese” to Communism, the textual orientation of Confucianism is already enough of a problem in light of the prohibition on the use and display of Chinese ideograms and the official ban on the public worship of Chinese religions, both of which have been in place since
1967. In actuality, “religion” among the majority of Chinese in Indonesia was never Confucianism as such but revolved, and in many places continues to revolve, around the commemoration of ancestors in the context of specific festivals like Chinese New Year and the Day of the Dead, as well as in other, more everyday practices (cf. Tan 1991). In his discussion of the post-1965, conversions in the Lesser Sundas, Webb quite rightly singles out both pagans and
Chinese as “those who became Christians to save their lives (Webb, 1986, p. 108).
Much the same could be said of Aru, where every Sino-Indonesian trader was either Catholic or Protestant. The majority had converted in the wake of the
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horrors of 1965. As with religion and the need to track its significance as a salient category of Indonesian citizenship in those discursive practices through which it is repeatedly elaborated and produced, so too with serialization and the enumeration with which it characteristically goes hand in hand. Asad argues, for instance, regarding enumerative practices, that these had quite a different role in colonial versus metropolitan societies. An observation that, in turn, implies a somewhat different history for such things in postcolonial places (Asad, 1994).
Not infrequently, these men, who were all from neighboring Kei or those islands on which the MSC can claim a longstanding and solid constituency complained about the laxity of the local population regarding religion, the low church attendance outside of holidays, and the limited enthusiasm generated by mission plans to make Bemun14. One of only two Aru villages boasted a wholly
Catholic population into an important parish center. For these men, therefore, the link between the school and the church was all-important because it ensured that at least a majority of the schoolchildren, accompanied by their mothers, and would attend the Sunday service. In this regard, the missions prediction that children would be the most likely to serve as “the best propagandists” of the new religion seems in some respects to have borne out (unsigned MSC report on the
Tanimbar Islands, 1953). Indeed, apart from a few men from Kei islands who were either married to Bemunese women or employed as divers on the motorboats
14 Bemun South Aru Tengah, Kepulauan Aru Regency, Maluku
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of local traders, the very youngest members of the community were those who commonly made up its congregation (van der Veer, 1995, p. 179-181)15.
It was not for the Soeharto’s government’s policy toward religion, the above statements would suffice as a general picture of the rather tenuous state of religion among Backshore Aruese. Everything is already said, however, it is offset by the New Orders stance toward religion and the codification of “religion” within the national doctrine of Pancasila, or the five principles declared in 1985 to be
“the sole basis” of the state as itself a Negara Pancasila or “Pancasila State” (van
Langenberg 1990, p. 123). It is important as well, in this regard, it is the complicated relation of both religion and Pancasila to the national program of development and, more generally, to notions of progress, moral direction, and modernization. Note that religion, significantly, is not further specified with reference to a particular religion. Itself, an idiosyncratic amalgam of “a Sanskrit derived- term, a 19th-century European conception of specific “world religions,” and “an Islamic’s view that all proper religions must minimally have a prophet, a scripture, and a belief in one God” (Fox, 1988, p. 806), religion figures in the
Pancasila state ideology as the first of its five points, or sila: the belief in one
Supreme Being (Sila Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa). Neither a religious state in the sense of prescribing a specific religion for its citizens nor a secular one insofar as it sees itself as “having the responsibility to ensure that its citizens follow an acceptable religious faith as an obligation of citizenship” ( Adnan, 1990, p. 449), the Pancasila state is best regarded as a variant of what van der Veer has
15 conversion to modernities the globalization of Christianity
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characterized, with respect to Hindus and Muslims in South Asia, as religious nationalism.
In Arua kind of the last place on earth not only in Indonesia but even in the provincial context of the Moluccas—the importance of religion for the Soeharto’s government may be further exacerbated by a stance that the Bishop himself characterized as “more Catholic than the Pope,” attributing it to government officialdom on the periphery. This probably explains the special zeal to convert the overwhelmingly pagan population that in the 1970s they took hold of Dobo bureaucrats or the more recent privileging of religion above all else in local development projects that are themselves part and parcel of the national program guided by Indonesia’s self-styled “Father of Development,” President Soeharto
(Peter van der Veer, 2008, p. 182).
Indonesian Law on the conversion of the constitution and other laws and policies protect religious freedom and, in practice, the government generally respects the religious freedom of the six officially recognized religions. However, certain laws, policies, and official actions restrict religious freedom, and in some instances, the government fails to protect persons from discrimination and abuse based on religion. The government places restrictions on non-recognized religious groups and on some groups considered deviant. Religious speeches are permissible if they are delivered to members of the same religious group and are not intended to convert persons of other religious groups. Televised religious programming is unrestricted for any of the recognized religious groups.
Publication of religious materials or the use of religious symbols is permitted.
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However, the government bans the dissemination of these materials to persons of other religious groups. Religious groups and social organizations must obtain permits to hold religious concerts or other public events. The government usually grants permits in an unbiased manner unless a concern existed that the activity will raise strong objections from members of another religious group in the area.16
The 2006 Revised Joint Ministerial Decree on the Construction of Houses of Worship requires religious groups that want to build a house of worship to obtain the signatures of at least 90 members of the group and 60 persons of other religious groups in the community, stating that they support the construction. The decree also requires approval from the local religious affairs office, the Forum for
Religious Harmony (FKUB). While the FKUB at times is a deterrent to construction. It has, in some areas, helped communities to foster positive communication between religious groups. For example, the FKUB in Solo was actively involved in helping a church, GBIS Generasi Pilihan at Pucangsawit, to obtain a construction permit after several years of effort. The Guidelines for
Overseas Aid to Religious Institutions require domestic religious organizations to obtain approval from the Ministry of Religion to receive funding from overseas donors. The Guidelines for Propagation of Religion ban proselytizing under most circumstances.
The Child Protection Act of 2002 makes the conversion of minors to a religion other than their own through "tricks" and/or "lies" a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. The criminal code makes spreading hatred, heresy, and
16 2011 International Religious Freedom Report - Indonesia https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/1353972.html
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blasphemy punishable by up to five years in prison. Although the law applies to all officially recognized religions, the few cases in which it has been enforced have almost always involved blasphemy and heresy against Islam. However, in a blasphemy case not involving Islam, the Central Jakarta District Court ordered
Buddha Bar, a franchise of an international French-owned chain of upmarket bars, to close on September 1st for blasphemy and violations of laws mandating respect for state-sanctioned religions. However, some of these laws are exempted by special regions such as Aceh which follows its own guidelines of their Sharia
Islamic law.
Restrictions on Religious Freedom that the country has a long tradition of religious pluralism but certain laws, policies, and official actions restricted religious freedom, and the government sometimes failed to prevent discrimination by individuals against abuse of others based on their religious belief. In March, local authorities closed the Batak Protestant Church (HKBP) at Pondok Timur in
Bekasi, West Java. Church members continued to hold services in the sealed building until June when the local government again sealed the church.
Consequently, the congregation held services in a field, where they were attacked by members of hardliner groups including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Forum of Islamic Believers. On September 12th, following the end of
Ramadan, FPI members assaulted Luspida Simandjuntak, the church's pastor, and stabbed Asia Sihombing, a church elder. Following this incident, the church agreed to worship at a city-provided building in lieu of the field. On November
25th, the leadership of the HKBP dropped a lawsuit against the city of Bekasi, and
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the mayor agreed to provide the church with land to construct a house of worship.
At the end of the reporting period, police had charged 12 individuals, including the head of FPI Bekasi, with involvement in the attack.17
The civil registration system discriminated against persons who did not belong to one of the six recognized religious groups. Animists, Bahai, and members of other small minority religious groups sometimes found it difficult to register births or interfaith marriages. As a result, some couples travelled outside the country to marry and then registered the marriage at an embassy. In spite of being among the officially human rights groups, they continued to receive occasional reports of local civil registry officials who rejected applications for identity cards (KTPs), submitted by members of unrecognized or minority religious groups. The voice of the Ahmadi in Indonesia was also the voice of the
Shia and the Christian. The adherents of indigenous traditional beliefs were forced in school to follow one of the six recognized religions and could not state their traditional religion on their identity cards. Since he became President, Mr.
Yudhoyono has introduced several laws that violate religious freedom. These include the 2006 joint ministerial decrees on the construction of houses of worship and a 2008 decree banning the spread of Ahmadiyah Muslim teachings. Together these laws have been used to shut down Ahmadi mosques and Christian churches.
Church leaders have attempted to fight these closings by seeking legal redress.
Their cases against crusading local mayors have been rock-solid. The churches
17 July-December, 2010 International Religious Freedom Report – Indonesia https://www.refworld.org/docid/4e734c9282.html
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ought to be protected under Pancasila, after all, and their leaders held all the proper operating licenses.18
1.6. Theoretical Framework
1.6.1. Catholics as Objects of Dynamics Structure Change
The conversions in this research are peculiarly modern experiences far from being anchors in the past they were part of a search for ultimacy within the metropolitan culture in Indonesia and in particularly within the island of java to which religion was imported and became localized had come as people of different cultures started to adopt to them. This made them modern individuals converts in a crucial situation in a sense the term which was used by Berger,
Berger and Kellner (year) in the homeless mind when they wrote: the modern individual is peculiarly unfinished as he enters adult life. That unfinished quality made them converts; they went on the note especially prone to conversion of as much importance as dogma was the cultish atmosphere in the student groups members of the perhimpunan Indonesia(Indonesian assembly) in the Netherlands adopted distinctive dress they cut the brim odd their European hats to make a kopiah, later to become a nationalists symbol. They ex-communicated backsliders after the most fanatical converts had publicly humiliated them. (2003,120 ,Gerry
Van Klinken, 2003)
Debates about whether conversion is sudden or gradual, total or partial, active or passive internal or external, are useful only if we accept that conversion can occur
18 https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/171653.pdf (page 8-15-17)
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anywhere between these poles, which have been constructed both by scholars of conversion and converts themselves. As I remarked earlier, conversion is a process, not a specific event. Perhaps the word converting better captures the phenomenology of the process. Therefore social bonding is connected to one’s identity and culture. Conversion is essential for right for individuals from whom whatever social class of society belong to today, converts may be at odds with the right to inherit a cultural/religious identity respect for diversity is at the core of the Indonesian society Pancasila system of social justice for all Indonesians
"Keadilan Sosial bagi seluruh Rakyat Indonesia" these principles of Pancasila are very Nobel but is it actually effective when it comes to the deal with religious tolerance and how does the Indonesian society view the idea of freedom of choice and the notion of conversion unlike other countries which views religious diversity as threat like Myanmar where Muslims are persecuted for their race and religion and In Syria and Iraq after the wars the element of religious diversity and tolerance played a major part in creating this strong national ponding element which perverted the country to fall apart through the weapon of respecting and tolerating the other religious and culture values.
The focus is the changing of religious identities that imply on the individual and social identities as well as their appropriation in the social interactions. In this theoretical framework where we can see the lineage process of dynamics of catholic religion in the previous literature review and later on in
Chapter II within the Dynamics of Catholics in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Therefore, this shall split phase of the power structure in Indonesia to two; one is the state
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which is the governing body which dominates the law and the second class is the religious institutions, which play a very strong role in shaping the government policies and the thread layer shall be the citizens who are the most common public which adhere to the authorities of power.
In order to further understand the position of the Catholics in Yogyakarta and
Indonesia we need to take a deep look at the Catholics Identity and the advent of
Christianity in Yogyakarta. The question of how to begin to think questions of identity, either social or individual, not in the wake of their disappearance but in the wake of their erosion, of their fading, of their not having the kind of purchase and comprehensive explanatory power they had before, that is what it seems to me has gone. Once it loses its "master" status its explanatory reach weakens, becomes more problematic. We can think of some things in relation to questions of class, though always recognizing its real historical complexity. Yet there are certain other things it simply will not, or cannot, decipher or explain. And this brings us face to face with the increasing social diversity and plurality, the technologies of the self of assimilating, the reseracher puts it into a cultural framework with the structure of hierarchy of the state, in this case, it is the Republic of Indonesia and its religious minorities influence on the ideas and life of common people. It is an important thing to note that the state controls and directs the process of production of power and influence to serve the domain class (democracy and Pancasila).
Therefore, the mode of production of ideology (democracy/self-independence) shall attempt to place the Catholics and other religious minorities as a subclass by which governs the dominant class. The dominant class controls not only material
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production (economy) but also the production of ideas. Thus, it establishes a particular cultural style and a dominant political doctrine. The transition of religious identity and power is in theme work of Goffman’s. He explains further that Individuals negotiate their identities within the interaction order. Mobilising interactional competences within situational (‘framed’) routines, individuals present an image of themselves – of self – for acceptance by others. In my terms, this is the internal moment of the dialectic of identification with respect to public image. The external moment is the reception by others of that presentation: they can accept it or not. Individual identification emerges within the ongoing relationship between self-image and public image.( Jenkins ,93-94,2008)19 Either way, the notion of Class struggle Majority versus minority religious groups may find it too difficult to imagine a state going through a transition from a majority religion to a minority religious group which could cause war or conflict due to the sensitive nature of the transition in the Indonesian archipelago.
Spreading influence of the idea of equality and social justice where the people of the nation are part of the republic may have helped the independence of
Indonesia. However, this notion which is being promoted has no longer fitted in the image of tolerant equal to Pancasila ideology. As growing inequality of wealth and income became a major political issue during the president Soeharto’s rule of Indonesia, which he worked and somehow treated religious minorities kindly for their nationalistic, it stands with the Republic of Indonesia. However, after the fall of the regime, a new type of structure had emerged which was a
19 Richard Jenkins Social Identity (Key Ideas) 3rd Edition
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multipolar state. Soeharto resigned as president of Indonesia on May 21st, 1998 following the collapse of support for his three-decade-long presidency. The resignation followed severe economic and political crises over the previous six to twelve months. Vice president B. J. Habibie took over the presidency. This was the turning point of the political and religious power structure at this point of time where religious minority groups felt under attack by the rising of Islamic influence inside the government. Once religious minorities lost major institutions, the political supported their identity and practices, while the sentry side retained a vast range of institutions that supported the umma20 hand further Islamization (M.
C. Ricklefs, 2012, p. 231)21.
1.6.2. Formation of Subjects identity as An On-going Process of transition and
conflict
In order to understand the case study of the Catholics in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia, we need to see social relationships and human activities which have impacted the growth dynamics through the years until our current moment.
In work of self-presentation in Goffman we can notice that the Catholic identity in java and Yogyakarta is like a backstage theater one can, to some extent, be free of the anxieties of presentation; it is the domain of self-image rather than public image. Hence the idea that I can ‘be myself’ in private, I can rehearse the presentation of an identity in a backstage area before trying to carry it off in
ʊm.mæ]) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguishedˈ] أمة :Ummah (Arabic 20 ʃæʕb]) which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can] شعب) from Shaʻb be said to be a supra-national community with a common history. 21 Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java: A Political, Social, Cultural and Religious History, c. 1930 to the Present
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public.22 Front-stage, work is required by performer and audience, to collude in the mutuality’s of identification. Under some circumstances audience tact is required if the performance is to ‘come off’ and the public image established in the setting in question. identification has a moral dimension, rooted in reciprocity: when an individual projects a definition of the situation and thereby makes an implicit or explicit claim to be a person of a particular kind, he automatically exerts a moral demand upon the others, obliging them to value and treat him in the manner that persons of his kind have a right to expect. Hence we need to know that the self-identification and the exposure of the Catholics in Java may had have led to social identities create and exacerbate intergroup conflicts.
On the other hand, Gramsci's work is precisely important because it points to the links between politics and culture that come into the picture when it is realized that a major component of state power is the control of ideas, as well as the use of physical force (e.g. the police/Army). The key concept here is hegemony within social identity transition. This is the ability of the state and the ruling class to regulate beliefs within civil society. Therefore the fellow of ideas and information such as attempts at critical thinking allow dominant groups to rule more efficiently as they permit a reduction in the level of force required to maintain social order.
The role of intellectuals and the role of ideas according to Gramsci’s statement was growing rapidly in power and invading civil society. Gramsci saw institutions like the church and trade unions had previously been independent,
22 social identity Jenkins p.93
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being taken over and regulated by governmental agencies. Gramsci claimed that the activities of organic intellectuals were central to the propagation of hegemonic beliefs. These were people like priests and journalists who translated complex philosophical and political issues into everyday language and who offered guidance to the masses on how to act. Intellectuals also played a role in making possible the establishment of a hegemonic bloc(philip smith,39-40,2001)23. This was an alliance of dominant forces in society (e.g. industrialists, the aristocracy, the petty bourgeoisie). Typically he asserted, these groups were held together by a hegemonic ideology that incorporated aspects of nationalist and common-sense thinking and used this to paper over divergent interests and class locations.
Meanwhile, I would like to add the concept of “Social Identity” that is frequently defined in terms of normlessness in the process of identity transition. Goffman’s work suggests that, interaction ally speaking, the internal–external dialect of individual identification involves a number of elements. There are the arts of impression management: the interactional competences which ‘send’ particular identities to others and attempt to influence their reception. These include dramatic style and ability, idealization (by which Goffman means individual identification with collectively defined roles), expressive control, misrepresentation and mystification. He further explains that the identity of the self during the phase of self-presentation has two stages the Backstage one can, to some extent, be free of the anxieties of presentation; it is the domain of self-image rather than public image. Front-stage, work is required by performer and
23 Cultural Theory: An Introduction Philip Smith
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audience, to collude in the mutuality’s of identification, we could clarify this by seeing the before (first established) and after image (well established) of the
Catholic community in java and Yogyakarta and their interaction with the greater
Muslim population and the state. Goffman’s work suggests that, interaction ally speaking, the internal–external dialect of individual identification involves a number of elements. There are the arts of impression management: the interactional competences which ‘send’ particular identities to others and attempt to influence their reception. These include dramatic style and ability, idealization
(by which Goffman means individual identification with collectively defined roles), expressive control, misrepresentation and mystification. Many of these derive from early socialization, and are routinised in embodied non-verbal communication in addition to language. I would like to also add to this theoretical framework in the relationship between identity and conversion which leads to the identity formation conflict in the work of Richard D. Ashmore in his book he states that Sumner’s Theory of Ethnocentrism was described by Sumner as a universal characteristic of human social groups where by a differentiation arises between ourselves, the we-group, or in-group, and everybody else, or the others- group, out-groups. The insiders in a we-group are in a relation of peace, order, law, government, and industry, to each other. Their relation to all outsiders, or others-groups, is one of war and plunder. Ethnocentrism is the technical name for this view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it. Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with
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contempt on outsider.(D. Ashmore,18-19, 2001)24The process of conversion of religious identity is seen as threat and is creates unbalance in the power structure between majority religious population and minority religious group which fight for their existences social identities create and exacerbate intergroup conflicts.
Rise of conflict can be contributed to the exposure of identity within the social and political sphere which can cause tension between intergroup relations.
Cultural stereotypes and prejudices can lead members of stigmatized groups to dis identify with and disengage from tasks in which they are most heavily stigmatized
(Steele, 1997). i.e Christens in the middle east being labeled as foreign crusade colonist subject which they seek to implement the western plan to control the region.
1.7. Analytical Framework
1. Does the supportive approach by community produce a positive or
healthy Catholic conversion in Yogyakarta?
2. What are the social elements in Yogyakarta that help in the healthy
transformation of Catholic converts (ideology) in which the state
are responsible for healthy transformation?
3. Does the conversion approach prevent social backlash by
Indonesian society?
4. Is the religious transition constrictive in Yogyakarta?
24 Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and Conflict Reduction (Rutgers Series on Self and Social Identity (Volume 3)) 1st Edition
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1.8. Methodology
This study uses qualitative approach by immersing on lived experience of religious conversion phenomena will enable the researcher to enhance our understanding of other people. The researcher shall start with the collection of the data to the analysis and from the analysis. After the analysis, the researcher shall start to interpret the data. It is relevant to mention that combining methodologies may include in the conduct of this research.
A. The Research Method
Life History Research Method will be conducted in this study on the
participant life (converts) history of the converts stages childhood to teenage
to adulthood trajectory of life stages of life and their relationship with the
surrounding society response and the effectiveness of the conversion process
both before and after the conversion and weather the communal support is
counter effective or it failed to answer the needs of converts for
(support/safety) by the communal care. I shall choose six converts to
Catholicism this will also measure their greatest expectations and
disappointments which can indicate which approaches that society took may
have supported their emotional religious transition.
Having enough historical background on the religious converts will enable
this research to expand and effectively execute and highlight the difficulties
more over it can also empower the self-transformed transition . The nature of
relationships in research may be clarified by returning to the converts in
which questions of self and other. possible approaches to the relationship of
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self and other: as a that stresses a reaching out by the self towards the other’s reality and world as it stresses the challenge of the other to the self’s conscience or responsibility that stresses the dialectical relationship between the inward and outward movements which will enable the study of this life history research.
The reason why the researcher did choose life history method is because it allows the researcher to explore a person’s micro-historical (individual) experiences within a macro-historical (history of the time) framework. Life- history information challenges the researcher to understand an individual’s current attitudes and behaviors and how they may have been influenced by initial decisions made at another time and in another place. Life-history as a qualitative research method is to highlight the cultural experiences which may be intense and remain partial that reaching out to others’ worlds. It is always also necessary. Indeed, such worlds will impinge often forcibly on our own.
This research becomes a way of extending our horizon even when a cultural cross-religious experience practice is very close to our experience.
The research itself becomes an intersubjective process connected to pre- existing social relationships and forms of power. In this case, the researcher means the convert and society. By using this approach to understand the identity transition, it is vital to obtain a border view of converts issue on wellbeing and communal care. It may clarify the internal support which enables the awareness of this issue within the Catholic Church community of the conversion. The members of the Catholic population, in general, will be
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crucial in regarding the relationship between the community approach and the converts and how it may change the structure of understanding within those who are in the Catholic Yogyakarta communities. The quest to understand lived challenges and obstacles of convert will be highlighting the researcher’s study on the reading method and using the Erving Goffman’s work presentation of Self approachable and subtle, combining sociology, anthropology which is a suitable model that attempts to describe the dynamics of long-term and short-term interpersonal relationships between humans (converts) and the caretakers (the society). The reason for using this concept of Presentation of Self within this context can resemble self-image and public image of interior façade( self identity) ( the self , nuclear family , close net friends) and the whole wider external society ( social identity). Therefore this plays a great role in the religious identity display and perfoermce could the convert behave normal in soecity and in public as he perfoermce his way normally with his/her new religious behavior . habits and attitudes or he will be shunned and rejected by adopting new religious identity.
There are two interdependent themes running through his work, the better known of which concerns the routine sand rituals of everyday interaction. It can be summarised under four headings. First, there is the embodiment and spatiality of interaction. Theind ividual has, and is, a physical presence in the world. The embodied actor is always, for Goffman, spatially situated: vis-à- visothers, and regionally,in terms of the local staging of interaction. The two
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main interactionregions are front-stage and backstage, public and private
(Goffman 1969:109–140). The body, particularly the upper body and most
particularly the face, is the interactional presence of selfhood. Goffman’s unit
of analysis is the embodied individual, and the embodied self has its
territories, preserves of space that can be respected or violated. This can be
reflected on reality of the experience of local converts which will be built on
the legitimacy the role of society by studying the value of popular texts and
genres. Understanding the current condition of the converts and how they are
seen as outsiders who actually rebelled against their native religions when
people reject approved norms of a certain belief system to set about their new
goals/believes of actual conversion which is seen as a type of culture-
religious deviance leads into a power struggle in the society which somehow
measures whether the society is tolerant for any kind of change from external
forces. It is seen as a threat rather than actual power or material struggle over
something so symbolic such as religion which addresses a ‘real’ problem of
tolerance whether this resistance changes those structures of oppression or
not.
B. Research Plan
The researcher will start with Catholic churches within the city of
Yogyakarta. Based on the research that the researcher has done, there are 29 churches within Yogyakarta. From those 29 churches, the researcher shall focus on only 4 churches which the location will be mentioned below.
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1. Saint Anthony Church: Addressed at Jalan Abu Bakar Ali No.1,
Kotabaru, Gondokusuman, Kotabaru, Gondokusuman, Kota
Yogyakarta, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta 55224.
2. Saint Mary Assumpta Barbarsari: Addressed on Jalan Inspeksi
Selokan Mataram, Caturtunggal, Depok, Caturtunggal, Kec.
Depok, Kabupaten Sleman, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta 55281.
3. Saint Francis Xavier Church: Addressed at Jl. Senopati No.22,
Prawirodirjan, Gondomanan, Kota Yogyakarta, Daerah Istimewa
Yogyakarta 55121.
4. Saint Yohanaes Rasul pringwulung: Addressed at Jl. Empu
Panuluh 377A, Pringwulung, Condongcatur, Kec. Depok,
Kabupaten Sleman, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta 55281.
The selection of the churches is within the city of Yogyakarta and the interview with the converts in concern to the subject of Catholic conversion is within from perspective of cultural studies. Then, the researcher shall start with the interviews to further support the analysis. Moreover, the selection of the churches that is mentioned before will enable a great study of different perspectives of both adults’ children and newcomers who come all the way to study in Yogyakarta which will enable the researcher to expand the thought and having clarity on this research of each participant’s unique experience with the conversion. Taking into consideration the sensitivity of the research there are some setbacks in finding the informants from the churches. the criteria of
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converts/ informants selection is based on the age factor of anyone who is above eighteen years old and it’s by both genders and it includes all religious backgrounds . the approach towards interviewing the informants ( converts) will be through word of mouth or viva voce, is the passing of information inquiring through the friends , church members , class mates , nuns/ monks through them I shall find my data for my thesis.
C. Ethic Consideration
The researcher is keen to take ethics of the norms and the proper standards for conducting this research that will be distinguished between right and wrong to help in determining the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors as well as to prevent against the fabrication or falsifying of data. Therefore, promoting the pursuit of knowledge and truth is the primary goal of this research.
The researcher shall also respect the privacy of those who do not wish to be interviewed due to safety reasons and concerns for their wellbeing since this is a very sensitive subject to be discussed among individuals who have already converted.
D. Method Research
Life History Research Method will be conducted in this study on the participants’ life (converts) history of the converts’ stages of childhood to teenage to adulthood trajectory of life stages and their relationship with the surrounding society response and the effectiveness of the conversion process both before and
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after the conversion and whether the communal support is counter-effective or it fails to answer the needs of converts (for support/safety) by the communal care.
The researcher shall choose six converts to Catholicism. This will also measure their greatest expectations and disappointments which can indicate which approaches that society took may have supported their emotional religious transition.
Having enough historical background on the religious converts will enable this research to expand and effectively execute and highlight the difficulties.
Moreover, it can also empower the self-transformed transition. The nature of relationships in this research may be clarified by returning to the converts in which questions of self and other. Possible approaches to the relationship of self and other: as it stresses a reaching out by the self towards the other’s reality and world, as it stresses the challenge of the other to the self’s conscience or responsibility, as it stresses the dialectical relationship between the inward and outward movements, will enable the study of this life history research.
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CHAPTER II
THE DYNAMICS OF CATHOLICISM IN YOGYAKARTA
This chapter focuses on the brief on the history of Catholics in
Yogyakarta. This shall highlight the history of the expansion of Catholicism and the cultural cross-relation between religions before and after independence. By zooming in Yogyakarta in terms of religious and political dynamics throughout different historical periods, we can highlight the unfolding of the Catholic faith along with Catholic religious orders and their various institutions.
2.1. Introduction of Catholics in Yogyakarta
The researcher would like to focus upon the Catholic presences, in the city of Yogyakarta. The presence of Catholic in Indonesia may surprise the large flock of people who did not look through Indonesian history to discover that the
Republic of Indonesia has very diverse religious and cultural values. This type of religious diversity is represented with one of the minorities of a religious group which is the Catholic religion which was brought first by the Portuguese expansion in 1522, the race for religion, trade, and power in the archipelago.
Portuguese missionaries and Dutch missionaries also had an opportunity to approach and impact the local religious beliefs and local converts, facing challenges with culture and language. In 1800 there were virtually no native
Christians in Java Beside the white Christians, there was a much larger number of
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Eurasian baptized, but the real growth of these communities took place during the last two centuries. Still, the vast majority of Javanese are Muslims. Besides, there was a significantly higher number of Christians in the region of the Sultanate of
Yogyakarta (Steenbrink, 2008, p. 639).
The Dutch government in approach to religion in Indonesia and mainly in
Java and Yogyakarta took a very different turn the colonial state, considered religious affairs as one of the areas that should be administered, regulated, and controlled by authority of the state. For non-Christians, these duties were delegated to traditional rulers, regent, and chiefs. For the official Protestant
Church (the Indische Kerk in which reformed and Lutherans in the colony were united by royal decree shortly after 1815), a committee under the direct supervision of the Dutch king or queen selected the Protestant ministers to be sent to the Indies. Like the Catholics, Protestant missionaries who were working outside the framework of the Indische Kerk needed a special permit to work in the colony. The Catholic Church was at a somewhat greater distance from the colonial administration than the Indische Kerk (Steenbrink, 2003, p. 3).
In 1900, the vast majority of Catholics in Java were Europeans or
Eurasians. In Batavia (now Jakarta), native and Chinese Catholics numbered only
159, while there were 6.895 European Catholics. In 1941, these numbers were
1.859 and 15.803. This means that slightly more than 10% of Batavia Catholics were Chinese or native Indonesian descent (Muskens, 1974, p. 741). There were even lower numbers of non-European Catholics in West Java, the prefecture apostolic of Bandung, while in 1927, only 108 native and Chinese Catholics were
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found, then there were 8.224 European Catholics. In 1942, the number of native and Chinese Catholics had risen sharply to 1.522 (compared to 19,091 Europeans)
(Muskens, 1974, p. 820, 823). There was some uncertainty in the statistics:
Chinese were sometimes included under the category Europeans and sometimes under natives. Whatever the exact numbers may have been, with the exception of
Central Java, the number of native Catholics remained low. This can be seen more fully in the following statistics from late 1939, where the non-European Catholics of the vicariate of Batavia were nearly all from Central Java ( Steenbrink, 2007, p.
380).
The Javanese mission had started from Semarang around in 1895, but never really flourished there. From the very beginning, it was a false start, because catechists, as well as the first Catholics, were taken over, not to say ‘stolen’, from the Protestants. After the great disappointments of the late 1890s, the dismissal of catechists had come over from the Protestant mission. Then, the return of much of their flock to the Protestants, it took a long time before the Javanese element in the Semarang region became significant (Steenbrink, 2003, p. 361). The selection of the place was probably related to the fact that Yogyakarta and Surakarta were considered inappropriate because they were the seat of local Muslim rulers.
Semarang was the economic and political center of Central Java. Most prominent in this region were the Dutch-language schools. Not only in education but also in church services, there was a division according to three languages: Dutch for
‘proper’ Europeans and some well-educated Chinese and Javanese elite, Malay for
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the lower-class Eurasians, and Javanese for local Catholics (Steenbrink, 2008, p.
361).
The policy of the Dutch government in Indonesia was not always supportive for evangelization. Under the banner of the so-called rust en orde law and order policy, the mission of the Catholic Church had to face plenty of difficulties. Anti-Catholic measures in the Netherlands under King Willem. The researcher was put into practice in the Dutch East Indies as well. On the other hand, Prefect Apostolic J.H. Scholten (1830–1842) forbade the Catholics to join
Freemasonry and to have mixed marriages. The colonial government did not favor it and the relationship between the government and the church worsened when the
Prefect Apostolic claimed his jurisdiction over the priests and denied that the government could appoint or move priests at will25 (Steenbrink, 2005, p. 644).
Although there is a history of resistance to missionary work of the
Governor-General, A.W.F. Idenburg, who was as a representative of the ‘ethical policy’ and as a devout Christian was very sympathetic toward the work of the
Gereformeerd (GKN) mission. Then he gave the requested permit. Surakarta and
Yogyakarta, medical work started first, but quickly the urban congregations started to grow with schools and a teachers’ seminary. In fact, the mission of the
GKN was the first to emphasize the necessity to work in urban settings. (Sahar,
2002, p. 677) Missionaries humanitarianism work which was dedicated to health and education had led to the establishment of Petronella hospital (now it is Rumah
Sakit Bethesda), by the first medical doctor (J.G. Scheurer, from 1893 on), while
25 Jan Sihar Aritonang and Karel Steenbrink , A History of Christianity in Indonesia
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the present mission was having the green light from the Dutch authorities. The existence of such educational institutions could have created the perfect seeds for the establishment of a Catholic footprint in the city starting from kinder to higher education level the churches needed to be prepared for independent life within their local societies. Two aspects have been emphasized: self-support and self- activation of the congregations and urban or rural development. The medical work of the churches (hospitals, small clinics) continued to function well, as did the educational program. Continuing the latter program was to be more difficult in the
1980s when government regulations became strict; Islamic school and hospitals became competitive and subventions from western partner churches; and organizations decreased. From the 1970s onwards, the attitude of Christians in
Central Java towards culture started to change. Yogyakarta became a center of cultural renewal within the churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was tried, for instance, to use wayang (shadow play) performances based upon Bible stories as a means of evangelization. Though this was a success, Harun Hadiwijono, professor of systematic theology and a truly orthodox reformed theologian, once confessed privately that he still preferred the real shadow play themes from the Hindu tradition in which noble characters combat each other above the Christian wayang wahyu. In the field of visual arts and dance, the name of Bagong Kussudiardjo (1928–2004), a well-known painter and choreographer in Yogyakarta, has to be mentioned here. Notwithstanding lack of support from the first generation of foreign missionaries, many local churches have accepted, in the meantime, visual art and dance, and wall paintings, mosaics
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and even stained-glass windows with Biblical or Christian motifs have decorated several church buildings (Karel, p. 693,2008).26
2.2. The Growth of Catholic in Yogyakarta
The Catholic mission has been changing rapidly during the Dutch colonial expansion in Indonesia. By the mid-1900s until 1970s, the expansion of the Catholic mission to the small indigenous Javanese in Java happened. The
Catholic mission had its own limitations and advantages of mission in relation to building or the creation of communal hybrid culture and identities.
The expansion of Christianity began with concentrations of Eurasians in
Semarang, Yogyakarta, and Ambarawa. The latter place was a central compound for the military where many European Catholics often lived with a Javanese woman. Their children were accepted in the Catholic orphanage of Semarang
(Franciscan Sisters). Catholicism among the indigenous population of Central
Java started with some peculiar conversions from Protestantism to Catholicism. It was first the old and sick missionary M. Teffer (1826–1907) who in 1894 sought consolation and support from the Catholic clergy in Semarang and joined their denomination. Together with Teffer, two Javanese ‘catechists’ or teachers of religion changed from Protestantism to Catholicism. On the other hand, M.Teffer wasn’t the only missionary who tried to spread the Catholic faith among the natives. The Jesuit Frans van Lith arrived in Java on 4 October 1896, first studied some Javanese in Semarang and then moved to Muntilan in late of 1897.
26 A History of Christianity in Indonesia Karel A. Steenbrink
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Van Lith continued to work in Muntilan, together with his colleague
Petrus Hoevenaars who had settled at the same time nearby Mendut. They both opened some simple schools but also wanted to attract village chiefs through economic ties. Van Lith had taken over the debts that some village heads had with
Chinese lenders in order to be able ‘to continue his close relation to them.’ He developed plans for textile industry. However, none of these strategies led to the expected quick growth of conversions. The quite unexpected thing was the turning of four small villages in the Kalibawang region to Catholicism, a result of the disintegration of the Sadrach congregations after the break with the Protestant mission in the 1890s. In this mountainous region, from the 1930s on, the most famous Catholic place of pilgrimage, the Sendang Sono sanctuary was located
(Karel-Sihar, 2008, p. 696).27
The colonial rules that prohibits any kind of religious missions including
Catholic preaching among native Javanese was allowed in the areas that were controlled by the Sultan of Yogyakarta and the Soesoehoenan of Surakarta (the
Principalities or Vorstenlanden). In the Yogyakarta region, the Protestants had received permission to work since 1891, but there could be no ‘double mission’ and therefore the Catholics were excluded from this region, except for pastoral work among Europeans and Eurasians, The connection between Yogyakarta and
Muntilan was in the quest to spread the Catholic mission. The government subsidies of Muntilan which sought a better future for its province’s rule of the government was to ease and assist its future children to find better careers. In
27 A History of Christianity in Indonesia Karel A. Steenbrink
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1922, the graduates of Xaverius College already numbered about 600. Many of the students of Muntilan came from people who wanted a good career for their children. A quite interesting example of a parallel school and conversion career was found in the autobiography of a man born under the name of Soekiman.
Anton Soekiman, born in a Javanese family with nominal adherence to Islam, was one of the many young boys of Yogyakarta who came around 1910 to Muntilan.
Since schools are the key to a better future of a great number of local
Javanese at that time, they had bad habits which were hard to break. According to the Catholic Missionary Soekiman, in his own words, he discovered the weak sides of Javanese culture, especially the cruelty of the feudal class. Many of whom were addicted to opium and did not bother about the poverty of the common people. Jesuit methods were controversial in the Catholic Church. Jesuit missionaries were adapting the faith to nonwestern cultures through the use of vernacular languages, the study of non-Christian holy books, and cultural immersion (Steenbrink, 2008, p. 700-701).
Children who came to a European school “become industrious and hard- working; simple in their outward appearance; cock-fighting and that kind of entertainment disappear; honest trade that is despised by the feudal class, is now accepted as honest work.” For Soekiman it was most of all this disciplined hard work that was the major value of Christianity. He regretted that the strong separation between the Europeans and the Javanese was so strict. Jesuit threatened colonial interests since they generally refused to operate under the control of colonial structures.
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The establishment of schools in Muntilan, had attracted many students from Central Java and Yogyakarta. The college grew not only in a number of the students, but the program was also developed simultaneously. There were various programs for an extended primary school in Javanese but in the more prestigious
Dutch course. At the secondary level, the school used Dutch. There was a teachers’ training program that used the Javanese language, and another that used the Dutch language. To support the school program, Van Lith received assistance from various sides: finance and teachers from the Society of Jesus, as well as from the government.( Sihar- Steenbrink, 2008 ,698)
The graduates became teachers, several also officers on various institutions like banks, post offices, railway stations; some continued their studies in various fields, and some became candidates for the priesthood. Xaverius
College, run by the Jesuits, did not request students to become Catholics since the goal of Van Lith was to educate Javanese to become teachers. However, the college gave the opportunity to the students to take non-obligatory courses of religious instruction. To become a candidate for baptism, a student was required to ask permission from his parents.
One reason to opt for Muntilan as the center of the Catholic mission was the colonial ruling that no Catholic preaching among native Javanese that was allowed in the (the Principalities or Vorstenlanden). There were many pupils from the Principalities who entered the school in Muntilan. A position as a teacher was very popular among the population but there was a very limited number of pupils who could enter the government teachers’ training school in Yogyakarta. Many
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students of the broad class of the Yogyakarta nobility opted for the Muntilan
School. The effect of the rise of the Catholic faith in the city, the Sultan of
Yogyakarta said that there were no objections against the transition to the Roman
Catholic religion by the Sultan’s servants if they wanted to do this. Soon after this letter, some Catholic abdi dalem were nominated for functions in the Sultanate, where they had to swear the oath of allegiance. They were allowed to do this on the Bible and no longer on the Qur’an as it was the previously common practice.
In 1927, the Minor Seminary was opened in Yogyakarta, followed by a Catholic secondary school in 1928. The Sultan was presented to give his blessings for these undertakings.
As we have seen in the above statement, the Sultan was very tolerant and respectful for new beliefs. The Sultan’s view on the so-called (Christian/Catholic
Mission) did not appear as a threat. One must not confuse voluntarism and hard work with Catholic Mission and exploitation. There was in Yogyakarta, one quite spectacular Catholic project carried out by the pious Schmutzer family, owners of the sugar plantation of Ganjuran, south of Yogyakarta. The Schmutzers had owned this plantation in Bantul since 1862. In line with the increase in religious activities among the Catholic Europeans in the Indies in the early twentieth century, here also we find the first active promoters of missionary work: the two brothers Joseph (born 1882) and the younger Julius who together took over the plantation in 1912. During their study in the Netherlands, they had been active in the Catholic students’ movement and were deeply influenced by the new spirit of ethical politics. They formulated the rights of their laborers in a treaty with a labor
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union in their plantation, (R. Maryono, 1996, p. 25–27). The contract had details about the maximum working hours, a 5% increase in salary per year, a pension plan, health insurance and sick leave, life insurance, housing facilities, and holidays. In 1918.
In 1920, Joseph moved to Buitenzorg (Bogor), because of his position as a delegate and later even vice-chairman of the Volksraad, but he stayed in contact with the sugar plantation and his family there. In 1920, Julius Schmutzer married
Caroline van Rijckevorsel, a younger sister of the Jesuit priest Leopold van
Rijckevorsel who had been in the Java mission since 1909. Caroline van
Rijckevorsel had worked as a nurse before she married Julius Schmutzer, and she opened a small clinic in the buildings of the estate in 1921. In 1922, a separate building was constructed for this clinic that was also visited by a medical doctor from Yogyakarta. In 1930, the clinic was transformed into a proper hospital, entrusted to the Carolus Borromeus-sisters. These same sisters worked in the
Catholic Hospital Onder de Boogen (now it is Panti Rapih) of Yogyakarta that was opened in 1929 at the initiative of Julius Schmutzer and some other prominent Catholics of Yogyakarta.
In 1919, an extended primary school was opened in Ganjuran, followed by three village schools in 1923. In 1930, the estate took responsibility for twelve primary schools, commonly called the twelve apostles. All teachers were graduates from Muntilan. They made quite a few converts in the region.When the
Schmutzer family left the estate in 1934, there were already 1.350 Catholics, still a small minority in this region but a remarkable community. For the period after
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1934, the place became more and more known because of the chapel, built in the style of a pure eighth-ninth century Hindu-Javanese shrine, the building of this shrine had started in 1927.
In 1927, the first open procession of the Host was carried through the central Kalibawang region which is a sub-district in Kulon Progo Regency,
Special Province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia (starting from the Plaosan School).
This was then repeated yearly. Catholics in the Netherlands donated money for 18
Angelus bells, which were placed in schools, chapels, and catechists’ houses and rung to call the Catholics of this region to their prayers three times a day. Only in
1929, there were a church and a parish house built for a permanent priest in the region. In April 1930, two priests, Johannes Prennthaler (born in Innsbruck,
Austria, worked in Muntilan from 1921) and the first Javanese priest, Franciscus
Xaverius Satiman, moved to the new parish house at Boro28. Soon afterwards, some Franciscan sisters from Semarang (commonly called the Heythuizen sisters) joined them in Boro. They served four primary schools and a small health clinic.
The sisters’ settlement at Bara was the first to have a Javanese sister as the superior (Javanese sisters had been accepted in the congregation since 1922).
Among the group of seven sisters in 1932, four were Dutch and three Javanese. In
1935, the Heythuizen sisters founded a separate Javanese congregation, the Abdi
Dalem Sang Kristus (Sisters Servants of Christ). In 1939, some of them had already joined the mixed Dutch-Javanese group of 13 Heythuizen sisters in Bara.
For the Heythuizen sisters, the schools and clinic in Boro were their first real
28 Boro : Depok, Banjarasri, Kec. Kalibawang, Kabupaten Kulon Progo, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta
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missionary task among poor Javanese. They hoped to attract more vocations for their congregation through this work, where they could show that indigenous
Javanese sisters were suited for more than housekeeping or for work that was done for the European and Eurasian population in the Dutch colony (Steenbrink,
2007, p. 376).29
An interesting thing to note is in that upcoming decades of the foundation of the catechetical center in Yogyakarta and formation by Mgr. A. Soegijapranta to the superior of the Society of Jesus in Indonesia in 1960. In 1961, the catechetical center published the religious and spiritual books and distributed there in collaboration with some other foundations. In 1962, the catechetical for founded the catholic and center published. The aim of the academy was to be an institute which would educate high-level catechist who would educate lower – level catechist to teach in primary and secondary schools, to help that the in parish work and to become leaders in their own community. It meant that the institute gave cadre formation. The curriculum of cadre formation included spiritual formation, knowledge, skill, and acquaintance. The following year, the catechetical center improved its embryonic program for the catechists’ formation and diversified its program. In 1968, the Catechetical center started research on
Institute for Catechesis. In 1969, the Catholic Academy for Catechesis started the new degrees for a doctoral program. The statues of the academy became Sekolah
Tinggi Katekis (Institute of Catechesis). In 1969, there was also a new department,
29 Catholics in Indonesia, 1808-1942 Karel Steenbrink
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an audiovisual studio which produced all types of educational material (Subanar,
2001, p. 272)30.
The city of Yogyakarta has the largest number of academic institutions in the country. In 1945-1949, some prestigious universities were established in
Yogyakarta and since then the number of academic institutions has grown quickly. In 2010, there were some sixty institutes of higher learning, including seven Islamic universities, two protestant and two Catholic universities.
University of Sanata Dharma and Atma Jaya operate side by side, part of Sanata dharma is the theological faculty where more than fifteen religious orders send their members for studying. Besides a catechetical institute (puskat) where it is also the national center for music church, it had its rooms. The diocese of
Semarang has priests of eight orders, six brothers and thirty-two sisters from different orders. Many of them have a house for the education of their members in
Yogyakarta.
The Rapid growth of Catholicism in Central Java showed 28.877 non-
European Catholics of the vicariate apostolic of Batavia in the 1939 statistics were mostly Javanese. A quick look at the number above shows that they were the only numerous group of Javanese Catholics on the whole island. In 1900, the number of Catholic Javanese in Central Java was less than 50. In 1990, the archdiocese of
Semarang, covering the Indonesian province of Central Java and the Special
Region of Yogyakarta, had 420.997 Catholics, nearly 15 times as many as 50 years earlier. Although it is still a small section of Javanese society, Catholics (to
30 The Local Church in the Light of Magisterium Theaching [i.e Teaching] Mission: A Case in Point : the Archdiocese of Semarang, Indonesia, 1940-1981
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about the same extent as Protestants) were becoming a section of Javanese society to be reckoned with (Karel A. Steenbrink, 2007, p. 380).31
2.3. The Pioneers of The Catholic Mission in Java
In 1904, Frans van Lith, SJ. came to with five Javanese men. One of them, Daud from the village of Cakrèn, had been a follower of Sadrach and the missionary Wilhelm. The heads (bekel) of four villages had joined this follower of
Sadrach and the Catholic catechist. They are commonly labelled as the Christians of Kalibawang, after the district where they lived. This is a western region of the
Praga River up to the source of that river. The best known of the four people who converted to Christianity under the guidance of this Daud was Barnabas
Sarikrama, of the village of Semagung, where one Abraham was village head.
Semagung would later become the center of the region’s Catholics, because of the
Lourdes grotto, inaugurated on 8th December 1929, and because of the miraculous natural spring flowing under a huge Sono tree. Later, this place was called Sendang Sono (literally the pond of the Sono tree). Another man, the head of the village of Kajuran Wetan, was later baptized as Lukas Suratirta. A third, head of the village of Kajuran Kidul, later accepted the name of Marcus. The researcher needs to note the significance of Sendang Sono as a religious site before 1904. This spring was well-known as Sendang Semagung, which functioned as the resting place of the bhikku who left for Boro area, the area to the south of Sendang Sono. Since 20th May 1904, however, by the arrival of Father
31 Karel Steenbrink Catholics in Indonesia, 1808-1942
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Van Lith and baptism of 173 people of Kalibawang by using the spring water, this place changed its function to the pilgrimage place for Catholic people. The amusing fact which the researcher has come across the wonderful marriage between culture and religion. The researcher has witnessed Muslim families with their Muslim attire happening to visit the site; the looks on their faces were simply cheerful and happy to witness such religious monument. Javanese syncretism is tentatively refashioned as an inclusive system that fosters pluralism without trying to melt its components. This re-engineering of Javanese culture enables the dressing-up of the notion of conversion and tolerance. As the researcher has mentioned above, the syncretism of the Javanese culture was at a perfect blend with Christianity, Jesus came in a culture. In fact, in the beginning, there was a strong enculturation between the native and imported religions. In fact, in order to support his idea, Father John made a summary of India’s history of evangelization, starting with Francis Xavier and De Nobili. In fact, as it is largely renowned, the process of interpenetration between the Church and local culture dates back to the early days of Christianity and has developed over the centuries.
Frans van Lith the Dutch priest (1863-1926) proclaimed first Christianity on the island, where he aligned the Catholic faith with indigenous religions. A great educator, he set up a number of schools from which some prominent Indonesians graduated.( Steenbrink,373,2007)
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2.3.1. The Anti-Communist Purge and Conversions
The assassination of six leading army generals was followed by the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Communists, real or suspected (1965–66).
There were also huge demonstrations of students in the streets, supported by the rising power of the army, to voice the ‘people’s demands. Both Muslim and Christian leaders were parts of this development. It was very unfortunate that the political and social development during this transitional period was not helpful in maintaining a harmonious relationship between the two religious groups. Both religious groups were initially in the same boat with the army to fight against the communists and shared the benefits of religious revival afterwards. Nevertheless, not long after the defeat of the Communists, both religious groups were eventually trapped into conflict.
Since 1966, formal affiliation with one of the recognized religions had been considered necessary to dissociate one’s self from Communism. It is not surprising, therefore, that there were ‘sudden’ religious conversions in this period, especially to Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and even Confucianism. However, for some reasons, in the eyes of many Muslims, conversion to Christianity was considered as a threat. We do not know exactly how many people were converted to Christianity at that time. According to a statistical survey by a Catholic institution, the increase of the Catholic population in Indonesia from 1966 to 1967 reached 7.45% (Mujiburrahman, 2006, p. 28).
The researcher wants to note that the anti-communist purge had emerged during this period. This man is Cardinal Justinus Darmojuwono (1963-1981) as
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the leader of the Indonesian Catholic Church. He was in a country that had the traumatic experience of an abortive coup d'état by the Communist Party with all the implications, and a country which had started to apply its new five years development planning. Based on the ideology of development, he was the leader of the Indonesian Church which had started just to increase the native clergy and native religious members in the process of the indigenous self-sufficiency
Indonesiansasi. (Subanar, 2001, p. 236)
It is very interesting to note that one of the most important figures in the
Catholic faith is Cardinal Justinus Darmojuwono who was born to a Muslim family and he was born in Kliwonan village in Godean Sleman, Yogyakarta.
In 1932, he was baptized in Muntilan. Darmojuwono went to the minor Seminary in Yogyakarta. In 1941, he entered the major Seminary in Yogyakarta. It is interesting to take note that the Cardinal transition from Islam to Christianity and becoming a public figure for the Catholic masses were without a doubt, a strong, and an important figure during the events of the 30th September. It had to face a chaotic situation after an abortive coup d’etat by the Indonesian communist party on September 30 movement. The impact of this abortive coup d’etat was very tragic. According to various estimates, the victims who were killed were between
200.000 – 2.000.000 people.(Subanar, 2001, p. 239)
The reaction of Cardinal J. Darmojuwono in state of shock where he asked the military to give security and protection to the people was based on peace
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commitment. Until 1967-1968, the impact of the abortive coup of the Indonesian
Communist party still existed. In 1966, a year after the abortive coup, the national assembly of Indonesian people (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat Sementara) decreed that every citizen of Indonesia must have one of the five (official religions) which were admitted by the Indonesian government: Buddhist,
Catholic, Hindu, Islam, and Protestant. The researcher believes this purge of communism had led many Indonesian to embrace a religion which is a very relative choice at the time of the cold war. This transition had reshaped the religious dynamics of the Indonesian republic and demography of religion.
To realize this policy of the Indonesian government mobilizing the bureaucratic officers, it went together with the religious institution. As a consequence of this policy, then there was a big wave of conversions among
Indonesian people who were adherents of the traditional beliefs without affiliation into one of the formal religions. Such a wave of conversions into the (official religions) became a common phenomenon in all regions of Indonesia. To support the Catholics faithful of the Archdiocese of Semarang who were involved in assisting the other Indonesian citizens becoming Christians, Cardinal J.
Darmojuwono encouraged them in his pastoral letter of Advent 1967. There was a big risk taken by persons or families who tried to help the families or person.
During this period, there was a big number of new baptisms and also in the
Archdiocese of Semarang. For the citizens who became Catholic, this was not without risks whether because of the society or because of their family. Showing the new conversion tendency during the period, here is the statistical data of the
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first ten-year-period of Cardinal J. Darmojuwono as Archbishop of the
Archdiocese of Semarang.
Table. 2.1 Conversion Tendency during First Ten-year-period of Cardinal J. Darmojuwono as Archbishop of The Archdiocese of Semarang
NO. Year Catholics Number of Baptisms 1 1964 103.195 4.102 2 1965 105.214 6.021 3 1967 116.457 13.489 4 1968 164.201 13.699 5 1969 180.008 15.778 6 1970 203.895 15.177 7 1971 213.124 11.326
Sources:
(Subanar, 2001: 242)
As the consequence of a wave of conversions and of the increasing number of faithful, new challenges and problems were created for the pastoral care of the faithful.
These challenges and problems included purification of motivations, lay leadership, religious freedom, etc. Studying the motivation of the conversion to Christianity, some researchers showed that there were some motives for conversion which mostly political.
The priests who gave pastoral care to faithful saw concrete factors which influenced the conversion to Christianity. In 1969, the governor of Central Java made a policy which invited the religious leaders to take part in the program of mental and spiritual education.
In this way, the people were helped, since they also knew the professional (Catholic) organizations based on Pancasila ideology (Subanar, 2001, p. 243).
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2.3.2. Growth of Catholic Faith
To support the religious instructions among the people, for instance, many people volunteered to work as catechists. Another impact of the increasing number of Catholics was the growing number of parishes. It is interesting to note that one of the main factors for the growth of the Catholic faith in Central Java and Yogyakarta is marriage, as we know in the Catholic faith that the union of marriage it is also known as matrimony which is a sacrament of the "covenant by which a man and a woman establish, between themselves, a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring", and which "has been raised by Christ the
Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.” Marriage was a special problem in this region where Catholics lived not in closed communities but in the diaspora, with an overwhelming majority of Muslims (Sihar, 2008, p. 696-697).
Marriage was a special problem in this region where Catholics lived not in closed communities but in the diaspora, with an overwhelming majority of
Muslims. The Dutch clergy usually made mild judgments about European
Catholics who wanted to marry Protestants. But for marriage with indigenous
Javanese Protestants, they were quite severe and did not like to apply too easily the possibilities for dispensation that were available according to Canon law.
Concerning Catholic family formation, Mgr. Soegijapranata lamented about priests who easily gave dispensation for mixed inter-religious or inter-church marriage. For him the Catholic nuclear family would be the center of the Catholic
Church in this dominant Muslim region. There was the double movement of
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emphasis on enculturation and on development programs. As to adaptation towards the Javanese cultural heritage, there was from one side the need to make
Catholicism a less foreign religion.
Marriage Bills were in a matter of debates first happened in the late 1950s, and the second one was in the late 1960s, the early years of the New Order.
Although the Christians were in general in favor of the secular nationalist standpoint, they became apparently more outspoken since the early years of the
New Order. Perhaps, the political collapse of the PKI made the Christians more concerned with the threat of Islamic political power. After the Revolutionary War (1945-1949) was over, there were attempts by the Ministry of Religion to codify an Islamic marriage law. The attempts, however, never succeeded, particularly because of unresolved conflicts between the Islamic groups and the secular nationalists (Mujīburraḥmān, 2006, p. 159).32
2.4. Catholics Role in Politics
The positive development of Catholic institutions had a key role in the nourishment of national movements and later on in Catholic political participation in various political parties in Indonesia. Education institutions from schools to universities had power and influence to empower and attract young Javanese to get involved in politics.
The start of the Catholic Political movement in Java was from one of many perspectives. However, the researcher would start with the Muntilan-based
32 Feeling Threatened: Muslim-Christian Relations in Indonesia's New Order (ISIM Dissertations) by Mujiburrahman Mujiburrahman
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father Leo van Rijckevorsel who initiated a union. It started with a Dutch name,
Katholieke Javanen Vereeniging voor Politieke Actie (Union of Catholic Javanese for Political Action). Among this group, it was Raden Mas Soejadi Djajasepoetra, a veterinarian in Purwakerta called Mgr. Adrianus Djajasepoetra, SJ. He was the
Vicar Apostolic of Jakarta and later it is Archbishop. Before being a Vicar
Apostolic, Mgr. Adrianus was a Rector of St. Ignatius College in Yogyakarta and the 4th Rector of Major Seminary, Kentungan, Yogyakarta (1948-1949), just like many who were to lead the nations to independence. The Indonesians needed a public figure type which could lead the nation forward. The role of education in the life of Adrianus Djajasepoetra was that he was a student of theology in the
Netherlands. His reputation preceding him was possibly the second successful
Javanese student to follow this route into the priesthood. He was ordained a priest in the Society of Jesus in 1928. Whilst still a young priest, Adrianus served at the
Kota Baru and Pugeran Church in his home town of Yogyakarta33.
Ignatius Kasimo is one of the national heroes of Indonesia who is the highest-level title awarded in Indonesia. The Chairman and member of the
Catholic Party had been a political party for Indonesia's Catholics from colonial times to the 1970s.
Kasimo was born in 1900 in circles connected to the court of the sultan of
Yogyakarta. He went, still a Muslim, to the Catholic primary school in Muntilan and was baptized after finishing school in 1912. Ignatius Joseph Kasimo
Endrawahjana was appointed as a member of the Volksraad and he stayed in this
33 "Estafet Formatio Seminari Tinggi St. Paulus Yogyakarta". Retrieved 7 September 2013.
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party until the Japanese occupation as the sole indigenous Catholic. He went to the agricultural school in Bogor and then worked as an agricultural consultant.
First on a private estate, but after a conflict with a traditional colonial planter who did not show proper respect to the well-educated Javanese, he entered government service, as a teacher and advisor.
Kasimo gave his most important speech on 19th July 1932, during the general discussions in the Volksraad. This speech was partly written by a peculiar
Catholic, H. Buurman van Vreeden. According to Buurman himself, he ‘was fascinated by the idea of a party that would occupy thirty seats (out of 60) in the
Volksraad, thanks to effective propaganda in favor of a true Catholic Ethical colonial policy’. Following this liberal Catholic colonial ideology and with the approval of Vicar Apostolic Van Velsen, Kasimo communicated his vision of the development of the Indies towards greater independence. His favorite quotations were from the Catholic social thinker J.M. Llovera (‘Every nation has the right to form an independent state’) and his main teacher, the Jesuit Frans van Lith, founder of the Muntilan schools (that Java, grown into after the independence of
Indonesia on 17th August 1945, Soekarno as the president of Indonesia formed the Central Indonesian National Committee (KNIP) twelve days later). I. J.
Kasimo, the chairman of PPKI, was appointed as the member of KNIP. To formalize the representation of PPKI in the committee, PPKI changed its name to the Catholic Party of the Republic of Indonesia (Partai Katolik Republik
Indonesia, PKRI). In 1967, members were involved in debates concerning religious freedom in the New Order and the influence of missionaries on the
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nation. In the following decade, it merged with other parties to form the
Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) which since then has been renamed the
Indonesian Democratic Vanguard Party34 (Mujiburrahman, 2006, p. 30).
Kasimo continued his work in the Volksraad, but like Soejadi, he confined himself mostly to technical details, always in favor of some better facilities for the indigenous population. His party remained small, with less than a thousand urban middle-class and lower-middle-class members. Yet, with slightly over 30.000
Javanese Catholics in the late 1930s, this was not a bad number of politically active Javanese. In 1936, Kasimo signed the Soetardjo petition, which called for a conference to arrange Indonesian autonomy within a Dutch-Indonesian union over a period of ten years. Thus from the Muntilan school was born the first generation of Catholic intellectuals of Indonesia, the Catholic Youth involvement in the growth as well as the empowerment of the Catholic institutions which were very crucial in the history of Indonesia. Since the reformation era, Catholic students in
Indonesia experienced a decline in the role to develop democracy in Indonesia.
The researcher would like to add that the close relation of the Catholic intellectuals with different political parties has empowered their role in the government. In the article entitled “The Catholics in Indonesia” by Anthony Reid who is a historian of Southeast Asia and wrote extensively about Indonesia, he stated among other things, that (1) although the New Order Government was mostly controlled by the military and professional technocrats, the Catholics were over- represented in it;
34 Feeling threatened: Muslim-Christian relations in Indonesia's new order by Mujīburraḥmān, pg 18, 30-37
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(2) a number of Catholics had close relations with the intelligence institution of Opsus35;
(3) although the Catholic Party gained very few votes in the election of
1971, they were already represented in Golkar;
(4) by educating a substantial part of national elites in his educational institutions, the Church could establish indirect relations with branches of the Government;
(5) in his attempt to find a secured shelter and central position in the national life, the close relations of the Church with the regime was a kind of triumph, (Mujiburrahman, 2006, p. 167)
However, Christian political choice eventually produced certain consequences.
One was that the Christians became the supporters or even contributors to the making of the authoritarian of the New Order regime. While T.B.
Simatupang, the leader of PGI, still hoped that the military regime would willingly support democracy, an important group among the Catholics established a strong alliance with the regime in some important political institutions, namely in the state intelligence operations, in the Government party,
Golkar, and in the think-tank called the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS). The CSIS intellectuals were involved in developing the official interpretation of the state ideology, Pancasila, in which the secular political view was combined with Javanese ideals of family-ism. They also played an important role in the government secular policies on education and culture. Although the
35 Opsus is operasi khusus which was under control of Komando Operasi Pemulihan, Keamanan dan Ketertiban (Kopkamtib)
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CSIS, at least to the mid-1980s, actually represented much more the state than the
Catholics, the involvement of the Catholic intellectuals in this think-tank helped to create a bad image of the Catholics among the Muslims.
On the other hand, let us not forget the role of the youth in the development of Catholic youth organization in Yogyakarta city, Indonesia, kick- started events with Pemuda Katolik Indonesia (Young Catholic Youth) and
Mudah Wanita Katoliek that were founded in Yogyakarta (1923). This certainly cannot be separated from Muntilan School and Mendut School which cannot be separated from the spiritual mission of Father Van Lith as well. It is vital for us to note that the Catholics played a role in the establishment of education in Java.
Father Van Lith establish HIK (Catholic teachers school) in 1900 in Mutilan to educate young people as teachers of the nation (Rosariyanto, H, 2009; Haryano,
A., 2009).
There was a wonderful statement by Father Van Lith. In 1922, he stated that: he had witnessed one morning natives (Scouts) training. At that time, Father
Van Lith pondered (from his diary) as follows: “at this time native children looked submissive to the Dutch Indies Government, but tomorrow when they are adults the time would surely come when they would become enemies of the Dutch
Government. And if that happens, I will side with the Indonesian people. The future fate of the Indonesian nation lies with its youth. Likewise, the fate of the
Church in Indonesia lies in its Catholic youth.” 36Therefore, by supporting the movements which rebels against the Dutch, he had made the Catholics at odds
36 Translated from website Pemuda Katolik Tentang Kami sejarah https://pemudakatolik.or.id/?page_id=14
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with both the Dutch colony and the future Indonesian independence movement groups (Muslim group). The journey was along the road for the Catholics as a whole and the youth as well to prove their nationalism and loyalty to the
Indonesian Republic. The Dutch, just like any European power, held the natives as possessions and slaves. The notion of schools reading and writing was not applied to the locals. However, Father Van Lith believed that the foundation of freedom laid only in education.
During the New Order era, the political party law emerged in 1973. This law regulated the Catholic party as an umbrella along with the socio-political role of the Catholic community that had lost and then assimilated into the Indonesian
Democratic Party. Until 1974, the political and social role of young Catholics was still deeply felt in the country as seen in the first KNPI (National Committee of
Indonesian Youth, Komite Nasional Pemuda Indonesia). Congress October 27th,
1974, PMKRI (Union of Catholic University Students of the Republic of
Indonesia, Perhimpunan Mahasiswa Katolik Republik Indonesia) and Catholic
Youth delegates represented nearly 50% of delegates of KNPI provincial/region from all over Indonesia. Catholic Youth Organization (OKP) that functioned as a fostering organization and organization of Catholic (also non-Catholic) student struggled based on Pancasila, imbued with Catholicism and encouraged by students.
Katholieke Studenten Vereniging (KSV) is also known in English as the
Catholic Student Association. The desire of the KSV Federation was to fuse with the Catholic Students Association of the Republic of Indonesia at that time
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because at the KSV meeting in late 1949, after receiving advice and blessings from the Apostolic Vicar of Batavia, pro-Indonesia, Mgr. Peter J Willekens SJ, a delegation of the KSV Federation (except Ouw Jong Peng Koen who failed to attend due to illness) met with the moderator on October 18th, 1950. The meeting with the then PMKRI Yogyakarta Chairman, PK Haryasudirja, with his staff took place a day later. In these meetings, the essence of the KSV federation representative, Gan Keng Soei, invited and discussed the desire ‘why don't we just get together in a national organization for Indonesian Catholic students?’ After all, besides being Catholic students, we are all Indonesian Catholic students37.
In the reformation era, there was a role of the young Catholics in the reformation period, but there were two movements that were led by students in two Catholic Campuses in Yogyakarta, in May 1998, movements at Yogyakarta:
FAMPERA in Atmajaya University and SOMASI in Santa Dharma University.
The researcher would like to cite the words of Pope Pius 12th, in his Papal
Encyclicals for the Church exhorting and encouraging Catholics to love their country with sincere and strong love, to give due to the obedience in accordance with natural and positive divine law to those who hold public office, to give them active and ready assistance for the promotion of those undertakings by which their native land could be in peace and order daily achieve greater prosperity and further true development. The researcher believes that the Catholic faith from its own hierarchy encourages and respects nationalism. Therefore, the loyalty to the
37 Translated from http://www.pmkri.or.id/profil-pmkri/sejarah-berdiri-pmkri
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republic is part of the foundation of faith which plays a perfect balance between religiosity and modern citizenship rights life.
2.5. Catholic Church Hierarchy in Indonesia
In this case study of the Catholic Church in Yogyakarta, the researcher shall focus on the structure of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Semarang
(Latin: Semarangen(sis). It is a Metropolitan Latin archdiocese on Java in
Indonesia, yet it depends on the missionary Roman congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples. Its cathedral archiepiscopal is Katedral Santa Perawan
Maria Ratu Rosario Suci, dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, in the city of
Semarang, Jawa Tengah .38
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church consists of its bishops, priests, and deacons. In the ecclesiological which sense of the term, "hierarchy" strictly means the "holy ordering" of the Church, the Body of Christ, to respect the diversity of gifts and ministries necessary for genuine unity (1 Cor 12). The head of the
Catholic Church is by the Pope also known as PAPACY: The supreme jurisdiction and ministry of the pope as shepherd of the whole Church. As the successor of St. Peter, and therefore Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Christ, the pope is the perpetual and visible principle of unity in faith and communion in the
Church (882). (Catechism of the Catholic Church) (John Paul II, 2000, p. 500)39
In the Catholic Church, authority rests chiefly with the bishops, while priests and
38 https://kas.or.id/ keuskupan agung semarang/offical website of the Archdiocese of Semarang 39 Catechism of the Catholic Church : Revised in Accordance with the Official Latin Text Promulgated by Pope John Paul II
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deacons serve as their assistants, co-workers or helpers. Accordingly, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is also used to refer to the bishops alone. The special power of the Bishop of Rome derived exclusively from Peter the Apostle until the current Pope now Pope Francis.
According to Kantor Wali Gereja Indonesia or also known as KWI, it is the Federation of Bishops (Bishops) throughout Indonesia which aims to promote unity and cooperation in their pastoral duties to lead Indonesian Catholics. KWI is not ‘above’ or supervising bishops because each bishop remains autonomous.
KWI does not have branches in the regions. The diocese is not a regional KWI.
KWI members are bishops in Indonesia who are still active, not retired. Therefore, until now the number of members is only 35 people, not more than that because the number of dioceses in Indonesia is only 37 each bishop. Let us review the tasks of each body of the Catholic Church hierarchy and function:
Pope: Head of the church, he is based at the Vatican. The pope is infallible in defining matters of faith and morals.
Cardinals: Appointed by the pope, 178 Cardinals worldwide, including the
Cardinals in Indonesia Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, Pope Francis has announced that Jakarta Archbishop, Mgr. Ignatius Suharyo, is to be one of 13 new cardinals to be appointed during a consistory meeting on Oct. 5th which was recently elected in 2019 by make up the College of Cardinals. As a body, it advises the pope and, on his death, elects a new pope.
Archbishops: An archbishop is a bishop of a main or metropolitan diocese, also called an archdiocese. A cardinal can concurrently hold the title. The number of
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Archbishops in Indonesia who are currently serving among the archipelago are those who are among the Twelve Archbishops. They are:
• Archbishop Nicolaus Adi Seputra, M.S.C. (60) Adi Seputra, Nicolaus,
M.S.C. (60), Metropolitan Archbishop of Merauke (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Agustinus Agus (70) Agus, Agustinus (70), Metropolitan
Archbishop of Pontianak (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Hieronymus Herculanus Bumbun, O.F.M. Cap. (82)
Bumbun, Hieronymus Herculanus, O.F.M. Cap. (82), Metropolitan
Archbishop emeritus of Pontianak (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Alfred Gonti Pius Datubara, O.F.M. Cap. (86) Datubara,
Alfred Gonti Pius, O.F.M. Cap. (86), Metropolitan Archbishop
emeritus of Medan (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Justinus Harjosusanto, M.S.F. (66) Harjosusanto, Justinus,
M.S.F. (66), Metropolitan Archbishop of Samarinda (Indonesia) and
Vice-President of Episcopal Conference of Indonesia
• Archbishop Johannes Liku Ada’ (71) Liku Ada’, Johannes (71),
Metropolitan Archbishop of Makassar (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Robertus Rubiyatmoko (56) Rubiyatmoko, Robertus (56),
Metropolitan Archbishop of Semarang (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Vincentius Sensi Potokota (68) Sensi Potokota, Vincentius
(68), Metropolitan Archbishop of Ende (Indonesia)
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• Archbishop Anicetus Bongsu Antonius Sinaga, O.F.M. Cap. (78)
Sinaga, Anicetus Bongsu Antonius, O.F.M. Cap. (78), Metropolitan
Archbishop emeritus of Medan (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Kornelius Sipayung, O.F.M. Cap. (49) Sipayung,
Kornelius, O.F.M. Cap. (49), Metropolitan Archbishop of Medan
(Indonesia)
• Archbishop Aloysius Sudarso, S.C.I. (74) Sudarso, Aloysius, S.C.I.
(74), Metropolitan Archbishop of Palembang (Indonesia)
• Archbishop Peter Turang (73) Turang, Peter (73), Metropolitan
Archbishop of Kupang (Indonesia) 40
Bishops: A bishop, like a priest, is ordained to this station. He is a teacher of church doctrine, a priest of sacred worship, and a minister of church government.
The Indonesian Republic has 32 active bishops, in Java alone, there are four bishops:
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Bandung: The Roman Catholic Diocese of
Bandung (Latin: Bandungen(sis) is a diocese located in the city of
Bandung in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan of Jakarta
on Java, in Indonesia. Its cathedral episcopal is Katedral Santo Petrus
(St. Peter's cathedral), in Bandung, Jawa Barat, on Jawa (Java) .41
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Purwokerto: It is a diocese located in the
city of Purwokerto in the Ecclesiastical province of Semarang in
Indonesia. It administers parishes on the western side of Central Java
40 The list of the Metropolitan Archdiocese in Indonesia according to http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/pale3.htm 41 http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dband.html
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province up to Batang, Wonosobo and Kebumen regencies at its
eastern borders. The Diocese is headed by Bishop Sunarko, Julianus
Kemo, SJ.
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Surabaya: The Roman Catholic Diocese of
Surabaya (Latin: Dioecesis Surabayana) is a suffragan Latin diocese,
which is located on Java island, in Indonesia and administers parishes
in the northern and western parts of East Java province. The Roman
Catholic Diocese of Surabaya is headed by Monsignor (Mgr.) Vincent
Sutikno Wisaksono, Pr .42
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Malang: Which is under Bishop Henricus
Pidyarto Gunawan. It is a diocese located in the city of Malang in the
Ecclesiastical province of Semarang in Indonesia.
Priests: An ordained minister who can administer most of the sacraments, including the Eucharist, baptism, and marriage. He can be with a particular religious order or committed to serving a congregation .43
Deacons: A transitional deacon is a seminarian studying for the priesthood. A permanent deacon can be married and assists a priest by performing some of the sacraments.
Catholics: Also known as Lay People or the faithful who are the followers of the Catholic Faith.
42 http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dsura.html 43 http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bgunawan.html
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2.6.The Relation of Catholics Community with Other Religious Groups
The relationship paradox of religious diversity in Indonesia had allowed for both respectful coexistences with people of different faiths and authentic commitment to one. However, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of communists, real or suspected (1965–66), we had seen the cooperation of archenemy to rid with communist beliefs both Muslim and Christian leaders which were parts of this development in the rise of a religious society. It was very unfortunate that the political and social development during this transitional period was not helpful in maintaining a harmonious relationship between the two religious groups. Both religious groups were initially in the same boat with the army to fight against the communists and share the benefits of religious revival afterwards. Nevertheless, not long after the defeat of the communists, both religious groups were eventually trapped into conflict.
2.7.Intolerance and Discrimination in Yogyakarta (and Cross Religious
Dialogue)
The root of religious intolerance had been deep-rooted for a long time. The seeds of xenophobia mainly against religious minorities are not all of the sudden events. In this part, the researcher will shed light on the history intolerance in
Yogyakarta and how internal elements of politics and religion in Indonesia are disturbing peace of the city. It is vital to have a quick background check on the history of violence after president Soeharto fall at the end of the experiment with limited liberalization and the beginning of a dangerous new policy on inter-
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religious relations in Indonesia. The suppression of religious free expression was boiling throughout the Indonesian Republic, pushing chaos and unrest within social and racial lines. This unbalances in the power of structure and the fall of President Soeharto in 1998 as a result of the Asian economic crisis which led to the 1997 and 1998, rioted in various parts of Indonesia. Sometimes, these riots aimed against Chinese Indonesians. Some riots looked spontaneous, and others looked as if they had been planned. The researcher’s thoughts on that pro-
Soeharto generals were trying to weaken the forces of democracy by increasing the divisions between orthodox and non-orthodox Muslims, between Muslims and
Christians, and between Chinese and non-Chinese.
Regulating religion and religious freedom is not an easy task. However, by enforcing certain rules on the local population may cause social unrest. Therefore, the Indonesian government just like any modern states we should minimize its involvement in religious life. While this assumption might hold some truths, it is also a fact that many regulations have proved effective in easing tension between religious groups. According to the Wahid Institute, in its 2014 annual report of the city of Yogyakarta, previously dubbing the city of tolerance, it has been ranked second for intolerance and violations of religious freedom. The province at the top of the list, out of the 18 provinces monitored by the institute, is West Java with 55 cases of intolerance and violations of religious freedom, the report says. The institute reported that during 2014, there were 21 cases of intolerance and
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violations of religious freedom committed in the Yogyakarta province, a drastic increase from just one in 201344.
The intolerance toward mixed-faith marriages is another obstacle towards solid coexistence in society. In chapter III the researcher presented the interview to converts to the Catholic faith and the researcher was surprised to find out that three or even two religions are combined into one family. Unlike other countries,
Indonesian law has no provision for non-religious civil marriages.
As we can see here that religion is very deeply rooted in almost every aspect of life. Here where even marriage was involved in religion, there were many examples of marriages which were going through obstacles due to this inter- faith union of love. Although inter-religious marriage was relatively easy in the
1970s, since the mid-1980s, it gradually became more and more difficult, and in the 1990s, it became almost impossible. Why did this happen? As noted, inter- religious marriage is unregulated in the marriage law. The solution to this legal vacuum was then to apply the previous law on mixed marriage. This solution, however, is still problematic because the marriage law states that marriage is valid if it is carried out according to respective religions and beliefs. If the religion of both or one of the partners prohibits inter-religious marriage, can that marriage be legalized? In fact, there has been a strong tendency among Muslims (and not less among non-Muslims) to prohibit inter-religious marriage.
The days where religious pluralism attitude or policy on diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society were people sharing gifts on
44 The Wahid Institute http://wahidinstitute.org/v1/News/Detail/?id=639/hl=en/Rights_Group_Says_Indonesia_A_Hotbe d_Of_Religious_Intolerance_And_Corruption
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religious holidays and celebrating with one another religious holidays where songs were used to praise religions and respect for one another which that it was taught in schools. The researcher was told by a close friend that a song which promotes religions as instruments of peace is sung by her state schools. (Mujīburraḥmān,2006,182-185)45
2.8.Attacks on Churches and Freedom of Worship
Religious freedom was on the test in Indonesia while attacks on faith groups and religious minorities’ gatherings, prayers and houses of worship were making the minorities singled out from the others in the society unequal treatment, and who; therefore, regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.
Wahid Institute stated that of the 21 cases committed in Yogyakarta, 11 were cases of Muslim and Christian relations, which included the sealing of churches, the banning of a joint Easter celebration in Gunung Kidul and an attack on a joint Rosario worship. 'The Yogyakarta provincial administration and
Yogyakarta Police had violated human rights because they could not protect the people's right to freedom of religion and faith,' he said. He expressed his concern that Yogyakarta, which had long been renowned as a miniature Indonesia in terms of tolerance, now showed such a high rate of intolerance.
He urged the provincial administration and police to make sure that people having the freedom to practice their respective religions and faiths if they wanted
45 Mujiburrahman Feeling Threatened: Muslim-Christian Relations in Indonesia's New Order
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the city to maintain its title as the city of tolerance. The institute reported 158 incidents of violations of religious freedom in Indonesia in 2014, a decrease from the 245 cases reported in 2013. The institute recommended the central government and House of Representative’s monitor intervention by regional administrations in religious-based issues, which were the authority of the central government. The Constitution should remain neutral as to religion, notwithstanding the Islamic affiliation of the majority of the population. We should keep in mind that freedom does not mean incitement of hate under false pretext such as freedom of speech. The promotion and protection of religion are a right. The institute also urged the police to have the guts to protect minority groups and to avoid siding with perpetrators of violence by arguing that it was for the sake of security and order.46
Meanwhile, Yogyakarta provincial councilor, Chang Wendriyanto, expressed the same, saying that both the police and the provincial administration had never acted firmly to protect minority groups practicing their respective religions and faiths. He also criticized the Yogyakarta Police for not being serious in handling cases of violence against religious freedom. He said the provincial legislative council had repeatedly summoned the police chief for a hearing but the latter never showed up. He also said he and his team had tried to meet the police chief at his office but they only met the deputy chief. Yogyakarta Governor, Sri
Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, said that acts of intolerance were still committed in the province because there were intolerant people. 'This is a problem of individual
46 Religious Freedom Report Offers Grim Review Of Attacks On Faith Groups https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/718244032/religious-freedom-report-offers-grim-review-of- attacks-on-faith-groups
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awareness,' he said. He added that his administration would take legal action against intolerant groups, but said this would not mean much if there were still people with no awareness of tolerance. Separately, the Yogyakarta Police in its annual report said that no violations of human rights had been committed in the province in 2014, claiming the attack on a house hosting a joint Rosario prayer in
Sleman was an ordinary crime.
Away from conflict and violence on the island of Java, there is still a glimpse of hope watching over individual freedom, giving guidance and support as to promote healthy religious movements. Hence, such progressive dialogue dynamics of religious freedoms in Yogyakarta is engaged in promoting Kenduri or selametan or kenduren which is a Javanese ritual. Kenduri is a banquet for remembering something, requesting blessing, and other religious ceremonies. It is usually a gathering of a community and is led by the oldest person or someone who has a religion knowledge. The gathering is usually solely for the male population. For women, this banquet gives them a chance to socialize while they prepare a meal for the Kenduri. The Tradition of for the Kenduri was met with the theme of Interfaith Festival in the Ganjuran Church. The Church of the Sacred
Heart of the Lord Jesus in Ganjuran Bantul Yogyakarta carries out a tradition of joint festivity across religions to commemorate the 94th anniversary of the church founded by a Dutch family that owns a sugar factory in that area. Attendees with different religious backgrounds and beliefs came from hamlets around the
Ganjuran church who came to attend the feast to commemorate the 94th anniversary of the existence of the Catholic Church in the midst of the pluralistic
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community around it. Islam was represented by Warsito who happened to be the head of the local RT, Christianity by Rev. Suharjono from GKJ, a neighboring village of Jodog, Hinduism by Wagimin, from the flow of belief in God Almighty by Heri Sujoko, and from Catholicism by FX Tugiono. The regent of Bantul,
Suharsono, invites all citizens to present to always maintain the brotherhood and harmony of religious communities and care for diversity with love to achieve mutual prosperity in Bantul, which is rich in natural potential. This can show us the great diversity between religious groups in the special region of Yogyakarta.
2.9.Cross Faith Relations between Religious Groups The researcher has highlighted earlier in this chapter about marriage and cross-religious relations between religious groups. However, there are some internal factors as well as the contributions of Catholic Universities in Yogyakarta to the development of community transformative dialogue between religious communities. While living in Yogyakarta, you cannot help yourself from noticing the vast number of youth and students. It looks like a young city active and vibrant. There are 1.866 Elementary Schools, 420 High Schools, and 368 Senior
High Schools. There are 127 universities all around the Special Region of
Yogyakarta. We have to double-check the role of the universities in taking part in the times of religious tensions between different religious groups, especially the rhetoric of speech in regard to national unity and civil harmony.
Yogyakarta also had a slogan as a city of tolerance that represents the spirit of unity in diversity in Indonesia. However, with the emergence of some
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radical movements in this city during the fifteen years, conflicts and violence have disturbed Yogyakarta as a city of harmony. In the midst of growing religious sentiment and radicalism, dialogue with religious representatives would no longer start from the grassroots. As the researcher mentioned above, in the rise of various cases violence and intolerance in the society of Yogyakarta, the researcher addresses the question of the role of social and political dialogue. The seeds of reconciliation had always been rooted within the Indonesians as a society. We can take an example of Ambon Maluku sectarian conflict. It was a period of ethno- political conflict along religious lines, which spanned the Indonesian islands that compose the Maluku archipelago, with particularly serious disturbances in Ambon and Halmahera islands. The conflict had caused death and destruction in both sides of Muslim and Christian communities. However, the dialogue seems to be an effective way to develop peaceful living together.
Since culture and social religious values are so vital to the city the
Javanese with their hybrid religious beliefs, this Javanese culture creates a medium between religions and society. This powerful relationship breaks down wrong values which allow people to unite and come together. We can look at the concept of Keslarasan or harmony; in English, it is an ethical principle and the goal of the life of the Javanese people in the dynamic unity with the world. The
Keslarasan is not merely a state of peace and harmony or an equilibrium of society. It is also a pattern of the self in which everyone has one own proper place and responsibility to develop the quality of human beings and the world. The manifestation of Keslarasan is expressed in gotong royong (working together), in
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order to help each other in daily life or to maintain public facilities. This helps in maintaining good ties and connections in the local neighborhood for the interests of society.
Hence, the fall of Soeharto and the rise of the radical Salafi Islam, some young youth groups among them who are Muslims are working together to protect churches as the researcher had encountered when the researcher first arrived in
Indonesia that the young Muslim youth along with the police stand by and protect the churches during the Christmas holidays. Since the strong cultural values are maintained the balance between Nusantra Islam and Salafi Islam, it is in a matter of equilibrium of a balance of power which each group claims to be right. The observance of culture and local government support had lessened the attacks on religious minorities. However, it could not stop the attacks. The concept of hormat or respect is an ideal of integral living and mutual respect and peace values that are inherent in a harmonious life. Dialogue is a way to realize a harmonious life. Conversely, violence and social conflict are a real threat to a harmonious and peaceful life. Thus, developing a dialogue among different groups especially among the young generation of youth such as Pancasila Muda or Pemuda Katholik is very vital to bridge the gap of weak communication among civil groups and society where chances of peace can be given a second chance.( Carolus.B,2016,254-261)
It is worth to note that the big names within the Catholic Church in Java have always had a strong connection with the forming career and personality shaping of individuals. Those who have graduated from Catholic University often
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have a good reputation due to the quality type of private institution, Sanata
Dharma University the Catholic Church. Students take several courses in theology and philosophy before graduation, and the Campus Ministry holds worship services and offers leadership opportunities to interest students. Individual’s social or cultural environment has considerably a huge effect on the formation of the personality of the students. The interesting part is that Catholic University plays a great role in promoting not only books and education but also social justice.
Figure. 2.1 History of Archbishops of Semarang
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CHAPTER III
EIGHT EXPERIENCES OF BEING NEW CATHOLICS
This chapter will focus on interviews which were conducted with the converts who were willing to be interviewed, to have their cases reviewed. The researcher shall zoom and observe historical Catholic life span of the individual participants in the modern-day era of the Indonesian Republic. It is an imagined figure which is nevertheless perceived by the converts as a familiar companion.
For some of the converts in the researcher’s study, the traditional transcendental object of devotion becomes an unconditional provider of the self's needs. Their transformation derives from a merger with this perfect object, which becomes the internal protector of a previously fragile self. Several recurring themes in conversion experiences are described in this chapter: the sense of being chosen for a special mission, the experience of fusion with an idol, and the conviction of personalized miracles, that is, special messages to the self that are revealed in common daily events.
In a linear approach, the life-history as qualitative research method encompasses the study of the experiences of a single individual, embracing stories of the life of the Catholic converts and exploring the learned significance of those individual experiences. The subjects were asked to describe their lives as such, what it was like to be that particular person. The purpose of the interview was to capture a living picture of a disappearing people and way of life.
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1. A.G
There have been several attempts to draw a portrait of the authentic intrinsic truth-seeking or a term that is easier for the readers to defend-mature cross-culture religious experiences. The researcher encounter with A.G was through a friend where she explained her experience towards the Catholic faith.
A.G’s background is from a mixed ethnic and religious family, where her mother is a Javanese Catholic and her father is a Balinese Hindu. This rich cultural marriage is without a doubt and a very progressive healthy marriage where the melting pot of the two cultures and religions come to life within the researcher’s participant A.G. was born in 1970 in Jogja. Soon later, her parents have decided to move and migrate to Germany. This quick transition was very difficult for A.G in terms of culture adoption and comprehension of the new society in Germany.
Years went by and A.G’s parents kept on reminding A.G of the importance of her
Indonesian roots and culture. They may have provided basic education in German education and culture until the age of 15. The parents have decided to move her back to Yogyakarta to study in Stella Duce Catholic High School for girls. There, she had encountered the Catholic religion since she was surrounded with mostly
Catholic students. She decided to take that leap of faith and embrace Catholicism.
She felt normal about the conversion since her mother was a Catholic.
The reasons for A.G’s conversion was not having a religious choice.
However, religion was something to hold on to. It is a community or society where she can be embraced the process and the reason for her conversion was more of the right passage in terms of sociological context than theological.
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However, the conversion went on fine until she went back again to Germany to live back with her family to settle down and start a new life as German from
Indonesian descents. A.G viewed people as individuals and she never tends to mix with people from a practical religion since she was in Yogyakarta, and in
Germany, the church community was not a major role in the integration of her to the Catholic community but it was mostly her classmates in school who were more involved into getting her to be familiarized with the community.
The conversion did not create any conflict between her parents. The fact that there is tolerance within the family things went on very smoothly. However, the clash did not emerge from the religious side (conversion). It emerged from the cultural side where parents often tended to fight over things, for example, which one came the first place, the chicken or the egg due to culture difference. The religious situation during the period of the Soeharto regime was normal in terms of community relations. Since she came from a non-Muslim family, her surrounding housing complex people were showing a great amount of tolerance towards her family by the Muslim families and the neighbor often visiting and bringing A.G’s family gifts during Christmas and Easter. During this cross- religious transition, A.G had gone to a divorce in Germany and her family also were affected by this of a few years ago when her parents went through a divorce.
This had a massive impact on her life. The decision to move back to Indonesia was a blessing and a difficult choice at the same time since she already had a gave birth and A.G needed to find the remedy to cure the pain and the psychological damage in her life. Her only refuge to seek peace in her life was in a religion
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where the church was a place she can leave her burden and worries. Confession with the local priest in Yogyakarta and seeking community support were not as useful as Miss A.G expected. It was more of a disappointment where the words of the local priest were not supportive. This had ignited this quest for there have been several attempts to draw a portrait of authentic, intrinsic truth-seeking, or a term easier for psychologists to defend-mature religious experiences. Religious faith is the manifestation of the "ultimate concern" for "that which determines our being or not being." It is a manifestation of a most profound search for meaning.
A.G did not fit in the category of the confused lady who was seeking religious faith. It is the manifestation of the "ultimate concern" for "that which determines our being or not being." It is a manifestation of a most profound search for meaning. Hinduism was the answer to her childhood problems as well as adulthood. For A.G, there have been several attempts to draw a portrait of authentic, intrinsic truth-seeking or a term easier trans-cultural-religious experiences. Religious faith is the manifestation of the integrative pattern of values that may provide direction and coherence to the self which is at the heart of psychological maturity, and without which any life seems fragmented and aimless. When integrated with the mature personality, religious faith is marked.
All port says, by increased differentiation, and by the centrality and comprehensiveness of the issues that it addresses. Engaging the social institutions and systems of the wider world requires yet another level of conversion, and entails acknowledging accountability and takes responsibility to the possible fullest degree, for the quality of life produced by these institutions. While the
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substance of the other forms of conversion is important, the core evaluation of social conversion is Goodness for all humanity not only Catholics.
2. J.M
The researcher encounter with J.M was heartwarming in one of the catholic monasteries. He was a very joyful man who welcomed the researcher with an opened heart we sat down and we had some tea and cakes to express his joy to happiness to explain his conversion experience to the Catholic faith. J.M was born to a conservative Muslim family. However, this is where the story gets interesting. He noted that his father was a Protestant (Agpee Church) and his mother was Catholic and the only way for them to get married was through converting to Islam. On the other hand, both of the couples did not believe in
Islam because the local churches could not accommodate a wedding to prove their cross-religious wedding. This had resulted in a kind of friction within the family which can only be resolved through the mosque which had created an unbalanced family. J.M has nine siblings and most of them belong to different religions.
The parents were Muslim converts but (antagonistic) to anything religious.
They made their children aware of their Islamic identity but they did not expose them to any religious teachings. All J.M understanding from being a Muslim is to follow this teaching: "To be Muslim meant concern for the world and a general humanistic attitude." J.M described his childhood relationship with his father as nonexistent. Perceived by all family members as passive and helpless, the father was despised by his wife and ignored by J.M and his siblings, an older sister and a younger brother. He felt completely out of tune with his peers, inadequate and
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frightened in the face of what he saw as their preoccupation with religion. The words of J.M reflect a presumption that the researcher shared. The researcher embarked on the study of religious conversion assuming that people who had undergone a major shift in beliefs and whose lives have consequently taken a different course had examined more profoundly and more intensely beliefs that most of us take for granted. The researcher expected that converts had reexamined the ground rules dictated by the circumstances of their upbringing. J.M had always worked with joy and a big smile upon his face. This new job is that he was
"literally picked up by this girl who was in the process of becoming a Catholic.”
He was not ready to say much about this relationship, his first romantic involvement with a woman, except to comment that it was "tense" and that "it was not going anywhere." The two had frequent talks about religion, and in the course of one, the girl managed to convince J.M to come with her to spend the evening after Mass with her Catholic community. In this visit, J.M was instantly converted. What convinced the researcher (to become Catholic) was very simple.
The informant (J.M) fell in love with the religion and that is the only expression that describes it. The J.M just fell in love with the teachings gradually. That was a very powerful experience he nodded with a big smile . The researcher was just taken by His dynamism, His authority. J.M relationship with the girl did work and last long. Following his instant conversion, his relationship with the priest and the
Franciscan friars became the center of his life. He gradually adopted the Catholic culture and rituals. Soon, with the Franciscan friars brothers blessing, J.M moved in to live with the Catholic community surround him, frequently visiting the
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brothers (Franciscan) quarters within the city of Yogyakarta. At the present moment, J.M does not make any decision, large or small, without consulting the
Franciscans. He feels protected and accepted in his new life and believes that he is a happier person now.
One of the major changes in his life is that he feels concerns about his relationship to authority: “Now I feel much less self-concerned. I am comfortably submissive to a higher authority in a way which I was never before. I was very resistant to any kind of outside authority, even minor meddling in my patterns.
Now, I can accept the authority even about things I do not like.” J.M realizes that not all his problems are solved. He occasionally wonders whether his relationship to the community is healthy. He still finds it difficult to maintain close friendships even within the Catholic community, and his relatively recent marriage, arranged by the Brother is continuously in serious trouble.
The years had passed by, J.M was living as a normal Muslim. He often prays and we took up regular Islamic education and he was a modern Muslim. J.M started to date his girlfriend and according to his words, love has no religion and love cannot bring two people apart no matter what are their differences the courtship went on. And, a couple of people within his village saw this as a problem. He was against the gossip which used to go around. Through his transition to Catholicism, he felt like the church itself had no problem with him even though the church members knew that he is Muslim. Every Sunday mass he would drop and pick his wife. There was great tension between the people that he knew and some members in his family as well as friends. They did not give their
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blessings to his wedding. He had lost some friends during this religious identity transition, in the long run, he started to gain back his friends and loved ones.
However, he recalled that one of his closest friends refused to keep in touch with him and rejected J.M’s friendship because of the conversion to Catholicism.
The marriage between the two religions which J.M taking part in
(interfaith marriage: Catholic and Islamic marriage) went on and they faced some difficulties in trying to settle for a civil marriage. Although J.M was a firm
Muslim believer, he was taken by his humbleness and care which he had never had experienced before. He was introduced to the Catholic brothers. He was against the idea of converting to any Catholicism, yet gradually through this process of being embraced by the Brothers, he had started to get some religious teaching. That was a starting point for his identity religious transition which continued with learning about the Catholic faith even though he had no support from anyone to convert. After the initial encounter with the others, his interaction with his adopted religious group intensifies. In other words, J.M learns more about the teachings, lifestyle, and expectations of the group; and he is provided with opportunities, both formal and informal, to become more fully incorporated into it. In J.M’s case, he had to insist on a very long period of education and socialization; others focus more on brief, intense periods during which potential converts are encouraged and/or required to make a decision. J.M chooses to continue the contact and becomes more involved, or the advocate works to sustain the interaction in order to extend the possibility of persuading the person to
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convert. Once again, there is a spectrum of passivity and activity by the potential convert, as well as manipulation and persuasion by the advocate.
His approach towards the Brothers was out of trust because he had believed that they were not like other religious groups where they approach to force their ideology. The Roman Catholic Church has instituted a program called the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, a one-year progression of classes, retreats, liturgies, spiritual direction, and community life, designed to introduce potential converts to the Roman Catholic Church and to teach them the theology, liturgy, organization, and way of life of the church. Most Roman Catholics do not actively undergo out into the community programs seeking people to participate in the RCIA. It is more programs for those who, on their own initiative, come to the church seeking information and desiring conversion.
The J.M baptism , personally, was “the convert being born again in the most spiritual possible way.” He explained of the first of three sacraments of initiation he received at the church of St. Antonius Church. “It was like a breath of fresh air. It felt like anything I ever worried about was gone. I buried my face in my towel when I got back to the pew. It was so emotional.”
His baptism according to his statement on religion, he states that all religions have one destination in common which is all divine religions teach love and compassion. He also stated that in according to his statement where he mentioned that he felt the theology and liturgy of the church was easier to comprehend. He mentioned that he feels closer to the divine creator and more relaxed in terms of being accepted socially. Something changed was this transition
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helped in creating a balanced equilibrium where he and his wife and son are all under one roof. This may have helped to block any family friction which may happen under a family which divided internally. Obtaining a national identification card in which being free to choose a religion status and changing from Islam to Catholicism, this document is essential to conduct transactions as basic as opening a bank account, getting a driver’s license, entering a university, getting a job, or collecting a pension. However, this did not come without some fear and doubts when he talked with the registering officer at the Civil Status
Department. When the register worker approached J.M, and in warm type of approach he was asked whether J.M was sure in regards to changing his religious status and the answer was simply with a nod yes.
3. P.A
P.A was born and brought up in Purwodadi, Central Java. She has been moving around from a young age. She is the eldest of five children. Her parents are ethnic Chinese Buddhist mixed with Confucianism. Her father and mother believe that harmony in universal peace did not disturb their day to day of life.
Miss P.A comes from a Chinese background and culture, and family status demands more of her which eventually leads her to continue her High School education at SMA Stella Duce Yogyakarta. While asking the participant about the reason for the conversion, Miss P.A had mentioned that the reasons were mostly connected to her Catholic High School upbringing. This encounter between
Advocate (Catholic community) and the convert which was a link to the Catholic identity was exposed to the Catholic rituals and traditions which had first-hand
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experience in shaping the complete comprehensible structure of the Catholic community since the majority of her friends were Catholic during that period of time. Encounters and social interactions with other members of a religion
(Catholic followers) also bring not only friends but also romance too. Through these connections and social settings, the boyfriend had appeared during her last year in High School which helped to evolve their relationship forward. The encounter with Miss P.A was not going to ease away her memories for the dreams and hopes of enteral love. Her attachment to her boyfriend, back then, was so strong that she always used to drive him to the church which she did not see that there is anything wrong in his religion or even the way he practices his faith, as she mentioned once love has no race or religion or even class. However, this is easier to say than to do, until her boyfriend had to work and save money and she had to go back to her family to find a decent job which would match the family status of Miss P.A. The couple went on their separate ways, and from there, she tried to be in touch with her boyfriend. The strong belief in love was meant to bond but be broken so that the couple will be together through such a small effort.
The couple decided to take the relationship further to the next level.
Love may appear compassionate and kind. On the other hand, it was not always pleasant in the relationship with a boyfriend. She struggled to find acceptance from her in-laws. The family status of Miss P.A was somehow higher even though they were both ethnic Indonesian Chinese citizens. Within this encounter with her husband to be family, it was a great clash of tension between both the convert and the family. It was not a religious clash but rather an inner
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culture clash between class and integrity belonging which led the couple to break against culture and tradition. The truth is that enmeshment with old systems of religion, family, society, and politics, seldom encourages a movement to anew religious option. Personal and social conditions rarely facilitate change. Hence, what makes any voluntary conversion process possible is a complex confluence of the "right" potential of the convert coming into contact, under proper circumstances at the proper time, with the "right" advocate and religious option.
The potential conversion is available for the P.A. Advocates do not often meet in such a way that the conversion process can germinate, take root, and flourish.
The family approval of the marriage was complicated in terms of the husband used to run a small business which was not good enough for the wife to be family and the mother-in-law of the husband was somehow attached to her elder son who was also supporting the family at this point of the interview she started to cry as old memories started to rush through her thoughts and expression, she couldn’t care any less to the fact that she is in a public place to some extent the interview have made P.A feel like she is in therapy session . This was seen as a sign of rebellion by the mother of the husband to be which later on increased the tensions that occurred between the mother-in-law and the wife (Miss P.A). She reported that her husband was running the business at some certain period of time.
The sales of the business went down and plummeted at the most crucial and sensitive time of her life which was during the wife pregnancy of their first child.
During giving birth time, there was no support by any of the family members and no financial assistant or aid to deliver. Their firstborn baby in the year 1998 was
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the turning point for Miss P.A where according to her own words, she was so in love with her former religion of Buddhism. However, the pain was healed. Nor some of the chants could not have answered her prayers during the difficult financial and emotional times. At the blink of an eye, she gave her prayers to
Mother Mary and she prayed the rosary. During that moment, everything had changed. Everything she felt in her prayers was finally and eventually answered and was resolved financially.
During her ongoing visits to Saint Anthony Catholic Church, Kotabaru, some of Miss P.A’s friends found it hard to comprehend why she would attend mass and would not be baptized. This was very personal for Miss P.A, she always felt that her relationship with the divine was more of spiritual rather than religious. That is where rituals and prayers take part in her daily life which connects back to her roots, Buddhism. The silence and solitude help her to cope with the stress in life of being mocked and left out because of her arrogance to marry someone who is not from the same economic status. The conversion was a big step in her life which she was baptized in the year 2015, in Saint Anthony
Church, Kotabaru. The feeling of being accepted and welcomed by the religious teacher, she described the teacher as a very focused-loving-heart teacher in terms of giving her the Catechism classes before undergoing the ritual of baptism. The main reason that she felt that attending religious classes was easy to approach was that she gained the basic of Catholic Doctrine teachings. The next step was the baptism. It felt normal. However, she felt at ease and peace. This acceptance was in her opinion a graceful transition where her economic and social problems laid
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to rest and the struggles of her daily life felt like it did not exist anymore. Her words of a miracle in the making were indeed transformational. However, her problems with her mother-in-law were even though. She had converted in her eighteen years of marriage. She felt, even though she had converted that she could not have been accepted by her mother-in-law. However, in this long period of marriage, it was interesting to note that the church was flexible in her marriage, in terms of accepting the crossed religious marriage (Catholic-Buddhist). The communal care was there. However, Miss P.A had to look for that spiritual guide for the support. She had eventually met the right spiritual mentor who had managed to guide her during religious confessions. Part of the Catholic religious sacraments, this also helped to open up towards the community of open like- minded friends from the church and the follow up with a close priest who is supportive and kind-hearted to help Miss P.A to bring her husband and her husband’s family at peace and reduce the conflict within her family. She had eventually changed her status on her ID card from Buddhist to Catholic which had faced without any difficulty or problem within that process.
4. Mai
The conversion of Mai is the process which begins when she was a child where she was a practicing Muslim who prayed five times a day. Mai comes from a decent family within the structure of the family. There were elements of native abangan culture and philosophy which went on hand in hand with the Islamic way of life in the family of spiritual being and practical life. The decision to convert was not insistent. It went through the gradual process from a young age
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which had undergone Elementary School education at a Catholic School in
Jakarta, by then the years passed until she reached Secondary School which was still within the Catholic School education system which tended to place out the non-Catholic students. Due to the sensitivity to teach Catholic dogma, each student had to be placed in public religion classes or subjects, isolation was a great factor for the feeling of confusion. An identity issue did emerge when she could not have attended Catholic studies as a formal school subject. On the other hand, an overwhelming number of non-Catholic students had have noticed the slight identity change and mindset. Years have passed and the questions of faith started to occur. The questions are like who I am, where do I belong, who is God to me? Such questions emerged in times of identity crisis and personality transformation. In mid-twenties, one of the problems faced by the convert is to understand the sequence of events that constitutes the conversion process. Some form of crisis usually precedes conversion. The crisis may be religious, political, psychological, or cultural in origin.
The great transition to conversion did take place during the period of
Mai’s engagement to a Catholic fiancé. However, that was not enough for Mai’s decision to convert for marriage or love. It had been deep-rooted within inner conscience where she felt the call to take in a path for her culture and religious identity Catholic was an integral part of the culture. It is not unusual for people to seek out Christianity when they desire "salvation." Yet, conversion to Christianity is fundamentally different in sociocultural settings where Christianity is not the dominant religion or in more extreme situations, is not even known. Starting a
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process of self-exploration and a search for salvation which is meant there had to be a choice to be taken by the participant which in her words was a must in order to end the mental and social confusing of identity. She was more vulnerable to outside influence. It could be because of the open spirituality which had existed in the house which led to this sort of identity confusion. The quest of the participant to convert to Catholicism had to undergo a long process which was simplified by a good-hearted Jesuit English nun through her the study of the catechism. It was simplified which she had offered alternative simple books to simplify the study of the faith and so that Mai went through her religious path in a friendly easy-going way. In her words, Mai mentioned that this experience was profound because the spiritual mentor was not only supportive but down to earth when it came to spiritually and personal way of life and their friendship grew from a spiritual mentor to good friends where they both have kept in touch.
The baptism of Mai was a great stepping stone in entering the Catholic faith which will firm her religious and culture and shape her new personality through this spiritual baptism of water which can be represented as a new birth of the convert. This shall shape mental and social aspects of the converts, day to day activities. The feeling of the baptism was overwhelming and joyful. However, the reaction of Mai’s family was good and there was no conflict or objection towards the convert because it was firstly a personal (spiritual) decision and the second reason was the conversion was for the purpose of marriage. Therefore, there was a complete social embrace in her own society and support. On the other hand, she did not want to get involved so much in the church only with some of the few
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members because she believed that sometimes we need to seek and find our own way to God without being judged by the community (Catholic community). This period of conversion had marked as a new stage within her conversion. However, it did leave a great mark of a different type of confusion that this newborn person was into a new religious identity of being Catholic. Perhaps, the concept of socio- religious transition may be behind the confusion which often needs spiritual concealing by the Jesuit nun who helped her through the conversion process. The conversion experience was very deep and profound in terms of the spirituality of the feeling of being reconnected with God. The connection with the new faith had re-emerged and placed peace upon her soul within her own words. Different religions may teach different paths to one source. Yet, teachings are not God and all paths have their own failings. Finding one’s path was very vital for one’s decision making, in terms of great importance both culturally and spiritually. The sense of confusion is without a doubt always presented because of this great cross-religious/culture transition. To an extent, the convert felt like some spiritual guides may not be able to provide her with the answers of her newly Catholic position. There were some people whose religious community somehow old date with the young Catholics and especially with the converts. In the end, we cannot change how the universe works. If we still want to be happy in life, we are left with only one option: change ourselves; that is the change of our own perception of the world. Conversion holds out the possibility that with enough insight into the nature of reality, we might just discover that all things are as they should be the way they are meant to be; if not the way we would prefer them to be. The
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religious status of Mai was changed in the ID card. It went on smoothly without any conflict or issues.
5. Mas Putra
Mas Putra’s reasons to convert, for the main solid reasons to convert, are to be united with his wife in matrimony within one church, to avoid complicated problems which may occur to marriage institution and official marriage documents as well as to assure the mental religious wellbeing of the future children. Mas Putra seemed to be unfazed by the conversion as he explains to me that they would feel fully integrated, in terms of belonging and religious identity with one specific group. In other words, marriage is also a social insistent where it combines happily married couples to show the others what it means to be in a loving relationship in which healthy principles and values (Catholic) are the center of daily life. They also let others know the gift of faithful married life and love. They have the potential to show others what it means to embody the life of the Holy Spirit within them. The Pringwulung Church is where Mas Putra holds his weekly mass with family and friends. At some point his wife would complain to me about the sort of small religious identity clashes which sometimes occur where the Catholic venerate the Saints and the Virgin Mary were such ideological differences do immerge from time to time, the husband mas putra laughs at the background and he said it doesn’t matter as long as we worship the same God he added with a great emphasis what brings and unite families is the matrimony taking into consideration the vows which are made in sickness and health and in joy and sadness so therefore its normal for families to differ however there is a
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need to bridge the gaps seeing diversity as a blessing rather than a curse. He did not feel approached by any members of the church. He is not active within the previous church. Perhaps, in the beginning, they were supportive and they did the same. However, now, things have changed you need to change your religion on the ID card then you can get married.
6. Ria
The researcher’s participant, Ria, had up brought within a Muslim conservative family which performs all the Islamic religious rites such as the five daily prayers, fasting during the month of Ramadan, zakat (giving charity) to the needy and poor, paying a visit to Mecca during the Hajj. In other words, she was a pilgrimage to Mecca. Ria grew up in a rich family which had provided her with whatever she needed from money like clothes, car, and proper education at a private school in Bandung. Ria is a mixed-race young lady who was born on the west side of Java in the city of Bandung. To a Bataknese mother and a Betawi father, she was born in the year of 1982. She is the youngest in her family which consists of two elder brothers and one younger sister. Ria’s parents wanted to facilitate learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, and skills so that she will be the top among her classmate. Most religious attempts and efforts had ceased by the time Ria was in Elementary School. Ria always felt a curiosity toward her friends and classmates who were from families of faith, but generally did not feel left out – all but one of her friends came from fairly non-religious families. Ria entered High School which was externally indifferent about the existence of God
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and even professed some normal religious beliefs, but deep down, she never lost this feeling that there was something more.
Whether by Divine Providence, or just pure good luck, Ria exclusively dated Catholic guy throughout University. Ria was an amateur photographer who always walks around with her professional Nikon camera. Ria wanted to improve her skills in photography. Ria decided to go to Yogyakarta to take a short course at a local university within the city of Yogyakarta. During the short course and the amazing adventures of young energetic Bandung girl in the small humble city of
Yogyakarta apart from beach camping and dancing around the fire with new friends from all over Indonesia, she happened to meet her husband. Let us call him Roni. That was a turning point for Ria, in terms of a deeper social-religious transition even though this was not her first time to interact or to meet people from the non-Islamic background. Therefore, all the invisible walls were broken and there was an ease to move towards the unknown group (none religious group).
Through Roni, the new boyfriend of Ria, she was introduced to the world of
Catholicism. It was mysterious, sensual, and completely foreign to Ria. The first time Ria ever entered a Catholic Church was to attend a Mass with her boyfriend and his family when she was still in university. As his family sat and unfolded the kneelers, honestly thought was that the church had an amazing installation and had no idea that they were used to kneel in prayer. It is sort of funny to mention that it was because of that part of day to day the Catholic prayer kneeling before
God during Mass/prayer.
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Ria, later on, developed her relationship with then boyfriend, Roni; that love relationship had developed into a very tight strong serious relationship which cannot be chopped. In the meantime, the family of Ria knew about the relationship and they were strongly against this type of relationship. What made things worse was for Roni’s family was running a pork restaurant. This combination of both Catholicism and pork did not go well with Ria’s family and her family had demanded that she broke up with her boyfriend, Roni, immediately. Ria rejected her parents’ demands and proceeded with the biggest decision of her life which was marriage. This stepping stone was not a game or joke. It was, somehow, life-risking and socially risky for the young city girl who was in search of love. Ria’s parents did not bless the wedding and had ex- communicated for marrying Roni which had damaged her finical and social life where the money which she used to receive from her rich family was completely stopped. Hence, the disabling of her luxury lifestyle did not stop her from loving her husband. Years passed by and Ria maintained her Islamic religion. Roni’s family did not object towards Ria’s religion. Things went very smoothly.
However, at one point during the early 2000s, Ria had this sense of peace and that was the point of religious transition to move forward and fully embrace the
Catholic faith. In Ria’s words: “I was not fully emerged by the family or my
Catholic friends. It was me who searched for meaning in my life during the harsh period of ex-communication by my own parents and the cruel treatment that I have endured.” Then, Ria was pregnant with her first son. It was somehow a difficult period without having her family’s support. However, her mother heart
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leaned and became soft but she was not fully supportive of her, yet provided financial support for her grandson.
Ria became a mom of three lovely boys. However, during that period, due to her family-in-law’s support and kindness, her heart started to open towards the
Catholic faith and it was by Ria’s own effort to seek for her new religious culture identity. In the early 2000s, Ria had decided to prepare herself for baptism in the church of St. Anthony. Ria’s conversion was a secret from her friends and family in Bandung. There were times where Ria’s mother comes to Yogyakarta to visit her grandchildren twice a year. The sudden death of Ria’s late husband, Roni, came as a shock for the entire family. The relationship between Ria and her mother became worse. However, in a couple of years, technology and social media made it easy to communicate. After years of hostility, a tensed relation, Ria mentioned that becoming Catholic strengthened her relationship with her mother for her to accept her mom, for her attitude. Ria decided to visit her mother on the high holidays (the two Eids). However, the family trip came with a cost. She has to transfer herself to her former religion, wearing the hijab and the children would wear koko clothes which are usually worn on religious festivals. During the trip to
West Java, Ria is forbidden to go to church or to attend mass because the neighbors may notice her behavior and Ria’s mother believes that she had brought shame to the family. The process to adopt Islamic traditions is somehow hard for the new convert. However, Ria is doing her best to build bridges between the divided family. Ria’s relationship with her sister and brothers are simply just fine.
Although the siblings are conservative Muslim, thanks to social media and the
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smartphone application WhatsApp which had enabled to empower Ria to acknowledge difference and to accepts it. There is a saying that reality is stranger than fiction. Religious conversion may seem, to many Cradle Catholics, as a joyful celebration. However, many of the community members do not see the difficult journey of this religious transition. It is easy to dream and to share some laughter and gifts with the convert. Yet, within Ria’s case, there was somehow a lack of support, due to lack of knowledge by the Catholic community. Ria had thanked the researcher for shedding the light upon this topic and she was very thankful for her in-law’s support through the difficult times.
7. Vici
Vici’s case of conversion is unique. Her conversion did not come from a normal upbringing. Her family was split at the age of her two years old due to her mother mental illness to schizophrenia. Vici’s father and sister were told that
Vici’s great-grandmother had had a serious illness and had lived for 30 years in a state of madness, which they believed she was admitted to a mental hospital.
Vici’s mother left the family when she was very young. She has been out of touch with them, and they thought she might have been treated for mental health problems. It was very difficult for the family to move on without having a mother within the family structure. The family was not the same anymore due to the mother’s constant involvement in causing financial issues and demanding money whenever she meets Vici and her sister. This had forced Vici’s father to ask for a divorce and move away from his ex-wife which greatly affected his daughter’s self-confidence. In Vici’s word: “All I have ever wished for is a kind of warm hug
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and love. The last moments with her mother were almost like living in a sanatorium. My mom was having persecutory delusions, auditory hallucinations, and negative symptoms that had lasted for at least one year.” All of these symptoms fit with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Vici’s mother had moved on and remarried. The mother demanded to meet her children. However, it kept on going on for years until Vici’s mother got divorced again. Ideally, children are raised with two loving parents to care for and support them. In some instances, this is not the case when a child is left motherless as a result of divorce. The degree to which the absence of a mother impacts many aspects of her daily life. The social aspect of socializing with friends and family was greatly impacted by this turbulent childhood. Vici recently had suffered extreme anxiety and depression which had caused her to take an overdose amount of anxiety pills to commit suicide. For suicide survivor, after the initial shock of learning of the death, the “whys” begin—terrible, unending “whys.” The family’s reaction was confusing. To some extent, there was no social support by friends or family members towards the aftermath and the recovery of this suicide attempt. There are two sorts of extra- social causes to which one may, a priori, attribute influence on the suicide; they are organic-psychic dispositions and the nature of the physical environment. In the individual case of Vici’s suicide shows that all the characteristics of mental alienation, the attempt of self-destruction only in delirium, and suicides are mentally alienated. Suicide may be seen to be for us only a phenomenon resulting from many different causes and appearing under many different forms. It is clear that this phenomenon is not characteristic of a social and family’s breakdown. The
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suicide attempt may occur only in a state of insanity. The main source and the root of this, so-called insanity, are within the social-environment context issues.
Religion had played a great impact on Vici’s mental health healing process.
According to Vici, her religious Muslim background was not a strict Muslim family. However, she recalls that she used to pray and fast during the month of
Ramadan. Yet, the increasing rate of her mental health illness and the social and family’s breakdown did not manage to create any kind of social bond but rather social alienation. Vici encountered a Catholic friend who often shares her faith with Vici, the coming into access to Catholic books and ideology, preparing an antidote for the upcoming transition of culture-religious matter. Vici’s reason for conversion was that there was no sole reason for Vici’s conversion. However, she mentioned that love was the reason for her conversion which was coming through the passage from the bible. Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy (Matthew, 5-7, New
International Version). The reading of the scripture and having to what Vici calls a happy friendly accepting social environment, she recalls some of her beautiful moments whenever she is in the Catholic Church of Santa Maria Assumpta
Pakem. Vici’s words on conversion and this religious transition were the quality times which had sat with the nuns and the lay community of the church where love was experienced by Vici. For the first time, the laughter and the joy were something which was almost unique. The experience of being in an actual family
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setting was felt by Vici for the first time. The family was not much in the picture as much as the newly adopted family of church members and clergy. Vici mentioned that her decision for conversion, the feeling of excitement, and the teaching of the Catholic Church are humanistic and therapeutic for the mind and soul. The conversion of Vici will undergo at the end of this year. The preparation of the conversion will include a reading of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and a few other selected books. It is a difficult transition in terms of understanding the great Catholic collective culture and the teaching of the saints’ philosophies. It may take a long time for Vici to comprehend. However, she does not mind the transition process which she mentions in her words that she is enjoying the process and how patience a virtue is.
Being upfront, Vici and private person by nature family and keeping her conversion a secret, Vici knew exactly what her family would think of her conversion, and she wanted to avoid the consequences of her choice at all costs.
News of her conversion came out accidentally in a conversation and she was totally unprepared to share her news with them. They assumed it was just a depression phase, and they did not grasp that she had really taken hold of the truths of the Catholic faith and made them my own. Vici is not being upfront has meant that the painful process of helping her family to understand that conversion and the new Catholic faith and its effects on Vici’s life has been a long and drawn out. Family and close friends’ reactions to the conversion have ranged from disgust to pity, to a mysterious type of curiosity. Some have called upon Vici to
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try to come back to the faith and there were some (temptations) with money.
However, all are the strong and opposing resistance to Vici’s conversion.
Conversions do not come out of anywhere but they are the end result of a process. This type/case of conversion is very interesting where we can view the on-going struggle for withdrawing of Vici’s former faith where the pervious culture/religion and family structure is completely destroyed. However, it still maintains the power and influence over Vici’s life. The struggle in Vici’s life is a still on-going struggle that was the liberation from the alienation. It is an aim and goal, the problem of the old social structure system that isolated individuals from mankind. The issue of class conflict disorganized society is trying to adapt to a healthier society and mentally sane of life. However, adopting social conformity only had led to depression and illness. The best refuge for Vici was conversion which will do but might be a temporary end to her depression.
8. Lisa X
This one is about the life of Catholic convert young adult in Yogyakarta, a
Catholic university student, who on a daily basis, experiences in dramatic fashion, what it is like to be a Christian in the country with the world’s largest Muslim population. Yet, she is the only Muslim in her class of 40. However, in the country’s public school system/post-high school, there is a religious education
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provided according to students’ particular faith; each Friday. Lisa attends a class devoted to Catholicism. Lisa believes friendship is key to interfaith harmony:
“Every day, I go through the routine like any other student. Class begins with a prayer in the Islamic way; I use that time to pray the Our Father silently; I also use the time to honor friends who belong to other religions—as they pray Islamic prayers, I say a Hail Mary. I keep praying and try to offer my daily life to God. In class, every teacher sees me like they see the other children. I never get unfair treatment. Last year, I was asked to represent the school to take part in an English competition at another school. As a Muslim, I felt particularly proud of this opportunity.”
“Six friends, who often run out together with me to go somewhere, are all Muslims. I am the only one who is Catholic. But I do not feel any different. We are equal. Recently, I attended a birthday party for my Muslim friend at her home. I met her parents and also some of her relatives. They welcomed me kindly. We talked freely even though they saw me not wearing the hijab like my other friends.”
“Several times, when I went to the mall with my six friends, I also was the only girl who did not wear the hijab. I do not feel strange; it has become common in our friendship. I respect the faith of my friends, as they have respected my faith as well. When in the mall, they asked me to take care of their bags, while they went to pray in one of the small mosques.”
However, there are some clear challenges for Indonesian Catholics. For example, the neighborhood where Lisa lives is part of the parish of The Catholic
Church of St. James Klodran Bantul that is the place of her baptism , which belongs to the Archdiocese of Semarang. It took local faithful a long time to get municipal authorities to grant a permit for the charity work for the poor of a parish church. Some local Muslim groups have demonstrated against it. The Catholic
Church of St. James Klodran Bantul, they call it the Beautiful Chapel. It is where
Mass is celebrated and where they pray the rosary, though the place is not ideal for prayer. It is also the space for various activities for children and youth; there
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are also some other Christian denominations that every Sunday hold services at the same time in this shopping complex.
We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions lead us to our transformation
(Merton, 1960).
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CHAPTER IV
CONVERSION AND SOCIO -CULTURAL CONSEQUENCES
The meaning-making of identity within this case study of the Catholics in
Yogyakarta is the key to the vital component in studying the converts’ relation to society. As I have researched and discussed in chapter one, the concept of the presentation of self in everyday life is related to the individuals dynamics conditions who had decided to choose a new religious identity. Therefore, the concept of self-image and public image is suitable to represent a social mechanism during the transition period. Identity itself is the condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals. Anomie may evolve from conflict of belief systems and cause a breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization)47. In a person, this can progress into dysfunction in the ability to integrate within normative situations of their social world - e.g., an unruly personal scenario that result in fragmentation of social identity and rejection of values.
During ones cultural/religious identity transition, cultural identity refers to one's sense of belonging to a particular culture or ethnic group. It is formed in a process that results from membership in a particular culture and it involves learning and accepting the traditions, heritage, language, religion, and ancestry.
That is the reason that people internalize the beliefs, values, norms, and social
47 Gerber, John J. Macionis, Linda M. (2010). Sociology (7th Canadian ed.). Toronto: Pearson Canada. p. 97.
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practices of their culture and identify with that culture as part of their self-concept.
Social identity is developed as a consequence of memberships in particular groups within one's culture.
In this case, identity is the seed of foundation growth of individuals as it was discussed in Chapter III in the converts’ transformation religious identity in which a personality identity is based on people's unique characteristics, which may differ from those of others in their cultural and social groups. You may like cooking or chemistry, singing or sewing; you may play tennis or trombones, soccer or stereos; you may view yourself as studious or sociable, goofy or gracious; and most assuredly you have abilities, talents, quirks, and preferences that differ from those of others. Individuals intend to convert exploration and question about one's culture in order to learn more about it and to understand the implications of membership in that culture. By exploring the religious and cultural aspect, individuals can learn about its strengths and may come to a point of acceptance both of their culture and of themselves. For some individuals, a turning point or crucial event precipitates this stage, whereas for others it just begins with growing awareness and reinterpretation of everyday experiences.
4.1. Individual Identity
There are some problems with the modern use of the word conversion. If we look in the website of the Vatican and search for the word ‘conversion’, we come across some 51 documents. Nearly in all cases, it is not the conversion from one religion or denomination to another, but virtually all texts speak about the
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conversion to God. This quite spiritual meaning is most clear in the Instruction on
Certain Aspects of the “Theology of Liberation” (1984) X:8.
The acute need for radical reforms of the structures which conceal poverty and which are themselves forms of violence should not let us lose sight of the fact that the source of injustice is in the hearts of men. Therefore, it is only by making an appeal to the ‘moral potential’ of the person and to the constant need for interior conversion that social change will be brought about which will be truly in the service of man. It is, indeed, we saw the word of social change and self-having interviewed the participants who had already converted and also those who grow up in a Catholic environment in Yogyakarta. The concept of Anomie takes an unpredictable result which can be shown in the next paragraph.
The conversion analysis and the case study of the converts’ social and identity perspective of conversion represent a sample by observing and studying them in terms of similarities and difference in (1) effects of converting on the identity and the social life, (2) major social paradox themes and issues faced by the converts, (3) the analysis of the making of the new identities of the converts
(social, economic and religious) perspective and society response, and (4) ecology of religion (Quest/Christianization), (5) a marriage romance and social belonging, and (6) Christianization and conversion, :
1) Effects of Converting on The Identity and The Social Life
The situation of the converts is awareness of the nature of the experiences
he or she is going through. From the first experience of quest or collective
crisis, the ideas of converting is exploring, experimenting, and in some
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sense "negotiating" the new possibility. After a period, certain consequences are more obvious than others. For some of the participants/converts, the consequence is a radically transformed life. The patterns of beliefs and actions are significantly different from what they were before, for example, dietary habits and choices play a significant role in the quality of life, health, and longevity. Food and lifestyle can define cultures and play a role in religion, for such reasons; in this case, we can see a transformation in two sets of dietary changes in the halal food practice and the vegetarian. For Muslims, they are allowed to eat common meat except for pork and consumption of alcohol because they are forbidden according to Islamic Law. Likewise, not all vegetarian dishes are halal, because they might contain alcohol. Buddhist/Hindu vegetarianism is the belief that following a vegetarian diet. The conversion process also changes dress code within the conversion such as the halal themed modest clothes/hijab which was consumed and dressed on daily basis. This can go smoothly with the process of the conversion religious tradition. There is often a great backlash in the beginning by family members and friends who support the idea of Muslim dress code. However
Indonesia doesn’t have strict laws on conversion. The citizens are free to choose the religion which is more suitable for them. The complex process that transpires over time is shaped by the expectations of those advocating a certain type of conversion depending on the background of the individual. Most participants who come from different religious
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backgrounds have different meanings to conversion. It is interesting to say that everyone believes in God (Jesus). That’s why they choose to convert.
However, studying the participants’ religious backgrounds had helped the researcher to conclude an interesting finding which is religion as family house structure within the house. There are various functions to be religious identity which was not solid and later on was built by the
Catholic structure of identity, love and safety, financial, maternal, and marriage institution. The conversion has a great impact on individual and families’ life alike Peter Berger refers to this homeless minds where converts try to the liberation of the self from the “repression” of institutions. This liberation within this context is the conversion of the religious constitution. Conversion is a shift in social identity where the institutional fabric, whose basic function has always been to provide meaning and stability for the individual, has become in cohesive, fragmented and thus progressively deprived of plausibility. The transition, however, it may be religious, political, financial, and marriage purpose.
They have the effect of social relocation or shift in one’s house from religion A to B. The essences here are the converts. It is on a journey from being without an identity homeless heading towards the right house where he can exercise his daily functions, not in perfection. However, it is in line to the converts’ social-cultural and emotional needs.
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2) Major Social Paradox Themes
Conversion and social influence the data in chapter three. Religious
conversion indicates that group process often participates in shaping the
particular conversion experience takes in the future maintenance of the
new beliefs. The effect of the group process on those who are exposed to
it means any form of associations with the other religion in this
condition. It is the Catholic religion that may be a mechanical drive for
the none-Catholic to bridge the known with the unknown world of the
Catholic religion. The informants mostly faced a difficulty in transition
throughout the conversion. The cross-culture and inner marriage play a
great role in shaping the cultural/religious identity of the converts. The
vehicle for the group's influence primarily influences the converts’
emotional state and the feeling of belonging, in the researcher’s opinion,
having so many perspectives of others in regards of one self-prior. Then,
after conversion, it may lead the converts to a state of confusion having
four to five captains to lead a ship will definitely lead the ship to disaster.
The same goes with multi-faith schooling and marriages. The self-
concept is interconnected in the chain of the self, the society, and the
individual subjective construction of others' judgments of the person.
Conversion is often associated with happiness and liberation. On the other
hand, at some points of their lives, the converts faced major crisis
(identity, social, separation and transition death/illness). The crisis
emerges for different reasons. We may be able to indicate that the self and
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the society play a great role in the conversion participants. The identity and social structure collapse create a vacuum in the self. The emptiness is later on replaced through the transition. In the case of participant A.G, she suffered from a divorce which led her to a quest to find a meaning of a home and community which she can relate to the old structure of religion and culture no longer mange to cry the self-crisis. The participant, Ria, suffered from her late husband and her transition from West Java to
Yogyakarta and the feeling of being abandoned by God. Thus, the refuge was the church and her new family in law. The transition from Group A to
B (Catholicism) provides a sense of belonging which can end the vacuum of crisis to some extent ends and helps the converts’ constant fear of belonging where they are settled in one social and cultural identity.
3) The Making of The New Identities
Conversion transition from the individuals who come from Javanese background is smoother with less conflicting than the converts who are from non-Javanese background. There is also one element factor which is the syncretism that helps in the change of public acceptance of religious conversions of all kinds. The structure of most families of the converts was already intact or also homogeneous within their co-existence. There are many negative thoughts on the idea of conversion which may lead into massive backlash. However, the structure of the Javanese syncretism is not critical concerning religious point view. On the other hand, the government institutions and the Pancasila form a protective shield to
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safeguard the society and individuals alike from extreme fanatic attacks.
However, although the researcher is addressing the issue of conversion and Javanism, there are several elements which also make this transition of conversion. Conservative Islam which looks at interfaith marriage and other religions as xenophobic, it is different from the Islam Nusantara which has a softer approach towards co-existence in the words of one of the converts, M.J. He mentioned that all religions work of the greatness of humanity. It is a beautiful concept, indeed. Although a person is already a converted, he or she still carries tolerance towards their former religion and acceptance towards others. Therefore, religious landscape has a great impact on the religions.
4) The family support and acceptance
Parental and family environment had a significant impact on conversion for converts who were associated with warm parental religiosity and care.
The importance of the family environment in the development of religious belief, hence, motivates them for conversion that is not simple after all.
They are multiple and complex. The researcher came to notice that most of the schools that the converters go had this in common. The setting of the place of conversion that the participants had enrolled in Catholic
Universities such institutions has a great deal of influences towards the non-Catholic. It has been associated with the group/religion which may build a small foundation in the individual psychology and identity. Hence, each convert perceived advantages: satisfaction, benefit, fulfilment,
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improvement, and sometimes compulsion in their life. We can see this within students who have attended Catholic High Schools. The formation of friends and the social and cultural capital which are formed in the school have a great impact on the lives of the converts. The direct and indirect association and friendships/emotional relationships (dating) also have a great role in the creation of the ecological environment for conversion. From the eight EXPERIENCES OF BEING NEW
CATHOLICS we can notice that in the case of J.M who comes from a none religious family background a parents ( a catholic and protesant mix) who have converted to Islam didn’t not enforce Islamic ideology on their son, There was great tension between the people that he knew and some members in his family as well as friends. They did not give their blessings to his wedding. He had lost some friends during this religious identity transition, in the long run, he started to gain back his friends and loved ones. The rejection part as we can see here by the friends and family members of J.M was a sign of trying to make J.M confirm to the religious traditions of his former religion (Islam) .In the mid of his religious identity confusion which was heading to conversion , I came to notice that the father figure wasn’t in existence within his life so this can lead to void and emptiness by the absent father figure who also had weak religious identity was effecting the sense of belonging towards his son
J.M . The Catholic Church and the Franciscan friars played a vital role in
J.M sense of belonging it created this new feeling of a new family identity
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where we can noticed the father withdrawn at an early age of J.M life and
then later on the family rejection of his religious conversion and Catholic
Marriage. The finding reported here are correlational and one should be
cautious in drawing causal inferences from him. J.M also can relate to his
childhood were he felt that his parents of interreligious marriage may
have caused unbalance to his family therefore the union under one
religion ( the Catholic faith) may keep his new family in balance. The
finding reported here is correlational and one should be cautious in
drawing causal inferences from it . Nevertheless, the findings reported
here require special attention: The father problem appears consistently
and forcefully in these data, and it seems to loom large not only in
childhood memories of convert but in the actual conversion experience,
suggesting that this relationship often plays an important role in religious
transformations of the kind examined here.
5) Marriage Romance and Social Belonging
One of the common reasons for conversion was the participants’engagement in a bond which eventually led the couples to fall in love. It is easier to say than do, to get married due to government and social pressure by both parties to actually commit to one religious belief and to shift cultural values to the other side which is Catholicism. The marriage law which is a marriage ceremony has to be conducted at a religious place because the marriage law states that the institution of marriage is meant to be a religious ritual. Article 1 of the law stipulates
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that ‘marriage is a union of body and soul between a man and a woman as
husband and wife with the purpose of establishing a happy and lasting
family found on the belief in one supreme God’. The religious dimension
of marriage was again confirmed by Article 8(f), stating that marriage is
prohibited between two people if they have any relationship in which their
religions do not permit (what is meant here is the sanctity of religious
marriage that the church or religious institution will not allow any form of
inner religious marriage which is also supported by the government).
Therefore, this sacred union loses its way when it comes to the inter-
religious marriage. This religious and culture relocation is somehow
smoother by the non-Muslim participants who were more accepting and
forgiving when it comes to none religious conversion in the case of Putra.
The understanding of what is God and religion is almost the same essences
as protestant Christianity. It was only a slight difference within the rituals
themselves. The vital part of conversion is the union between the husband
and wife and allowing it to smoothly run through the blessing of both
parents by both parties who were given during the wedding.
The following is an analysis of the status of the individuals who have converted because marriage impacted on their religious-culture identity:
Miss P.A who was Buddhist also had gone through a very smooth
transition. Although the reason for her conversion was for marriage
purpose. It came with cultural complexities rather than religious
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difficulties. The Chinese culture and social class play a great role in
creating this invisible boundary for marriage even though Miss P.A was
willing to give up her former in according to her belief that her former
religion did give her peace. However, the social love structure of her
former religion was not strong enough to provide her a spouse looking at
the small number of Buddhist believers at that time. The cultural element
of being Chinese was a strong element to cross over towards Catholicism.
The family’s blessings and support were there which was interesting to
view that cross religious marriage between some minorities was less of an
issue and it is not a matter of conflict. However, it was more of a family
union. How can one explain the shift experienced by this woman,
seemingly well entrenched in her own Chinese culture? Conversion and
the search for relief to protect her marriage from her stepmother had made
Miss P.A to indulgence in the Catholic Church.
RIA’s marriage was a great struggle due to her Muslim conservative
family which was focused on the teachings of Pesantren (Islamic boarding
schools). The upbringing of Islamic teachings was shaped by her behavior
and personality. However, the fast upbeat religious and well-financed
young woman relocation from Bandung/Jakarta to Yogyakarta had
influenced and shaped her. Although Ria’s religious foundation was strong
and faithful toward her former religion, the romance had played a vital role
in her quest for this new social relocation towards her non-Muslim friends.
It met with excitement and joy. The everlasting feeling of social belonging
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and the connection she had with her boyfriend/husband were a strong stepping stone for conversion. The quests for marriage and love were a starting point for a new religious exchange that was the swapping of religious books. It made Ria came to the conclusion that Catholicism has a stable belief for Ria. In fact, if we look deeply in Ria’s case of conversion, it was the metaphor of the lover and the beloved one is the most dominating in this case of conversion. Rejection and belonging played a vital role in empowering conversion where the factor of Ria’s family rejection of her marriage was an absolute nightmare. However, the element of social support of her family in-law had maintained her wellbeing and her new religious life which Ria had chosen.
6) Christianization and Conversion
There is a very interesting similarity when it comes to the law and the conduct of conversion.. The statement and idea of choice and freedom will be much tolerated. However, anyone who would try to disturb public order shall be punished heavily even though if it was from the same religion as the officials. Focusing on the Muslim and Christian relations in Java, the allegations directed against the Christian minority included long-heard claims that it sought to dominate the nation through evangelism, education, health ministry, the founding of new churches, the economy and business, and the control of government positions. With regard to evangelism through education, Muslims have long objected to the regulation in
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Christian schools that all students, including the Muslims, are required to take the Christian religion course as a compulsory course. The decentralization of power in the post-Soeharto era has led to a greater politicization of religion at the regional level through the use of religion for political gain. This had heightened the tensions between Muslims and
Christians, as well as within Muslim and Christian communities. Looking at the case of the rise of small seminaries and churches or the existence of any Christian representation, the researcher has witnessed this by himself where the researcher has interviewed a Franciscan monk who addressed his stress and issued the following statement: ‘we, Franciscan friars, are called to live the Gospel in everyday life and to spread the God's world to all living creatures’. Many of the Franciscan brothers also have vocations such as doctors, lawyers, tailors and musicians. They are generalist friars rather than specialists even though they, as Franciscan brothers, aim to live in harmony. However, this secular dream is just an illusion. Harassment is common social pressure towards their small seminary. However, the
Franciscan friars try their best to avoid causing any problems. They try to contribute and help the communities around them. Nevertheless, the locals are always suspicious of their presences in the neighborhood. They don’t aim to the converter. Yet, they accept whoever wants to explore more about the Catholic faith. According to Indonesian law, religious centers need to be accepted by the respective neighborhoods around them. If they are not accepted, permission to build and maintain such buildings will not
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be granted. This is the reason that many Christian churches are semi-legal,
merely tolerated institutions.
One of the most interesting aspects of studying the sociocultural and historical consequences of conversion is to examine the results of the role of the religious and social institutions in shaping the meaning-making of the identity of individuals. Therefore, this feeling of void and emptiness is answered by Peter
Berger according to his book. The homeless minds individuals (converts) are forced to turn to the only remaining source of meaning and significance. Human beings are not capable to tolerate the continuous uncertainty (or, if you will, freedom)48. It is like the loss of faith in primary institutions (religion) if we take religious institutions. One effect of this loss of faith in primary institutions has undoubtedly been the turn to the self and subjectivity on conversion and self- identity.
There are different dimensions of life in the conversion and meaning- making. It can take a more or less religious or culture form, at its most spiritual.
For example, the turns to self-life, the converts turning to self-life is manifest as utilitarian individualism within the converters themselves. Erikson's concept of identity is clearly relevant to the understanding of the phenomenon of adolescent conversions. Adolescents may find it in religious conversion as a remedy for the identity crisis. Exploring new expectations, ideologies, and values; the adolescent may temporarily "try out'' the identity supplied by membership in a new group49.
In the researcher’s opinion, this new membership is an alternative for self-
48 Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness Peter L. Berger 49 Identity, youth, and crisis Erik Erikson
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expression of the new identity during and after the process of conversion which may provide the final resolution to the identity question, unifying a previously divided self and allowing an investment of the self in new commitments and goals.
The self is placed by the adolescent in the context of a group or a tradition which spells out clear commitments and clear guidelines for behavior. A religious conversion supplies the important ingredients of a self-definition. The researcher has added the relationship between identity and meaning-making, defined by the conversion experience. The subjects were men and women who belonged to various denominations and background. As it has been expected, the gradual converts in this sample tended to have higher overall identity statuses even though they did not differ from sudden converts in their specific scores of identity statuses in the ideological domains of religion and social environment. The second finding of this study was counterintuitive and surprising: Converts in sectarian organizations achieved higher identity statuses than members of liberal or conservative churches. The researcher interprets this finding by arguing that the level is reached by the sectarian converts. The achievement of meaning is more closely akin to foreclosure. This form of "as if” identity achievement, the converters argued, reflects (submission to authority) rather than an internalization of the dicta of the faith. Although the decision to surrender is freely made by the converts, the adherence to the new faith, in these cases, reflects the obedience or love of the authority figure that cannot be considered as a "true" commitment. Just like the words from the participants, J.M believes that religion, in general, leads to
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the path of peace within his old Islamic context of religion. It was as the Quran teaches that the purpose of Creation is none other than to let human beings worship Allah. However, in terms of social belonging, religious conversion is experienced by some participants who are in their adolescents. It reflects the two sides of the ambivalence. In these cases, the conversion is a step in a total rejection of the real parents, at the same time allowing an emotional and often practical dependence on the peer group or on a parental figure that is omnipotent and forever available.
As the researcher has discussed above in the common elements of conversion in shaping the identity, such elements represent certain models of conversions. Yet, there is a problem of who defines the identity of genuine conversion. Thus, the result of the conversion, in this case of study, is a transformation of the identity of the self. Thereby, in this research, we will see that (a) conversion is an overtime process, not a single event; (b) conversion is contextual and thereby influences and is influenced by a matrix of relationships, expectations, and situations; and (c) factors in the conversion process are multiple, interactive, and cumulative.
50 A systemic stage model that used by the researcher for model diagram for the observation may seem obvious as the first and foremost methodological guideline in the making of identities of converts to the Catholic faith which shows the chain of events and the integrated circle where conversion takes place within a dynamic context. This context encompasses a vast panorama of conflicting,
50 A systemic stage model. Figure 2 Understanding Religious Conversion , P.18
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confluent, and dialectical factors that facilitate and repress the process of conversion. Context is more than a first stage that is passed through; rather, it is the total environment in which conversion transpires. Context continues its influence throughout the other conversion stages.
Context is the integration of both the superstructure and the infrastructure of conversion. It includes social, cultural, religious, and personal dimensions.
Contextual factors shape avenues of communication, the range of religious options available, and people's mobility, flexibility, resources, and opportunities.
These forces have a direct impact on who converts and how the conversion happens. People can often be induced, encouraged, prevented, or forced to either accept or reject the conversion on the basis of external factors to the individual
(Lewis Rambo, 1993, p.21).
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4.2.Conversion and Commitment
In this part, the researcher shall discuss the convert’s commitment after conversion to the catholic faith in Yogyakarta. In This part I would to focus on the commitment part especially of those who belong to an interfaith parents, in the case of experience towards the Catholic faith as we can see that A.G came from a both Hindu and Catholic parents this can show us the physical transition from
Indonesia to Germany had impacted her life in terms of identity belonging meanwhile her family worked her to plant the seeds of in my opinion the conversion and the Catholic upbringing wasn’t there to start with.
A. Social dynamic of Catholics in Yogyakarta
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The religious emphasis on the social nature of the converts (participants) and on the power of their religious upbringing, The young converts who is attempting to identify a "real" me is more likely to reject the self that is continuous with the beliefs and demands of his or her social environment as phony and false and to cultivate a juxtaposition of a disdainful "material self' with an authentic "spiritual self." The life history of the converts had showed an active role, A.G had two periods within the city of Yogyakarta were she was involved in the society the first one was during the teenage years and during the adulthood period when she came back from Germany here we came across two different worlds within one city in terms of social interaction. The teenage phase had tolerant environment which questions of sanctity, because it touches the very meaning and depths of our lives on this earth. In what does a fully human life and respect consist? In my opinion this emanate from the Javanese culture that honors diversity this was a normal phase during A.G teenage years where people exchange gifts during religious holidays. However we can notice that the adulthood phase A.G came across a very different social environment the city felt foreign and more religiously conservative and hostile towards religious minorities the behavior of her old school friends were different the way they talk and perceive the none Muslim community was odd it was almost like the Javanese friends are truing into Arabs with their new religious identity especially at the time of the fall of the new order the shock element was very strong and the invisible social walls made it hard to communicate with the society.
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The social dynamics within the Catholic community for P.A is from another religious minority where we can see that the role the other religious minority plays in also integrating into the society as a whole. Once again we can see the involvement of the Catholic educational institutions being this bridge were its uniting different groups and religions under one roof, however her attachment to her then boyfriend at that time who was a Catholic brought her even closer to the
Catholic community. The Catholic community was friendly and welcoming towards P.A however the Chinese culture differences and economic status this is when race comes into the picture of the social dynamics however the catholic and church community was very supportive during her conversion .
The other important theme in this part is stigma and fear of being labeled as a convert or murtad 51where in this case a Catholic priest spoke at one of the local churches during a preparation meeting for those to be line the city and I have witnessed him saying this : In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, he opened the speech with this verse from the bible :
Blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness' sake: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:10)
the priest had also emphasized in the importance of baptisms as a sacred rite of passage which should be respected and not used for any means expect for the
(irtidād ,ارتداد riddah or ,ردة :Apostasy in Islam (Arabic 51
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Union of God and he also added that even though the majority of whom are taking catechism classes who are planning to be baptized in the coming day should wait if they are not ready and if they have doubts. The speech had lasted for an hour followed by questions and answers by the crowds. The fact that around 50 + to be converted to the Catholic faith is an average number for the conversion mass however the priest focused on one main point which is the transition were they will at some stage face discrimination and hardship due to their conversion however he implore everyone to stay strong during this transitional phase.
I have encountered a young man for whom I know , Catholic man who was is a friend of one the converts the in premises of the Church he mentioned to me how he feared for his friend and his own catholic community which worked in the place X : the lady mentioned to me with very basic English while she is at work that they are being discriminated against in public offices where they working are and the other staff seen as second class to my surprise as foreigner it seemed to be far from reality however by the time I started to doing research the image started to be more clear in the case of religious discrimination in daily life.
B. Family dynamics and the converts
It is worth noting that close family relationships afford a person better health and well-being, in the case we can look up close inside the family structure , the finding here comes as follows .. most families of the Informant are from different religious background here we can see the acceptance and tolerance towards the other as a matter of fact what J.M and AJ had in their family is something one of
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kind were people can celebrate several religious holidays in one family at once, moreover we can see in the case of Informant Mai who comes from abangan background where tolerance Mai’s family was good and there was no conflict or objection towards the convert because it was firstly a personal (spiritual) decision and the second reason was the conversion was for the purpose of marriage. As we witnessed in the case mai we also see perhaps a similar case with Putra where his family did had no objection for conversion perhaps it was due also to his religious protestant s background which had tolerated the marriage because it was only through this union marriage can be registered officially.
The transformation of the converted Catholics towards the society first, the interviews centered on abrupt conversions experienced within the convert's own
Christian denomination. The characteristic subjects in these religious transitions through their conversion experience an already well-established religious faith.
They embraced with increased enthusiasm beliefs and rituals well entrenched in the life and culture of the people around them. This kind of experience, however keenly felt, involved little change of core beliefs or lifestyle. Just like in the case of putra and A.J Since the religious experience which occurred under these circumstances involved little cognitive change and promised great social rewards, it is not surprising that the experience was characterized as an expected ritual, similar to initiation rites, and as a common enough occurrence within the range of prevalent adolescent experience. The present interview focused on converts on converts who had actually changed their religious affiliation and therefore cannot be seen as representative of conversions in which a personal religious experience
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is an entrance requirement and an expected ritual in a community of which the potential convert is already a member. On the other hand the converts from a
Muslim and none Muslim background have faced difficulties in especially with the age of their conversion , there are fruits for adolescent conversion: in my opinion the lack of exposure and maturity has a great impact on visualizing both the spirituality and the social and culture aspect of the religion. For the following
Aj convert, the religious experience seems to have been a necessary step in
"stamping out" parental influences, a drastic declaration of independence which ultimately enabled an affinity and increased closeness with the family. Finally
Decision making is an integral part of the commitment stage and is often the occasion for an intense and painful confrontation with the self. The potential convert's perceptions of the expected rewards of conversion are crucial.
Evaluation of these possible rewards derives from the person's own life experience and values as well as those of friends and relatives. In addition, the potential convert weighs the social rewards (consisting of approval, respect, love, relief of fear and tension) and the cognitive benefits (ultimate meaning and solutions to practical problems). Decision making is thus not entirely an internal process but an experience of social interaction with friends and family. This will show case the image and identity of the Catholic in the Indonesian republic as whole Individuals with a discreditable actual identity want to be ‘virtually normal’: stigma is the gap between the virtual and the actual, and the shame that attaches – or would attach – to its discovery by others the greater majority while committing to the Catholic faith.
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C. Rituals
At the heart of conversion ritual is the difficult combination of saying no and saying yes. Conversion implies that a person is "turning away from" the past and
"turning to" a new future. Ritual witnessed by others can be powerful in advertising the new condition of the person or persons who are converting. For
P.A Catholicism and mindfulness go hand in hand since the Catholic Church’s mystical tradition are alive and well but mindfulness has now one of the amazing new spiritual practices of our day, the odd thing is while Christians in many parts of the world have long looked to Buddhism and other Eastern religions for spiritual nourishment. P.A was seeking refuge in the bodhisattva-guan-yin52, in which her appearance Guan Yin is usually shown in a white flowing robe - white being the symbol of purity -, and usually wearing necklaces of Indian/Chinese royalty. In the right hand is a water jar (as the Sacred Vase the water jar also one of the Eight Buddhist Symbols of good Fortune). In a similar case the presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Rosary is a Scripture-based prayer the repetition in the
Rosary is meant to lead one into restful and contemplative prayer related to each
Mystery. The gentle repetition of the words helps us to enter into the silence of our hearts, where Christ's spirit dwells were the meditation resembles the
Buddhist prayer however the direction may take a different path more or less prayers are there to comfort us and keep us in union with universe therefore the
52 In Chinese Buddhism, Guan Yin is synonymous with the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, the pinnacle of mercy, compassion, kindness and love. (Bodhisattva- being of bodhi or enlightenment, one who has earned to leave the world of suffering and is destined to become a Buddha, but has forgone the bliss of nirvana with a vow to save all children of god. Avalojkitesvara (Sanskrit: अवलोकिते�वर): The word ‘avalokita’ means "seeing or gazing down" and ‘Êvara’ means "lord" in Sanskrit).
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virgin marry and Guan Yin repented the same mother figure while undergoing the religious transition.
4.3. The Opposition to Catholic Identity
The rise of power and influence of the Catholics may have alarmed some religious groups and hardline Islamic officials. Thus, when Catholics are influencing the societies, their Catholic identity is a public image for success and influence. This will inevitably lead to opposition; the postcolonial rejection of
Christians Identity in Indonesia was not sudden because there were some elements which were seen Christian identity and presence in Indonesia as a threat. It can be presented in concept of social stigma by Goffman where the image of the religious minority in Indonesia is labeled as Stigma which it emphasizes the demands that others make of us on the basis of our public image. Others don’t just perceive our identity, they actively constitute it. And they do so not only in terms of naming or categorizing, but in term of how they respond to or treat us. In the dialectic of individual identification the external moment can be enormously consequential. In which it exhibits features of calling or naming Christians of labels like American- Israeli allies or even calling them members of the Dutch colonial army just for the fact of being different The labeling school argued that social control necessarily produced deviance. Therefore this exhibition of new identity which is emerging is creating an indirect deviant groups in response to this new in group (Catholics) which may oppose their Islamic way of life
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The rise of Islamic groups such as Islamic Defenders Front (Front
Pembela Islam, FPI) in 1998 had led to the organization forces of many Islamic groups to unite against the non-Islamic values. It may have hindered and made the shaping and the structure of the Catholic (non- Muslim community) difficult for showing their image since they enforce Sharia law which contradicts the
Pancasila that tries to enforce an extreme form of Islamic law. It is just like any country which emerges from colonialism that they are in a very fragile situation which makes the majority group (Islamic groups/nation) in weak fearful positions rather than the other groups which will allow Islamic notions and traditions to be enforced. Therefore, Muslim identity shall be maintained and preserved. Hence, who is it to be blamed? Is it the Christians and the non-Muslims who are to blame for the lack of structure of so-called theft of Muslim identity in Indonesia?
The government is not 100% to blame for the structure of religious identity of both the Catholics and Muslims in Indonesia. There is a similar existing situation to Indonesia’s. It is the foundation of the Indian state which has a high number of Hindu populations. The power and national religious vacuum in the era of post-Soeharto had caused many challenges just like in India which is one of the world biggest democracies. It likes to present its image as a tolerant democratic nation. These processes of conversion and expansion began since long before the onset of the colonial era but then they have continued in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Since then, they have been transformed through the influence of reform movements. The issue of marriage and having more than one wife by the Muslims as well as the conversions of Dalat (the untouchables), the
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issue is that conversion. There is considerable controversy in both scholarly and public opinion, characteristically intertwined with what is called common sense about Muslim. Conversion in this view of conversion is political violence. On the contrary, these converts were relatively educated and upwardly mobile and claimed that the humiliations of the Hindu social system were an important reason for their conversion.
Since there is this climate of xenophobia and hate among fellow citizens, the role of the education system to prevent the reincarnation of the likes of Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir53, most people the researcher met in Indonesia who belonged to the
Catholic faith had expressed their concern and fear of being attacked by terrorist groups, experiencing job discrimination, and even bullying at school for being
(the black sheep) in the class. There were two incidents which the researcher has encountered here in Yogyakarta. The first incident was when the researcher first arrived in Indonesia. The researcher was a guest at a hotel where the researcher struck a conversion with the receptions and we talked about religion and
Catholicism. She was shocked to see Arabs sitting together with an Arabic
Catholic person. Then, she explained further that her father who is contractor would often hide or change his name during work for the fear of losing his contract or deals just because he is a Catholic and she mentioned that she is happy to see Arabs who are from different religious background willing to accept
Catholic identity of their own friend.
53 Abu Bakar Bashir is an Indonesian Muslim cleric and leader of Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid U.S. Dept of State, Terrorist Designations of Jemmah Anshorut Tauhid, February 23, 2012, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/02/184509.htm
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Another incident was when a Catholic laundry worker in Yogyakarta was complaining to the researcher about her next-door neighbors during family visits and Eid holidays. They would visit each other but to their amazement, they would clean after the places they just sat on and being touched, and also they even used different cups. They were told that they were najis in Islamic law. Najis means ritually unclean. Therefore, though they aimed to wish their neighbors ‘mohon maaf lahir batin’ which in English means please forgive my wrong unconscious doings, well this clearly shows that there is no sign for forgiveness and tolerance.
I have encountered within my interviews with of Franciscan friars brother and a nun who poured their heart to me regarding of the establishment convent / monastery. During this encounter I was told first that they had a great difficulty in simply just staying in their own neighborhood when it was first bought there were some doubts and fears by the local community especially the RW and RT54 of the neighborhood who saw this as an invasion on their area by missionaries however if we look at the greater picture of this situation of restriction of land ownership for the catholic church therefore the Nuns and The Brothers have to come up for more creative ways for them to stay in the area. The effort and their good will and contribution towards the society the Franciscan friars there would be visit by the society elders who come from a Muslim background to the convent and share of gifts during religious holidays both Muslim and Catholic holidays this can show us that the resistance and objection of Catholic presence in Yogyakarta is
54 Rukun Warga (RW) is the division of regions in Indonesia under the Village or Kelurahan (or under: Dusun or village). Rukun Warga not including the division of administration, and the formation of local communities is through consultation in the framework of community service set by the village or villages. RW is further divided into Rukun Tetangga (RT). Most information about governance and functioning of the RW and RT is in Indonesian.
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possible through dialogue which helps in breaking the negative stereotypes of groups and individuals. The Franciscan friars had also take up more extra roles in the society where they have participated in maintain security and cleanness also known as gotong royong55 as well the giving of money to keep the local community at peace at clam, in some other cases I have also encountered a
Catholic Religious order which needed to establish itself within in the area of condongcatur which was met with great opposition and rejection by the local community they needed to gain certain amount of signature by the local residences of that are however they were also met again with rejection even once money was offered to the local residence to start the approval process to establish the convent. As I was informed by one of the monks Franciscan friars MTB
Novitiate on Jalan Kyai Legi 547 B RT 22 RW 33 Jeruk Banguntapan Bantul,
Yogyakarta. In 1992 it was difficult to get a monastery permit. Then through land brokers or land-selling brokers, permission is made to establish student dormitories. When it was almost finished building it was protested by Muslims who asked for security money (protection fee) and also asked for community work. Then there was mediation by the Catholic man who works in the army that explained it was like a Catholic pesantren. On May 17, 1992 we invited the
Muslim Governer and Bishop and Regent of Bantul to inaugurate it. To break the ice, the committee asked Muslim RT residents to pray together according to their religion. There is a feast like thanksgiving together. We were involved in night patrols, social services, social involvement when people died. Around 2010, the
55 The idea of "mutual assistance" (gotong royong) in Indonesia has been the basis for political discourse concerning the nature of authority, the characteristics of village society, and the legitimacy of demands for labor by the state.
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back side of our land in the monastery had a problem. It turned out that it was land belonging to the kelurahan56. We had already purchased a complete letter Then the head of the village head just asked for 300 million Indonesian rupiah compensation, we didn't want to buy it we sensed bought something like a trick or lie. In 2006 there was an earthquake we donated cement for the residents and they are happy and glad for our support eversince the earthquick we sensed and felt unity and brotherhood with the locals who live in the neighbourhood. During
Covid, we also helped each other by offering classes and books for those who are indeed and on every Eid they give sacrificial meat for monastery57. Every August
15 which is the day of Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, our new brother's monk’s delegation also gives a pack of rice and food for the neighborhood, there are still two residents who do not accept it however its all good now yet there are few only the fanatics are still ignorant towards the monastery and the Franciscan friars are still warm-hearted towards them since we believe is both a religious and national duty for us to love thy neighbor.
Furthermore if we as monks wear robes, there have been people who make fun of young people wearing Nuns skirts which is our religious attire but we remain friendly since this is a foreign environment for our religious community and since the monastery are active in the monthly RT meetings were we discuss issues and work on the community projects as brothers in the neighborhood. And finally we
56 sub-district of the village 57 The monastery here had to change its title since they are careful not to be labled as missionaries therfore their monstary was labled as Chairty foundation which was more sutible for their pressance in the city.
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are known as the Brother and Monks dormitories and we cannot be called monasteries or novitiates.
The power structure which is at the top here is a majority Muslim which interacts with into the other religious minority involving the monks in the monastery we can notice that there is a change public opinion towards the community of monks the notion here is the monks "where they stand" on their matter of religious and racial identity taking into note that most of the monks are from eastern regions of
Indonesia therefore of the process of categorizing and perceiving the self
( the inner group/ the Muslims ) and others ( the Catholics) as members of groups in accordance with a salient social identity the identity here can be the place which is the village kept as Javanese and Muslim. Hence learning the representative or typical characteristics and behaviors of those groups and their efforts to social integration process which was met with setbacks and difficulties had overcome the negative notion that this actual process of self-identification as a house of charity dorm which was met with resistance now it’s being welcomed as their own going contribution grow with the prove that their aim is the betterment of society and not converting the local community, this was a great process of social identification affect the formation of public opinion which have fully responded with increased cooperation between the two groups.
The context of the Catholic presence in the case of the Catholic converts revolves around Goffman presentation of self in everyday life where he uses imagery of theatre in order to portray the importance of human social interaction, I shall note that the backstage of theater of the individual converts seek to find their true
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transformed self-image which combining all elements which are vital for their newly transformed identity before announcing to the public that the individual convert is stepping forward to the front stage where the labeling part takes over while the converts move to the front stage , where the need to recognize that identity can be ‘spoiled’; that identification, particularly within institutions, can be heavily biased in favor of its external moment; and that identification is often a matter of imposition and resistance, claim and counter-claim, rather than a consensual process of mutuality and negotiation. We have witnessed throughout history the impact of labeling can lead to negative stereotyping i.e. the holocaust and how it started out with anti-Jewish propaganda , the same issue in regards of labeling as we saw in the conducted interviews and the meeting with the Catholic monks they had a shared element which emanate the notion of a place( in this case church/ monastery/ educational institution) in my opinion the stigma of such places are stigmatized with the notion of missionary work which seek to convert the local population. The impact of the Catholic presence in a Muslim majority region where individuals manage discrepancies between their virtual social identities their appearance to others (the greater Muslim population) in interaction , the Catholics and Catholic converts individuals act normal with the greater Muslim majority however the stigma is a bridge which gaps between the visual world and the actual world were the Catholic shed off their concealed covers were they actually can project their true religious identity this will automatically will have an impact on the being and becoming Catholic converts some aspects of the conversion includes the label aspect labeling so therefore
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perspective are significant for a wider understanding of identification towards the
Catholic or the Catholic to be.
The Context of the Catholic identity, is the dynamic force field in which conversion takes place. Context encompasses the modes of access and transmission, provides the models and methods of conversion, and also contains sources of resistance. Human beings are intimately connected with the world in which they live. Organized religions, among other institutions, are the vehicles through which the methods and models for conversion are conveyed. While people may feel alienated from society and the church, we are all influenced by the dynamic force field of the context. Forces of resistance and attraction fill the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural climate of society.
Religious organizations, as well as other cultural media (whether books, magazines, television, or movies) convey messages to people every day that changing one's life is either desirable or undesirable. Reading a book, talking with a friend, attending a lecture, or participating in a synagogue, church, mosque, or meditation center puts us all within the contextual sphere that is the ecology of conversion. Although people are aware of these influences, they usually avoid change. Resistance is persistence we have a tendency to split the person and the environment. We forget that the political, religious, economic, social, and cultural worlds are shaped by people. Conversely, people are shaped by the socialization processes of the wider world. The networks of relationships and the cumulative effects of education, training, and institutional structures all influence the potential convert. It is against this background of influences that people begin their
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trajectory to conversion through such things as conversations with others or mystical visions that serve as catalysts for further searching, leading eventually to commitment to a religious orientation.
We can also notice that there is a slight friction during the conversion of all the informants is with conformity, there were some challenges during the conversion process, the relocation process to gain acceptance from the other group members may it be friends, family or life partner may come at cost "deserted" to the majority only one who had experienced a near complete isolation which is
Ria his situation did not help the real participant's courage. However on going pressure for Ria to return to west java and to reconvert back to her former religion this may cause further complications regarding this matter. What starts as compliance may end up as private acceptance of her Catholic faith. this is where true core believes comes to place From the psychologist t’s point of view, there is little difference between a revolutionary and a traditionalist faith. All true faith is uncompromising, radical, purist; hence the true traditionalist is always a revolutionary zealot in conflict with pharisaical society, with the lukewarm corrupters of the creed. (Jacoby, 2016, 337)Therefore most of the transitions in
Yogyakarta were peaceful unlike what we read were peaceful unlike the extreme stories related to conversion that I have encountered in the Middle East from; divorce, job discrimination, jail time and capital punishment for simply converting. We can see how groups can pressure their members to either conform or deviate, the courage which taken by most of the converters was deviant to change from the norms in which these behaviors are not inherently bad in fact,
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they describe situations that we all face during all our lives. Any time a convert who is a member of society faces a choice between a popular option and an unpopular one, he or she must either conform or deviate. The labeling perspective emphasizes secondary deviance, the process whereby people are identified as deviant and come to identify themselves as deviant therefore this shall lead the convert Ria to see the role of identification were it insists on the role of external identification in individual identification towards the path of conversion one way in which identity context may influences conversion is by shaping the conversion process along pre-existing social, cultural, ethnic and religious lines which may have eased the conversion process and reacted to any kinds of deviant acts in civilized peaceful manner . religious transition and identity change is part of the process of the Catholics conversion in Yogyakarta Therefore I shall conclude the following points on the exposure of the new Catholic identity :
Indigenous cultures that are stable, resilient, and effective will have
few people receptive to conversion.
During a crisis, an important factor affecting conversion patterns is
whether the crisis was created externally or internally.
Converts selectively adopt and adapt the new religion to meet their
needs.
Contact between advocates and potential converts is a dynamic
process in creating the Catholic identity of the convert.
The circumstances of the contact shape the interaction of conversion.
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4.4. Closing Notes
By observing the history of the converted Catholics in Yogyakarta we can come to notice the vibrant and colorful religious context of the changing religious mindset religion is more widely practiced in Indonesia therefore the demand for religious dogma and belonging is vital for the individuals to embrace a religious group. The religious switch in our times religion has been an element of personal identity in Indonesia were you are meant to choose a religion in order to be recognized by the government and to have official state papers That is, it was a factor determined by birth, rather than something you worked for.
Tolerance is one of the greatest contributors towards the conversions which seemed at odds with the external image of hostility towards the convert however attitudes to individual human choices and freedom of religion or believe in
Indonesia had showed otherwise less aggressive approach towards the converts were they are more integrated within their society more over the social environment is tolerant enough to accept differences perhaps conversion is a sensitive matter however there is still a space for accepting the other.
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CHAPTER V
5.1 Preface
This research is originally stemmed from the researcher’s passion for developing better understanding study and research in religion and culture. There were interesting phenomena among religious minorities, a sort of ethnography on the dynamics among their surroundings. Since the researcher has grown up in a multi culture-religious society, the attack on minorities goes whether from former
Yugoslavia Bosnia or in Africa Rwandan genocide and the Indonesian conflict.
This research took a great effort to convey a new image on the issue of minorities and religious freedom in Indonesia. Since Indonesia is the world’s most populous
Muslim nation on earth, it has only captured the negative of what actually
Indonesia is. The researcher has decided to create this case study for the purpose to have a wider perspective on the Indonesian Catholic community in Yogyakarta which took a hard of effort to first learn the Indonesian language and acknowledge the local culture and Catholic faith dynamics internally and externally. Since the researcher’s main focus aimed at conducting research on the
Catholics and in particular on the conversion from a cultural perspective, conversion becomes a very controversial topic in research. However, it is vital to shed light on the minorities in Yogyakarta. In the researcher’s understanding,
Catholics who are a minority are often under and misrepresented, therefore, it is vital for the researcher to make this research have highlighted the most recent and updated information which had enabled the researcher to go through this research.
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Findings in Research
At the beginning of this research, the researcher asked the following questions:
1. How is the social dynamic of Catholics in Yogyakarta? How are
the historical narratives of the Catholics in Yogyakarta?
2. Why do people decide to convert to Catholicism in Yogyakarta or
Indonesia? How do people undergo the process of religious
conversion?
3. How do the newly converts feel about the conversion? How do
people give the meanings of their new religious identities?
4. How do the new converts adapt to new religious identities? Do the
new converts change their status in society?
The researcher summarized the answers and tentative suggestions below:
Previously Unexplored Issues. The researcher has examined several largely unexplored appearances of the arrival of Catholicism in Southeast Asia which represented a unique phenomenon to the natives which were encountered by Catholic missionaries, merchants, and adventurers. They brought their faith to the strategically and commercially crucial region of Southeast Asia. Indonesia and Java examine why some natives adopted Christianity, in particular Yogyakarta. Since Christianity is a young phenomenon in this region of Indonesia, the researcher has explored the
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religion in Java and Yogyakarta. To the researcher’s amazement, this religious minority had a unique fabric in society.
As the researcher has researched the religious identity in a case study of the Catholics in Yogyakarta, it can be a complex, multifaceted process, involving personal, political-cultural, social, and religious dimensions. Having highlighted the religious identity of the Catholics in Yogyakarta, there were some challenges in researching the thesis. Mainly, it was due to the young nature of this case study and the lack of research which was done in the city of Yogyakarta. The researcher has summarized the main finding in this research as follows:
Self and group identity is vital to religious formation which is dependent on democracy and human rights in Indonesia. However most Indonesian and mainly Javanese enjoyed their rights to choose their religious ideology yet, there were some regulations by the Dutch state to be or to choose meaning of the formation of personal individual identity and it was permissible. However, the decision to choose a group identity had a reprisal.
Since religion and freedom were not a choice, instead, it was a condition where individuals were born during the Dutch Indies rule of Indonesia. There were casts, systems, cultures, and religions which had restricted from relocating their own religious believes to another, mainly due to the laws which were used by the Dutch to curb and control any type of internal local revolt caused by religious missions by both Catholics and protestants. Christianity had first arrived in Seram in 1534. There are three main periods which have impacted the
Catholics growth and the conversions in Java:
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1808 : Freedom of religion. The first two priests arrived in Batavia.
1859 : The Jesuits arrived in the Indies to work in the whole archipelago.
1934 : The Indies was divided into twelve districts under the authority of vicars
and Prefects apostolic. About 2,000 priests and sisters worked for 400,000
Catholics (Geredja Katholik, 1934:165).
As early as the 19th century, there was a growth of the new identity of
Catholic Javanese which was almost non-existence due to the Dutch rules of rust en orde which banned any kinds of Catholic missionary activities. Therefore, the conversions of the natives were slow but gradual. Thus, the intercultural experience was a blend of spiritual quests by Jesuit priests in Yogyakarta, for his huge contribution to the study and service of education and culture. For example, the contributions of books the likes father Franz Magnis-Suseno Javanese Ethics:
An Analysis of the Javanese Philosophy of Life and liturgy music as well as
Catholic Church architecture and design which were homogenized by the local culture where God belonged to Java and Java belonged to God. The intercultural and hybrid nature of the Catholic faith in Yogyakarta had helped and eased the conversion process to the masses since religion localized rituals and prayers as well as local art to be part of religion. The meaning-making of religion as an identity during the spread of Catholicism was at a good proper timing even though the religion did face difficulty both prior and after independence. Notions of
Indonesian traitors and Dutch spies were common among Javanese since the main religion of the Dutch were Christian (both protestant and Catholic). The current
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period is also having a difficult transition to portray the Catholic’s identity. An image was repented by various radical groups as Zionist anti-Islam makes this topic of the case study of Catholics in Yogyakarta easy to eat but very hard to digest.
The Catholics in Indonesia were known for their zealous passion for nationalism and involvement in politics. For instance, Partai Katolik Indonesia’s members were involved in debates concerning religious freedom in the New
Order and the influence of missionaries on the nation. Catholic organizations and the Catholic church are united as one with the government since their status in
Indonesian society as a minority is in a fragile position which attracts a lot of negative attention from the majority population of the Muslim majority. The researcher did find that there is a close relation between intellectuals with Catholic institutions and names such as Ignatius Joseph Kasimo who was educated in
Muntilan Catholic schools, such public figures and many others who have empowered their role in the government. The isolation which the Catholics have endured for their association with the Dutch Government represents a colonial religion which portrayed an image of Catholic Javanese as outsiders and disloyal to the Indonesian Republic. The notion of a white religion (Christianity) still did not disappear. Therefore, the anomie reduced the amount of interaction between various groups of the Indonesian society that had curbed the bond of brotherhood by the greater Muslim majority. However, the Indonesian government which was led by Soekarno at that time had focused on building the bridge between the minorities. Hence, the alliance between the Indonesian state and the Catholic
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Church in Indonesia was based on the unity of the republic and its entire civilian population including the Catholics. There were meetings between the newly formed Indonesian state led by Soekarno and archbishop Soegijapranata and
Georges de Jonghe d'Ardoye. They met during the Dutch captured the capital and during the Operation Kraai. At the moment, the situation was tense. However, the
Catholics who were mainly in Java managed to stand their ground and prove their loyalty to the Indonesian Republic with the archbishop Soegijapranata famous saying “I am 100% Catholic, 100% Indonesian".
The unity and government support continued with Cardinal Justinus
Darmojuwono who also served as Archbishop of Semarang. He was received by
President Soekarno at Merdeka Palace immediately after being ordained
Archbishop of Semarang in 1964. The President often called him "Romo Agung"
(Great Clergyman), but he preferred to be called "Romo" (Clergyman).
As an archbishop, he attended the third and fourth sessions of the Second
Vatican Council. He also witnessed the September Movement tragedy that happened in 1965, thereby it was the mass conversion to Catholicism during the reign of President Soeharto. The conversions were missing managed and miss calculated. Therefore, the Catholic Church was in line with the government rules and still reminded on its nationalistic side which earned the church a lot of state favors in terms of protection and safety. Thus, the Catholic Church in Central Java had flourished during the two eras of President Soekarno and Soeharto.
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During early 1999, the situation of the reformation period went down a spiral. There were attacks against minorities such as the Chinese business, and protestant – Catholic Churches Christmas Eve in 2000 in Indonesia bombings.
What does this tell us is that about the role of local traditions (adat) and religious believes after years of indoctrinations of the Pancasila and P4 program and civic nationalism. They seemed to be ineffective in a city which was known for its high education systems and universities seemed unfit to cope with the overwhelming wave of radicalism and ideas which seemed to challenge the local culture and the ideals of Pancasila.
The Catholics remained in their positions of loyalty to the Indonesian
Republic. However, after the year 2000 where the balance of power was in favor of the suppressed Islamic groups who were silenced for years, the long secular system was fading away in a very slow-paced. The diverse social dynamics in
Indonesia is growing in very fast-paced where the researcher believes that the government is losing its control of their citizens even though there are family planning programs which promote smaller rate of birth rates in Indonesia. The current population of Indonesia is 273.571.43258 in 2020. If we look at this great number, let us ask ourselves this question, what is the fate of the smaller religious minorities and their fate when they are involved in interaction and involvement with the greater Muslim population as we see in this research? The religious harmony (KUB) index for this year was 73.83 out of 100, this is alarming to seem such a jump in number while in Yogyakarta is actually number six in the index of
58 https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/indonesia-population/
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intolerance.59 The researcher does suggest that there should be more not only classes or seminars about religious diversity in Indonesia but also more of social interaction activities between the majority population and the minority population
(including the Catholics). However, this might be difficult since the law of Adat
(traditions) is still strongly preserved by the local population of Yogyakarta and other regions.
The concerns of the Catholic influence within various part of the society movement is seen as a threat to the majority Muslim population. This reminds the researcher of the power structure role of Joseph and Israelites in Egypt as a minority. We could see history repeating itself. For instance, we could resemble
Indonesia to the former Yugoslavia in many aspects. Mainly, due to its long history of religious and cultural diversity, Sarajevo is sometimes called the
"Jerusalem of Europe.” This has lasted for years. However, no matter how smart and well educated the people are, there are always cracks in the system. These cracks can be both internal and external which seek to disturb the unity of the state which can result in a breakup of the union/state/republic. This had happened into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Hence, the situation is not far from reality. Indonesia also has this large scope of culture and religious diversity.
If it is not being taken for it could fall in the hands of radicals or extremists, you might be able to kill the person but you cannot kill the idea or ideology, especially with the rise of radical Islam which had challenged the Pancasila ideology. The thoughts of diversity within the Republic of Indonesia seek to push back the
59 http://setara-institute.org/en/english-jakarta-ranked-as-indonesias-most-intolerant-city-setara- institute/
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influence of the Catholics and other minorities within the state and other government and private institutions.
Since the main focus in this research is the integration of Catholics and the
Catholic converts to Indonesian society and the dynamics of interactions between different cultures were complex, and the balance of power could be uncertain. The exchange of ideas, beliefs, and cultural commodities was mediated through the agency of all parties and all participants. In the exchange, who in turn could be altered by the experience. Father Franciscus Georgius Josephus van Lith SJ (1863
- 1926), a great educator and the first to proclaim the Gospel to the natives of
Java. Van Lith is known for his missionary and educational work in Central Java province. The main feature of this was aligning Catholic teachings to the traditional religiosity of the Javanese people, called Kejawen. This was the idea of entrusting the spread of the faith and the work of evangelization in the hands of
"indigenous natives60". Since the Indonesian Ministry of Education has decided to recognize the effort in promoting education and award him for his effort, the natives here, we could see the impact which was left by Catholics. One of them was the education sector. Let alone the groups and the masses who are willing to convert because they actually believed in religion and may have benefited in other terms from conversion whether it could from a spiritual point view, political, or financial (job). Since the 1965 coup, there were indeed mass conversions that did not promote a healthy conversion. In the researcher’s opinion, religion was used as a space to fill in an empty void within the political system.
60 Indonesia honours Fr van Lith, first missionary in Java . by Mathias Hariyadi. http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Indonesia-honours-Fr-van-Lith,-first-missionary-in-Java- 38617.html
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While personal conversions can be triggered by particular events and, in some cases, result in very sudden internal (personal quest) and external experiences (social, political). For the most part, it takes place over a period of time. People change for a multitude of reasons, and that change is sometimes permanent and sometimes temporary.
The notion of conversion in the researcher’s opinion within Indonesia encompasses several different types of interrelated phenomena. Conversion may be seen as a process such as the "Christianization" or "Islamization" of a region.
Some people speak of the "conversion of the Roman Empire'' or the "conversion of the native religions of Indonesia." Conversion may be viewed as a movement between religious traditions (tradition transition), and as a movement between religious options within a particular tradition (institutional transition). Conversion sometimes involves the joining of a group, with the convert having little or no connection to any prior religious involvements (affiliation). It may also be conceived of as an intensification process within a religious tradition. In other words, the process of change involved in conversion is built upon an infrastructure that includes support systems (schools, universities, and communities), the deepening of conviction within one's religious community.
Hence, the researcher assumes that the person or individual is already, to some minimal degree, involved in the community of faith, but that his or her spiritual experience becomes more profound. The researcher thinks that all these notions are related and interconnected.
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Indonesia today is in the process of transition from a authoritarian to a democracy which experience freedom of press and transparency. This vast progress in democracy and economic growth towards modernity of the process, gradual or sudden conversion for the majority of religious converts were examined in this study. “Religious realities" are quite narrowly perceived. They consist primarily of the promise of unconditional love and protection by a figure or society as it is perceived as infallible. Hence, the social and cultural environment in Indonesia has the power balance by Muslims. A grip has strengthened rapidly throughout the last two decades. During this time, the group of reformist activists was consolidated in Java, which tried to harmonize their religious practices and ideas with what they perceived to be Islamic values and to invigorate Islamic activities among the Muslim population. Various factors have influenced the crystallization of this group, including the 1965 affair and subsequent government's policy in promoting the local Javanese and Indonesians to confess their religion. Thereby, removing the freedom to remain an atheist and to oppose religion; the easy flow of information has allowed Indonesian citizens to know more about nationalism through religious institutions which help in the development at the national ideology, which has been characterized as 'Islamic resurgence'; compulsory religious education in government schools; and later we can view this religious decoration within states is to curb citizen rebellion and control the masses through religion. We can witness that China within the regions of Tibet and Xinjiang where the Chinese communist ideology is heavily enforced on.
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For further future research, there are very few studies of conversion experiences that deal with the aftermath of the converts and their wellbeing and transformation important issues need to be addressed: Is converts’ experience of peaceful transition conversion in terms of adoption towards society different from the native-born Catholics? If it is so, what are those differences? Such questions have scarcely even been raised in the literature to date, much less adequately addressed.
It is also worth mentioning that the main foundation of every country, every society, is culture. It is because the culture is not something that you can create by a day, week, or month. You need a hundred years to create it. However, the researcher does encourage any convert to maintain their former culture if it is still well maintained and constructive as the researcher has mentioned above.
Culture cannot be built over a short period of time. Utopia as a culture is only imagined or believed to exist. An imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens is only short-lived in the imaginations and dreams of individuals who aim to gain the perfect life after conversion. However, in reality, life is still the same; we ache and laugh and cry.
It is a matter of how we can understand and adapt to our surrounding culture and environment so that we can achieve a higher goal of being instruments of peace and culture development.
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5.2 Limitations of Research and Suggestions
Since this research is an interdisciplinary study of the Catholics in
Yogyakarta, there are a few research materials to be used for this study. The main issue was from a historical point of view. The timeline event of the Catholics in
Java and Yogyakarta was so young, more to say it, more like a new phenomenon to have Catholicism in Java- Yogyakarta. However, if we are looking at the great scope of events, they were very slow from 1900 to the current moment. The dynamics of the events for the Catholics in Indonesia were somehow slow in comparison to the greater Muslim population. Therefore, finding data on
Catholics in Yogyakarta was a difficult task, but articles and research on attacks on the Catholics or the xenophobia. Professor Karel Steenbrink’s(2015) research did cover intensively on the history of the Catholics in Indonesia. Yet, his books are lack of research on Yogyakarta. The researcher has also looked at Gerry van
Klinken’s books(2002-2009) where they are not only lacking in information in
Yogyakarta but also the un-updated which made the research findings difficult.
The researcher does suggest for the study of conversions in Indonesia and in Yogyakarta, in particular, there should be more focused on the dynamics of conversions to Catholicism since the city is the beating hub of intellectual minds and students. Thus, it represents a great platform for observation of the motives and reasons which may have affected their transitions to the Catholic faith. The researcher would like to add the follow up with the converts and their wellbeing that should be focused on. There were fewer documents on the converts of the
1965 coup. However, it did not explain their difficulties in integrating inside the
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Catholic faith and community. On the other hand, the researcher does suggest that there should be a more intensive study that tends to focus on the converts as both religious-culture phenomena because at this fast-paced era of the internet and low literacy, people are seeking and searching for the meaning-making tool for their life which is religion if it gets answered what would their situation be and what are their dynamics within the Indonesian society whether it is for marriage or religious purposes. We also need to keep in mind that the conversion process can also have a destructive effect. One may find that the new orientation is not what one expected. In some cases, the convert realizes that he or she has been manipulated for the sake of the group's own goals (political, ideological reasons).
In any case, the conversion is precarious; it must be defended, nurtured, supported, and affirmed. It needs community, confirmation, and concurrence. As converts develop spiritually, their understanding becomes more sophisticated and they review, reinterpret, and revalue their experience.
The notion of conversion encompasses several different types of interrelated phenomena. Conversion may be seen as a process such as the
"Christianization" or "Islamization" of a region. Some people speak of the
"conversion of the Roman Empire'' or the "conversion of the Philippines."
Conversion may be viewed as a movement between religious traditions (tradition transition), and as a movement between religious options within a particular tradition (institutional transition). Conversion, sometimes, involves the joining of a group, with the convert having little or no connection to any prior religious
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involvements. It may also be conceived of as an intensification process within a religious tradition.
5.3 Closing
Indonesia as a nation is like a colorful mosaic that has various components that build the foundation of the Indonesian Republic. Through the years after
Indonesian Independence, the republic went through a great deal of trials, tribulations, communal violence, and economic recession. Indonesia’s post- authoritarian democratic transition was not as peaceful as it is often thought. The perception of a mainly non-violent transition grew because large-scale bloodletting did not occur at moments when it was most feared hope for the nations to talk about Indonesia and your expectations for Indonesia.
The communal identity of the Catholics in Yogyakarta and many other minority groups should be kept safe and well-guarded for the sake of the beautiful mosaic of culture in Indonesia. Once one part of the mosaic is gone or smashed, you cannot easily replace it or fix it. In order to save the colorful mosaic, we need to take refuge in the middle path. This may be only the willingness to practice and apply the middle path which may contain various elements. We all need something good, beautiful, and true to believe in. To take refuge in which could be the Pancasila, or believe in God or even the belief of mindfulness in humanity.
Our capacity of being aware of what is going on in the present moment is safe and not at all abstract. Through this middle path, we could proclaim the true merdeka (sovereignty) of 74 years that the sovereign state where black and white,
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dark and light can coexist for the great generation to come for the future for our children and grandchildren.
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