THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH OF VIETNAM AND THE TORAJA CHURCH IN INDONESIA TOWARD WOMEN-INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP: CULTURAL, POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONTEXTS Le Ngoc Bich Ly, Wening Udasmoro, and Jeanny Dhewayani* [email protected] Abstrak Tulisan ini dimulai dengan pertanyaan: Mengapa gereja-gereja Protestan di Asia memiliki tingkat yang berbeda dalam mengakomodasi kepemimpinan wanita? Dengan mengambil dua studi kasus - Gereja Injili Vietnam (ECVN) dan Gereja Toraja di Indonesia yang memiliki titik awal yang sama tetapi tingkat transformasi yang berbeda mengenai kepemimpinan wanita, artikel ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan bagaimana perbedaan konteks budaya, politik, dan agama dari ini dari gereja-gereja dan bagaimana mereka berkontribusi terhadap proses transformasi yang berbeda menuju kepemimpinan inklusif bagi wanita berdasarkan data primer dan sekunder. Kata kunci: Kepemimpinan Wanita, The Evengelical Church of Vietnam, Gereja Toraja Abstract This paper starts with the question: Why do Protestant churches in Asia have different levels of accommodating women in leadership? By taking two case studies - the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN) and the Toraja Church in Indonesia that have similar starting points but different levels of transformation regarding women’s leadership, the paper aims to explore how the cultural, political, and religious contexts of these churches are different and how they contribute to the different process of church transformation toward women-inclusive leadership based on both primary and secondary data. Keywords: Women in Leadership, The Evengelical Church of Vietnam, Toraja Church INTRODUCTION participation in the beginning. However, after Protestant Christianity in Asia is diverse several decades, the Toraja Church has been not only in terms of denominations but also in dramatically transformed to accommodate terms of its accommodation of women at the women’s leadership; whereas the ECVN has leadership level. Two typical examples of the persistently barred women from this position. latter are the Evangelical Church of Vietnam The Toraja church started to ordain women in (ECVN) and the Toraja Church in Indonesia. 1984,1 whereas the ECVN has been refusing to Both churches were established more or less ordain women. There are 320 ordained female at the same time during the early twentieth pastors out of active 700 ordained pastors in century, and they had the same starting point Toraja church,2 while the ECVN has only 37 regarding women’s position in the church. female pastors without ordination compared Women were excluded from leadership to 1,073 male pastors.3 It is widely acknowledged by social *Le Ngoc Bich Ly is a Vietnamese national. She is theorists that any social structure is not static presently a Ph.D. Candidate of the International Programm in Interreligious Studies at the Indonesian Consortium for 1 Jan Sihar Aritonang and Karel Adriaan Steenbrink, A Religious Studies, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, History of Christianity in Indonesia (BRILL, 2008), p. 472. Indonesia. This paper is a part of her dissertation project. 2Conversation with Rev. Lidya Tandirerung from Toraja Wening Udasmoro is Ms. Le’s fi rst promoter of her dissertation. Church on 2 May 2014. She is lecturer at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, 3“Danh Ba (Directory),” Tong Lien Hoi - Hoi Thanh Tin Lanh Indonesia.Jeanny Dhewayani is Ms. Le’s second promoter Viet Nam (MN), 2016. http://httlvn.org/index.php?do=danhba of her dissertation. She is lecturer at Duta Wacana Christian &act=s&keyword=&nganhnghe=1&tinhthanh= . Retrieved 16 University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. June 2016. Le Ngoc Bich Ly, Wening Udasmoro, and Jeanny Dhewayani The Transformation 161 and timeless but is always under restless regarding women’s roles and how they contestation of both internal and external contribute to the openness of each church and forces.4 This means social change constantly the empowerment of women. This paper is just happens whether it is expected or not. Attempts exploratory and not fi nal in the investigation have been made to theoretically explain social of this topic. change by focusing on structuration and agency typically represented by Anthony Giddens and WOMEN IN VIETNAMESE AND TORAJA Marshall Sahlins.5 However, why social change CULTURES takes different forms or is in different motion In cultural studies, scholars are more has been a puzzle for social scholars. This paper aware of the dynamic of cultural structure in assumes that the uniqueness of each context a given society. For instance, Geertz admits plays an important role in the differential that “[c]ultural analysis is intrinsically process of social change. incomplete. And, worse than that, the more Furthermore, feminist scholars have deeply it goes the less complete it is”.8 As for recognized that the success of women’s Bourdieu, what is understood as culture is movement for leadership in religious actually “produced by authorised discourses, organizations depends on both agency and the practices and institutions”.9 Thus, the fi eld of openness of the church structure.6 Ana Maria cultural production is always a contested fi eld Munoz Boudet and co-researchers, based on of competing discoures and values.10 In gender a study of norms and agency in 20 countries studies, this reality is rightly marked by Howell around the world, show that structures of (quoted by Waterson) that “[i]t is no longer opportunities and contraints are important valid to assume that there is one single model to diagnose change in agency. Without of gender in any one society and that the job of resources or opportunities, agency is passive the anthropologist is to elicit it.”11 Therefore, and empowerment is not possible.7 The paper this part of the paper attempts to present and assumes that the context has a role to play compare the available cultural discourses of in the dynamics of church openness and the women’s roles in Vietnam and Toraja. Existing empowerment of agency. discourses and literature show that despite Based on both primary and secondary competing discourses within each society, the data, this paper aims to explore the cultural, dominant discourses in Vietnamese society political and religious contexts of the ECVN and prescribe women low social position; whereas the Toraja Church to explain their different those in Toraja society give women quite a high process of transformation toward women- position in the society. inclusive leadership by comparing how these contexts of the two churches are different a) Discourses of Women’s roles in Vietnamese Culture 4 Sherry B. Ortner, Making Gender : The Politics and Erotics of Specifi cally regarding discourses of Culture (Beacon Press, 1996), pp. 8-9. 5Anthony Giddens. The Constitution of Society: Outline women’s roles in Vietnamese culture, there of the Theory of Structuration (Berkeley and Los Angeles: have been debates among scholars. Several University of California Press, 1984); Marshall Sahlins, Vietnamese and foreign feminist scholars have Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom (Ann Arbor: University 8Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected of Michigan Press, 1981). Essays (Basic Books, 1973), p. 29. 6Georgie Ann Wheatherby, “Overview: Women as Leaders 9Webb, Schirato, and Danaher, Understanding Bourdieu, p. in Religion and Religious Organizations.” In Gender and Women’s 157. Leadership: A Reference Handbook, edited by Karen O’Connor, 10Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. 475–81 (London, New Delhi, Singapore: SAGE, 2010), p. 475. Richard Nice (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 72; Webb, 7Ana Maria Munoz Boudet et al., On Norms and Agency: Schirato, and Danaher, Understanding Bourdieu, p. 159. Conversations about Gender Equality with Women and Men in 20 11Roxana Waterson, Paths and Rivers: Sa’dan Toraja Society Countries (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2013), pp. 4–5, 13. in Transformation (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2009), p. 225. 162 Vol. 26 No. 2 Juli 2017 | 161-179 argued that Vietnamese women maintained before marriage, to her husband after marriage, a high level of autonomy even among and to her eldest son after her husband’s death. Southeast Asian countries before the coming Additionally, a good woman must master the of Confucianism during the Chinese invasion “Four Virtues”: cong (work), dung (physical that occured over a thousand-year period. appearance), ngon (appropriate speech), They point to the Au Co myth of the origin and hanh (proper behavior). Normally these of Vietnamese people which testifi es to the included cooking, sewing, and embroidering matriarchal system in northern Vietnam. They but not reading or writing.14 This long use archaelogical, textual, and ritual materials process of indoctrination by Chinese colonial such as goddess worship codes to support this administrators and subsequent Vietnamese unique feature of early Vietnamese society. monarchs have substaintially altered general They also appeal to historical evidence of Vietnamese perception of women’s roles in the Vietnamese women as heroines and warriors, society. such as the Trung sisters (14-43 CE) and lady During the French imperialism (1858-1945), Trieu (226-248 CE), in the struggles against Marr shows that discourse of women’s rights Chinese invaders. Vietnamese people have started to emerge; however, it was restricted been proud of these female heroines in their to upper- and middle-class people. He noticed