O.ltn.~ B from UJJUJ MISSIONARY RESEARCH LIBRARY. June 1962 Subscription: $2.00 per year VoL XIII, No.6

Transcription

1 O.ltn.~ B from ~. the UJJUJ MISSIONARY RESEARCH LIBRARY 3041 BROADWAY, NEW YORK 27. N. Y. June 1962 Subscription: $2.00 per year VoL XIII, No.6 THE HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT COMMUNITY IN INDONESIA * by Winburn T. Thomas The Protestant** community in Indonesia, both is and is not basically Reformed. Out of the 165 Protestant bodies listed by the Ministry of Religions, and of the 31 affiliated with the National Council of Churches, only one} the Chinese Churcc of West Java, is affiliated with the World Presbyterian Alliance. Yet the majority of the 2,677,162 members (1956 statistics) of these 31 bodies, as well as some of the 611,103 of these who are in the 134 religious organizations not affiliated with the National Council, have been nurtured upon the Reformed faith. Indonesian Protestantism qualifies as "Reformed" in the Reformation sense. Christianity was introduced in 1520' s to the Dutch East Indies by the Portugese and the Spaniards. Francis Xavier visited Ambon in In 1569 the Roman Catholics claimed 80,000 converts. As the authority of the two European powers waned, and the number of priests decreased, so did the Roman communities. During this period, Arab traders, professing Islam, were moving in some of the same areas as the Europeans. Sir George Sansom, analyzing the final triumph of Islam and the failure of Catholicism, comments that in comparison with the mild and gentle Muslim traders, the Portugese were barbarous and cruel. They disregarded native customs and religions, and sought to eliminate other merchants by fraud and by force. They followed no consistent policy, alternating between force and *There is an amazing dearth of material in English concerning the Church in Indonesia. Because of considerable current interest in this area, we supply the following brief and introductory historical essay. Dr. Thomas is Secretary for Interpretation of the Commission on Ecumenical Missi.on and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Because the arti.clewas prepared for a Presbyterian audience (though never hitherto published), it is weighted toward the work of Reformed churches, but there is cognizance of other missions and churches also. -- Editor. **,tprotestant" is used in this paper in two senses. At times it refers to the non- Roman Church, but in other contexts, to the Protestant Church of the Indies. whi.ch for a time was the established church of the islands. Single copies: 25. Orders should be addressed: Missionary Research Library, P. O. Box 590, Manhattanville Station, New York 27, New York.

2 -2 persuasion. Thus they were unable to establish a stable, widespread authority. In contrast, the Arabs, being Asian, knew how to avojd the errors made by the Europeans. Thus Sir George concludes, neither the Portugese nor the Spaniards were able to win the Indies to their faith. Their greatest strength was in Flores and Timor. It was to the eastern end of this latter barren island that the Portugese retreated when they were driven from the remainder of the East Indies. The Coming of Protestantism In 1598 the Amsterdam elassis sent out Sick Visitors on Dutch trading ships o The Netherlands East Indies Company as such did not take exception to the extension of Christianity where such effort did not interfere with trade. Imported clergy both ministered to the Dutch and preached to the native peoples in some of the eastern areas. The Church was a branch of the Companyts activities: it appointed the ministers, determined their location, controlled the religious schools, etc. 'I'he CompanyI s main objection to the Church was due to j ealousy; it brooked no competition for influence, even ecclesiastical. Conversion and baptism was a kind of n'9.turalization, entitling Christians to privileges denied other Indonesians. The Catholic groups found by the Dutch became the object of Protestant ef f or t, and served as beginnings for the Christianization of Ambon, Saparua and Banda. Whi.le the beginnings of the Church among the Indonesian peoples trujs had its origin in these ea st ern islands, ecclesiastical administration centered i.n Batavia (now Djakarta), even though the open evangelization of the Javanese was not permitted for more than two centuries. On January 3, 1621 the Holy Communion was first celebrated in Batavia. On January 21, 1621 was held the first meeting of the Session (Kerkeraad), which had been organized following a consultation with Governor-General. Jan P. Coen. The Session consisted of the Djakarta pastors plus two elders chosen by the congregation, approved by the Governor-General. In February 1622, a Session was organized in Banda by the Reverend Adr. Jacobsz Hulsebos, and the following year one was organized in the city of Ambon, the latter being a full-fledged congregation authorized to administer the sacraments. Whereas the congregations in the eastern islands included Indonesians, those in Djakarta were composed exclusively of Europeans. In 1624 the first Assembly was held at Batavia, meeting from August 6 through Oct ober 20, three times weekly. The Djakarta pastors, two elders, one deacon, and t vo government representatives comprised the Assembly. Fifteen items were discussed.. A provisional church order was drafted and adopted which conformed to the polity of the Reformed Church in Holland. The proposal to hold an annual national Assembly including the classes of Ambon, Band.a, Te:r:nate, and Batavia was abandoned in favor of a tri.ennial meeting because of transport difficulties. The Batavia Session, by und.ertaking to supervise the congregations throughout the Indies, assumed the duties of a Claseis. This development, necessitated by the poverty of communicati.ons and the centralization of government and information in Batavia, provoked criticism in the Netherlands. As no positive suggestions were forthcoming from the homeland, the church in the Indies continued to develop as the situation required. The liturgy adopted by the Protestant Cburch was according to the Dutch pattern. It emphasized the importance of expounding the Catechism. The Session exercised strict control over the lives of the members and the doctrinal content of t he sermons. Roman Catholic belief was tolerated, but holding of Roman Catholic services was not permitted.

3 - 3 The provisional Church Order of 1624 was applied only in Batavia. The permanent Order was adopted in 1643 under Governor-General Anthony van Diemen who in the previous year had published the Statutes of Batavia, the code for the Dutch Asiatic territory which then reached from Persia to Japan. The government departed from the procedure followed in the Netherlands by taking matters in its own hands, since classes and synods were not established or functioning. The state in effect said to the ministers, "You are in charge of the congregations and have ~reaching responsibilities; we will supervise the church;" While the government was criticized both in the Indies and the Netherlands, it paid no heed. It continued to move pastors at will without consulting classes or congregations. After 1643, each congregation was required to accept on the Session two voting members appointed by the government, whereas under the provisional order they had been non-voting. The Sessions were self-perpetuating rather than being elected periodically by the congregations. Thus the latter had no voice or influence in determining ecclesiastical policy. The Protestant Church During the 19th Century These developments had taken place during the "Golden Age" in the Netherlands. Yet organizational weaknesses within Holland resulted in the nation's decline as a first-rate power, During the Napoleonic Wars, France occupied the Lowlands, and finally, in 1810, annexed Holland. At the turn of the century the Netherlands East Indies Company was bankrupt and its functions were ass~med by the government. To prevent the Indies from falling into French hands, Great Britain occupied Batavia in August, Thomas Raffles, to whom the "liberation of.iava" was entrusted, interpreted the campaign as a crusade against the Dutch to free the Malays. During his governorship, which lasted until August 1816, when the colony was returned to the Netherlands, Raffles permitted the British Baptists to begin missionary work in the islands; these workers did not long survive the return of the Dutch. Many of the innovations introduced by Napoleon in the Netherlands persisted after the re-establishment of the crown following his defeat at Leipzig in October, These had included the strict separation of church and state, and the elimination of inequalities against Jews and Roman Catholics. The Prince of Orange arrived from England that same November, to establish a unified Holland. The Church had lost its authority, so the new King recreated it as the established Reformed Church of the Netherlands. King William I was an enlightened despot, who established boards to replace the courts of the people as represented by the ministers and elders in the synods and classes. These boards, largely clerical, were appointed by the King but vacancies filled by cooption. The confessional requirements of ministers and the place of the Scriptures were vague and liberal. The brief separation of church and state thus was terminated with the Dutch church more under the authority of the crown than since the time of the Reformation. Though somewhat relaxed in 1852, the situation of the church remained unaffected. The monarch 's authority over the established church in the Indies, following the Dutch return in 1816, was even greater than in the homeland. Ties which formerly had bound the Indonesian church to the churches in Holland were terminated. Henceforth it remained an official institution until disestablished in The King appointed a Royal Commission ("The Hague Commi saton'") of which the Secretary of the General Synod of the Netherlands Reformed Church was a member, to recruit ministers for the colony. These latter thus became government employees, appointed by the Minister of Colonial Affairs. Mennonites, Lutherans, and Remonstrants, who were numerically few, as well as Dutch Reformed members who were many, were required by royal decree of 1820 to unite in the Protestant Church of the Indies. The Luther~acceded to this regulation only in This situation prevailed in Indonesia down to 1949, when sovereignty was transferred to

4 -4 the Republic of Indonesia. The ministers r-ecruf.ted in the Netherlands by the Royal Commission regularly included three Lutherans, out of a total of 45 who remained in the islands when the Japanese occupied them early in There appears to have been little difference in the form of the ministry of Dutch Reformed and Lutheran pastors, save in the liturgy employed in celebrating the Lord 's Supper, and in that the latter used Luther's Shorter Cat~chism for instructing the youth, During this century, government control of the church was taken for granted. Crown decisi.ons were accepted without protest. Every congregation had its Session, but the government approved the choice of Elders. New members were coopted rather than elected by the congregation. The Church Board (Kerk Bestuur) in Batavia, appointed by the state, headed the hierarchy of ch~ch officials. Below it was the group of university-trained Dutch ministers who were Ln charge of the Dutch congregations. The mission graduates in the East were in charge of the Indonesian-language congregations, From 1800 to 1870 the Netherlands Missi.onary Society (Netherlands Zendeling Genootschap) operated Ln the eastern island, though technical responsibility remained in the Royal Commission and the established Protestant Church of the Indies. Growing dissatisfaction with the system came to a head in 1910 when a State Commission drafted for disestablishment, Indonesian voices in the Volksraad or Peoples' Council (instituted in 1916), demanded this step which was finally realized in The Indonesian government continued to subsidize this body even after the transfer of sovereignty until 1951, when a severance grant of Rp, 10,000,000 was made to the General Assembly on behalf df the four constituent synods. The Coming of Missions In terms of its spiritual development, Holland was a Land of theology, and predominantly of the Calvinist variety, though Jacobus Arminius of the UnJversity of Leyden provoked the Remonstrance (1610) which. led to the Synod of Dort ( ). Calvinistic fervor had steeled the people in their struggle against the Spaniards for national freedom. Ministers claimed the war had been fought not for freedom, but for religion's sake the Calvinistic religion. This faith which was exported to the East became the basis of the Protestant Church of the Indies. Calvinism also was the predominant faith of the missionaries who came out in large numbers during the "Age of Reason". John Theodore Vanderkemp, an army doctor who" having experienced tragedyj found peace in a humble faith, volunteered as a missionary to the newly founded London ~issionary Society (Nederlandsch Zendeling Genootschap) at Rotterdam in 1797, which was in effect an auxiliary of the British Society. For one-half century, this body, which was inclusive theologically, was the sole missionary society in the Netherlands. The liberalism of its directors, and the religious awakening in Holland, finally led to the establishment of more conservative societies, ma~ of which were organized by the churches in a given city or by a particular classis of the Netherlands Reformed Church. Most of the missionaries appointed by the Netherlands Missionary Society were ordained ministers of the Netherlands Reformed Church, though some had been recruited from Germany. Upon their arrival on the field, many of the missionaries were integrated into the activities of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands Indies. They concentrated upon the animists in Minahasa, the Moluccas and Timor. ' Most famous of the appointees was the Reverend Joseph Carel Kan, "The Apostie to the Moluccas" from 1815 tp He was supported jointly by the London Missionary Society and the Netherlands Missionary Society. Missionaries,came to Minahasa in 1822" finding but a few hundred Protestants. Within forty-eight years the operation 'had been so'successful, the area could be called Christian. Johann Friedrich Riedel and Johann Gottlieh Schwartz, both'f~om the Berlin School of Janicke, performed unusual service in this. development. The communities in Minahasa, Ambon and Timor were assimilated Lnt o the Church of the Lnddes in '

5 -5 Mention has already been made of the abortive efforts of the British Baptists to enter during the brief period when Raffles was Gover nor of Java. In 1833, the Reverend Henry Lyman and the Reverend Samuel Munson from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Boston) were killed while seeking to open north-west Sumatra. To this day the Batak Christians observe a day of contrition for this act. The Rhenish Missionary Society (Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft), which met with success among these people, was an 1828 union of a number of societies which had developed from the pietistic Lnf'Luence of the mission school in Basel (founded 1815). After having failed in 1859 in Borneo, their attention was called to Sumatra by the Netherlands Bible Society. Entering Batak-land two years later, Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen became the fo'xnder of the ChQrch (now the H.KoB. P. ). He integrated into the church such tribal custom-law as was not contrary to Christian principles. So successful has the gospel been in reaching these people that membership in the church and in the clan or tribe are today Virtually synonymous. I n 1953 this church affiliated with the Lutheran World Federation. The Simelungan, the Angkola, the Mandailing and the Karo tribes have not been as responsive a s the Toba peoples to Christianity. Growing out of Dutch missionary activity, a Karo Batak Church has emerged with a membership of 13,704 in contrast with the 651, 534 members of the H.K.B.P. The Rhenish Mission ex~erienced a comparable success on the island of Nias, off Sumatra, which vas entered in The Utrecht Missionary movement among the Toradja in Central Celebes began in 1909 as a result of the work of A. C. Kruyt and N. Adriani of the Netherlands Missionary Society. Java was not opened to missionary activity until In the 1830 f s a Javanese applicant was kept waiting five years for baptism. Yet even with this late start the Protestant community of ex-muslims (or their descendants) on Java numbers more than 100,000. Article 177 of the Netherlands Indies Statutes assured state control over all religious work by requiring each foreign worker to have a governmental permit to work in a given area. Down to 1928, the government by empl.oying this device to limit a single missionary organization to a gi.ven area, enforced ecclesiastical comity. Since down to 1927 the colonial administration recognized only the Protestant Church of the Indies and the Roman Catholic Church, all other religiolls bodies were treated as ethical societies. Missionaries undertook to provide medical asslst.ance, which was subsid.ized by the government. By 1931, of the 173 hospitals on Java J U 4 were pr i vat e j of the 302 in the outer provinces 270 were private. A majority of the private institutions were operated in connection with or by missionary societies. After the introduction of the "iulture System" (government-controlled agriculture) in 1830, the state began subsidizing1missionary education in the outer pfovincee, though not for sixty years was this arrangement regularized. By 1930, one-fourth of the 515,000 elementary school children Ln "the out-er provinces were enrolled in mission institutionsj but in ~he 547 higher grade schoqls, ouly 24 were in md.ssion hands. On Java the situation was reversed. Of the 9,7S0 village schools, only 200 were mission operated, but of the 1,113 "St!lndard Schools" 150 were mission. Whereas missionary i:pfluence upon the general body of people on Java was limited, in the outer provinces the.missionaries were regarded as friends and were expect.ed to 'provide education and med.l ca.l assistance. While tnere is not space to list the work of each of the ~~tch missidh bodies that entered Indonesia, the development of the GerenformeePde 'Kerken (Reformed) or Free Secessionist Churches Must be mentioned. In 1834 the Christian Reformed Churches (the "A" Group) split from the Netherlands Reformed Church. In 1886 Kuyper formed the Non

6 -6 conformist or Dolerende Kerken (the "B" Group'). Six years later the "'N' and "B" groups merged to form the Gerenformeerde Kerken. Some of the "A tt Group congregations that refused to unite, continued, and today operate a mission in Mamasa, Sulawesi. During World War II, the Article XXXI Group split from Gerenformeerde Kerken in the Netherlands and now works in Sumba and Kalimantan (Borneo). The Gerenformeerde, whose major fields have been Central Java and Sumba, are not congregationalists in the American sense, for they accept the authority of the classes and the synods. The Gerenformeerde Kerken make more use of the Heidelberg Confession than does the Reformed Church. Generally the confessions of all the churches in Indonesia are lacking in clear-cut doctrinal emphases. Mention was made earlier of the third level in the ecclesiastical hierarchy as consisting of the Indonesian pastors. While many of these were individually trained in missionary homes, or in teacher-training institutions, some beginnings were made in the field of theological education. Hundreds of Ambonese ministers were trained in the Roskott Teachers' Seminary established in Theological Education In recent years, three distinct levels of theological training have emerged. First, there are two-to-four year provincial "Bible Schools tl which accept students with six years (in some instances, less) of primary school training. Graduates of these schools generally are not ordained, though in some areas ministers so trained are permitted to enroll in the second level institutions for limited periods to qualify for ordination. Second, there are "theological schools" which presuppose graduation from lower middle school (three years after the six years of primary education). These usually offer five years of instruction, qualifying graduates for ordination. They are located at Iemantang Siantar in Sumatra (H.K.B.P.), Jogjakarta, (Church of Mid-Java); Malang (Church of East Java, Church of Bali and Muria Mennonite Church); Ambon (Church of the Moluccas); Bandermasin (Evangelical Church of Kalimanten), and at. Makassar (a unt.ted theological school, serving primarily the ~hurches of Eastern Indonesia, whith some Karo Bataks enrolled). The Djakarta Theological College, operated under the auspices of the National Council of Churches, offers a B.D. degree after five years of study to graduates of uppermiddle schools (six years after primary). Nonmensen H.K.B.P. University has a Faculty of Theology at Pemarrtang Siantar of the same level. The Church of Mid-Java also has decided to offer a similar cour-se at its Jogjakarta institution, but at this writing, has yet to be organized. A number of the graduates of the Djakarta Theological College are now se~ing as instructors and rectors of the lower grade theological institutions. The teaching staff of this institution includes three Indonesian professors, two Dutch (one each from the Gerenformeerde and the Reformed ChuTches), one German (Reformed, formerly a Missionary to the Batak Church), two Swiss (Reformed), and one American (Presbyterian). Present Sending Bodies, and Indonesian Churches The Dutch sending bodies which have emerged are: (1) The Board of Missions of the Netherlands Reformed Church (de Raad voor de Zengind der N.H.K. in Oegstgeest). (2) The General Missionary Deputies (Generals Deputaten voor de Zending) at Baarn. These two bodies, together with many other mission organizations, cooperate together in the Netherlands through the Netherlands Missionary Council (Nederlandse Zendings Raad) with headquarters at Amsterdam. From 1906 until 1950, this body sponsor-ed the Missions Consulate (Zendings Consulaat) in Djakarta, which served in a liaison capacity between churches and missions, and the colonial government.

7 -7 While Protestantism in Indonesia has been primarily the product of Dutch, German and Swiss Reformed (Presbyterian) groups, there are also other expressions of Protestant Christianity. The Lutheran strain is strong in the t?protestant", the Batak, and the Nias churches. American Methodism has been at work since early in this century, both in West Java among the Chinese and in parts of Sumatra. The American Baptists,worked briefly in the islands during the Napoleonic wars, and the Southern Baptists /ent er ed in The Christian and Missionary Alliance has extensive work in Borneo and some of the eastern islands. The Overseas Missionary Fellowship (China Inland Mission) began operations in the mid-1950's. A number of smaller societies operate outside the groups which comprise the National Council of Churches. Beginning in 1951, a number of overseas Christian bodies began working through the National Council of Churches to strengthen existing churches o Among these were the Lutheran World Federation, wh ch established relations with the H.K.B.P. (Toba Batak Church) and with the Church of Nias. Several American boards and agencies have channeled assistance and personnel through the Far Eastern Office of the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of the Churches of, Christ in the U.S.A. Such assistance has gone to the Commission on Missions of the National Council of Churches in Indonesia, which in turn has allocated personnel and ~er resources to regional churches, union institutions, and cooperative activities of various kinds. The United Church of Christ in the Philippines, the Methodist and Presbyt,erian churches in Australia, the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, and the New Zealand Council of Churches, have followed a similar procedure. Ronald Orchard has referred to this development as an example of the "f.nt.ernatlonal.lzet.lon of D11ssions". While the Protestant community in Indonesia is the oldest in Asia, the Indonesian Church bodies were formally organized in comparatively recent times. The process which began in 1930, whereby the mission bodies transferred sovereignty to the Indonesian church bodies, was accelerated in the period immediately preceding the Japanese'invasion, as illustrated by the following table, with 1956 membership totals: Huria Christian Batak Protestant.Church (HKBP) - 651, Christian Church of East Java - 62, Christian Churches of Mid-Java - 30, Pasundan Christian Church (West Java) - 6, Chinese Christian Church of East Java - 3,572 Christian Evangelical Church of Minahasa (G,M.IoM.)* - 350, Kalimantan Evangelical Church - 31,783 Protestant Church of the Moluccas* - 268, Nias Christian Protestant Church - 168, Karo Batak Protestant Church - 13, Christian Evangelical Church of Sangihe Talaud - 120,328 Christian Church of Mid-Celebes (G.K.S.T.)* - 85,000 Christian Evangelic~ Church of Timor (G.M.I.T.)* - 295, Protestant Church of We'stern Indonesia (G.P.LB.)* - 200,000 Protestant Church in. Indonesia (GoP. 1,0 )** Protestant Christian Church of Bali (GoK.B op.) - 2',700' **The General Assembly of the Protestant Church of Indonesia includes four autonomous ' Synods, marked * It has no membership apart from that of the four const.lt.uerrt Church bodies.

8 Christian Evangelical Church of Halmahera - 37, Evangelical Christian Church of West Irian - 100, Christian Church of Southeast Celebes - 3, 359 In 1946, the Churches of East, Central, and West Java formed a cooperating body. In May of the following year delegates of these three church bodies met with representatives of the "Dut.ch Reformed Church and the Reformed Chur-ches" in the Netherlands to outline principles for preaching the gospel in Indonesia and for the basis for cooperation between sending churches and the Java church bodies in the fields of evangelism, health, the training of the ministry, literature production, and the operation of Christian schools. These agreements were remitted to the participating bodies and were adopted before September first. Stimulated by the political unification of the islands into the Republic of Indonesia in May 1950, unitary movements developed both in the Celebes and in Java. These coalesced in May 1950 to form the National Council of Churches in Indonesia, with the stated aim of achieving a united Christian church in Indonesia. Thus was achieved a goal first promised by the Indonesian delegates to the Jerusalem meetings of the I.M.C. in Twenty-seven church bodies affiliated as charter members, and four additional bodies have been received since the date of the Council 's organization. Sixteen commissions of the Council serve the member churches, and provide contexts within which they cooperate nationally in reaching untouched areas, inter-church aid, spiritual service to the armed forces, the production of Christian literature,etc. The movements towards unity and union have not been without their obstacles. Differences of geography, ethnology, traditions, the persistence of the regional spirit, languages and cultures, a nationwide reaction against centralization, the necessity that the regional churches concentrate upon survival and strengthening their own Witness) all impede ecumenical development. Yet in spite of the handicaps to unity, the Christians of Indonesia increasingly are cooperating in their approach to their common task. Conclusion Indonesia is the scene of a continuing, gradual revolution. Its people suffer from traumatic colonial scars. Anxious to avoid being exploited by any foreign nation again, they suspect any foreign nation or organization which might appear to be meddling in their affairs. The churches are strong numerically, weak in financial resources and in trained leadership. In areas where they are minorities they confront the responsibility of evangelizing Muslim and Hindi majorities. Where they are in the majority, their problem is primarily one of deepening the faith of the members, and of setting a fitting example which will win the animists. The Protestants are aware of the precaricusness of their situation, an awareness which has contributed more to the ecumenical development than theological factors. Sutan M. Hut agalung, a member of the H.K.B.P. writes that to anticipate the future is difficult. Christianity is a minority religion in a land predominantly Islamic. The Muslims are now using modern methods of propaganda, aided by a Muslim-inclined government. These are troubled times: fanatic Muslims commit crimes against the body-politic, the economic crisis continues, confusions abound, "The Christians of Indonesia more and more recognize that though they are a minority, they have a WORD to witness in the time and place situation into which God has placed them."