wfn.org | Pre-Christian values can help shape modern Christianity says Indonesian theologian

["Franziska Surber" <Franziska.Surber@warc.ch>]

>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>News Feature
>26 May 2009

Pre-Christian values can help shape modern Christianity says
Indonesian theologian

Villagers in Indonesia are drawing on pre-Christian traditions
to shape modern Christian responses to community problems.
Through a project in a rural area of South Sulawesi, a Reformed
church theologian is working with subsistence farmers to
transform ancient traditions into solutions to modern day
challenges.

Zakaria Jusuf Ngelow believes that traditional ways of dealing
with conflict can be merged with Christian beliefs to be used in
contemporary ministry.  To prove his point, Ngelow, an academic
with a doctorate in Indonesian church history, has left a
position with a theological faculty in South Sulawesi to launch a
project working to develop theology with ordinary people in their
own settings.

“We don’t start with the Bible,” he says. “We start with a
‘lived’ problem: an issue such as the destruction of forests
around the village or interfaith conflict in the community. Then
we analyze the problem for its root causes.” 

When the problem and its causes are clearly identified, the
villagers draw on their Christian faith to shape and guide their
response.

Ngelow, a member of the Mission Advisory Committee of the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), says the objective of the
project is to develop local church leaders with the skills for
“doing theology” with  local resources.  

For Ngelow doing theology no longer means studying text books.
Today he prefers developing “contextual theologies” for local
community contexts, a process based on meeting with clergy and
lay members to identify their needs and encouraging them to learn
from each other and to explore the community’s traditional
customs and beliefs. This, he says, is doing theology with local
resources, theology that is non-academic and not based on foreign
theology.   

Through this process, people rediscover traditional agricultural
practices based on respect for nature which prohibit a “slash and
burn” approach to clearing the land. Or they learn to once again
use the power of ancient peace symbols in conflict resolution,
recognizing that in some settings these symbols are better
recognized as signs of peace than the presence of religious
leaders.

By working with people in their home communities and encouraging
them to draw on local customs for resolving conflict or for
responsible use of natural resources, Ngelow believes that a new
form of Christianity will emerge that directly addresses local
problems and allows Christians to find local solutions to those
problems. 

Ngelow acknowledges that his approach is the opposite of that of
early missionaries from Europe who sought to erase local beliefs
and practices by doing away with traditional cultures and arts, a
process he calls “cultural colonialism”.  By contrast, contextual
theology encourages people to express their Christian faith in
local cultural and artistic ways: drawing on art forms such as
epic poems and weaving to tell Christian stories. 

“Cultural traditions can help us do theology,” he says. “Before
Christian missionaries came, God was already there, engaged with
the people.”  

In a region of Indonesia where ten percent of the population is
Christian and ninety percent Muslim, local church leaders must
work with interfaith groups to identify and implement effective
response to issues affecting the whole community. Ngelow’s
approach which encourages Christians to be open to the values and
beliefs of other traditions equips them for this dialogue and
increases the chances that the two faith communities can work
together to find solutions to their common problems.

>***

>Contact:
>Kristine Greenaway 
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>150 Route de Ferney
>P.O. Box 2100
>1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
>tel.  +41.22 791 62 43 / +41 79 508 20 43
>fax: +41.22 791 65 05
>web: www.warc.ch ( http://www.warc.ch/ ) 
>e-mail: kgr@warc.ch