John Mansford Prior, SVD
Inculturation of worship and spirituality - A view from Indonesia

 John Mansford Prior has been a cross-cultural missionary in Indonesia since 1973. He is Asia-Pacific Secretary for Missiological Education and Research for the Divine Word Missionaries and a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture.

A CULTURAL TRANSPLANT

 Whether you attend Sunday Worship in an Evangelical, Pentecostal or Roman Catholic Church in Indonesia you may obtain a similar first impression. Christian churches in Indonesia are transplants from their sending churches in Europe. There has long been talk of contextualising and inculturating church life and worship. The most obvious change has been in the hymnals. Hundreds of beautiful songs have been composed and have long become common currency. Local melodies are catchy and we can hear people singing hymns as they go to market, hoe the fields or have a shower. The texts are biblical though the wording rarely takes up the daily struggle to survive as humanly as possible 30 years into Suharto's regime. In Eastern Indonesia song and movement go together. Thus if you came when we were celebrating a feast, liturgical dancing would almost certainly be part of the celebration. However, our worship and our official spirituality were grown in the West.

 In colonial days the Dutch allotted each Church, Evangelical and Catholic, an island or part of an island. Most church growth took place towards the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. Different ethnic groups accepted particular Western forms such as German Congregational, Dutch Evangelical and Northern European Catholic. Particular Western forms of Christianity have now become part of the religious and cultural identity of distinct ethnic communities. Sumba is largely Congregationalist, West Timor Presbyterian, Flores Roman Catholic. Not surprisingly, many saw attempts to inculturate the proclamation of the Gospel, Church order and worship as threatening the religious identity of their minority, ethnic Christian Church. (Christians form perhaps 9% of Indonesia's population, with 5% Protestant, 4% Catholic. Perhaps another 4% can be described as "sympathisers". The largest Evangelical Church is the Batak Church in Sumatra in the west. The largest Catholic concentration is on Flores in the east. Figures are very sensitive and thus are purely indicative. The vast majority of Indonesians are Muslim). Social mobilisation during the past few decades has brought these ethnic Churches into proximity and even conflict. The particular European shape of each Church allows them to maintain strong individual identities. We are in danger of becoming small religious ghettos increasingly marginalised from any significant influence in the life of the country. (The Christian Churches in Indonesia are being "pushed" into ghettos by political and religious factors. The are being "pulled" into ghettos by their over-emphasis upon internal, church activities (choirs, worship, congregational organisations).

FROM ADAPTATION TO INCULTURATION

 We are now becoming increasingly aware that inculturation of worship and spirituality does not begin with church commissions, with experts and officials who decide what elements of local culture should be adapted to a framework imported from the West. Neither is the growth of authentic ways of living out one's faith and worship simply a question of the external adaptation of a Western tradition. Authentic liturgy and spirituality celebrate what is most beautiful, most real and most important in life. We celebrate what we believe, our innermost convictions, that for which we are ready to live and die. We recall the prophetic words of Amos (cf. 5:21-24), Isaiah (cf. 1:10-18; 58:1-14) and Hosea (cf. 10:1-10). We recall that worship is "in Spirit and truth" (Jn 4:23-24) and washing one another's feet signifies the Eucharist (cf. Jn 13:1-17). Jesus summed up his mission in the Jubilee words of Isaiah (cf. Lk 4:18-20), and in signs of liberation (cf. Mt 11:2-6). The context for inculturating faith and worship is therefore the struggle for life in all its fullness (cf. Jn 10:10). Concern for the least is at the core of our mission (cf. Mt 25:31-46).

 Over 30 years ago the Vatican Council's constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium began its statement on liturgical renewal with a prophetically broad vision. "The sacred Council has set out to impart an ever-increasing vigour to the Christian life of the faithful; ... to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call all humankind into the Church's fold" (n. 1). Inculturation of faith and worship, therefore, should lead to vigorous Christian life and greater Christian Unity. Liturgy is a potent sign of the reconciliation of the entire human race in Christ.

 At certain crucial moments more authentic, inter-cultural forms are replacing the Western shape of faith and worship. These occur during Bible sharing in basic Christian communities and liturgical celebrations at times of social crisis.

A FRIDAY TO BE REMEMBERED

 A major earthquake and tidal wave hit central Flores on 12 December 1992. Over 2,600 people were killed and most public buildings collapsed. (Virtually unreported in the international media. The quake was 6.7 on the Richter scale and lasted for a phenomenal 3 minutes. The epicentre was just 29 kilometres below the surface and just 30 kilometres out at sea. Tidal waves along the north coast took most of the victims). The army flew in to help with emergency reconstruction. Three months later the army was still billeted just outside Maumere town. Tensions arose, culminating on the night of 27 March when a section of the town was surrounded and everybody within that cordon was beaten up. Abdullah, a chance visitor to town, was beaten to death. Maumere was overcome with confusion, fear and anger. The following day the local government and military officials held a press conference stating the official version of events: gangs of youth had gone on the rampage. Rumours abounded that the town would be surrounded a second time. Some were sharpening their machete knives, others kept indoors.

 A meeting of pastoral leaders decided that we must proclaim the truth, publicly acknowledge the sin and invite the attackers to repent. On 9 April we were due to celebrate Good Friday. Individual church services were cancelled. One joint procession was organised under the banner, "Way of the Cross, Way of Justice". The entire passion narrative of John was read out, divided into 12 readings or "stations". Over five thousand people gathered outside the mayor's office to hear of Pilate washing his hands. We moved to the police station to hear of Peter's denial. Then we moved on to the military barracks to hear of Jesus' condemnation. The procession came to a climax as we meditated upon the death of Jesus at the place where the Muslim was beaten to death. A young woman sang the ancient "O vos" antiphon, memorised since the days of the Dominican mission 500 years ago as she slowly unfurled a picture of Christ crowned with thorns. Both adults and youth carried a large, heavy cross which was now erected on the site of Abdullah's murder. A homily was given beginning with an appreciation of Good Friday by Kamel Hussein, an Egyptian Muslim: on Golgotha humanity crucified their conscience. In the short, poetic sermon, the sin was named, the sinners called to repentance. Many shook in fear while the homily expressed in public what everybody knew privately but must not say. By the end of the five hour reading and enactment of John's passion, the town was again at peace with itself. This was perhaps the most that we could do in a country where there is no certainty in Law, where might is right, where people have long had no voice. (Documentation of the incident was sent to Jakarta through a legal aid agency and journalists. The press took the official line).

 What happened that Good Friday in Maumere? A town was brought from fear and anger to calmness and peace, from being ready to take revenge to being willing to forgive, from despair to hope, from timidity towards self respect and a renewed confidence. The word of Scripture was read in dramatic form at a crucial point in the town's life. For many the cross usually means bowing to fate, accepting one's lot, "doormat Christianity". For centuries, even without presbyters and missionaries, without the written Bible or regular sacraments, the people of Sikka and Larantuka on Flores Island have continued with the annual processions of Holy Week. (A fascinating spontaneous syncretism has arisen between the Portuguese incoming tradition and local cosmic values. No attempt by Catholic authorities to suppress this tradition, which is firmly in lay hands, has yet succeeded. The researcher Stefan Dietrich has recently been studying this subject). After Good Friday 1993 the cross has come to mean willingness to suffer with the persecuted, of taking the consequences of speaking the truth in a world of deceit. Since Good Friday 1993 people have been retelling the event, spontaneously in their local languages, in their own images and proverbs, saying in their own tongues what Paul discovered in his life, "when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:10).

 Here, then, is the entry point for inculturation faith and worship: being ready to respond in dramatic and symbolic fashion, with a prophetic word of Scripture at the point when life fractures, and the everyday world of the routine is broken open by crisis. The crisis can be personal - birth, sickness, marriage and death. Above all the opening comes during societal crises, especially when the economic and political forces like "spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph 6:12) decide to reinforce a culture of fear and repression.

"YOU ARE ORPAH"

 Patisomba is a migrant community that moved from the interior of Flores Island in 1978 after two weeks of gales destroyed their village habitat. For the past 18 years they have lived on the edge of town and on the edge of the economy, being more of a transit point than a new settlement. Each year most of the youth move on further afield to Java, Sulawesi or Kalimantan. In this precarious community of 130 families there is a group of 18 widows. Without support of husband or husband's family, they live from day to day. Many gather stones for contractors, or walk five kilometres to cut down a few branches to sell in town another 12 kilometres away as fire-wood. Others buy up vegetables from neighbours to resell at the market. Like ants, with their faces to the ground, they have little chance of looking out at the wider world, controlled as it is by the interests of powerful men.

 Both Protestants and Catholics have a national Bible Day on the first Sunday of September. For long, Eastern Indonesia has developed this into a Bible month. In 1994 we read the Book of Ruth, a chapter a week. The widows formed their own group. "I am Naomi" said one relating her personal Naomi biography. "You are Orpah". "I am Ruth". The biblical novelette of failure in economic migration brought out stories of the dead end life that the women were leading in the Patisomba transit station. The strategy which the resilient Naomi and Ruth drew up and carried out successfully fired their imaginations. On the final Sunday, they presented their findings to the whole congregation in a series of dramatic declamations. Meanwhile, youth had studied the same texts on the beach. They presented a dramatised version of the story from the point of view of the young women.

FULLY INDONESIAN, AUTHENTICALLY CHRISTIAN

 In these two examples the faith of the people grew through contact between their life situation and the Word of God. An inserted leader needs to be present to enable this to happen. Just as important, the people need to be freed from individualistic and literalist interpretations of the Scriptures. For me this is the key to inculturated worship and spirituality: free the Bible from Western strictures and allow it to speak out in the lives of people, and they will then express their insights and struggles, their problems and aspirations in symbolic form, that is, in living faith and worship. Simply adapting external symbols or adding Indonesian hymns and dancing, gives a certain colour, but does not of itself bring about life transformation. In the words of the Vatican Council renewed worship leads to vigorous Christian life, greater Christian unity and the reconciliation of all in Christ (cf. Eph 1:9-10). Thus, the key to liturgical contextualisation is the Biblical movement. In Basic Ecclesial Communities we use similar methods to undertake social and cultural analysis as we use in sharing the Biblical Word. Then the Word breaks out not just into personal and interpersonal life, but also into the heart of a society fractured by violence.

 Placing social-cultural analysis and Bible sharing as the strategic entry point, does not mean that liturgy becomes mere words. In cosmic cultures like those of Indonesia, the word is expressed in many and varying symbols: song, movement, stories, recitations, proverbs. The Word heard in the encounter between Biblical incident and life crisis is also expressed in natural symbols - plants, stones, flowers. These images are full of colour, vigour and life. However hard the social pressures, the worship is always full of light. This is surely proclamation.

POINTERS

 The people, primarily the marginalised, give birth to authentically inculturated expressions of faith and worship at times of crisis. This occurs when they are liberated from literalist readings of the Bible. It usually happens outside official agendas. Often the inculturated liturgies are centered upon problems of personal and societal health and healing rather than the regular Sunday Worship. They are more involved in the long series of marriage ceremonies than the Eucharist. Inculturated liturgies are created according to the seasons of repression and social conflict rather than following the Church's liturgical year. The language and rituals are as rough and earthy as the excluded themselves. They are rarely as sophisticated and pure as the high culture of the élite. In a silenced culture of people who are economically being pushed to the wall, socially displaced, culturally marginalised, politically voiceless, faith and worship are often thoroughly domesticated. Whether the cultural form is Western or local, these liturgies reinforce their acceptance of their fate. The occasion of a crisis allows a more prophetic and liberating expression to emerge. These life-enhancing incidents need to be nurtured, retold and developed into a vital stream in the peoples' historical consciousness. Few in number, they must be allowed to take hold of the peoples' collective imagination as their myth, their vision of what could and can be the case.

 Inculturation does not necessarily mean that everything that was brought in from the West has to be replaced by "pure", local cultural forms. The Fatima statute of the Mother of Jesus brought from Portugal is a fine image of the feminine, life-giving God. All the local symbols are present: stars around her head, the moon at her feet, an authentic representation of the femininity of God that has been present in cosmic religion from of old.

 Thus, we are faced with a kaleidoscope of syncretism. Popular religiosity from Europe and local religious culture cross-fertilise spontaneously. Religious devotions long discarded by Biblical purists in the West go hand in hand with radical Bible sharing. Here the first role of the expert in Scripture and liturgy is to look and to listen, to enter the fragile world of very vulnerable people. In sharing their joy and their hope, their fate and their lack of any anchor in life apart from their faith, the cross cultural missionary gradually earns a place to question and challenge what is taking place. "Only this, to do what is right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with your God" (cf. Mi 6:8).