Karonese Culture, Christianity Blend
Church membership soared when churches in the Karo region of North Sumatra, Indonesia, began to integrate the traditional music, instruments and dances of the Indigenous Karo people into Sunday worship, says the head of the region’s largest group of Protestant churches.
Pastor Matius P. Barus, moderator of the Gereja Batak Karo Protestant Church (GBKP), made his comments in a presentation to the Executive Committee of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) that is meeting in Berastagi, North Sumatra, through Thursday, May 17. The Christian Reformed Church is a founding member of the WCRC.
Committee members from Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, the Middle East and other parts of Asia were briefed by Barus on the history and contemporary situation of the church in Karo.
Barus told the group that in the first 75 years of Christian presence in the area, there had been few converts. Traditional music and dances were excluded from church services and the first missionaries from the Netherlands were viewed with suspicion as colonialists.
In 1965, the Indonesian government made it mandatory for people to state their religion by choosing among officially approved religions.
The traditional belief system of the Karonese people was not on the list of five faith choices: Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.
Forced to choose which faith to convert to, many Karonese chose the GBKP because of its openness to their traditions, said Barus, the GBKP’s moderator.
Membership increased dramatically with sometimes 2,000 baptisms in a single day.
Keeping a balance between including traditional customs, such as burial practices, and staying faithful to the basic beliefs of the Christian faith has not always been easy, Barus says.
But discussion and study led to the creation of a manual to help pastors and church elders decide how to determine what is acceptable practice.
Today, the church has 300,000 members in 489 congregations. In the Karo region, 30 per cent of Christians are GBKP. Twenty per cent of the population is Muslim. The GBKP is the largest Christian denomination in the area.
The 50 WCRC participants at this week’s meeting experienced an evening of Karonese food, heard songs played on traditional bamboo instruments and watched dances depicting rice planting and harvesting.
WCRC President Jerry Pillay said he appreciated the chance to learn of Karonese history, customs and culture.
“It is this kind of gathering of local Christians and Christians from around the world that is at the heart WCRC,” he said. “It is here that we learn about each other, pray, and seek ways of supporting our sisters and brothers in Christ.”
