In the opening of this thesis I drew our attention to a phenomenon wherein Minahasan Christians at the beginning of this third Millenium are promoting and conserving their cultural heritage as part of their ethnic identity, while seeking an answer to how this promotion and conservation relates to their Christian faith. This question will continue to be a part of Christian communities across time and place, and Minahasan Christians must have their own answers. That is why posing the question and finding the answer today means taking into account the wisdom of our ancestors and ancestors in faith, all the while being faithful to the unchanging Word of God.
I have demonstrated that from a biblical understanding as the result of my hodegetical work on the Epistle to the Romans, Christ's calling and God's salvation do not reject ethnic particularity; rather they embrace all particularities in the hope of the kingdom of God. Accordingly, the faithful may enter into God's presence as who they are, ethnically speaking. Minahasans may remain Minahasans to respond to God's call. The validity of this claim for the Minahasans is not found outside the Minahasans themselves as the actors of their ethnic identity and identification. Minahasan ethnicity is a valid human identity which must be understood in the greater story of humanity and cosmic history.
The Minahasans do not have to become Judeans in order to enter into the New Covenant established by God through Christ. What sets the matter is not culture or traditions of the Judeans, and by extention the Europeans; only faith in Christ leading into love (13:8,10), righteousness and justice (dikaiosune), peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (14:17); it is the Spirit-led life (cf. 8:4ff) that counts. Hence, Minahasan culture and tradition has the same right as that of the Judeans, Dutch, Ghanaians, Koreans and others to be a venue of self expression as well as a vessel to the knowledge of God in Christ. This also means that Minahasan cultures and expressions may be used together with the Judeans', Europeans', Ghanaians', Koreans' and so forth in the worship and ministry of God in Christ. This is to be held with an awareness that human cultures may reflect our imago Dei as well as our fallen nature, and therefore we bear in mind that the Gospel “calls to question all cultures, including the one in which it was originally embodied.”1 In this way, as George R. Hunsberger rightly points out, “[G]ospel illumines and transforms a culture, and cultures illumine and incarnate the [G]ospel.”2
Using the Epistle to the Romans as the basic for theological reflection, we may see how the theme of godliness (in the stereotype of the Yehudi) and ungodliness (in the stereotype of the gentiles) in Romans resonates with the experience of many Minahasans, although in different ways. In the past our traditional piety became evident in the many different posan that we observed throughout the year. While they were expressions of dependency to the Divine3 and communal fellowship with the ancestors and the coming generations,4 some used them to obtain praise from others, being complimented for how many posan one could perform in a year.5 In the meanwhile, some of the walian (priests/priestesses) were using the posan for their own benefit.6
Minahasan forebears, as the apostle Paul puts it, did “know God” (cf. 1:19-20). Their knowledge of the Almighty, as Saruan points out, is expressed in their traditional prayers, “where the Almighty is understood as the creator, the source of life, longevity, health, blessings, happiness, and richness. God is the generous one, the keeper, defender, protector, who also shows punishment and anger to those who live in rebellion.”7 Yet their knowledge was not perfect and not without blemish, and so they convinced themselves that they could have God and especially the ancestors bless all their actions through posan, including sumungkul wo sumampet mauri in which they legitimized acts of cruelty; killing others as a religio-cultural practice, to which God indeed gave them up, and yet in due time God gave Jesus Christ up to bear the sins of the world, so that whoever turned to God in repentance may be reconciled to the Creator.
Our forebears (dotu-dotu/opo'-opo') were not all Christians. It is God, the Creator of all that is and exists, who has the right and abundant mercy to judge them, together with us, and the rest of humankind alike. While for those who came to faith, confessing the Christ as their savior and that God has raised him from the dead, they became the children of Abraham (4:1ff; 10:9-10). The name Abraham, the father of the believers, was given as nama Sarani (Christian name) to Runtunuwu, a walian from Sawangan, who was baptized by J. G. Schwarz in 1840.8 Our baptism (6:1ff) is a symbol of our new identity and fellowship in the Body of Christ that consists of different nations and tribes. Hence, the idea of minaesa receives a new and greater significance in Christian faith that we are united, we are one, in Christ. Our ethnic identity is no longer a distinction for separation, but richness that inspires greater unity.
Those who came to Christ have passed the faith onto their puyun im puyun (the children of their children), and hence now it is alive in Minahasa, and has even become a symbol of Minahasan identity. Yet not all Minahasans are Christians. Some choose to follow other faiths, while some stay as the guardian of our ethnic religion. At the end, we all are Minahasans. For Christians, the call to follow our Savior should take into account the trust of our forebears who must have seen that Christ is truly good for us. To follow Christ means to live in such a way that confirms our commitment and the commitment of those who have come before us, that is our ancestors and our ancestors in faith. At the same time, we have to be open to the fact that even Christ, with the power and ability that He could perform, never coerced anybody to accept who He was and is. As it always has been, the Gospel is a demonstration of and invitation into God's shalom. When it is not, it is no longer good news.
With such understanding, I bring to our attention how “Minahasan traditions give flesh to Christian faith, and how in return Christian faith transcends, enlarges, and embodies the Minahasan ideals and envisions the good news for Minahasan people and beyond.”9 This chapter discusses four theological aspects that speak to a Minahasan local theology. It begins with the role of local languages in the transmitting of the Gospel, followed by the role of Christ in Minahasan Christianity, and then what it means that He is the Si Tou Timou Tumou Tou Paripurna. At the end, I discuss how we are to honor Minahasan ancestors, knowing that they were our own and shared our need of God.
6.1. The role of local languages to Minahasan Christian traditions
The convergence of different cultural and religious traditions took place in time, space and place, but without communication, there would have been no convergence at all. Sanneh makes this important point about the use of our mother tongues as “the indigenous discovery of Christianity.”10 He differentiates this expression from “the Christian discovery of indigenous society,” wherein the missionaries from Europe had sought to convert people into Christianity “often with political incentive and material inducement.”11 On the contrary, the indigenous discovery, according to Sanneh, “describes local people encountering the religion through mother tongue discernment and in the light of the people's own needs and experiences.”12 This latter form of discovery has “unintended local consequence, leaving the way open for indigenous agency and leadership.”13
One legendary story circulated among the Tondano was about a walian (priest) in wanua Kendis by name Sumanti. J. F. Riedel went to see him, and the following conversation took place:
Ds. Riedel : O patuariku Sumanti koo manakan? (My brother Sumanti are you there?)
Walian : Patuariku, tou wisa koo, koo kulo’? (My brother, where are you from, [why] are you white?)
Ds. Riedel : Penampa’anku waki katerungan ni endo. Ni’itumou ku kulo’. Ku neireomi ni Telu Matuari, si minalar kaoatan ye’i, neiseron si patuarimu Sumanti waki Toudano. (My place is where the sun sets [West]. That’s why I am white. I am commanded by the Three Matuari, creator of the world, go and find your brother Sumanti in Tondano.)
Walian : Em, sa tuana lumongkoti. (If so come up.) He puts down the stairway, and Riedel climbed up.14
Walian: Rumuber, tumenga’. (Take a sit; please, chew betel nut.)
Riedel took a seat and accepted the offer to chew betel nut. The conversation that took place led Sumanti, the respected walian in Tondano, to embrace Christian faith, and with him many of the Tondano.15
Understanding that the Gospel was inaugurated in Minahasan “mother tongue idioms,”16 its expressions have become an authentic Minahasan expression. The Tombulu song Opo' Wana en Atas Ee (God of the Above) is a popular song and sung in worship across sub-ethnic groups in Minahasa. A different version of the song also exists in different sub-ethnic groups such as Opo' Mana en Atas (God of the Above) in Tondano and Amang Kasuruan (Wangko') (Great Father Source of Life) in Tontemboan. The Maengket Makamberu and Maramba' (traditional dances) have been an expression of thanksgiving to Opo' Wa'ilan Wangko' (Great and Abundant God).
The use of our own languages in Christian worship indicates that Minahasans have always been in communication with God, no matter how wanting it was. And the reason that Christianity has flourished in Minahasa also points out that, as Bediako asserts, no matter how inadequate the messengers of the Gospel were, God's Word will never be in vain, because “[t]he Holy Spirit is also present to interpret the Word of God directly to the hearers. The mercy and providence of God override human shortcomings.”17 As it has been pointed out by other African theologians, ethnic religions “were a vital preparation for the Gospel.”18 The use of Minahasan traditional titles for the Almighty in Christian worship, as Sanneh affirms, indicates “the indigenous theological advantage.” The understanding is not that “Christianity was completely interchangeable with indigenous religions, but that their theological compatibility allows Christian engagement to produce results that have indigenous credibility rather than just foreign approval.”19
2 “Gospel and Culture” in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva, Switzerland: WCC Publications, 2002).
3 As Graafland rightly points out (Graafland and Montolalu, Minahasa, 110-111).
4 Cf. Bediako, Jesus and the Gospel in Africa, 30.
5 Graafland and Montolalu, Minahasa, 94.
6 Graafland and Montolalu, Minahasa, 94.
7 Saruan, “Opo dan Allah Bapa,” 80 (translation mine).
8 See diary notes of J. G. Schwarz 10 and 12 February 1840 (translated) in Bertha Pantouw, “Beberapa Perubahan Kebudayaan di Minahasa Tengah 1829-1859: Suatu Kajian Sejarah Berdasarkan Tulisan-Tulisan J. G. Schwarz” (Ph. D. dist., Universitas Indonesia, 1994), 299-302.
9 Chapter One: Introduction.
10 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 55.
11 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 55.
12 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 55.
13 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 55.
14 The traditional Minahasan house has a ladder that can be taken up and down for safety.
15 This story was told by Willy Wakary, Tondano resident (Sejarah Kristen Masuk Minahasa, http://sumanti-
family.blogspot.com/2011/02/sejarah-kristen-masuk-manahasa.html (accessed December 22, 2012); Cf. End, Ragi
Carita, 173.
16 An expression used by Sanneh in his book Whose Religion is Christianity?, 73.
17 Bediako, Jesus and the Gospel in Africa, 20.
18 Bediako, Jesus and the Gospel in Africa, 21. Along the same line, Walls asserts that ethnic religions “underlie...the Christian faith of the vast majority of Christians of all ages and all nations” (“Africa and Christian Identity,” in Mission Focus, vol. IV, no. 7, Nov. [1978]:11-13 as quoted in Bediako, Jesus and the Gospel in Africa, 21).
19 Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?, 78-79.
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